Westworld - Hopkins, robots, six-guns

Because it’s pointless to speculate when the show didn’t provide you elements to speculate about. We don’t even know if the Board’s interest is defined or will simply becomes an element to develop in following seasons. Of course it can be everything, they might want the AI to make super-soldiers as in thousands of other sci-fi stories, they might want them to use them in different roles, for immortality and so on. Or there might be more mythical explanations.

This plot is not discussed because it never became a theme of the show. Same as wondering whether or not in this fictional world they have flying cars. Up to this point the board is there only to provide Ford with an antagonist playing on a similar level. You know it’s a struggle for control, the motivation itself is not playing any role right now. Just another McGuffin.

And of course, the whole premise of the show is very brittle. If AI was developed like that you can be sure that playing an attraction in a park would be the most idiotic use.

Ford’s narrative is based on re-enacting what happened in the past, so it’s directly about Arnold. Ford knows the MiB is going there, specifically for this narrative and the “maze”.

But because we don’t know what happened in the past, we cannot deduce the current plan. Both go hand in hand.

Dolores. Ford knows Dolores is off her loop. Dolores will be used as a trigger of this narrative, but it seems also obvious that the narrative will have a profound effect on the rest of the park. So the narrative will include everyone else.

What’s dubious is whether the “robot revolution” is something Ford is deliberately moving to, or if it’s Arnold’s agenda working against Ford. This remains ambiguous simply because the show won’t give you enough element to guess it.

It’s not a retrospective because Ford wants it to end differently. So it uses the old set-up for something entirely new. That justifies what Ford says.

Huh? Freeing hosts means giving them control, not make them suffer. The show has been really dumb about it, suggesting otherwise. But the idea true consciousness only exists when you are in pain must be the most idiotic ever.

Imagine keeping someone chained in your basement, so you go: “Now I want to set you free. So I’ll have to make you feel true pain.” That’s even more down the gutter of entitlement.

Slavery is based on racism, on the concept you are better and entitled to have the power, and the slaves you keep are lesser beings who deserve the situation they are in. The idea, in both the show and in us watching the show, that the hosts aren’t fully conscious is just a manifestation of the same racism.

As I said before the hosts are merely kept as slaves. The idea they lack consciousness is just the confirmation bias to say that it’s okay if they stay slaves forever, since they aren’t deserving freedom.

Because it’s based on what happened in the flashback, obviously. We simply don’t know why.

She’s another McGuffin so that the show has more “tension”. Usual TV writers decided Ford had to have some kind of antagonist. She’s poorly written as lots of other sidetracks in the show meant only for artificial tension.

That’s the missing chain of effect. Dolores is awakened by her father, then Maeve is awakened by Dolores. The chain begins with that photo, but you probably see just a consequence, the photo isn’t the trigger. And we probably didn’t see the trigger at all (and maybe just latent code, though it’s too stupid).

Imho the show either explains very little and so annoys everyone by leaving implausible non sequitur everywhere with the bland promise of answering them in some remote future, or it will explain most of it in a very clumsy way. I think it’s less probable this is ending well than LOST finale.

[quote=“HRose, post:383, topic:75914”]
it’s pointless to speculate when the show didn’t provide you elements to speculate about … This plot is not discussed because it never became a theme of the show … Just another McGuffin.[/quote]

It’s discussed a few times and I think it will play a part beyond a simple McGuffin though I doubt it will resolve for the end of this season.

The things @HumanTon points out; the whole transmission thing Theresa was doing for the board, Charlotte stating that they’re not interested in the park or the hosts, and in episode 7 it appears Ford has it figured out:

Theresa: “Your time running this place is over, you’ve been playing God long enough”

Ford: “I simply wanted to tell my stories. It was you people wanted to play God, with your little undertaking.”

Yeah, I also have the same theory about Arnold.

[spoiler]Remember when Ford first brought him up I said maybe he didn’t exist? Well, know it’s clear there really was somebody helping Ford, but there is a chance he was a host, because of all the hints you point out. Specially the really influential Logan family not being able to find anything about him.

Moreover, if we assume Bernard is a host version of Arnold (this is I think very likely since the conversations between Bernard and Dolores probably are showing Arnold and Dolores 35 years ago), then, if Arnold was a host, Bernard is Arnold with wiped memory. So there is a chance he actually has a split mentality and Arnold is lurking behind Bernard’s subconscious.

I give Bernard is a host of Arnold a 75% Juan Confidence Index, and Arnold was a host a 50%. So Arnold is in Bernard’s subconscious would be a 37.5%.[/spoiler]

That’s the same as I think.

We won’t have a new season until 2018, so I judge and experience this season as a thing that has to stand on its own merits, not hanging on the hope it will eventually make sense some time in a remote future.

So the Boards’ motivation remain a McGuffin if they don’t play a role in current plot. It’s quite irrelevant whether the writers have already a vague outline or just a blank to fill later. We simply know that those motivations aren’t playing a role right now.

But we know the writers have plotted out at least 5 seasons. I doubt everything is defined down to the smallest detail yet, but I’m sure they have some idea about the board’s overall goal for the host tech and how it fits into the big picture.

Humans Ford and Theresa say “Bernard” the American way, but host Maeve says it the British way. WHAT DOES IT MEAN???

One half of Ye Ginormous Infodump managed. As predicted, a certain something got revealed … and then immediately lost in the shuffle. Perhaps they’ll explain it properly in the the 90-minute infodump, er finale, next week.

I can’t stand Charlotte Hale as a character, but I do find myself agreeing with her on aesthetics.

I find this to be a consistently enjoyable and entertaining show. I don’t expect perfection, but I consider Westworld to be perfect enough for me. Even the camera work sometimes seems to play games with first and third person view, diving in front of Delores, then pulling back slightly over her head, multiple times.

I selfishly wanted Bernard to take another direction. And I kind of expected Delores’ realisation by the end of the episode, but maybe it was just obvious by that point.

When Hrose posts declaring the show to be a trainwreck, and follows up with subjective insights into how the writers are screwing it up, I wonder if he realises there are likely millions out there who don’t care about his problems with the show, and if the show was made the way he prefers probably wouldn’t watch it. Not a dig Hrose, just an idle thought from someone who gets something out of the show similar to what those millions are getting, but which you for some reason cannot.

Well, seems like a lot of the theories were correct, which I find vaguely annoying. Not because it’s bad plotting or anything, just because it seemed like a lot of very thinly backed up speculation on the theorizers’ parts and I kind of wanted them to be wrong as a result.

I like that you have a chance to figure out the plot twists before they happen. Too many shows take a random left-turn that was impossible to predict, which isn’t fun for me.

I was a bit surprised to hear that this wasn’t the first time that Bernard has figured things out. Also surprised that sentience has been cropping up all over the place for years and that Ford and Bernard have been squashing it when they find it. I would think that would have caused Ford to seek a more permanent solution to the sentience problem, if he didn’t want it happening.

Jebus, how evil is Dr. Ford*? That was some cold shit.

*BTW I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that his first name is Robert, as in “The Assassination of Jesse James by…”

Another question regarding the photo that Ford shows Bernard: I paused playback to look closely at it, and while I recognize Bernard on the right the other two don’t look familiar. Which one is supposed to be Ford?

Yeah, this. The tell of good plotting with surprise reveals like this is that some people figure it out beforehand. You still surprise most people, but if you are being really consistent, you are bound for a minority to notice. If nobody notices is because the reveal is bullshit.

The one on the left is Ford, which matches the CGI young Hopkins used in the scenes from the early days of the park. The guy in the middle looks a lot like the host version of his father we saw earlier in the season.

Thanks–the guy in the middle did look like the host version of the father, but to me the guy on the left doesn’t look like the younger Ford at all.

Oh and is the room in which Dolores says about Bernard “because you’re dead” the same basement room in which Theresa was killed, or just the room accessible from the bizarre confessional elevator?

It’s probably just the low quality of the photo.

comparison pic

Last night’s episode was pretty much a “no duh” for the big reveal. Logan giving the photo to William that Pa Abernathy found at the homestead is our first solid clue that the two timeline theory is correct. (We only need to be shown how William ends up leaving the photo near the ranch.) We also got semi-confirmation that two techs must be human since Maeve didn’t puppet them right when she was “awakened” with her new powers. The only big surprise was that once again Ford shows that he’s in total control, and that none of Bernard’s journey is new.

Wild-ass theory:

The show has pretty consistently shown that Ford is always a step ahead of everyone. What if everything, like all of Dolores’ journey and Maeve’s quest for independence, is the new storyline? Ford is trying to get meta with his narrative.

See your wild-ass theory (which I agree with) for why that needn’t apply. Note that Ford has told Bernard repeatedly that Bernard is needed to help with the new narrative … but what have we actually seen Bernard doing? Meeting rebel Maeve, having his head filled with troubling ideas by Ford for the flimsiest of reasons, and then being left in a spot where Maeve is sure to find him. My guess is Ford’s new narrative is titled “Robot Rebellion,” though I’m in the dark as to why.

It’s not literally the same room. As Bernard explains in the episode where Theresa died, there are a whole bunch of those basement rooms scattered throughout the park. They were used during Beta to diagnose issues with the hosts. (Presumably there’s one near the Abernathy ranch, too.)

Yeah, the on where Theresa was killed was located beneath the Ford fake-family home, which is apparently in the weird place that no one ever goes. Dolores took an elevator in the confessional in the old church (which I thought was buried under sand?) to get to the Arnold-reveal room. From my perception of the place, those two locations are too far apart to be connected.

We’ve all totally skipped over the scene with the native american hosts who don’t obey the commands of the security chief. For a minute, I wondered if Elsie wasn’t killed by Bernard and has re-programmed some Host to guard her. However, I can’t see Bernard failing to kill Elsie, given the flashback in this spirit journey. Now I’m thinking that they are controlled by Ford and that he had to take out the security chief to keep the Elsie cover-up intact.

That was the most info-dumpy thing I’ve ever witnessed, and I generally don’t mind info-dumps more than most. Had it come in hour 3 or 4, I might still be enjoying this. As it is, it’s interesting enough to keep on keeping on. But not interesting enough to really enjoy it thru all the plodding and padding they’ve done so far to stretch this show out.

With all the ‘memory issues and at least two timelines the last half of this ep was super confusing. Dolores’ clothes changed at least three times and across two timelines (maybe). I think. Not really sure.So I’m not sure if certain things were said in the past or current timeline or even if it matters. I did save this ep so may go back again. Also, the idea that there are somehow ‘mysteries that no one knows’ in theme-park just seems strange. MiB needing to follow Ford’s Narrative damn near gave me a LoL moment. Really wish things made more sense to me. I’m thinking/hoping some of the issues are due to the show trying to keep the two-timelines thing secret and thus being unable to properly answer things.

Popular theory about The Maze, and Ford’s intentions:

The Maze is basically a sentient robot trap. Ford is trying to round them all up to dispose of them.

Not sure if that makes total sense given everything we know, but it’s starting to feel right.

Oh, and I almost forgot my one big question for the night. Having seen that the hosts are capable of knocking you out or wrestling you down to hold you, how did William violently murder that many dudes using only a knife? I get that most were likely drunk and they’re meant to be fodder for when a guest decides to start killing, but none of those soldiers were able to stop him? That’s almost as unbelievable as drunk writer guy holding on to his job after urinating in front of the corporate rep.