Pris Stratton and Irmgard Baty
Pris Stratton and Irmgard Baty are two of the eight Nexus-6 androids who fled Mars together under the leadership of Roy Baty, Irmgard's husband. They arrive at the abandoned conapt building where John Isidore lives, seeking refuge after most of their group has been killed by bounty hunters. Their relationship is forged in the shared desperation of hiding from a system that hunts them, but it reveals itself through contrasting personalities and moral responses to the humans they encounter.
Arrival and First Impressions
When Roy and Irmgard Baty first appear at Pris's door, Irmgard is described as "lovely in the manner of Greta Garbo, with blue eyes and yellow-blond hair," while Pris, who had been living in fear, is immediately reinvigorated by their presence. Irmgard's warmth is evident: she smiles at Isidore with "simple warmth; it had no veiled overtones" and eats the peaches he brought with "brisk little animal bites." Pris, by contrast, remains distant and sarcastic, referring to Isidore as a "chickenhead" and showing no gratitude for his help. Irmgard scolds Pris for this, saying, "Don't call him that, Pris... Think what he could call you." This early contrast establishes Irmgard as the more compassionate of the two, while Pris is colder and more contemptuous.
Shared Danger and Divergent Responses
Both women are acutely aware of the danger they face. Irmgard speaks with "apprehensive urgency" about the bounty hunter who killed their friends, and Pris is described as "stricken" when she learns of the deaths. Yet their reactions to Isidore, their only human ally, diverge sharply. Irmgard defends him, telling her husband, "They don't treat him very well either, as he said. And what we did on Mars he isn't interested in; he knows us and he likes us and an emotional acceptance like that—it's everything to him." Pris, however, continues to belittle him, and when Roy suggests Pris move in with Isidore for protection, she retorts, "A chickenhead? I'm not going to live with a chickenhead." Irmgard's empathy stands in stark contrast to Pris's snobbery, even as both are equally vulnerable.
The Spider and the Exposé
The most telling moment of their relationship occurs when Isidore brings a live spider to the apartment. Pris, with Irmgard's cuticle scissors, begins to mutilate the creature, snipping off its legs one by one. Irmgard initially urges Pris to stop, calling anxiously from the kitchen door, "Oh, do that afterward... This is so important, what they're saying; it proves that everything we believed—" But she is drawn back to the television broadcast of Buster Friendly's exposé of Mercerism, and does not intervene further. When Pris has cut off four legs, Irmgard later observes, "I was right... Didn't I say it could walk with only four legs?" Her complicity in the cruelty, even if less active than Pris's, reveals a shared android detachment from the suffering of living creatures. After the spider is drowned by Isidore, Irmgard is the one who notices his distress, saying nervously, "He's really upset... It makes me terribly upset, him just standing there by the sink and not speaking." But neither she nor Pris offers any genuine remorse.
The Final Stand
When the bounty hunter arrives, the three androids—Pris, Irmgard, and Roy—prepare their defense. Pris is sent to intercept Deckard on the stairs, a fatal mission that ends with her death. Irmgard remains in the apartment with Roy, and when Deckard gains entry, she attempts to shoot him from behind with a laser tube that Roy had slipped to her. Deckard shoots her first, saying, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Baty." In the end, both women die in the same building, within minutes of each other, their fates sealed by the same hunt. Their relationship, marked by shared origin and mutual dependence, is ultimately defined by the coldness they both exhibit—Pris's active cruelty and Irmgard's passive complicity—and by the absence of any genuine loyalty that might have saved them.
