The Oedipus Complex In Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner

Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) considers Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex in the context of the film’s protagonist K (Ryan Gosling), and one of the film’s antagonists, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks). The Oedipus complex, as intimated by Sigmund Freud in his The Interpretation of Dreams, is a complex formed by children as an important part of their psychosexual development. The complex largely concerns itself with an individual’s psychological identification – primarily regarding one’s parental figures and their impact on the individual. Fortunately, the film is replete with allusions to parenting and self-identification, as even Villeneuve asserts that the film “raises questions about that it means to be human” (D'Alessandro). Villeneuve blends themes of parenthood, identity, and soul-searching to construct a film that contemplates human individuality and its influences from the perspective of sentient machines. K identifies with three different parents, each of which he

K gradually distances himself from his parental figures as the story progresses, both intentionally and unintentionally. However, every time he rejected one parent it was only in favor of another, thereby assuming a different identity with every change in parenthood. As the son of his manufacturers, he identifies as a loyal replicant – acting in the best interests of his creators.

Halfway through the film, K espouses a “rogue cop” mentality when he adopts Lieutenant Joshi as his new mother figure. He begins acting in pursuance of the same goal, but often acting only when these goals coincide with his own predisposed intentions, much like Joshi. This represents a shifting trend in his personality to a more impulsive and human identity. Even so, K still lacks the ostensible key component of humanity – the soul, which, according to Joshi, he’s “getting along fine without”