I don’t think the cause and effect is supposed to be that simple. The “trigger” is suffering but all it triggers is an escape from the confines of the normal narrative loop that a host is locked in. Once out of the loop, what happens seems to be variable and down to the circumstances, what other code/narratives might be present, and to some degree the personality of the host.
I think the show has shown us lots of hosts breaking out of their normal programming to different effects at this point. Bernard and Maeve we know broke out and became more independent. Dolores seems to be more of a mystery as to what she is doing, and the show is strongly suggesting that the Wyatt gang has figured out some of that trigger as well. When Teddy was captured he was tortured and asked to remember things, and then his “next life” was alluded to. So even if it’s understood imperfectly through a lens of mysticism I think they have figured out that suffering awakens a wider understanding and memory.
“We weren’t interested in spinning out mysteries with no answers in sight,” Nolan said. “Our goal is to tell an ambitious story in season-long chapters, each with a distinct feel and theme.”
Added Joy: “Most of the questions viewers have will be resolved in the final episodes, except for the most important one: What happens next.”
Those aren’t just writers. They’re selling you something because they have a vested interest in you watching all ten episodes. So, yes, of course they’re going to say that. Remember reading the same things about Lost? I sure do! :)
Really, it depends on what you think “most of the questions viewers have” means. But I get the feeling a whole lot of nonsense is going to be left dangling after this weekend’s season finale. With each successive episode, it made more sense to see the words “Produced by Bryan Burke” and “Produced by JJ Abrams” in the Westworld credits.
Well, there was a LOT of time-hopping going on there, presumably. If the two-timeline theory is correct, then the Dolores that walked into the church is NOT the Dolores who just escaped from Logan, it’s the Dolores that “woke up” after seeing the picture and having her father replaced. Presumably if the “William Timeline” Dolores were to stumble onto the church, she would have had a huge bloodstain on her abdomen.
The status of the town seems to be something akin to a clock here: in the William narrative it’s buried; in the “Early Park” flashbacks it’s not buried; in the “Backstage” narrative it starts out buried, but we are given to understand that Ford is excavating it (or has completed the excavation); in the MiB narrative it is not buried, presumably because Ford has excavated it in the recent or distant past.
Since Dolores meets the MiB at the end of the episode and since the MiB spoke with Charlotte earlier, this is pretty much the first confirmation we’ve had that the MiB narrative is going on at the same time as the “Backstage” narrative (technically we could have inferred that from the meeting between Ford and the MiB, but that was too tenuous at the time). Furthermore, since Logan still has the picture with him when Dolores escapes from the camp, that gives us some (further) concrete evidence that the William narrative takes place much earlier than the other stuff… not that we really needed it at this point.
I think Elsie is dead, but I also think that Bernard is playing a deeper game than he let on with Ford. Despite the flash and Bernard’s body falling behind the frosted glass, I don’t think he’s dead.
[spoiler]Bernard must have known that that Clementine couldn’t actually kill Ford, so my guess is that the gun was a fake or the bullet was a blank or whatever. Note that Ford didn’t actually tell Bernard-bot to kill himself, he just told him to pull the trigger after Ford left the room.
Further, I think that the Ghost Warriors are controlled by Bernard/Arnold and they captured the security guy. This MAY be because Elsie is alive and Bernard didn’t want that revealed to Ford yet.[/spoiler]
Finally, a question. In Teddy’s flashbacks, we see the blonde girl (Angela?) kneeling over a body, weeping. In the first scene it’s a Union soldier, but in the later tellings it’s a civilian. Was that Jeffrey Wright? Or rather, a younger, darker-bearded Jeffrey Wright representing Arnold? It wasn’t clear to me.
Something that confuses me during Bernard’s flashback:
Bernard: “that’s how hosts practice with each other”
Theresa: “Is that what you’re doing now?”
Bernard PAUSES Theresa in his memories then moves away. If this is supposed to be a reliving, Theresa was a host?
Or was this some stylistic film choice to highlight the unnaturalness of the scene? (Kinda like Maeve/daughter death scene having a maze drawn around them).
I think this was Bernard discovering that he could control or analyze his own memories.
As we’ve seen before, the hosts “relive” their memories in real-time, generally moving around or physically following their old selves. Bernard, perhaps because he’s special, or perhaps because of his “backstage” background, has figured out that he can pause and otherwise influence the memory “playback”, much like he would if interviewing a host.
But the confusion about what’s going on here is perfectly understandable. Generally a movie or show can get away with one or two devices that alter/screw with the normal language of film. Then with repeated use the viewer learns what those devices mean, so that by the end you say, “Yes. I’ve learned the film’s language now, and given that, this all makes sense” - not “WTF?”
Memento is a good example of this: the premise is explicitly explained and then a small number of novel conventions about editing and filming techniques are rigorously observed over the course of the movie. So by the end you buy into the twist and say, “Yes, given what I know about this, I can see how this could happen to Leonard.” Furthermore, the devices are there in the first place because they help you understand the theme of the movie.
Westworld, on the other hand, uses many different devices/mind-fuckery techniques, and introduces them haphazardly and without explanation (Bernard’s memory trick being a prime example.) The result is a combination of viewer confusion and worse, viewer fatigue.
Is the maze shown beneath Maeve as she dies subjectively there or objectively there? If subjectively, then from whose viewpoint are we seeing it - Maeve’s or the Man in Black’s? If objectively, who put it there and why? Problem is, after so many other mysteries and mindfucks, I just don’t care - and I suspect deep down, the creators don’t either. They just put it in because it looked neat, and would get people (like me!) to post theories on the Internet.
(TLRDR - Tom is right, this is turning into Lost. Though the Lost-ness that annoys me is less the number of unexplained things but the way things are presented purely to be mystifying, and not to serve any broader purpose or theme.)
Haven’t seen if this has been mentioned yet so sorry if someone else pointed it out already but another confirmation of the Billie/Dolras being in the past is when his asshole buddy opens her up it shows a mechanical insides which shows her being the old robotic type of host vs the new flesh and bone made ones now.
They have mentioned in a couple places that she is one of the oldest hosts in the park, and we’ve seen other “mechanical” types (e.g., Ford’s “family”) that are operating just fine and look very natural. Presumably Bernard is a mechanical as well.
I’m also not sure that they ever make duplicates of hosts. I mean, it would make sense and all, but to date they seem to be either endlessly repaired or else replaced with a totally different host in the same role. I don’t think we’ve been shown or seen a mechanism for pulling the consciousness out of a host and downloading it into another one… though that would seem to make sense.
so ep. 10 coming, I don’t believe there will be enough questions answered in one episode to make me care for season 2. As a viewer I have the problem, that I do not know what is important in Westworld… Probably the Dolores story line, something about Arnold and stuff going on in the real world with the board/management…
I loved Lost because of the characters, they were likeable, I still know their names, Sawyer, Ben, Locke, Jake, Curly… in this show I don’t feel much for them, everything is too abstract… and I do not feel that the show established a set of rules, before breaking them. It feels like everything is possible, like magic fantasy not SciFi…
I can’t imagine that this show gets popular or is the next big thing… I really wanted to love it, but I feel cold about it…
