This final section of the book was more of a Mental battle in the mind of The main protagonist Rick and John. The android Rachael reveals the purpose of the Rosen Coorperation “And we then have the Nexus-7. And when that gets caught we modify it again and eventually the association has a type that can’t be distinguished.” (p.75) This pretty much shows that the main villain of the entire story may actually just be the Rosen Corperation in their attempt to build human replicas. “I’m not alive! You’re not going to bed with a woman. Don’t be disappointed; okay? Have you ever made love to an android before?” (p.77) when I found out that Rachael’s main purpose is to pull out the empathy of bounty hunters towards androids making her retire Bounty hunters I was extremely surprised. “No bounty hunter ever has gone on,” Rachael said. “After being with me. Except one. (p.79)
I feel that Rick natural pride that he demonstrates in many of the other chapters is broken down as he is now put in a position where he doesn’t know if he can do his job due to one night with one android that he said he would marry.
John the character related to had a terrible breaking point as the religion that connects him to the society that naturally looks down on him is destroyed. Buster Friendly (AN ANDROID!!) shows how Mercism is a sham. To top this off He watches as the two android women are torturing a spider which naturally shows him their lack of care for life. So I think that Empathy boxes are magic genie lamps as “He opened his fingers. On his hand rested the mutilated spider, but with its snipped-off legs restored.” (p.86) sure in a later chapter I begin to wonder if is just a mechanical animal but still… WOW!
So In Chapter 19 our two main Protagonist finally meet and end up… not really liking each other “Isidore stammered, “I don’t w-w-want to live near you.”” (p.89) I feel he views him as the “crude murderous police dog” that his wife calls him in the beginning of the story for killing creatures who proven some capability to love for his own selfish needs for an living animal.
So yeah Rachael killed Ricks New goat which i feel was a reflection of anger on 3 separate accounts.
1. He like Phil Resch resisted her ability to retire a Bounty Hunter.
2. He was able to kill her twin model Pris even after his claims too her about how he loves her and people who look like her (pretty much he had the balls to shoot Rachael.)
3. He was a Human running around killing Androids so its like a ironic twist as she an android walks up to a living creature and kills it( and to ruin him)
But what surprised me the most was his trip to the Carolina where he climbed an actual mountain but was discouraged as he realized that the true mean of Mercism was to connect society together in a form of physical/mental way. And He found a Frog… Mechanical but you know what Mercer changed the prideful Rick to something new… He turned Rick Into himself. Rick is Mercer.
But why is Rick, Mercer? What was the point? He showed no traits of being a messiah-like figure throughout the book.
Wow, thats a great idea that it is a battle of the mind. It really made me rethink the progression of the book. Throughout, we see hints at how people are battling within themselves, and the final “battle” with the andy’s ended really quickly. This line of thinking makes more sense as they are the secondary enemy. The mind is the real challenge.
I think you can add to the list of things that Rachel is resentful about is the promise Rick had made to leave Pris for her (Rachel) to retire. He ends up retiring Pris himself, adding to her anger towards him. Then again….. we don’t really know what her motivation for killing the goat was, I think I remember reading somewhere that andys are usually not driven by emotion, they are logical beings, breaking down every possible scenario and analyzing the possible outcomes. One logical outcome from her killing the goat is that he would track her down (this is what I though was going to happen), giving her a chance to kill him, maybe if he followed her to the Rosen Association, they would have some trap laid there for him. In the end we’ll never truly know her motives.