It was seemingly obvious from the start that the main villain of Blade Runner 2049, Niander Wallace, Jr., was viciously evil. However, in this case, it seems that looks can be deceiving, as Wallace was actually a hero of the entire franchise the whole time.
Blade Runner 2049 follows a Replicant Blade Runner named K (aka Joe), who is on a mission to find the first naturally born Replicant. The technology it takes for a Replicant to have the capacity to give birth is something Niander Wallace, Jr. has craved throughout his adult life. Niander runs Wallace Corporation following the murder of his father, a company that is solely responsible for the resurgence of Replicants after they were made illegal following the events of the original Blade Runner. So, while K tracks down this mysterious, naturally born Replicant, Niander tracks K, and he uses some pretty evil methods to do so. In the end, Niander doesn’t get his hands on the Replicant he was after despite the fact that K figured out who it was, therefore he is robbed of the technology to create ‘self-replicating Replicants’ that he would use to usher in a new era of Replicant slavery.
Niander Wallace, Jr. is Responsible for Saving an Impoverished World
In Blade Runner: Black Lotus episode 3 (written by Brandon Auman, directed by Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama), Elle continues her Blade Runner journey of self discovery, as she comes to the grim conclusion that she is, in fact, a Replicant, and she was hunted for sport by a team of humans only a few days ago. Meanwhile, fans are taken inside the home of Niander Wallace and his son, Jr., as Elle and her violent responses to the things she’s learning about her life directly impact the Wallace Corp family. During the events of this anime, Wallace Corp is trying to legalize Replicants once again, and become the sole manufacturer of the artificial humans. The only reason the company felt confident enough to bring back Replicants after humanity’s immense distrust in them is due to the actions of one man: Niander Wallace, Jr. As revealed in this episode, Niander, Jr. single-handedly restored people’s trust in the company by creating synthetic protein during a time in human history when nothing else was available.
Any fan of the Blade Runner mythos knows that the world in which the story is set is pretty destitute. Blade Runner is the epitome of a cyberpunk nightmare, complete with neon-lit cities filled to the brim with human waste, and a smog so thick that those on the ground can’t even see the sky during the day. Because of these harsh environmental conditions, most plant and wildlife have become all but extinct, which includes livestock as well. With fewer and fewer options for food, people began to starve, and the world was so far-gone that there was seemingly no way out of this catastrophe. And then, Niander Wallace, Jr., with the full-funding of his father’s company, applied his unparalleled brilliance to the creation of synthetic protein. Not only did Niander literally put food in the mouths of the hungry, but the result of him doing so made people trust Wallace Corp, and by extension, Replicants.
Niander Wallace saved the world for humans and Replicants alike before the events of Blade Runner 2049. Sure, he may have been a ruthless antagonist who wanted to find and dissect a naturally born Replicant in order to perpetuate slavery to an atrocious degree, but there wouldn’t even be a world in which he could commit those atrocities if it wasn’t for his life-saving actions–proving that Blade Runner 2049’s villain was secretly a hero all along.
