Roy Batty
The leader of the fugitive replicants, a combat model with little time left.
film · 1982
A replicant built for combat in the off-world colonies, Batty has slipped back to Earth with other runaway replicants. Like all of his model, he is built to live only four years. The film first presents him as a threat, then gradually gives him a voice: that of a being who has seen what no human has seen, and who refuses to let others dispose of his life.
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Justification
Batty was designed for a function, combat, and for a span, four years. He refuses both: he has come back to Earth to get more life, against the plan of those who made him. He makes himself through his acts rather than remaining what he was made for, which places him clearly on the side of , in the sense that . One caveat: whatever he achieves, he achieves with the abilities he was given, and the film does not say whether this surpassing comes from him or from his design.
Bryant's briefing: a combat model · The meeting with Tyrell · The rooftop
Justification
For almost the whole film, Batty refuses the end that was set for him: he comes back to Earth to get more life, and the consolation he is offered does not appease him. This is .
The meeting with Tyrell · The monologue on the rooftop
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Justification
Batty insists that manufactured beings count: himself, his kind, their fear and their deaths. His concern goes first to his own, and he kills the humans who stand in his way. The criterion that emerges from his acts is not origin but the capacity to suffer and to fear. is the closest pole; extending it to every sentient being, beyond human or manufactured persons, would be an extrapolation.
The meeting with Tyrell · The rooftop
Justification
Batty and his kind belong to those who use them: treated well or badly, they remain at someone else's mercy, even in how long they get to live. The freedom he claims is to no longer depend on another's arbitrary power, , more than the mere absence of obstacles.
The rooftop
Justification
Batty uses violence to free himself from a condition he did not choose, which brings it close to , the nearest pole. But it overflows that aim, and no pole of the axis accounts for the excess: intimidation, revenge and cruelty toward whoever stands in his way.
The meeting with Tyrell · The hunt in Sebastian's building