Banjo-Kazooie Theory - What IS Clanker?

The 3rd level in Banjo-Kazooie is a half underwater cave and sewer system called Clanker’s Cavern. Inhabited by various crabs, fish and other aquatic life - and of course, the cavern’s namesake, Clanker himself. 

It seems that Gruntilda’s Lair lacks the usual means of refuse disposal like garbage chutes or an incinerator, instead she employs the use of Clanker, who claims to be her “garbage grinder.” Presumably he functions as some sort of living trash compactor, or even darker, perhaps his home got turned into the whole castle’s refuse centre and Grunty just dumps all of her rubbish there and he's forced to eat it, either to survive or as a means to stop his home getting too overrun with it.

There's so many unanswered questions surrounding Clanker - but the one that springs to mind for me is, what IS Clanker anyway? Is he a robot? Or is he a living being? I've got a bunch of evidence that supports both theories, so allow me to go through them - and at the end you can make your own decision.

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Clanker is alive

The most obvious sign that Clanker is alive is the presence of organic tissue; namely the bloody wounds present on his exterior and the flesh and guts present in his interior. Clanker is clearly not impervious to injury, and the fact he is covered with wounds, rather than dents or scuffs, proves his exterior is more akin to skin than it is to sheet metal.

Clanker is clearly an aquatic being - although during Grunty’s Furnace Fun, he is referred to as a whale, Clanker can breathe air or he can breathe underwater via the use of his pair of gills. When raised above the water level however, he breathes through his blowhole. Clanker is an amphibian - he can breathe underwater or above the water.

Clanker is both sentient and capable of feeling pain and discomfort. He originally expresses to Banjo and Kazooie that he wishes to breathe the fresh air, as he is tired of living in dirty water. Once he is above the water level and breathing said fresh air, he complains of a toothache - his teeth hurt as a result of eating too much garbage - so Banjo and Kazooie employ a double tooth egg-straction in order to relieve his pain. Unless he has a very accurate AI, robots cannot feel or express pain.

Next is Clanker’s internals. Inside his stomach, there are clear skeletal structures visible - he appears to have both a spine and a ribcage. In addition, his stomach is filled with fluid, indicating stomach acid or some other gastrointestinal liquids used to aid digestion.

One of the hazards inside Clanker are these things - seemingly sentient fleshy protrusions that whip side to side and can hurt Banjo. I propose these are actually some form of parasite, what we see is their tail and body, as their head is buried into Clanker’s flesh in order to feed off of him. All of these point to Clanker being somewhat alive, having both flesh, organs and blood.

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Clanker is a robot

The most obvious sign that Clanker is a robot is his metallic appearance - even his name is a hint towards him not being a living creature. He clanks. Metal clanks. Rusty robots clank. His whole exterior and even some of his interior are made of metal - I presume steel, as he lives primarily in water and doesn’t appear to have rusted - as metals such as copper or iron would.

Next is the anvil and chain. Clanker is anchored in place, possibly so he can't escape his garbage grinding prison, by an anvil and a chain that protrudes from his stomach. Now if he were alive, the act of literally piercing an animal through the stomach, if they were to even survive it - as there's the risk of their vital organs being ruptured or dying from an infection - they would have visible scar tissue around the piercing. Clanker doesn't have anything like that. Also, with tethering a living creature, it would be more common to attach some sort of collar, or if they were to use a piercing, a ring through the nose, like we see in domestic bulls and bullocks.

Let's focus on Clanker’s diet - it seems he subsists primarily on garbage. And yes, while animals such as rats, mice and other vermin have flourished due to living on the refuse of humans, they only really eat our food scraps. Rats don't eat tin cans or scrap metal or anything really that we wouldn't eat. As there is clearly no excess refuse either floating in the water around Clanker or sunken to the bottom of the water, we can presume he eats pretty much anything - including things like metal, plastic and glass. This is unlikely to happen in living creatures as it would be likely to kill them.

Next is the way Clanker speaks. Notice how he starts his sentences? He says “bzzt,” an onomatopoeia for either an electric shock or a computer or robot malfunctioning. Clanker is clearly run down and wearing out due to being overused and probably poorly maintained - thus his speech pattern is broken and he's giving clear signs of being in disrepair. A living creature wouldn't make a sound like that.

Inside Clanker is a section filled with rotating saw blades. This is the section where Bottles the Mole teaches Banjo and Kazooie the Wonderwing ability. As Clanker is used for garbage disposal, I propose these blades are used to slice up larger pieces of waste or things made from metal in order to help Clanker dispose of them easier, akin to a trash compactor or sink disposal. A living creature clearly wouldn't have a mechanical digestion aid inside of them.

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So what do you think? Is Clanker alive, or is he a robot? I'm tempted to sit on the fence and stay in the middle and say he's actually both. He's a cyborg - as he clearly possesses sentience, intelligence and feelings and shows signs of having flesh, organs and blood - yet simultaneously has non-organic skin, mechanical parts and has a somewhat robotic way of speaking. Perhaps he was just an ordinary whale at first but fell victim to the experiments of the mad scientist Klungo.

Maybe he was used as a test subject for Gruntilda’s magic - or maybe he simply adapted to his surroundings and had the Snippets build him a snazzy steel suit to protect him and he became more and more mechanical as he was used like a machine, locked up with no freedom and used as a garbage grinder - he eventually gave up and accepted his fate. Whew, Banjo-Kazooie is pretty dark sometimes huh?