How did K discover the true identity of the child?

Question

A lot of spoilers for Blade Runner 2049 in this one!

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How did K find out at the end that

Dr. Ana Stelline is Deckard's daughter?

Freysa, the leader of the Replicant Freedom Movement, revealed to him

that Deckard and Rachael had a daughter, indirectly implying that he was not the child as he first thought.

He also knew that the memory with the wooden horse hidden in the furnace was real - he found the horse and Ana confirmed it's authenticity.

Was it

Ana's tears that told K that she was the person who'd actually lived the memory,

or is there something else I am missing?

Answer 1

It's pure detective work on his part - he infers it based on several pieces of evidence.

• First, Ana easily identified his memory as genuine, originating from a person's real experience - but she did not explicitly identify it as his experience.
• She is an expert in crafting and implanting memories into replicants, and she asserts that the best implanted memories have some basis in real experience.
• K has been told authoritatively that he is not actually the child he was looking for, so he must doubt that memory is from his own experience.
• K has been told that the final objective of the altering the child's records was to create the impression that the deceased girl child was a smokescreen and the surviving boy child was the hidden truth. He was told that the actual truth is that the living child, who he seeks, is female.
• Finally, he already knows that Ana is biologically unusual - she is immunocompromised.

While his read of her emotional reaction to seeing the memory is surely important, it's not as important as the profile he can assemble of the person who inserted the memory into his mind.

The person who planted that memory is:

• An expert in implanted memories
• Who experienced that genuine memory as a child, and used it to create his false memory
• Who is female, and around K's age
• And who is genetically unusual, being a biologically-originated replicant (or whatever we should call them)

Assuming that her immune deficiency originates from being a biologically-originated replicant is surely a leap of logic. But it seems likely that K knew that there were no other memory-implanting experts who fit the profile as well as her. And even if there was another woman memorysmith of the same age who also had some genetic abnormality, Ana's emotional response would then go a long way to suggest that she is the right candidate.

Answer 2

I think one could conclude from the tears Ana Stelline shed while viewing the memory that it was at the very least extremely touching to her -- yes, she could be crying because it was a sad event, a single child bullied by a gang in a furnace room shows a very sad life in general. But the audience would have strongly suspected that it was in fact her memory -- something that K only understood have he was told he himself was not the child. It shows just how much K wanted to believe he was the child, because he did not ask himself why Stelline was so affected. She emphasized earlier that real memories were illegal, a dead giveaway that she in fact used real memories.

Answer 3

The script makes it entirely clear how he worked it out. It was the expression on Doctor Stelline's face when she recognised the memory ("Ana stops the imaging. Affected by what she is seeing.").

At the time he thought it was sympathy for the person in his memory, but he now realises that it was the fact that the memory was especially vivid for her because it's one of her own memories that she implanted into Wallace's Replicants

K: No. A girl died. It was a boy you hid.

Freysa shakes her head knowingly.

FREYSA: Just a piece a puzzle.

A wave of nausea rocks K. The crushing realization slowly taking root... eating away at his new soul... He was wrong about who he is.

ON K. At the moment he sees it. The connection forming.

INSERT CUT: ANA. STARING, CONFUSED, MOVED BY WHAT SHE SEES IN K’S MEMORY. A MOMENT OF RECOGNITION.

ANA: No one invented that. It was a real moment. Someone lived this.

INSERT CUT: THE DENABASE SCREEN. THE TWO COPIES. THE GHOST AND THE REAL.

DECKARD (V.O.): I showed them how to scramble the records, cover their tracks.

INSERT CUT: THE CHILD WITH THE HORSE IN FRONT OF THE FIERY FURNACE. CHIN SET, DETERMINED.

INSERT CUT: ON ANA. LOOKING AT K.

ANA: There is a bit of every artist in their work...

BACK ON K. RIVEN. THE TRUTH REVEALED. THE CASE SOLVED AT HIS OWN EXPENSE. IT WAS NEVER HIM AT ALL.

Something inside K breaks. Freysa can see his pain. And understands.

FREYSA: You imagine it was you? Ohhhh... You did, you did. We all wish it was us. That’s why we believe.

ON K -- SHAKING -- SHATTERED -- WE MOVE --