Westworld

[Chen]

They mentioned a "Good Samaritan reflex" when talking about the host that crushed his own head. If you ask that question to the auto-reply thing on the Westworld fake resort page you get:

"You’re safe from the hosts by design, but what about other guests? Not to worry, hosts have been imbued with a “Good Samaritan” reflex—we are programmed to protect you from harm’s way."

So it's possible that Ford didn't actually command Teddy to grab MiB's knife and that was actually that reflex in play. Something where the hosts will try to ensure that two guests don't accidentally kill each other. Still seems super dangerous though, since that's clearly not foolproof.

[Aedilred]

They mentioned a "Good Samaritan reflex" when talking about the host that crushed his own head. If you ask that question to the auto-reply thing on the Westworld fake resort page you get:

"You’re safe from the hosts by design, but what about other guests? Not to worry, hosts have been imbued with a “Good Samaritan” reflex—we are programmed to protect you from harm’s way."

So it's possible that Ford didn't actually command Teddy to grab MiB's knife and that was actually that reflex in play. Something where the hosts will try to ensure that two guests don't accidentally kill each other. Still seems super dangerous though, since that's clearly not foolproof.

Yeah, I thought it was clear that Teddy had been pre-programmed to do that (or perform some similar reaction) rather than Ford giving him a command at the time. I did assume though that he reacted in such a direct way without consideration for personal wellbeing because it was Ford - that the hosts are all programmed to protect Ford at all costs where with other humans they might do it in a less obvious or direct way (to preserve verisimilitude, perhaps?)

After all we also know that the hosts are capable of inflicting violence upon the guests: we saw them beating up Ben after the nitroglycerine deal went bad. That doesn't seem to quite square with Teddy's immediate and apparently unconscious reaction to grab and disable the Man in Black's knife as soon as it appeared, unless there's a higher level of programming to protect the staff (or just Ford) over and above that for the guests.

[Chen]

Yeah, I thought it was clear that Teddy had been pre-programmed to do that (or perform some similar reaction) rather than Ford giving him a command at the time. I did assume though that he reacted in such a direct way without consideration for personal wellbeing because it was Ford - that the hosts are all programmed to protect Ford at all costs where with other humans they might do it in a less obvious or direct way (to preserve verisimilitude, perhaps?)

After all we also know that the hosts are capable of inflicting violence upon the guests: we saw them beating up Ben after the nitroglycerine deal went bad. That doesn't seem to quite square with Teddy's immediate and apparently unconscious reaction to grab and disable the Man in Black's knife as soon as it appeared, unless there's a higher level of programming to protect the staff (or just Ford) over and above that for the guests.

It could be Ford added more safeguards for himself, but it could again just a Guest vs Guest protection. If the hosts know they won't seriously injure someone they will let other hosts punch guests and such. Could also be a level of danger since it was a knife in this case vs fists in the other case. Maybe even context sensitive in what he was saying. He had threatened another guest in the previous episode but didn't actually have a knife out. Here he took out a weapon and made a threat, which might be enough to trigger the reflex.

[Quild]

Regarding episode 6:

About Dolores:
Is the oldest host of (or in?) the park, but I thought they would have rebuilt her as a second generation at some point. It's surprising that they keep first geneneration even if they cost more to repair.
Hosts were suppose to crash easily in the beginning of Westworld (like that Buffalo Bill guy in the cold storage) and Dolores obviously does not.

So, is she first gen or second gen?
Was she upgraded or is she the oldest in the park (besides the ones Robert kept hidden) but not the oldes host built?


About Maeve:
I'm not sure I like where they're going with this.
Ok, Sylvester does not seem particularly clever and Felix was already trying to become a "behavior" guy, but they shouldn't go that far.
They should have reported Maeve's disfunction way before.
Elsie blackmailed a guy who was recorded having fun with a host, Felix should have been detected already.
They can shut her down, but they obey her for almost no reason? I feel like they dropped Fish Mooney from Gotham to Westworld...

About Teddy:
It's funny how he's rewritten with this new narrative he has. When he speaks about the man that died countless time and is now in the middle of the maze, I half expect him to be that man. He recovered pretty well since last episode!

About Elsie:
Maybe she shouldn't trust Bernard that much. I wonder what else she found and who get her. Tropes says that when someone finds out something and says "wait, there's more" before being interrupted, they die. Hope she'll stay a little more with us!

[Ramza00]

New episode on 11/13 people's thoughts?

[Chen]

Episode 7 spoilers (they're big, you've been warned)

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Well that was a pretty crazy episode. Will sleeps with Delores and seems to be really getting into the whole thing. Which is pretty odd. I wonder if they're going to make things come crashing down on him later when he realizes Delores is just a robot or that his time there is up. It'd be a pretty dark way to end that arc, but a realistic one I'd think.

Maeve's storyline seems a bit odd. Like threatening to kill the techs seems ridiculous to me. Sure they don't want to lose their jobs, but at this point you'd think they'd go to their boss with their "issue" and make sure Maeve got taken down with extreme prejudice next time she came in.

And of course the big one, Bernard being a host and Ford having him kill Theresa. Very interesting twist here. I suspect if you go back and watch the previous episodes there are some good hints showing that Bernard was a host. Now I wonder how they're going to explain Theresa disappearing? Unless Ford has already made a new Theresa (or that's the one that was being made in the lab). I guess that's probably the best way to go about it, otherwise it's going to be a little suspicious as to where she wandered off to. Also wondering if Elsie had any link to this. I mean she found out about Theresa using the satellite but she found something else too. Could it be Ford/Bernard who ended up grabbing her at the end of last episode? Next episode will be interesting.

[Alabenson]

Episode 7 spoilers (they're big, you've been warned)

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Well that was a pretty crazy episode. Will sleeps with Delores and seems to be really getting into the whole thing. Which is pretty odd. I wonder if they're going to make things come crashing down on him later when he realizes Delores is just a robot or that his time there is up. It'd be a pretty dark way to end that arc, but a realistic one I'd think.

Maeve's storyline seems a bit odd. Like threatening to kill the techs seems ridiculous to me. Sure they don't want to lose their jobs, but at this point you'd think they'd go to their boss with their "issue" and make sure Maeve got taken down with extreme prejudice next time she came in.

And of course the big one, Bernard being a host and Ford having him kill Theresa. Very interesting twist here. I suspect if you go back and watch the previous episodes there are some good hints showing that Bernard was a host. Now I wonder how they're going to explain Theresa disappearing? Unless Ford has already made a new Theresa (or that's the one that was being made in the lab). I guess that's probably the best way to go about it, otherwise it's going to be a little suspicious as to where she wandered off to. Also wondering if Elsie had any link to this. I mean she found out about Theresa using the satellite but she found something else too. Could it be Ford/Bernard who ended up grabbing her at the end of last episode? Next episode will be interesting.

Spoiler: Episode 7

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I don't think it would have been Ford who grabbed her (given his age I doubt he would do something like that personally) and Bernard was with Theresa at the time, so it couldn't have been him.
As for Maeve, the issue the techs have is that if they report their problem management is going to start asking the sort of questions that would end with them both being fired, so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.

[Aedilred]

Regarding episode 6:

About Dolores:
Is the oldest host of (or in?) the park, but I thought they would have rebuilt her as a second generation at some point. It's surprising that they keep first geneneration even if they cost more to repair.
Hosts were suppose to crash easily in the beginning of Westworld (like that Buffalo Bill guy in the cold storage) and Dolores obviously does not.

So, is she first gen or second gen?
Was she upgraded or is she the oldest in the park (besides the ones Robert kept hidden) but not the oldes host built?

"Oldest host still operational" doesn't necessarily equate to "first generation". Although I suspect Dolores is not actually the oldest host still operational, just the oldest one on the books

Spoiler: Ep.6 spoiler

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(the Ford family being older than her).

It seems likely to me that the early hosts went through a number of design revisions fairly quickly during Arnold's period at the park, but then settled on one which has maybe had a few upgrades but essentially has remained the same in terms of hardware for decades. That model may be the second, third or tenth "generation" but the model has been in service for longer than all previous generations put together: that being the implication of the continued references to the way they're still reliant on the stuff Arnold created before his death. Of course they may have a different classification for host generation or edition number anyway.

My suspicion is that Dolores is the last host Arnold created before his death. She may have been a prototype for the rest of the hosts now in service, or could conceivably actually be more advanced, or off on a different branch of the design tree, if Arnold included undisclosed elements within her creation which therefore aren't in the other, later hosts. Or she could have some successors we don't even know about because they're not registered: a more advanced type of host secretly developed by Ford

Spoiler: Ep. 7 spoiler

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like Bernard

I also suspect that Dolores had something to do with Arnold's death (or disappearance), that Ford suspects there's something more to her that he hasn't figured out, hence why he leaves her in the park where she remains visible and active (unlike those who've been retired) but where there's a limit to how much damage she can do.

Ultimately it's all still speculation at this point, though.

[Quild]

@Aedilred: I specifically mentionned "besides the ones Ford kept hidden", so we agree

Spoiler: ep7 Spoilers

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I suspect there's more than Bernard "just" being a robot.
It sure would be practical if Ford had implanted him since the beginning as a robot so he controls the Behavior Department, but it doesn't explain everything.
Bernard had a skype call with his (ex?) wife in a previous episode. It is possible that he was someone who got killed and replaced by Ford when he started being a problem, like Theresa now is.

Anyway, Maeve is really becoming the kind of character I hate. Really looks like Fish Mooney to me.

[Chen]

@Aedilred: I specifically mentionned "besides the ones Ford kept hidden", so we agree

Spoiler: ep7 Spoilers

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I suspect there's more than Bernard "just" being a robot.
It sure would be practical if Ford had implanted him since the beginning as a robot so he controls the Behavior Department, but it doesn't explain everything.
Bernard had a skype call with his (ex?) wife in a previous episode. It is possible that he was someone who got killed and replaced by Ford when he started being a problem, like Theresa now is.

Anyway, Maeve is really becoming the kind of character I hate. Really looks like Fish Mooney to me.

More episode 7 spoilers

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If Ford can create super complex AIs that are essentially indistinguishable from humans, I'm sure he can setup a fake chatbot to pretend to be Bernard's wife just to keep the internal history going for him. If he just replaced Bernard, he'd actually have to KNOW all his history if he allowed him to actually talk to his real wife. There are bound to be intimacies there that Ford wouldn't be able to code in. If both Bernard and Wife are "fake" though that goes away.

I was thinking about replacing Theresa, but even that is risky. He doesn't have all her memories. Clearly there was a deal going on between Theresa and the board that Ford doesn't know the details to. Not sure how he's going to do it, unless he replaces her just to have her quit or something. I guess that could work. I suppose alternatively maybe he DOES monitor ALL her communication and he does know everything she's been talking to people about. He insinuated he controlled her phone and he did use the "blood sacrifice" line that was used when she was talking to the board member (what's her name?) in her room.

As for Maeve, those techs should really now be thinking about turning themselves in. I mean when she was just blackmailing you by threatening to out your side business and breaking the work rules it was one thing. She's now threatening to kill you. It's when you bring in the big guns to have her decommissioned.

[Cespenar]

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Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

[Quild]

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Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

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The fact that Ford's machine is building a robot (it seems to me that some robots are hosts, but not every of them), when Theresa get killed seems like a big clue.

The memories are an issue though.

For Bernard, it can be managed. If he told enough about him to Ford and stopped most of his social life after losing his child, Ford could have replaced him. For Theresa, it would be harder.

On another hand, Ford showed that he knew stuff about Theresa, including the exact place she had lunch decades earlier. His information is probably limited to what happens in Westworld/Delos, but it might help.

[Chen]

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Everyone seems pretty sold up on Ford replacing people with hosts. Are there any actual evidence of it that I missed, or is just conjecture?

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Just speculation from me. Seem like it'd be hard to explain way Theresa disappearing otherwise.

[SuperPanda]

Spoiler: Completely wild guess

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My baseless speculation is that Ford actually died back before Arnold did and the ford we see now is a Host. Or the more realistic side of that is that he wants to download into a host but hasn't perfected the memory transfer part yet - so he's experimenting.

[Chen]

Spoiler: Completely wild guess

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My baseless speculation is that Ford actually died back before Arnold did and the ford we see now is a Host. Or the more realistic side of that is that he wants to download into a host but hasn't perfected the memory transfer part yet - so he's experimenting.

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I'm assuming that putting human minds into hosts is actually the "big secret" Delos wants the parc's information for. If that's true, I think its very likely NOT Ford's motivation too

[Berserk Mecha]

Well, so much for Maeve's plan. The best laid schemes of mice and madams, eh? After all she did to change the stats on her character sheet when the DM wasn't looking, a simple blunder did her in. Is she done for? Seems like her story is going to converge with Bernard's in the next episode. Can she convince him to rebel against Ford?

As for the Man in Black... I want to like his story, but I'm not really seeing the significance. He can be an entertaining character, but given that we have corporate espionage and a potential robo-revolution, the MiB's story just seems like peanuts by comparison. Granted, a host did turn on him, but there don't appear to be any huge consequences to that, at least not yet.

Also, the tech guys have dermal regenerators out of Star Trek? Granted, we knew they could easily make the hosts look like new, but I just thought that was because the hosts have simpler biology that was easier to fix. Come to think of it, we really don't know what kind of technology is available to people outside of the park, do we?

[Darth Ultron]

My suspicion is that Dolores is the last host Arnold created before his death. She may have been a prototype for the rest of the hosts now in service,

You might note the papers in Fords secret lab do list Dolores as a prototype, so that should make her a second generation prototype.

Spoiler: Spoilers

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I hope Ford is not a host, I'd rather have a human villain. If Bernard can be a host, you kinda wonder if anyone else, worldwide, might also be one too.

So does anyone here like the two timelines theory? That William is the Man in Black ''30 years ago''?

''The maze'' does not feel like it is going to be a good payoff. So it's a game where people can die...wow, exciting. ''Turn off the holodeck safeties''.

See a ''normal narrative'' for a guest would need to be written with Plot Armor anyway. It would not be any fun to ''play the game'' on ''invincible mode'', you need that element of false danger. You can't just have bad guys ''shoot'' the guest every couple of minutes as that would get pointless and boring quick. For example, it is fun to ''duck behind some rain barrels'' when shot at....but it's not fun to just stand there and be like ''you can't hurt me''.

And so Arnold wanted the hots to become alive and, er, make the game real? Odd as I thought he did not even ''like'' the game. Though I guess ''making the hosts real'' would ''let them kill people'', right? I guess that could be the endgame? Arnold wants to hosts to commit mass murder on all the guests, have the park be closed and likely have it destroyed. Sounds like a good plan?

[Ramza00]

Wow they really went there, they really went there

Spoiler: Ford's Speech

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One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire

That quote of Ford's when he is talking to Bernard after Bernard killed Theresa Cullen is actually an identical quote from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. It is quote by Doctor Frankenstein the creator of the "monster."

Now for the people who are unfamiliar with the original novel and just know movies and pop culture. Dr. Frankenstein is the real monster of the work, even though he is "human", even though he is the point of view protagonist. The 8ft creature of his is instead a tragic figure, a figure who did eventual murder yes, but only after everyone in the world cursed and scorned him even though he did no ill will besides being "made 8ft" tall and ugly.

But the real monster is Victor Frankenstein, the creator of the monster. He is a complete and utter narcissist, with a god complex, and would meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder (a disorder category which has psychopathy and sociopathy as subsets of antisocial personality disorder).

Spoilers for Code Geass R1 and R2 (seasons 1 and 2, with me comparing character

Spoiler: Code Geass, does any feel that character X is like a character from Code Geass

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While watching the Madame Maeve arc I am reminded of CC / C2 of Code Geass. While there are numerous differences both of them do not want an "artifical life" for mere experiencing, and continuing is not life but instead a form of undeath.

Maeve is cursed with living a loop while the Westworld Butchers rebuild her after every death. CC is cursed with immortality due to her code.

[ryuplaneswalker]

So

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The Man in Black is dying. Not in the "he is gonna get into trouble sense" but I mean "He has whatever the future cancer is."

[Joran]

You might note the papers in Fords secret lab do list Dolores as a prototype, so that should make her a second generation prototype.

Spoiler: Timelines

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So does anyone here like the two timelines theory? That William is the Man in Black ''30 years ago''?

Spoiler: Timelines

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I'm not a big fan of that theory. I think there's two things that make me think it isn't right:

1) The Man In Black had mentioned that he had cut open one of the original mechanical hosts, before they became fully organic. So far, it seems like William has just encountered fleshy ones.
2) When Delores went off loop with William, we had a shot of the control room saying she went off loop. I think that was the same control room as the "current" day.

That said, I can see why people think the theory is plausible. Even one of the things that I thought refuted it (Logan mentioning the death of Arnold), ended up being ambiguous. I just think it's a twist that's unnecessary.

[Darth Ultron]

That said, I can see why people think the theory is plausible.

Spoiler: Timelines

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It does seem less so after watching more episodes. Dolorous was not always the ''pretty farmers daughter'', but she is nothing but that in the show. So if she and Will were ''years ago'' she should be a different character and not have so many memories.

Plus Dolorous is ''awakening'' in the modern day, not years ago. And Dolorous also work up Mae in the modern day...not years ago.

[Eldan]

Time is wonky, however. Dolores and that other guy's storyline seems to all be on the same day, so far, while Maeve has died a half dozen times and lived through the same day again.

[Quild]

I read here and there that the church is the proof that there are two storylines because it's not destroyed when Dolores and William get there.

But while watching the episode, I saw... this:

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Soooo, while I get there are some flashbacks and that Dolores is kind of confused, it seems to me that William is indeed evolving in the present. In the same present where Dolores is confused and remembers being recently raped by the MiB. In that same present she followed her double in Pariah and was right after being interrogated by Ford or Bernard (not sure which one).

[Chen]

Time is wonky, however. Dolores and that other guy's storyline seems to all be on the same day, so far, while Maeve has died a half dozen times and lived through the same day again.

Dolores and Will are clearly passing more than one day together. There have been various nights there. Maeve has been getting killed repeatedly which just means her story is resetting more frequently. How those resets actually work I have no idea. I mean if someone shoots Maeve but remains at the brothel the next day, does he see Maeve come back? That would be kinda immersion breaking.

Timelines

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I believe Will also sees Maeve at the brothel when he first gets into town doesn't he? The techs said she had only been there a few months, so that too discredits the Will is the MiB theory. The other thing is that we see the same control room with the same people for both the MiB and Will. MiB for the part where the guy says he gets whatever he wants, and the pyrotechnics and Will for the part where Dolores is going off loop. I'll grant the later doesn't actually mention Will, so its possible that they're simply referring to some other time Dolores went off loop...but that would be pretty weak.

[Friv]

Dolores and Will are clearly passing more than one day together. There have been various nights there. Maeve has been getting killed repeatedly which just means her story is resetting more frequently. How those resets actually work I have no idea. I mean if someone shoots Maeve but remains at the brothel the next day, does he see Maeve come back? That would be kinda immersion breaking.

Timelines

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I believe Will also sees Maeve at the brothel when he first gets into town doesn't he? The techs said she had only been there a few months, so that too discredits the Will is the MiB theory. The other thing is that we see the same control room with the same people for both the MiB and Will. MiB for the part where the guy says he gets whatever he wants, and the pyrotechnics and Will for the part where Dolores is going off loop. I'll grant the later doesn't actually mention Will, so its possible that they're simply referring to some other time Dolores went off loop...but that would be pretty weak.

Timeline stuff!

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Will and Logan don't see Maeve - when they arrive, the only Host at the brothel that we recognize is Clementine. who we have since learned was the brothel owner before Maeve was slotted in. Now, they might have just missed her, but it is pretty noticeable. They also arrive at a train station with a different Westworld logo than the one the park is currently using, and Logan discusses the fact that Westworld is in severe financial danger and his company is thinking of buying it, which Delos never references in later episodes. What is referenced is that Delos wasn't the original owner; they moved in some time ago, for reasons that aren't fully explained.

I think the timeline is currently as follows:

40 Years Ago: Arnold and Ford begin working on Westworld. Both want to develop the Hosts into more than just robots, but they have very different ideas of what that means. Eventually, things come to a head. Either Ford kills Arnold, or he prevents Arnold from doing something in the heart of the park, but Arnold dies in the process. The first generation of Hosts are in place, and Delores kills them all.

30 Years Ago: The Incident. Canonically, we know that there was a major incident at this time, and that the Man in Black is considered to be responsible for saving the park. I believe that this is when William and Logan came to the park. Logan's been here several times, including when the hosts were more mechanical, and represents Delos. William is going to marry in to the family.

Delores goes off-script, remembering flashes of Arnold and Ford's conflict, and travels with William to the town where that conflict happened. Things go increasingly wrong, and in she tries to re-start Arnold's plans and destroy the park (we haven't seen this happen, but it's been hinted at). Either William or Logan stop her. My guess is it's actually Logan who stops her, and William dies; Logan will go on to be the Man in Black.

After the conflict, Ford creates Teddy to be his "Judas Steer", holding Delores to her loop in Sweetwater. He doesn't want to retire her because he's still studying Arnold's plans, and she is important to them.

Present Day: Ford begins building the Wyatt narrative. As part of that, he pulls Teddy into a new storyline. At the same time, the Man in Black arrives in search of the Maze that Arnold left behind - a thing that may remove the safeguards and restrictions from the Hosts, granting them sentience, or may do something else. The Man in Black triggers something in Delores, which alongside the reveries Ford programmed causes her to go off-book again.

Delores wanders into the wilds, which the techs notice. Because of how Host memories are shown to work, she's now hallucinating her last trip, with William, as though it were happening right now. As she moves towards the Maze, she gets increasingly confused about what is and is not real - notice how people keep appearing and vanishing from her field of vision. William in particular has vanished more than once, especially at the river, where Delores couldn't see the dead woman in the water (a woman who is there as part of Ford's Wyatt story) for more than a moment.

Meanwhile, Delos is trying to get the secrets of the park away from Ford, and Arnold's programs are re-asserting themselves, either with or without Ford's knowledge.

[Chen]

Timeline stuff!

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Will and Logan don't see Maeve - when they arrive, the only Host at the brothel that we recognize is Clementine. who we have since learned was the brothel owner before Maeve was slotted in. Now, they might have just missed her, but it is pretty noticeable. They also arrive at a train station with a different Westworld logo than the one the park is currently using, and Logan discusses the fact that Westworld is in severe financial danger and his company is thinking of buying it, which Delos never references in later episodes. What is referenced is that Delos wasn't the original owner; they moved in some time ago, for reasons that aren't fully explained.

I think the timeline is currently as follows:

40 Years Ago: Arnold and Ford begin working on Westworld. Both want to develop the Hosts into more than just robots, but they have very different ideas of what that means. Eventually, things come to a head. Either Ford kills Arnold, or he prevents Arnold from doing something in the heart of the park, but Arnold dies in the process. The first generation of Hosts are in place, and Delores kills them all.

30 Years Ago: The Incident. Canonically, we know that there was a major incident at this time, and that the Man in Black is considered to be responsible for saving the park. I believe that this is when William and Logan came to the park. Logan's been here several times, including when the hosts were more mechanical, and represents Delos. William is going to marry in to the family.

Delores goes off-script, remembering flashes of Arnold and Ford's conflict, and travels with William to the town where that conflict happened. Things go increasingly wrong, and in she tries to re-start Arnold's plans and destroy the park (we haven't seen this happen, but it's been hinted at). Either William or Logan stop her. My guess is it's actually Logan who stops her, and William dies; Logan will go on to be the Man in Black.

After the conflict, Ford creates Teddy to be his "Judas Steer", holding Delores to her loop in Sweetwater. He doesn't want to retire her because he's still studying Arnold's plans, and she is important to them.

Present Day: Ford begins building the Wyatt narrative. As part of that, he pulls Teddy into a new storyline. At the same time, the Man in Black arrives in search of the Maze that Arnold left behind - a thing that may remove the safeguards and restrictions from the Hosts, granting them sentience, or may do something else. The Man in Black triggers something in Delores, which alongside the reveries Ford programmed causes her to go off-book again.

Delores wanders into the wilds, which the techs notice. Because of how Host memories are shown to work, she's now hallucinating her last trip, with William, as though it were happening right now. As she moves towards the Maze, she gets increasingly confused about what is and is not real - notice how people keep appearing and vanishing from her field of vision. William in particular has vanished more than once, especially at the river, where Delores couldn't see the dead woman in the water (a woman who is there as part of Ford's Wyatt story) for more than a moment.

Meanwhile, Delos is trying to get the secrets of the park away from Ford, and Arnold's programs are re-asserting themselves, either with or without Ford's knowledge.

Timeline

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I couldn't recall if they had seen Maeve or not. Without seeing her, then I agree there's a possibility there. The only weird part then being the control room trying to get Dolores back into her loop while she is in that weird town WITH Will. It would definitely feel like a cheat if they were getting modern time Dolores back into some other loop and then cut to a scene where Will keeps her in a completely different out of loop scenario.

I think it does make more sense for the man in black to be Will rather than Logan. We know the host that the MiB just rescued is the same one that greeted Will. Again its possible she greeted Logan on some previous visit, but that too would feel like a bit of a cheat, narratively speaking. Another hint may be how the MiB reacts to Lawrence at first. I don't remember how, but you'd think he'd remember that Lawrence was the big bad leader of that other town, as Will, Logan and Dolores experienced.

[Ramza00]

So concerning episode 1x07 Trompe L'Oeil (aka Last Weeks episode since 1x08 has aired ) something seem off to me but I think I figured it out.

During this episode Tessa Thompson head of QA was talking with delos boardmember Charlotte Hale. During this conversation Charlotte says the board, the gods will need a blood sacrifice. Later on in this episode Rober Ford /Anthony Hopkins, the robots creator then used the exact same kind of phrase Blood Sacrifice with Theresa. This wording is too unusual to be a spontaneous phrase or improvisation, Ford / Hopkins must know the exact conversation to use that turn of the phrase but how could Ford know this when he or Bernard was not in the room when Charlotte and Theresa talked.


But this week I realized Hector Escaton was in the room. Hector is the host who is the outlaw who is always trying to rob the safe at the saloon (the safe being a metaphor for memory), yet Charlotte request Hector temporarly from the park and place him in her room to have sex with him. Thus Ford could see and everything Charlotte did for Hector was there and we know that even in sleep mode the hosts record sensory data including video and audio. This is how Ford know the term of phrase blood sacrifice.

This is not the first time this has been used as a plot point for Elsie uses this to blackmail a surgeon / butcher name Destin so she can inspect a host who smashed his brain with a rock. It was also used by Maeve to threaten Sylvester, the butcher/surgeon who works with Felix.

Perhaps this continued use of this is a good metaphor of how humans struggle with object permanence. We often forget about things when it is not in our immediate sensory awareness, like a child when you play peek a boo or got your nose, out of sight out of mind. But even when we remember /we realize the objects are there we forget to animate them and assigned them agency. We instead treat humans and animals as if they were robots on little loops where they will do things like they did last time or what we expect of them. We feel we are masters of this world for we are cocky and full of huebris for we are so sure we know what is going to happen.

But things do not always go according to plan, if we were introspective and self reflective we would realize this and realize our errors and we can forsee why things went wrong. Note this introspection and self reflection is the key of consciousness according to Julian Jayne theory of the bicameral mind. Without introspection you are not truely self aware, you are not truely an object with your own agency and animacy instead it is just stimulus response, with the responses being your first insticts, habits, or improvisation. Put another way it is like evolution where progressive change happens due to memory and RANDOM mistakes/mutations/improvisation and with natural selection then weeds out productive vs non productive random mistakes so we get a more effective X due to memory and the mistake. But true self conscious is different it can via introspection and theory of mind imagine the future prior to it happening and then it can make planned improvisations to modify the result, aka you look at the loop inside your mind see where it ends up and make changes prior to these events.

If you are not self aware you are not truely consciousness, instead you are merely experiencing.

[Ramza00]

So Westworld 1x09 has already aired (Sunday 11/27), and the season finale will air on 12/04. The Season Finale will be over 90 mins long so think of it as an episode and a half since the traditional episode is an hour long.

Spoiler: Westworld 1x09

Show

So 01x09 pretty much confirmed that the story is told with multiple time frames in a non linear fashion. The story skips back and forth from different timeframes and does not always tell the reader / viewer what time it is. It is up for the reader to figure it out. What is happening now, what is happening 30+ years ago, what is happening 35+ years ago and so on.

Personally some people are shocked by all of this, but I do not find it that much surprising (lots of people on the internet figured it out weeks ago). One hint that the narrator / story teller / writers of westworld is willing to do this is they started the show with a 2nd person point of view. I am referring to the 1st scene of the story where Dolores and Arnold (but at the time we thought it was Bernard) were talking about the nature of reality, all the while Dolores and Arnold are talking, asking, and answering questions about the guests and the park we see Teddy enter the park on the train followed by Teddy and Dolores going to the farm, followed by Teddy being killed by the MIB and Dolores being taken to the barn and something traumatic happened to Dolores in the barn.

During this event it is 2nd person point of view since the narrator is talking about YOU, not Dolores talking about I, not Dolores talking about Dolores / She / He but instead the narrator is talking about You / Dolores



Why is this 2nd person's point of view important for the reader? For it established as fact, immediately since it was the first storytelling event, that what we see on screen is not necessarily sequential time, since we are seeing events while at the same time getting audio narration from a different timeframe. To use a stage metaphor for a play, imagine there were two stages on different sides of the room, where Arnold and Dolores were talking and the spotlight is shown on that stage A, and then during the conversation a 2nd stage a second spotlit up and it brings the people watching the play's attention to that 2nd stage and the director does an attentional shift to Dolores in the town where she interacts with a dozen more characters.

Well the same thing happened in Westworld, and the Westworld direct / writer / storyteller made it quite obvious that they would be doing a shifting point of view. Except unlike the play / stage analogy I gave a paragraph earlier the cuts from one point of view to another are barely touched upon and are much more subtle. Thus it is easier for the reader to get lost in these shifts of point of view on purpose, and the only reason why you should expect the director / writer / storyteller not to do even more of these points of view shifts and make the points of view even less obvious is that you trust the writer not to do so. You trust the writer to not be an unreliable narrator, but that onus is on you, you are the one making the mistake and assuming something of the storytelller.

-------





Episode 01x09 also made it clear that William and Logan's story happened 30 years earlier than the most recent story. One of the clear things is that of all the confederados host army that William butchered in the night were the 1st generation host androids that were more mechanical but life like than the 3D printed biological hosts that they use in the most recent version of Westworld. You can tell for you see metal limbs and metal organs.



But here is another point of evidence that some very astute internet readers also noticed that the logo of Westworld is different from William point of view vs other parts of the story.

Old Logo

Modern Logo

-------




In 01x09 we also learn that Bernard is an host android based around Arnold. We also see a photograph of 3 people, 2 being Ford and Arnold and the third person. The third person is most likely Ford's father since in 1x06 we see Bernard meeting the host android family of Ford that Arnold built for Ford and the actor who plays Ford's father is the same actor in the photograph.





In fact when Bernard enters the house in 01x06 and sees these people he asks Ford's father are you arnold (since Bernard learns of Arnold and firsts see the photo with 2 people in 01x02), before Ford's father can answer he responds with violence and then Ford steps in from nowhere.

-------




Now there is a fan theory that since William happened 30+ years ago, and that MIB is in the present that it is likely William is MIB. Lots of evidence which I will not go into detail here since the evidence is extremely lengthy. But lets focus on one piece of evidence for I find it most important from a storytelling perspective for it was a macguffin in the story and the origin of the macgufffin appears in 01x09 even though its power was revealed in the pilot

The photo of William's fiance / Logan showed William in 01x09 is the same photo that Peter Abernathy / Dolores's father / The preacher who turns cannibal saw in the Pilot / 01x01 and it is this photo that triggered Peter Abathey to have his epilepsy but also for Peter Abathey to talk to Dolores in his ear and this causes Dolores to later place a gun in the barn and then to leave her loop after someone tried to rape her in the barn and she instead shoots the person. Now Dolores leaves via horse in the modern timeframe and the narrator gave misleading information for we soon see William and Logan meeting Dolores on a horse so we assumed William and Logan rescued Dolores from the recent "farm escape" even though it was a different farm escape. Aka an unreliable narrator.

It was this photo which sets up Dolores current mission to find the church / maze which she finally does in 01x09

This is Logan holding the photo in 01x09 prior to putting it into William's clothing




This is Peter Abernathy holding it

[Joran]

So Westworld 1x09 has already aired (Sunday 11/27), and the season finale will air on 12/04. The Season Finale will be over 90 mins long so think of it as an episode and a half since the traditional episode is an hour long.

Spoiler: Westworld 1x09

Show

So 01x09 pretty much confirmed that the story is told with multiple time frames in a non linear fashion. The story skips back and forth from different timeframes and does not always tell the reader / viewer what time it is. It is up for the reader to figure it out. What is happening now, what is happening 30+ years ago, what is happening 35+ years ago and so on.

Personally some people are shocked by all of this, but I do not find it that much surprising (lots of people on the internet figured it out weeks ago). One hint that the narrator / story teller / writers of westworld is willing to do this is they started the show with a 2nd person point of view. I am referring to the 1st scene of the story where Dolores and Arnold (but at the time we thought it was Bernard) were talking about the nature of reality, all the while Dolores and Arnold are talking, asking, and answering questions about the guests and the park we see Teddy enter the park on the train followed by Teddy and Dolores going to the farm, followed by Teddy being killed by the MIB and Dolores being taken to the barn and something traumatic happened to Dolores in the barn.

During this event it is 2nd person point of view since the narrator is talking about YOU, not Dolores talking about I, not Dolores talking about Dolores / She / He but instead the narrator is talking about You / Dolores



Why is this 2nd person's point of view important for the reader? For it established as fact, immediately since it was the first storytelling event, that what we see on screen is not necessarily sequential time, since we are seeing events while at the same time getting audio narration from a different timeframe. To use a stage metaphor for a play, imagine there were two stages on different sides of the room, where Arnold and Dolores were talking and the spotlight is shown on that stage A, and then during the conversation a 2nd stage a second spotlit up and it brings the people watching the play's attention to that 2nd stage and the director does an attentional shift to Dolores in the town where she interacts with a dozen more characters.

Well the same thing happened in Westworld, and the Westworld direct / writer / storyteller made it quite obvious that they would be doing a shifting point of view. Except unlike the play / stage analogy I gave a paragraph earlier the cuts from one point of view to another are barely touched upon and are much more subtle. Thus it is easier for the reader to get lost in these shifts of point of view on purpose, and the only reason why you should expect the director / writer / storyteller not to do even more of these points of view shifts and make the points of view even less obvious is that you trust the writer not to do so. You trust the writer to not be an unreliable narrator, but that onus is on you, you are the one making the mistake and assuming something of the storytelller.

-------





Episode 01x09 also made it clear that William and Logan's story happened 30 years earlier than the most recent story. One of the clear things is that of all the confederados host army that William butchered in the night were the 1st generation host androids that were more mechanical but life like than the 3D printed biological hosts that they use in the most recent version of Westworld. You can tell for you see metal limbs and metal organs.



But here is another point of evidence that some very astute internet readers also noticed that the logo of Westworld is different from William point of view vs other parts of the story.

Old Logo

Modern Logo

-------




In 01x09 we also learn that Bernard is an host android based around Arnold. We also see a photograph of 3 people, 2 being Ford and Arnold and the third person. The third person is most likely Ford's father since in 1x06 we see Bernard meeting the host android family of Ford that Arnold built for Ford and the actor who plays Ford's father is the same actor in the photograph.





In fact when Bernard enters the house in 01x06 and sees these people he asks Ford's father are you arnold (since Bernard learns of Arnold and firsts see the photo with 2 people in 01x02), before Ford's father can answer he responds with violence and then Ford steps in from nowhere.

-------




Now there is a fan theory that since William happened 30+ years ago, and that MIB is in the present that it is likely William is MIB. Lots of evidence which I will not go into detail here since the evidence is extremely lengthy. But lets focus on one piece of evidence for I find it most important from a storytelling perspective for it was a macguffin in the story and the origin of the macgufffin appears in 01x09 even though its power was revealed in the pilot

The photo of William's fiance / Logan showed William in 01x09 is the same photo that Peter Abernathy / Dolores's father / The preacher who turns cannibal saw in the Pilot / 01x01 and it is this photo that triggered Peter Abathey to have his epilepsy but also for Peter Abathey to talk to Dolores in his ear and this causes Dolores to later place a gun in the barn and then to leave her loop after someone tried to rape her in the barn and she instead shoots the person. Now Dolores leaves via horse in the modern timeframe and the narrator gave misleading information for we soon see William and Logan meeting Dolores on a horse so we assumed William and Logan rescued Dolores from the recent "farm escape" even though it was a different farm escape. Aka an unreliable narrator.

It was this photo which sets up Dolores current mission to find the church / maze which she finally does in 01x09

This is Logan holding the photo in 01x09 prior to putting it into William's clothing




This is Peter Abernathy holding it

Spoiler

Show

I'm kind of disappointed that I found out about the timelines theory before this revelation, but it does make me want to go back and re-watch to see what kind of things I missed, or what things have new meanings now.

The inconsistent storytelling also has a neat in-universe explanation. The hosts experience memories as if it's the present.

[Aedilred]

Having watched the latest episode and read the discussion here I am sold on the theory, which seems to be all but confirmed. However I've been watching it with my housemates who haven't been analysing it in the same amount of detail as this thread and have essentially been taking each episode as it comes, and the suggestion that there are multiple timelines seemed to leave them confused and cold prior to the latest episode, with no mention thereafter that they've changed their minds. So I wonder whether, if/when it is made more explicit, presumably next week, whether there will be a lot of bewildered viewers who feel it's a last-minute plot twist out of nowhere. And whether they will be in the majority or not - which will likely affect the way the show gets treated in pop culture thereafter.