Full of Sorrowful Tears, that day, when arises from the ashes to be judged, guilty man.
In the 1992 Director’s Cut of Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner, Deckard the bounty hunter daydreams of a unicorn at 42 minutes (that number again), 39 seconds:
He had been absent-mindedly plonking away at the keys of an antique piano—
Is that real wood? Real ivory? This thing must be worth a fucking lion’s share. In the parallel 2019 of Bladerunner, trees are largely extinct and the only animals left on Earth are bioelectric imitations of the real thing (except, apparently, the mourning dove Rutger Hauer was holding at the end of the movie).
The antique piano can be viewed as a token of Deckard’s socio-economic status: he is one of the Shogun’s retainers, a Knight in service of the Corporate State.
The Unicorn also appears in a cryptic finale that must have left theater-goes utterly flummoxed in 1982; the unicorn daydream wouldn’t help elaborate on the meaning of the unicorn at the end of Bladerunner for another decade.
Gaff, played by Edward James Olmos, is the LAPD’s veteran Bladerunner and Inspector Bryant’s loyal attack dog:
While we don’t see him fold up and place the origami Unicorn at Deckard’s door, Gaff’s parting words to the bounty hunter roll back as Deckard regards the curious object:
The whole internet is sure Gaff placed the unicorn there as a calling card; as a threat and as a promise.
Deckard was supposed to ‘retire’ Rachel, the beautiful, smokey-eyed dame of a replicant that escaped from Tyrrell Corp when she found out all her memories were implanted, her entire life has been a lie, and she’s living at the tail end of a replicants predetermined four-year life span:
Instead of killing Rachel, Deckard has sex with and runs away with her. In doing so, he earns himself the high honor of being hunted by the organization he had not too long ago worked for.
Deckard becomes a Knight-In-Exile — Tannhauser has disappeared into the Venusberg.
The Significance of the Recurring Unicorn Symbolism in Bladerunner
AI OVERVIEW:
The origami unicorn in the final scenes suggests that Deckard is a replicant and his memories have been implanted, [because]
The unicorn may indicate that Gaff knows about Deckard’s unicorn dream.
A Level Down:
The Unicorn may symbolize that Rachel is a replicant among humans and will always be different;
Rachel knocking the Unicorn over may symbolize her escape from Tyrrell Corporation, [or affirm her status as the object of the Hunt].
The Fragility of Existence:
The Silver Unicorn is [like every animal in Bladerunner, or every animal ever]; a created thing, beautiful but fragile.
Here’s an excerpt from a Thrillist article that cites a Wired interview with Ridley Scott where the acclaimed director addresses Deckard’s Dream of The Unicorn:
In Ridley Scott's 1992 Director's Cut of the film, the filmmaker added in the famous “unicorn scene” dream sequence that appeared to confirm the Deckard-as-replicant speculation.
Early in the film, Deckard dreams of a unicorn during a drunken reverie. Later, one of Deckard's fellow blade runners, a wigged-out dandy named Gaff, leaves an origami unicorn for Deckard to find. This suggests that Gaff knows Deckard's memories, which means they're implanted, which means he's a 'bot.
Director Ridley Scott later confirmed that was his intent with the unicorn business, telling Wired that revealing Deckard's replicant status is "the whole point of Gaff." Scott continues:
"[Gaff] doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. If you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is a Nexus 7, he probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully human. Gaff, at the very end, leaves an origami, which is a piece of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet, and it's a unicorn. Now, the unicorn in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that, it's Gaff's message to say, 'I've read your file, mate.' ... and therefore Deckard, too, has imagination and even history implanted in his head."
Yet some viewers who work strictly by what's presented in the film still feel there's no definitive answer to the question of whether Deckard is a replicant -- after all, the [] tension is based on the idea that [Deckard is] a human falling for a replicant…
Well, there you have it, straight from the Unicorn’s mouth— Deckard is a Nexus 7 replicant. But Ridley Scott’s answer isn’t definite. Notice the language is cloaked in ambiguity; too many maybes couched in big ifs.
Here is another maybe for you: maybe the director doesn’t want to revoke the viewer’s right to engage in the venerable tradition of far-flung speculation that has developed around what is arguably his best film.
I accept his invitation, and would like to throw my hat into the ring regarding Deckard’s Dream of the Unicorn.
Fan Theory: Rachel as Monoceros, Deckard as Orion
The theory is a simple one:
Bladerunner ends with a snapshot of the Winter Sky in the Northern Hemisphere.
Deckard and Rachel are based on Divine Archetypes; they are a celestial pair.
Check it out:
Monoceros, the Unicorn, is hunted by Canis Major and Canis Minor. Canis Major and Canis Minor are usually thought of as the dogs of Orion, the hunter, who looms large over the scene of the Unicorn Hunt with his back turned:
Bladerunner ends with the hunter becoming the hunted.
So, there they are; Rachel is Monoceros, the Unicorn; Deckard is a fugitive Orion in love; and together they are hunted by the dogs of a corporatist monopoly across the night sky forever.
Bladerunner was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Regristry as ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically’ signficant work in 1993, but the film couldn’t help but become immortal— it was built from the ground up on a pattern of Divine Apotheosis.
The Unicorn appears a little later in another classic Ridley Scott joint; 1985’s Legend, where a young Tom Cruise plays a doe-eyed Orpheus type, and Tim Curry (of Stephen King’s It (1990) and Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)) plays a very iconic Man in Red:
Wait a minute. Unicorn vs. Red Demon Thing with gigantic fuckin Bull Horns…
Is Legend a Ridley Scott Remix of the 1982 cartoon drama The Last Unicorn directed by Rankin and Jules Bass with a soundtrack by America, Jimmy Webb, and the London Symphony Orchestra?
The 1982 film that was adapted from a 1968 book by American author Peter S. Beagle, who also wrote a celebrated introduction to The Lord of The Rings trilogy that has been printed as an epilogue to Tolkien’s magnum opus since 1966?
Look at the all-star cast on this piece. Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Lee… and what is that G inside a triangle, way up in the top left corner…?
The Hunter Orion is hemmed in by the Bull of Taurus on his right and the Unicorn, Monoceros, on his left. The Clash of Bull and Unicorn is the central image of The Last Unicorn (1968), with not but a set of bold heroes standing between them—
Was The Last Unicorn built on star-codes?
What about Bladerunner?
Is this the cipher that we’ve been waiting for? Will the Bladerunner fandom finally crack the code?
Gad Zooks, Maude… The Last Unicorn and the Bladerunner films were even released in the same year (1982)!
On Bladerunner's Symbolic Density
I’d like to advance another theory: that Bladerunner’s symbolic density was calculated and deliberate.
The film is perpetually resonant because it has Masonic Codes written all over it.
Bladerunner is based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a fact that is acknowledged in the credit roll:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is like Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner: densely layered with thought-provoking symbolic content, allowing the reader to turn it any which way and come up with different answers depending on which angle the light hits it.
One Dickian riff that provides a potential framing device for deep reads of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep —and for Bladerunner— is a reference to Mozart’s ‘Der Zaubenfloot’ (The Magic Flute), a German language opera that premiered on September 30, 1791 at the Theater Auf Der Weiden in Vienna.
‘Well', Rick thought, 'in real life no such magic bells exist that make your enemy effortlessly disappear. Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died in his thirties – of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked paupers' grave.’
The Magic Flute is particularly noted for its Masonic elements and, like the Bladerunner film, has stood the test of time as a mental puzzle and a cryptogram; the more its layers are teased apart, the more it yields new levels of interpretation.
The Owl is a major symbolic locus in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Bladerunner, and in Western Occultism generally.
The owl has long been a double-edged symbol; while it was held in reverence as a cult symbol of Minerva, Roman Goddess of Wisdom, Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist of the first century, called it ‘a monster of the night… [and] a direful omen’. Such traditions relating to the owl enjoy global distribution.
In recent times the Owl has gone viral thanks to the espionage work of Alex Jones, who has alleged that the global elite practice mock child sacrifice before a great image of an owl at the annual Bohemian Grove Cremation of Care ceremony.
But the watchful owl hunts snakes and vermin, controlling disease vectors and the populations of animals that target human crops and grain stores— is it really fair to consider its symbolism unequivocally negative?
AI Overview:
The Magic Flute is heavily influenced by Masonic symbolism, with trials and rituals representing the path to enlightenment.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was one of the most prolific and innovative composers in the history of western music. He was also an acknowledged Freemason.
Mozart wrote a funeral dirge for the lodge he belonged to, and is known to have employed Masonic ideas in his compositions and operas.
Some have even wondered if his sudden death at a relatively young age wasn’t related in some way to his Masonic allegiances. Philip K. Dick mentions in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep that Mozart died shortly after completing The Magic Flute, considered one of his most blatantly Masonic works. What did he reveal that he wasn’t supposed to?
Maybe nothing. The libretto for The Magic Flute wasn’t written by Mozart— that honor belongs to Emanuel Schikaneder, also a Freemason. Libretto means ‘little book’ in Italian; it’s a fancy word for the text or script of any opera or long vocal performance.
Mozart’s The Magic Flute draws the audience into a world where the good guys turn out to be the bad guys, the bad guys turn out to be the good guys, and nothing is what it seems. All these themes are reflected in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and in the Bladerunner film.
Was Philip K. Dick a covert Masonic Agent Provocateur? Traditionally Dick is thought to belong to the counterforce — if any classic sci-fi writer was hep to, and opposed to, NWO Freemasonic Illuminati Shenanigans, it was him — right? … right? That’s exactly what a Masonic Agent Provocateur would want you to think!
(Whereever you are, Philip K. Dick, I hope you are proud of the paranoia you helped me cultivate—)
What about Ridley Scott? Is the acclaimed director of Alien (1977), Bladerunner (1982), and Legend (1985) a Freemason?
A quick google search neither confirms nor denies any Masonic affiliations on his part, though his film and television production company with over one hundred emmy nominations is called Scott Free— as in, the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry?
Ridley Scott might be something worse; something far more sinister than a Scottish Rite Freemason of High Degree— for Ridley Scott is more properly called Sir Ridley Scott ever since he joined the ranks of luminaries such as Sir David Bowie, Sir Elton John, and Sir Christopher Lee as a Knight of the English Crown.
Scott was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his significant contributions to cinema. Some conspiracy theorists advance the idea that the English Royal Family is high up in the 100 or more degrees of World Freemasonry:
But Dungeonposting…
There are only 33 degrees of Freemasonry…!
(There is a fan theory that the highest degree of Freemasonry is actually the 100th; the degree of the Heliophant, the office of the Sun-on-Earth, occupied by the Pope in Rome).
The tradition of knighting entertainment professionals has always given me pause, for it begs the question:
what services did these men render to the Crown?
Or is today’s English Knighthood merely a token organization genuflecting before a token throne?
In 2024, Ridley Scott surpassed his knightly peers when he was appointed Knight Grand Cross by King Charles II. Knight Grand Cross is one of the highest classes in orders from the British Empire, believed by some to be a continuation of the Order of the Knights Templar— the same Knights Templar which continue as the Masonic Order of the Temple of Solomon.
Meanwhile, I didn’t even know that Great Britain was still considered a seat of Empire.
If Ridley Scott could be considered Bladerunner’s Mozart, what about the men who wrote the libretto? What of the Masonic ties of David Webb Peoples and Hampton Fancher?
A quick google search reveals nothing, except that David Webb Peoples also worked on the screenplay of several other films that Rutger Hauer starred in (Ladyhawke (1984), The Blood of Heroes (1989)) as well as the screenplay for Terry Gilliman’s mind-bending 12 Monkeys (1995), and Hampton Fancher is an Anglo-Mexican Actor-turned-writer/filmmaker who also worked on the screenplay for the 2017 Bladerunner sequel, Bladerunner 2049.
Moving on—
Intro to The Tannhauser Gate
Mozart’s Magic Flute is referenced nowhere in Bladerunner, but another famous German opera is— In the Tears in The Rain Death Soliloquy, the replicant revolutionary leader Roy Baty refers to a mysterious Tannhauser Gate:
Tannhauser is an operatic piece by Richard Wagner (1813-1883) that premiered in 1845 about Heaven and Hell, sin and redemption, sex and sacrifice, and sacred versus profane love.
It’s subtle, but all the major themes of Tannhauser are reflected in Bladerunner—
The Tannhauser Gate is more than an attractive symbol— it’s a neat little ribbon that ties the whole film together.
Like drawing the line from Merak to Dubhe to locate the north star Polaris, the Tannhauser Gate guides us toward the film’s white-hot center:
In the original Tannhauser ballad which gave rise to the folk legend that Wagner’s opera is based on, the title character disappears into the Mountain of Venus to worship at the shrine of a pagan goddess forever after Pope Urban IV denies the knight absolution for the sin of his carnal passions; while Bladerunner ends with Deckard casting aside all previous loyalties to disappear into his forbidden love with a runaway Nexus-6 replicant.
The dogs of the state are in hot pursuit, but Gaff, gentleman that he is, has given his query a head-start.
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