It seems obvious from the start that the main antagonist of Swordsman 2049, Niander Wallace, Jr., extremely evil. In this case, though, it looks like looks can be deceiving, as Wallace has truly been a hero of the entire franchise throughout.
Blade Runner 2049 follows a Blade Runner Duplicator named K (aka Joe) who is on a quest to find the first Natural Duplicator. The technology required for a Duplicator to be able to bear children is what Niander Wallace, Jr. yearned for her entire adult life. Niander ran the Wallace Corporation after his father’s death, a company solely responsible for the revival of the Copyists after they were made illegal following the events of the original Blade Runner. So while K follows this mysterious, innate Duplicator, Niander follows K, and he uses some rather sinister methods to do so. In the end, Niander doesn’t get his hands on the Replica he was after despite the fact that K figured out who it was, thus he was robbed of the technology to create the ‘Self-Replicating Clone’ which he would used to usher in a new era of Replicant slavery.
Niander Wallace, Jr. responsible for saving a poor world
In Blade Runner: Black Lotus episode 3 (written by Brandon Auman, directed by Shinji Aramaki and Kenji Kamiyama), Elle continues her journey of self-discovery in Blade Runner, as she comes to the grim conclusion that on in fact, she is a copycat. and she was hunted by a group of people just a few days ago. Meanwhile, fans are transported into the home of Niander Wallace and his son, Jr., as Elle and her backlash to the things she’s learned about her life have a direct impact. to the Wallace Corp family. During the events of this anime, Wallace Corp is trying to legitimize Replicants once again and become the sole producer of artificial humans. The only reason the company felt confident enough to bring the Duplicators back after humanity’s enormous distrust of them was because of the actions of one man: Niander Wallace, Jr. As revealed in this episode, Niander, Jr. company by creating synthetic proteins during a time in human history when nothing else.
Any fan of Blade Runner mythology knows that the world the story is set in is pretty poor. Blade Runner is the epitome of an internet nightmare, complete with neon-lit cities filled with human waste and fog so dense that people on the ground can’t even see the sky during the day. Because of these extreme environmental conditions, most plants and wildlife have become nearly extinct, including livestock. There were fewer and fewer options for food, people began to starve, and the world disappeared to the point where there seemed to be no way out of this disaster. And then, Niander Wallace, Jr., with full funding from his father’s company, applied his unparalleled talent to create fusion proteins. Not only did Niander literally put food in the mouths of hungry people, but the result of him doing so also led people to trust Wallace Corp, and more broadly, Replicants.
Niander Wallace saved the world for both humans and Replicators before the events of Blade Runner 2049. Sure, he could have been a ruthless villain looking to find and dissect a natural-born Duplicator in order to stay afloat. maintain slavery to a brutal degree, but that will not happen. not even a world where he could have committed such atrocities if it weren’t for his life-saving actions – proving that Swordsman 2049Secret villain is a same hero.