Allegory

In regard to Roger’s various visions we can assume one of the following explanations:

1. They are a degraded or lower version of reality: either ordinary dreams, daydreams, symptoms of mental illness, or the like.

2. They are the irruption of a higher level of reality into Roger’s consciousness and thus are a kind of mystical revelation.

In the first case they are of no importance whatsoever to the understanding of the show or the advancement of its plot. This is very unlikely given the prominence they have in the show, both in terms of the frequency with which they occur, the length of time devoted to them, and the critical positions they occupy in the plot.

If the second case is correct, then, within the context of the show, they must be taken as representing a higher truth than other elements of the show. Only in this case, also, can the visions be interpreted allegorically, as for example, communicating ideas applicable or of interest to the lives of the viewer.

Within the context of the show (and that is the vital consideration), Roger’s visions are both literally true and represent a greater truth than the presentation of his ordinary experiences within the show. They have the same ontological superiority that religious traditions grants to revealed scriptures or mystical experience by orthodox believers. The world he enters as Roger the Wanderer is the real world; the ordinary world of Big-0 is a false, dream-like copy of it; the glimpses of illumination that he has while fighting the French Megadei and at the moment of Angel’s ascent show the real world, whether that is conceived of the truer reality encounter by Roger the Wanderer or an earlier iteration of the world from before the Event.

It is this very nature of the visions as true revelation that makes it possible to interpret them allegorically. Allegory was a principle of the rhetorical criticism of Ancient Greek Philosophy and is the foundation of modern literary criticism. One philosophical principle was that allegorical interpretation could only be applied to revealed texts, because only these have three levels of meaning: literal, moral and allegorical, corresponding to the body, soul, and mind of individual human beings.

So we see, for instance, that as far as the literal meaning of the show goes, Roger is a robot, as revealed in his ultimate vision. But when we interpret this allegorically, we may see that it applies to our own lives. It is a call to consider whether the physical body, with all of its passions and appetites, is our real self, or whether it is a foreign object that our real self inhabits (a Platonic idea that is not unknown in anime: Ghost in the Shell).

Incidentally, I see that in the new version of Blade Runner going into release, it is revealed that Harrison Ford’s character is also a replicant, who was programmed to believe that he was an ordinary person. We may certainly compare this to Roger’s situation.