I always knew you were special

Memory is an important theme in Bladerunner 2049. It’s the very essence of what it is to be human - experience and learning create a foundation for identity.

As K searches for the missing child’s records, the factory location takes on another meaning. It becomes a representation of K’s mind. The abandoned walkways and idle machinery are a reflection on his existence. We watch K, searching through paths in his mind, looking for evidence of meaning, purpose, and what’s real. The factory, like K, is built for noble purposes, but used for dishonorable deeds.

K’s discovery, both literal and metaphorical, hints at a dangerous reality. Something seething beneath the surface, repressed, in order to further his existence.

Tellingly, K never describes his dreams himself. Joi voices his innermost thoughts:

Joi: “I always told you that you were special. Born, not made. Hidden with care, a real boy now.”

When unpacked, this sentence holds a lot of meaning. Joi is designed to serve base needs – ‘Everything you want…’. However K doesn’t use her for the purpose she is intended - an echoing of the way humans treat Replicants.

Instead of Joi being an object of pleasure, she is K’s confidant. In this sense, her lack of reality is useful. He can share his desires with her as she is his alone. She won’t disagree, leave, or report him for his baseline transgressions. Joi has access to the unseen side of K, his deepest secrets, his raison d’etre.

In speaking K’s dreams aloud, she becomes something else: the mouthpiece for K’s fragile dream. She is a paradoxical extension of his being: intangible as a person, but tangible as a representation of his id.

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
- Victor Emil Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

This is why he has Joi. She is his reason. She is the why to justify the how. Without her, he has no buffer between himself and reality. This denial is not sustainable, and soon laid bare; K is faced with the possibility of his dream coming true. The consequences of this are reminiscent of W.W. Jacob’s Monkey’s Paw.

These consequences are fully realized in the subsequent scene.

“Anything real should be a mess”

When we meet Ana Stelline, we can see that she is a reflection of K’s existence:

Stelline has a compromised immune system, resulting in freedom, as long as it’s behind glass. The same can be said for K - a life of freedom, as long as it’s used to serve.

K: “What makes your memories so authentic?”

Ana Stelline: “well there’s a bit of every artist in their work.”

This goes beyond the scene and becomes a meta study on the duality the parental role. We see the potential of the creator, and the consequences of the tyrant. Like children receiving flaws from their dysfunctional parents, we see Replicants struggling with their identity. Conversely, we see that as the creator, Stelline’s tough childhood memory, lays the foundation for change in K:

“Misfortune is needed to plumb the certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men; pressure is needed to explode the charge. My captivity concentrated all my faculties on a single point. They had previously been dispersed, now they clash in a narrow space; as you know, the clash of clouds produces electricity, electricity produces lightning and lightning gives light.”
- Abbe Faria, The Count of Monte Cristo

The memory provides pressure, Stelline is the spark. We are primed for K’s explosive realization.

The result is one of the most intense, and memorable scenes in the film.

foreshadowing - K’s reflection is in Ana’s place.