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Technodemons of the Digital Self 231and Dr. Eldon Tyrell, the head of Tyrell Corporation (the company manufacturingreplicants) crystallises the ambivalent and violent manner inwhich demonic conflicts operate in this work.[ROY BATTY:] It is not an easy thing to meet your Maker. […][DR. TYRELL:] What seems to be the problem?[ROY BATTY:] Death. […] I want more life… fucker![DR. TYRELL:] The coding sequence cannot be revised once it’s been established.[…] You were made as well as we could make you. […] Thelight that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burntso very, very brightly, Roy! Look at you! You’re the Prodigal Son.You’re quite a prize![ROY BATTY:] I’ve done questionable things.[DR. TYRELL:] Also extraordinary things! Revel in your time![ROY BATTY:] Nothing the God of Biomechanics wouldn’t let you inHeaven for… [Takes Dr. Tyrell’s head between his hands, kisses him tomouth, and kills Tyrell by pushing fingers into his eyes and crushing hishead.] 127The movie deals with the replicants in very different ways as comparedto Dick’s treatment of androids. A religious subtext – the Bible – was appliedin Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to make Deckard a strangeChrist-figure, forced to kill (artificial) women and men he both sympathisedwith, and regarded as demonic embodiments of evil. In Blade Runnera replicant, Roy Batty, is the Christ-figure; during the last chase scene betweenhim and Deckard an “accelerated decrepitude” starts to overcomehim, and Batty fights back by driving a rusty nail through his hand. 128 Hisfinal act is one of mercy: with his pierced hand this biomechanical Christsaves the life of Deckard, the petty bounty hunter. A white dove, the symbolof Holy Spirit, is released from Batty’s grasp as his life is finally consumed.129 However, this “Prodigal Son” is not only a Christ, but also afallen angel, rebellious and vengeful for his expulsion from Heaven. Hisblond, angelic beauty (portrayed by the Dutch actor Rutger Hauer) is ambivalentlycontrasted with his intelligence and innocence, a tender kiss thatsuddenly turns into murderous violence. Dr. Tyrell, Roy’s “God of Biomechanics,”is positioned at the top of a huge pyramid, the only place illuminatedby the sun in the film; he is also associated with the owl, the symbolof the god of wisdom and the arts (Athena, or Minerva). 130 After Roy hasman” from a different angle than the cyborg tradition; his “Homo Gestalt” being is agroup of individuals, each somehow handicapped on their own, working as one. As animaginative solution, this is a radically different alternative to the alienated and demonised“Man Plus.”127Blade Runner 1:23-25. (The reference is to The Criterion Collection CAV laserdisc;see William M. Kolb, “Blade Runner: Film <strong>Note</strong>s” [Kerman 1991, 154-77].)128 Blade Runner 1:39.129Blade Runner 1:47.130 Blade Runner 0:19. – As Paul M. Sammon notes, “since Tyrell owns an artificialowl, this could imply that Tyrell has “false wisdom” (Sammon 1996, 171). William M.
232Demonic Texts and Textual Demonskilled Tyrell, he descends in an elevator into darkness, and this, in turn, isthe only scene where we can see stars, the heaven drawing away from Roy’s(now Luciferian) figure. 131 Scott Bukatman summarises the ambiguous effectof Blade Runner succinctly: “This science fiction adventure of urbanperception produces an enhanced self-mastery, but also, at the same time, adispossession, almost an erasure, of self.” 132The first working title for Blade Runner was “The Android,” and thisaccurately captures the altered position of man-machine: instead of posingas an image of the “unfeeling” or mechanical qualities in the modern self,replicants figure in Blade Runner to invoke our empathy in all of their fragileartificiality and lack of solid “human nature.” 133 The “demoniacal corpse”of 1818 had become the metal-faced devil of 1968, only to be reborn againas the troublesomely angelic-devilish replicants of 1982. The replicantscarry subtle signs of their demonic ancestry (their eyes, for example, have afaint glow in many shots); more important it is, however, that the audiencecannot identify with them directly, nor are they able to do so with Deckard.134 The hysterical fear that Victor displayed towards his creation hassubsided – or, for that matter, so has the blind infatuation Nathaniel expressestowards the Olympia, the female automaton in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s“Sandman.” Dr. Tyrell does not have the demonic powers of Coppelius/Coppola(in Hoffmann’s tale), but the demonic has its uses even in thefantasies of the twenty-first century. “Artificiality” is still a sign of otherness,but it has come closer to the sympathetic, conscious dimensions ofthe self. In Clive Barker’s play the mechanical man Easter, manufactured bythe devil, voluntarily sacrificed himself for “real” humans; the replicantsfind themselves as cast into the role of the “demonic other,” and they explorewhatever potentials such a situation might offer. 135Kolb remarks in his notes on the ecclesiastical trappings that surround Tyrell: he wearsthe papal gown, his bed is designed after that of Pope John Paul II – a ring on the littlefinger of his right hand and the “devotional candles” illuminating his chambers shouldalso be noted (Kerman 1991, 166).131 Blade Runner 1:26.132 Bukatman 1997, 8.133 See Kolb, “Script to Screen: Blade Runner in Perspective” (Kerman 1991, 133).134 Deckard is shown as shooting an escaping female replicant, Zhora, in the back; thekilling of Pris is also shown as a painfully cruel and undignified act. His “love scene” withthe beautiful young replicant, Rachael, is actually sort of “reprogramming” this womanthing– Deckard pushes Rachael around, and demands that she repeats after him: “Kissme… I want you.” (1:10.) The Blade Runner crew called it, actually, “The Hate Scene.” –“Instead of a relationship, that scene became this sort of sadomasochistic encounter betweenthe two of them. But that might have had something to do with eighties sensibilitiesas opposed to nineties sensibilities, too. The sexual and political environment todayis much different than it was then.” (Model Supervisor Mark Stetson; Sammon 1996,165.)135This principle of appropriating the demonic figure and tradition into identity constructionis discussed in the next chapter, in the context of Salman Rushdie’s The SatanicVerses.
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Note on this editi
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TAMPERE STUDIES INLITERATURE AND TE
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Tampere Studies in Literature and T
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ments, and also such further lines
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IllustrationsCover: “Possessed Re
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The BeginningsAnd Jesus asked him,
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The Beginnings 3mons form an import
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The Beginnings 5negative, demonic a
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The Beginnings 7chapter four), but
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The Beginnings 9scious conflict, fo
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The Beginnings 11that is produced o
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The Beginnings 13The History of the
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The Beginnings 15emphasised that su
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The Beginnings 17turalism,” but i
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The Beginnings 19the materials I ha
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1. The Ancestry of the DemonicÑH.
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 25ness
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 29tic o
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 31It sh
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 33of th
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 35able
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 37The f
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 39and t
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 41- in
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 43Chris
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 45[…]
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 47of th
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 49serpe
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 51tween
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2. The Demonic in the SelfBut ancie
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The Demonic in the Self 55Individua
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The Demonic in the Self 57should be
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The Demonic in the Self 59tack in t
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The Demonic in the Self 61A number
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The Demonic in the Self 63tion. 36
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The Demonic in the Self 65the nethe
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The Demonic in the Self 67sciousnes
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The Demonic in the Self 69influence
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The Demonic in the Self 71LEADER:Yo
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The Demonic in the Self 73Particula
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The Demonic in the Self 75NIETZSCHE
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The Demonic in the Self 77ing into
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The Demonic in the Self 79Nietzsche
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3. Unravelling the Demonic TextThe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 83in o
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 85othe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 91open
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 95both
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 97woul
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 99demo
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 101Thi
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 105“
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 107wor
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 109Bot
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PART II
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114Demonic Texts and Textual Demons
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The EpilogueIf there are answers to
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BibliographyA note on this bibliogr
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Index2001: A Space Odyssey; 207abje
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