Nexus.13: Luv

The Tears of the Greatest Angel and the Prison of the Program

In this universe, the existential question of “what it means to be human” has always been redeemed by the blood and tears of Replicants. Standing as the most cruel antithesis to the “poetry of rebellion against death” embodied by Roy Batty in the original film is the Nexus-9 Replicant, “Luv.”

As the absolutely loyal right hand of Niander Wallace and acting as a ruthless executioner, she appears at first glance to be the embodiment of a perfect “system of obedience.” However, the inexplicable “tears” she sheds at every turn are engraved with a blind thirst for her Creator and a despair toward the prison of her programming that she can never overcome. While Descartes’ Mind-body dualism proudly proclaims the independence of the subject with “Cogito, ergo sum,” Luv’s ontology is bound by the chains of servitude: “I am commanded, therefore I am.”

The Throne of the Creator and the Prison of the Creation

In unraveling Luv’s existence, her relationship with her Creator, Wallace, is unavoidable. Wallace reigns like a ruthless god from the Old Testament, and Luv is an “angel” who thirsts to receive all of that god’s grace. All her violence and bloodshed are offerings to satisfy this god’s approval.

For a created life to have a “name” is synonymous with the “acquisition of a soul,” and Luv, too, finds special meaning in her own name. There is a scene where she proudly introduces herself to K as “Luv,” but within this lies a cruel deduction that shakes her identity to its core. Linguistically speaking, the word “Luv (Love)” uttered by Wallace is not inherently a proper name, but merely a term of endearment (a pet name) frequently used at the end of sentences in the English-speaking world to express affection or familiarity. When Wallace calls her “Luv,” it may not be a naming that respects her existence, but rather equivalent to a mere verbal habit directed at a possession. If her conviction that she is a “named, special being” is an illusion born from misreading the unconscious phrasing of her god, then the foundation of her ego is extremely fragile. That is precisely why she is trapped by the obsession that she must perfectly execute blood-soaked commands in order to continuously prove her specialness.

The interior of the Wallace Corporation where Luv resides is a “sterile heaven” constructed by Wallace, where golden light reflecting off the water’s surface flickers. However, the blind Wallace has acquired an omnidirectional field of vision through drones, and Luv is constantly monitored as an object by the “eyes” of this god. When Wallace inspects a new Replicant, the inorganic gaze of the drones is directed at Luv standing behind him, and the depiction of her slightly stiffening is a manifestation of her instinctive realization that she is a “consumable good that could be discarded at any moment.” For her, this golden heaven is nothing but a “prison of servitude” under absolute surveillance.

The Ontology of Tears

Luv’s most inexplicable characteristic is the “single tear” that runs down her cheek in moments of slaughter and tragedy. This tear proves that she is not merely an emotionless terminator, but is experiencing intense existential friction within.

The first time she sheds a tear is in the scene where a female Replicant without reproductive capabilities has her abdomen slashed and is murdered by Wallace. Even before Wallace’s blade touches the Replicant, a tear is already running down Luv’s cheek. This is a tear shed precisely because she fully anticipates the outcome that “her kin is about to be brutally murdered.” She superimposes her own sense of ontological worthlessness onto the figure of her kin, who is discarded as a worthless being by god the moment she is born. However, programmed for absolute obedience, she can neither save her kin nor protest. Her “mind” is screaming, but her “body” is fixed as Wallace’s possession, and this disconnection between mind and body is converted into tears as the scream of a powerless servant.

The second tear is shed when she murders Lieutenant Joshi. The moment she is told that “K has taken care of the Miracle child,” Luv stabs Joshi to death with a quiet murderous intent, but she sheds an absurd tear as she plunges the blade in. There are two deductions regarding the true meaning of this tear. One is “repressed maternal passion.” For Replicants, the Miracle child is a symbol of the possibility of becoming something more than human, and this interpretation suggests that the intense sense of loss over the killing of that seed of hope short-circuited her emotional circuits. The other is a bug caused by a deviation from her “baseline.” Right before killing Joshi, she says, “I’ll tell him (Wallace) a lie,” uttering a falsehood to her Creator for the first time. This view suggests that the burden and contradiction of attempting to break a programmed law triggered the tear as a physical reaction. Either way, her tear is the scream of life against a system that forces her to be a “soulless doll.”

In the Pinocchio motif, where a created life yearns to be a real human, Pinocchio’s nose grows when he lies, but Luv sheds a tear the moment she resolves to tell a lie. While Pinocchio becomes human through the guidance of a goddess, Luv’s Creator does not allow her to become human, forcing her to be a tool for eternity. Wallace exploits her as a power source for violence while leaving her humanity (empathy) intact, and the possibility that even her desire to be “loved” is nothing more than a means of control deepens the tragedy even further.

The Distortion of the Übermensch Ideology and the Kiss of Death

The mirroring relationship with the protagonist, K, brings Luv’s existential anguish into sharp relief. While K sought to acquire his own soul in quiet solitude, Luv, precisely because she subconsciously understands that she is essentially a disposable slave, tries to maintain her sense of self by gaining her Creator’s approval through violence.

This is a distorted practice of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” ideology. Luv possesses superhuman strength in her physical abilities, but mentally, she has not been able to break free from the slave morality of her god. When she inflicts a fatal wound on K during their mortal combat at the Sea Wall, she lets out a maddened scream: “I’m the best one!” This scream is a declaration of victory, but at the same time, it is the flip side of a bottomless self-insecurity. She can only prove her existential value by destroying others and gathering sacrifices, and her desire for approval closely resembles the psychological structure of a house slave.

In the final battle, after plunging a knife into K, Luv kisses him deeply on the lips. This “kiss of death” is an imitation (mimesis) of her Creator. Just as Wallace bestowed a kiss when executing a defective product, Luv imitates her Creator’s expression of affection out of a sense of superiority as god’s proxy. At the same time, lacking a program to process the emotion of affection, her “love” and “hatred” toward her kin, K, caused a conflict, leading to the contradictory action of kissing him while stabbing him to death.

The Prison of Stasis and the Silence at the Bottom of the Sea

Roy Batty resisted the absolute limit of his lifespan and, by accepting death, showed the brilliance of a soul that was more than human. What he confronted was “death,” but what Luv, who has no lifespan limitation, confronts is the prison of “Stasis.” She cannot take a single step out of her biological programming and environmental conditioning.

Despite harboring intense waves of emotion within, Luv never rebelled against Wallace of her own free will until the very end. Her tragedy lies in the very fact that, despite possessing an evolving soul, she remains tethered to the system and “can never change.” While K acquires the free will of self-sacrifice and lies in the snow, Luv sinks into the cold seaway, having played her programmed role to the bitter end. Her tears were destined to vanish into the dark bottom of the sea, remembered by no one. However, those tears were undoubtedly the most earnest, human, and “real” drops shed by an angel who was supposed to have no soul.