Anybody watching? I loved the movie as a kid, so I've been anticipating this for a while.

I love westerns and sci-fi so the blend piques my interest.

I thought the first episode was solid and gave us a good glimpse of the layers of the show moving forward.

I'll be watching it for sure.

It really sets a creepy tone leading to the obvious point about the "hosts". I feel like its well acted. Ed Harris plays intimidating so well his Man in Black in most def a step above Brynner's. Btw Props for Marsden. Always been a fan of his and I hope he gets some good time.


It also has a great backstory thats an obvious nod to Future World, I just wonder how long a series like this can last due to the story, but I'm all in.


Someone said this on twitter "Why does Michael Crichton hate theme parks?"

The Next Week On has me hyped or whatever is to come. Looks intense.
When that last host was talking to Hopkins I was kinda uncomfortable.

but I'm not sure where it's going to go.

ed harris is like TAKE ME TO THE DEEPER LEVEL...ok

the only truly interesting thing is the pop droid finding the note or whatever it was.


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I'm still not so sure that the Man in Black is human.

Perhaps he is a robot that was "reassigned" a new role but remembers his more sinister role he has played in the past and also wants to find his maker? The hole in this theory is that he was shot and didn't die. However, we did see the Milk Bandit get shot and not die.

>I'm still not so sure that the Man in Black is human.
>
>Perhaps he is a robot that was "reassigned" a new role but
>remembers his more sinister role he has played in the past and
>also wants to find his maker? The hole in this theory is that
>he was shot and didn't die. However, we did see the Milk
>Bandit get shot and not die.

After the steam ended on HBO Now, there was a Behind the Scenes feature for that Ed Harris/James Mardsen scene. On the feature, James Mardsen said Ed Harris' character was human while he was a robot. Unless Mardsen is trolling and/or misinforming the audience willing or unwillingly, it appears The Man In Black isn't a robot. Your theory is an interesting one though and it almost makes me wish I didn't see that Behind the Scenes clip.

He mentioned people come there kill the bots (referencing murdering Natives) but he had done all of that and wanted to see what was behind the whole thing.

So he obviously knows it's a theme park but that could also just be he's the first one to become fully self-aware.

what's weird is that none of the folks running West World seem to care what he's doing. Maybe it's because the robots are easily replaceable and inanimate objects, but they don't seem to care about dude raping and scalping the robots. I guess that could be because we the audience can easily identify and relate with the robots, at least so far.

I guess thats going to be what this series is going to boil down what happens when the line becomes more than blurred.

But yea it's odd no one is even batting an eye at what dude is doing, makes me figure he's a guest that's gone over the deep end.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

but i suspect with that kind of damaging the merchandise he might have over stayed his welcome

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

shootouts are one thing given the Western motif, but raping and then scalping robots is a bit over the line IMO. I guess it remains to be seen what kind of character the Ed Harris character is outside of the robot reality.

I wonder if he's taking these steps because he wants attention from the folks running Westworld.

I get the raping thing, they are basically letting folks do what they want here, but the scalping? That screams "We have a problem here." I think dude has been there too long or too many times and now is digging deeper into what the park is about.

Also, there is the theme of what the company is doing cause they mention how the park is different things to the various stakeholders (an obvious nod to the plot of FutureWorld).

The Man in Black's motivations really are will be interesting to find out.

The shot of the scalp and what I assumed was the tech in it made me think he was out for that. Either corporate espionage or a military person/black market arms dealer trying to find a way to make robot soldiers.
Maybe fucking with the one girl was to establish that they won't remember it was him that did it or something.
You'd still think the people running the shop would be on it though.

Unrelated, part of me thinks Geoffrey Wright might be a robot.

>You'd still think the people running the shop would be on it
>though.


but things seem to be unraveling in general though
not on top of quite a few things...
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Then they showed later parts of the season and you can see The Man In Black w Marseden telling him something about him being a robot.

Also the shot of the symbol from dude's scalp drawn in sand with somebody laying in the middle told me it's not corporate or military.

I missed those.

Everything he says is that he's a guest. His not being able to be shot pretty clearly defines him as a guest and I think that was supposed to be the surprise since the man in black in the original is a robot.

Then he takes the one robot out and scalps him for what I assume is the tech that's lodged in the top of his head.

Does it make sense that people lost track of him? That during a time in which robots are going haywire that nobody pays much attention to him kidnapping a robot and making it go offline? Not really but I think we're supposed to just overlook that moment.

EDIT: I guess there could be some kind of suspension of disbelief about him being a robot that's gone rogue and somehow gotten out of the loop so he's deemed a guest but that might require an even bigger suspension of disbelief.

woke me the hell up when it played. Interesting show so far; is the the first sci-fi show HBO has done? I'm sure it isn't, but I'm curious how long of a leash HBO will give this show. I hope the ratings for this are huge. The Walking Dead returns soon if I'm not mistaken, so that could take some bite our of the numbers.

We're done really well and worked for both scenes. I hope they keep doing these piano covers going forward.

maybe
second time i was like
it is! and the the first as well
interesting!
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

And then realized that they were covering it.

>I hope
>they keep doing these piano covers going forward.

I guess it's a good thing I have streaming access versus having to watch the show live because I had to rewind the scene when I recognized what was playing; I had difficulty paying attention to the dialogue at first.

waiting for the mothballed AI's to go crazy

Nice to see J-No branch out from his bro a bit too

Didn't know he's behind Person of Interest but heard good things bout that one as well

I'm in.

And given the price, I wouldn't be stunned if it only saw two seasons.

Great pilot. Understated to the point that I could see a lot of people will be confused. But I was impressed. I read some mixed reviews but I thought it was a pretty great pilot.

I'm hoping this catches on. But it's a crowded field - The walking dead, game of thrones etc.

reviews for last nights episode.

I really like this cast.

I can't wait for next week.

>reviews for last nights episode.
>
>I really like this cast.
>
>I can't wait for next week.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

that's a hell of a pilot

didnt watch the 70s movie

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Can't wait to see where this goes

A bunch were like, this is no Game of Thrones.

I don't remember GoT first episode being this good.

Either it's not what people expected or the show falls off in later episodes and reviewers know this.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Critics only got four of the ten episodes but the complaint I've read the most is that the show doesn't come together to mean anything (an odd complaint after just four episodes) and that after two strong eps, there's a shift that the critics didn't like and that they didn't think was stronger than where the first two eps were heading. Or that the show doesn't know what it wants to be as the 3rd and 4th ep veer off course.

It's an especially odd critique because some of the critics writing it are the ones I believe who wrote thinkpieces about how people are judging shows too quickly and are demanding too many answers, etc. You can't win.

I'm guessing that the Game of Thrones complaint is that Thrones was a focused story whereas this one is more understated and meandering in the first four eps. Kind of an odd critique; says more about the viewer than the show IMO.

Random Trivia: The original Game of Thrones pilot was supposedly terrible and they had to do a lot of reshoots/editing to fix it.

I thought these critics were forgetting that GoT really wasn't an easy show to get into within the first 3 or 4 episodes.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I'm with the critics on that one but, at the same time, I don't know how you come away from that pilot and compare it to Game of Thrones. It's like comparing Mad Men to Walking Dead because they're both on AMC.

Not totally unexpected because folks were expecting HBOs next epic series after....


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I should have written "someone" or "critics" there; it wasn't intended to mean you specifically.

I just find it frustrating when critics take a shortcut like that, especially since it seems to hurt more original, out of the box shows that are hard to categorize. I mean, who knows, Westworld could go off the rails but I feel like the Game of Thrones comparisons/expectations don't help matters. Although I'm sure if the ratings drop, we'll start hearing a lot of Deadwood comparisons for the same reason.

It ultimately depends on how nebulous the show will proceed and if anything is spelled out or if anything is resolved. If the show doesn't spell things out clearly enough, the prediction you have about poor ratings may come true for future episodes, despite the fact the pilot episode was as highly rated at the pilot for the first season for True Detective. It'll be interesting to see how things proceed. I think I've said it before, but I'm curious how tight a leash HBO will have on this show in general.

New regime at HBO isn't going to want to drop another 100 million on this show if it has even good but not great ratings. I feel like with most shows, HBO would have already announced a second season so this one's definitely getting a second and third look before they announce that.

And yeah, the reviewers might be onto something. I just think it's hard to judge a show after 4 eps, especially if you really liked two eps and then didn't like 2 eps. Who knows what the next 2 eps or the rest of the season could bring. Just strikes me as odd to say, "The show doesn't amount to anything." so early in a run.

Some of the critiques about a lack of logic in the plotting worry me more, given the people involved.

>New regime at HBO isn't going to want to drop another 100
>million on this show if it has even good but not great
>ratings. I feel like with most shows, HBO would have already
>announced a second season so this one's definitely getting a
>second and third look before they announce that.
>
>And yeah, the reviewers might be onto something. I just think
>it's hard to judge a show after 4 eps, especially if you
>really liked two eps and then didn't like 2 eps. Who knows
>what the next 2 eps or the rest of the season could bring.
>Just strikes me as odd to say, "The show doesn't amount to
>anything." so early in a run.
>
>Some of the critiques about a lack of logic in the plotting
>worry me more, given the people involved.

if I'm not mistaken, so that show may siphon off a good chunk of viewers as well. It'll be interesting to see if there's a huge drop off for viewers as the season progresses.

i'll keep this in mind

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

but there's a lot of time jumping around with no indication of where we are, and no anchor.

I accept that other people are all in, but I'd prefer having some idea of what the story or motivation kinda is.

I only got screeners for the first two eps because I'm not looped in like that, we'll see how it comes together over the next couple of weeks.
www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

nm

Until this thread, didn't even realize there was an older movie OR Crichton's involvement.

Definitely sucked in already, Ed Harris is creepy as fuck

This show is the fucking shit!

Can't wait to find out what the maze is.

And when they said "The maze isn't for you." that brought it to a whole new level.

I'm so with this show.


btw Thandie...still got it girl.

The mysteries don't even matter much to me. I could just watch all the morality stuff all day. Beautifully written, acted, etc.

It even made me think Ben Barnes isn't an irredeemably bad actor!

>It even made me think Ben Barnes isn't an irredeemably bad
>actor!

Lets not go that far, he's still bad.

Was it by either Radiohead or Blur?

on a soundtrack for this show whenever it drops. It's almost unfortunate this season is only ten episodes long because the snippets played so far are stellar and I could stand to hear about 12-15 piano covers.

>on a soundtrack for this show whenever it drops. It's almost
>unfortunate this season is only ten episodes long because the
>snippets played so far are stellar and I could stand to hear
>about 12-15 piano covers.


For the vinyl heads here, folks are aware there are three variants for the soundtrack, right? If folks here are curious, I will post links to all three variants. One is at Barnes and Noble and the second is at Newbury Comics, which I bought. I don't remember the place selling the third one.

He's my least favorite actor but also my favorite cuckhold.

solely based on his role in "Sex Drive" (super underrated raunchy teen comedy)

He played the Stifler role way better than Stifler



(Seriously though, well worth watching Sex Drive on its own merits)

"Oh my God! You killed Teddy".

How many times is this dude gonna die?

https://theringer.com/westworld-season-1-episode-2-chestnut-recap-3dc849227bef#.erzu29ws4

So we all agree that Anthony Hopkins is purposely giving them consciousness with this reveries upgrade right?


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

but I agree now!


... Although I'm not entirely convinced that it explains his scene with the little kid. It would be odd if they created a host family on a "vacation" within the world.... so how do we explain the kid's behavior?

i'm also still holding out that Jeffrey Wright might be a robot.

But the fact that there's a code word/phrase to set the robots off makes me think that someone planted it in there and Hopkins seems like the most likely suspect.

>i'm also still holding out that Jeffrey Wright might be a
>robot.


I wonder what the significance of the last scene in episode two? Is he going to give the Host religion? Is Jeffrey Wright going to be there God?


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Hopkins originally noticed it when he was talking to the little kid and then he told the kid never to come around here. He seemed surprised to see it. So I'm not sure if he is introducing it, Wright maybe is introducing it, or one of the robots built it on their own and is introducing religion into the mix.

At this point, I'm so lost on where the show is going, I've stopped trying to guess and am just enjoying the ride (and nervous about the next two eps since it is where critics say it veers and disappoints.)

Remember we don't know where the park is located, how vast the park is or what may have existed in its place before they built the park.

The park has been around for 30 years, it could've been something that was built and long forgotten in that span of time.

I think he just stumbled upon it and found inspiration for his new creation.

reminds me of the show "Humans".....

...funny thing is, i find Ed's character more lame than badass cause he's literally terrorizing people he knows can't really fight back

i think i might go back and rewatch the first two eps....

oh, and i agree that i don't care abut the big mysteries either...the interactions, depravity people happily indulge in, and the way they honestly think they're better than the hosts is fascinating

had the potential, but just turned into a Lost -like everyone running around and trying to find each other series.


>reminds me of the show "Humans".....
>
>...funny thing is, i find Ed's character more lame than badass
>cause he's literally terrorizing people he knows can't really
>fight back

Soooooo, my theory is that the next level he is looking for is a level where they can actually fight back for a more real experience.



>
>i think i might go back and rewatch the first two eps....
>
>oh, and i agree that i don't care abut the big mysteries
>either...the interactions, depravity people happily indulge
>in, and the way they honestly think they're better than the
>hosts is fascinating

I don't see the dangling lost-like mysteries that people are suggesting. Also it's too early to feel disappointed by that aspect of the show.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

We KNOW they are going to rebel.
We KNOW that Hopkins is the catalyst to them getting souls/subconcious...we just don't know if that's his ultimate plan or if it's just a scientist pushing it as far as he can intrigued by the results.

Only think we dont know much about is the men in black's quest but considering we know he's real and that the people running the park know about him...I dont see them throwing any crazy Lost like curveballs with this story lines.

making ERW's character gain consciousness, or at least he's aware and keeping it to his self

>had the potential, but just turned into a Lost -like everyone
>running around and trying to find each other series.
>
>
I liked Humans, but I agree that once they went on the run, it really changed and became less interesting...

>>reminds me of the show "Humans".....
>>
>>...funny thing is, i find Ed's character more lame than
>badass
>>cause he's literally terrorizing people he knows can't
>really
>>fight back
>
>Soooooo, my theory is that the next level he is looking for is
>a level where they can actually fight back for a more real
>experience.
>
>
I wouldn't be surprised....I'm glad they addressed people's concers from the first episode where it seemed like he was just off killing whomever he wanted....I also liked that one of the tech said clients could NLY kill who their supposed to.... I wonder when tat aspect will come into play, cause so far it looks more like the clients can kill or hurt whatever host they please with no problems...

>
>>
>>i think i might go back and rewatch the first two eps....
>>
>>oh, and i agree that i don't care abut the big mysteries
>>either...the interactions, depravity people happily indulge
>>in, and the way they honestly think they're better than the
>>hosts is fascinating
>
>I don't see the dangling lost-like mysteries that people are
>suggesting. Also it's too early to feel disappointed by that
>aspect of the show.
>
it's too early for that kinda stuff like dangling mysteries..... the show is doing just fine slowly showing us this world, and the one that surrounds it...

People beating hookers to death on Grand Theft Auto, will they be killing hookers in Westworld for fun?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/09/29/hbos-westworld-is-being-compared-to-grand-theft-auto/#64096791420b


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

the random violence and debauchery.... made me think about how I act when I play these types of sandbox games.... it's a smart parallel

once the sandbox games got better in terms of replicating the real world and felt like than a video game.

I will say that we as an audience will identify with the robots more than the characters do on the show since we spend so much time with them and see things from their point of view. To the human beings on Westworld, the robots are seen mainly as being disposable inanimate objects. If the robots start going awol on the human beings, I wonder if folks here will still view them sympathetically.

....I can't even bring myself to pick up hookers anymore or amp on random people LOL

right now I see both sides of it, with a bigger lean toward the hosts..... the humans aren't all jerks, which we've seen.... since I just watched BOAN yesterday, it's got me thinking of the parallels to slavery too

i am fully engrossed in this show and really enjoy it, but if the park employeese have EAGLE EYE vision iPads of every corner of this park how are they not going to notice that church being built?

i want the church to be built by the hosts and it could possibly be for Anthony Hopkins, their "maker"... that little girl with the poetic description of where the "maze entrance" is.

does General Hummel want to just go inside the "maze", where the hosts are being hosed off? maybe as a guest he's not allowed in the maze and he just wants to go in there. i have zero idea with the symbol of the man and the maze on his scalp was there.

i find it interesting that, as the poster above said funnily "the Kenny of Westworld" enters the park via the train when it seems the hosts are always already there when guests arrive. lots of questions but i'm sure it'll all reveal itself. im not too worried about eps 3 and 4 going off the rails, critics are usually cynical pricks and hate everything they dont expect/predict so i have faith it wont be a nightmarish collapse.

>i am fully engrossed in this show and really enjoy it, but if
>the park employeese have EAGLE EYE vision iPads of every
>corner of this park how are they not going to notice that
>church being built?


That's an easy narrative fix. Just explain that they purposely built it in an area that isn't covered by the park cameras.




>
>i want the church to be built by the hosts and it could
>possibly be for Anthony Hopkins, their "maker"... that little
>girl with the poetic description of where the "maze entrance"
>is.
>
>does General Hummel want to just go inside the "maze", where
>the hosts are being hosed off? maybe as a guest he's not
>allowed in the maze and he just wants to go in there. i have
>zero idea with the symbol of the man and the maze on his scalp
>was there.
>
>i find it interesting that, as the poster above said funnily
>"the Kenny of Westworld" enters the park via the train when it
>seems the hosts are always already there when guests arrive.
>lots of questions but i'm sure it'll all reveal itself. im not
>too worried about eps 3 and 4 going off the rails, critics are
>usually cynical pricks and hate everything they dont
>expect/predict so i have faith it wont be a nightmarish
>collapse.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Especially with the eye in the sky aspect and the monitoring of the hosts and the park. That's a tough thing to get around and still have drama.

a flashback of Ed Harris' character?

That was a theory but it got debunked.

>That was a theory but it got debunked.

where did it not work?

https://twitter.com/sepinwall/status/785474930775175170

He's seen four eps. Says the theory doesn't work.

There were some other hints - people argued whether this was the same woman; http://i.imgur.com/uUqIt5s.jpg

And also, the other girl who took over for Maeve was running the brothel when William walks by, which would seem to link him to the modern timeline. Dolores is the last host from 30 years ago.

knowledge. That sounds like spoilers to me.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

It's like someone pointing out that the This Season On debunked my idea that the guy's scalp had some kind of proprietary tech and it was corporate espionage.

It's a little different because I had access to that footage and chose not to watch it but I think it's still not necessarily a spoiler because in both cases, they were completely made up theories. It's not like it's a whodunnit and he's telling us one of the characters definitely didn't do it. It's a wholly concocted mystery with no real bearing on the show.

That being said, I do ultimately agree that there was really no reason that he had to/should have debunked it. Maybe he was getting inundated with messages about it but it seems like a tweet he could have just ignored.
The only real reason to debunk it is if he believed that the "Who is the Man in Black?" line of questioning was immaterial and would take people's focus away from the story the show is actually telling.

>The only real reason to debunk it is if he believed that the
>"Who is the Man in Black?" line of questioning was immaterial
>and would take people's focus away from the story the show is
>actually telling.

thats kind of spoilery

if people focus on it
because the material kinda goes there
its kind of what happened with true detective s01
people wanted to blame watchers
but really it was weak story telling

"because you know better"
or
"know in advance"

does mess it up for folks who want to go haring off
also a bit smug
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

People were going off on the show heading into a level of fantasy. I would have been fine if someone had said, "Guys, this story isn't going to turn into Lord of the Rings."

Although, this show is a little different because Sepinwall only saw four episodes so it's not like he knows the end game. It's just something that gets debunked early on.

Perhaps the bigger issue is that unless something happens NEXT episode to put the idea to bed, nothing in this episode debunked it outright. The gun she used wasn't the one that Marsden gave her, the fact that she walks over to Jimmy doesn't necessarily mean it's the same timeline (she was on a horse when she took off from the house.)

In the future though, I'll refrain from posting stuff like this since people think it's spoilery.

>People were going off on the show heading into a level of
>fantasy. I would have been fine if someone had said, "Guys,
>this story isn't going to turn into Lord of the Rings."

same once the writer in TD corrected because it was out of hand
that actually was my hint that the writer wasnt that good frankly

>Although, this show is a little different because Sepinwall
>only saw four episodes so it's not like he knows the end game.
>It's just something that gets debunked early on.

granted
below is more what i meant btw

>Perhaps the bigger issue is that unless something happens NEXT
>episode to put the idea to bed, nothing in this episode
>debunked it outright. The gun she used wasn't the one that
>Marsden gave her, the fact that she walks over to Jimmy
>doesn't necessarily mean it's the same timeline (she was on a
>horse when she took off from the house.)

hrm
what do you think now?

>In the future though, I'll refrain from posting stuff like
>this since people think it's spoilery.

but yeah this isnt neccessary its just me saying that i think it might be
and i didnt mean it in a rebuke kind of way
hrm
more a but i know this dude wants to be a part of the convo but hes cutting off the flow of convo because of what he does know
and i think its more a sign of weak writing if the show itself doesnt correct
instead of that the writer trying to correct an audience

if that makes sense
so kinda spoilery but not in a ruin the plot kind of way but correct a course where it looks like an audience might go
which also isnt fair

this isnt something you did
so you dont have to do anything

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

I think he jumped the gun and misread a couple of scenes that he thought debunked it. He went from debunking the theory on Twitter to discussing the theory as a postscript to his episode reviews to now focusing on the theory for the entire piece on episode 5.

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-how-westworld-may-be-acting-too-clever-for-its-own-good

And I disagree with his take about twists. I felt like the moment we saw Clifton Collins Jr. reappear as El Lazo, it was supposed to me an A-ha or WTF moment? I don't think it takes away at all from the show. If anything, it adds to the William story since we're seeing how he's turning rather than just watching a goody two shoes wandering aimlessly around a theme park.

welp he's along for the ride with the rest of us now


i don't know what to think about any of the theories themselves frankly
but it sounds good

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

If it turns out to be true, I'd rather be following it now than get blindsided and be "Wait, what? But all those... WTF!?" I might feel cheated by the misdirects.

If it's not true, no harm no foul.

we can do this!
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-in-the-stray-westworld-asks-how-much-the-robots-really-remember


FAN THEORY CORNER

Finally, I'm going to try something that worked pretty well with Mr. Robot this season, which is to put a separate section here at the bottom for dealing with a particular fan theory until it's either confirmed or disproven by the show, as a way to allow some discussion of it while also shielding anyone who hasn't thought of it and would rather be surprised if it turns out to be the case. (This stuff is fair game in the comments, though, so read at your own peril.)

So, the theory: William and Logan's scenes take place 30 years before everything else we're watching, and William will eventually age into being the Man in Black.

There is some evidence to support this, including the train station looking a bit spiffier when he and Logan arrive than when we saw Teddy and the guests pull into town in the pilot; ditto the slight changes to the Sweetwater script and cast of characters when each group arrives. And when William gets shot at early in this episode, it's with a non-lethal bit of ammunition with enough force to knock him down, whereas the Man in Black isn't hurt at all when Teddy shoots at him in the pilot.

But this episode seems to blow a huge hole through the middle of that theory, as William's path appears to cross that of Dolores while she's in the midst of a story that we know to be part of the action that's contemporaneous with the Man in Black. He runs into her right after she has escaped the latest assault on the family farm, which should be set in the show's present because she uses the gun she found buried in the dirt outside the house to defend herself against Rebus during this particular attack, and she has multiple memories of the Man in Black while handling the gun at different points in the episode. The inherent Groundhog Day of the show's plot — and the fact that we see Dolores go through several iterations of Rebus's assault — means we can't take anything 100% for granted, but there's a line between clever misdirection and outright screwing with your audience to conceal a twist, and if William is meant to be the young Man, the show is already getting really close to that line.

UPDATE: As several pointed out (and as was difficult to make out on HBO's screener), the gun Dolores uses on Rebus isn't the one she found buried in the dirt, but the one she took off of his holster. But the fact that she has another Man in Black memory in the midst of the encounter means the larger point still stands.

or is intentionally underexplained

but I'm interested to see where it goes, it's cool

It was intriguing how Ford was so gung ho about the divide between the androids and humans. I'm still inclined to think he's behind the hosts' burgeoning consciousness (along with Bernard?) but it's clearly not because he's sympathetic to their "plight".

They said to take her offline. She wakes up and runs around the joint like a madwoman... and then she ends up back in the park?

it jumps around so much that no one can say for sure.

she's still hallucinating/remembering, so...apparently yes?

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Unless it's a flashback and the Hosts can see into the future then it would seem to take place after her incident / designation to be taken offline.

emotional lives of robots

like not one bit. they're robots fuck them.

robots gaining consciousness is so damn old and boring as a narrative theme as well...

again it is in the way that they are telling it and the mystery that makes it engaging, also the acting has been excellent. how ERW, Thandies, and Marsden switch from humanoid to AI at the drop of a scenic dime is gold

there are still many floating questions though, for me not believe this is another version of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

but I still wouldn't have given the show a bad or even middling review; especially since this seems like an ep that has to do some heavy lifting in setting in motion the plot for the rest of the show. This is still by far my favorite new show of the year (although I have a few that I haven't started yet.)

The Marsden as Kenny element makes me laugh now.

I'm still all-in on this one.

Don't really get the complaints from the critics because I thought this was a fairly strong episode. (Also, I'm not so sure what Sepinwall's "debunking" was but I feel like it wouldn't be TOO crazy for the Man in Black theory to be true. Not sure we've seen anything that completely blows it out of the water.)

I loved the moment in which we learned the Man in Black isn't all bad. And we learn a little bit more about his quest. And a little bit more about Arnold from both Harris and Hopkins.

Hopkins brings it at the end of the episode and we get some great moments with Maeve and Dolores. I still think Jeffrey Wright might be a host.

I thought ep. 3 slowed down a bit but I really enjoyed ep. 4. My anticipation for the next episode is much higher this week.

30 years apart.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The timeline already seems a bit screwy so I'm warming to the 30 year theory. But mostly, I was just pointing out that there doesn't seem to have been the definitive "It's not 30 years ago" moment that Sepinwall acted like there was. I mean, in his article on this episode, he almost has more arguments for the frayed timeline than against it.

are at times flashbacks. I'm glad we finally found out more about Arnold and The Man in Black.



So I think it's pretty obvious that the Maze was something Arnold came up with the greatest game in Westworld, where the host could be killed and kill the guests. Probably where the hosts had free will and were somewhat self-aware.



I'm still hoping that they hint to the OG Westworld, at something like the end of that film happened where Arnold died in the Maze by his own creations who turned on him after realizing what was done to them over the years, you know park run amok and people died.





Did anyone else feel like Harris has some sort of control over hosts that none of the other employees have? Like that scene at the hacienda when the hosts just stop mid pour and everything just froze.





Either way, I love this show, find it totally thought-provoking.

The theory I read elsewhere is that we're witnessing a simulated representation of Bernard accessing Dolores' host-identity while her physical self is in a sleep-cycle, hence Bernard's constant assurance that she's "in a dream". Some have also suggested that there's a duplicate body that Bernard can summon her host-identity to in order to have these conversations.

Either seems like a somewhat plausible explanation for how Dolores could traverse what are presumably great distances.

> (Also, I'm not so
>sure what Sepinwall's "debunking" was but I feel like it
>wouldn't be TOO crazy for the Man in Black theory to be true.
>Not sure we've seen anything that completely blows it out of
>the water.)

Dolores sees the man in black (a memory) before she kills the one guy in the barn...the she rides off and ends up meeting up with the guy in the white hat. This all happens the same night. Unless they are really trying to trick us, it wouldn't make any sense for them to be the same guy. This is the first time Dolores has gone off the reservation.

But everything's been so vague about the timeline besides that and the fact that the Bernard / Dolores scenes show that the timeline is fluid makes me think that it's not as clear cut of an answer now.

Mainly, after seeing four episodes that Sepinwall had watched, I wouldn't have been as cavalier as he was, stating definitely that that theory was DOA and there was a clear debunking of it.

>Mainly, after seeing four episodes that Sepinwall had watched,
>I wouldn't have been as cavalier as he was, stating definitely
>that that theory was DOA and there was a clear debunking of
>it.

FAN THEORY CORNER

Evidence in favor of the idea that William is a younger version of the Man in Black and his scenes take place 30 years before the rest of the series:

* As Dolores travels through the wilderness with William and Logan, there doesn't seem to be a window for her latest conversation with Bernard.

* The Man in Black is identified by another guest as the famous head of a charitable foundation, which seems like the kind of thing William might aspire to be one day, and you can imagine William spending the decades learning to channel his worst impulses into his visits to the park while being a saint out in the real world.

* Logan keeps trying to frame the whole park to William as a game, which is how the Man in Black views it.

* Logan expresses a desire for their company to increase its stake in the park, while Ford complains to Theresa that he and Arnold shouldn't have sold out to the people of Delos, who never truly understood what they were buying.

Evidence against the idea:

* Dolores still has Rebus's gun, which means she crossed paths with William and Logan after escaping the massacre at the ranch, during which we saw her have a memory of the Man in Black.

* Stubbs, a character we know exists in the contemporary storyline, is told that Dolores is glitching and wandering far afield of her usual route, and he sends personnel to intercept her and bring her in for maintenance, after which we see a man try to take her away from the Mexican village, only to back off in the presence of William (a staff member not wanting to interfere with a guest's storyline?).

Ways to dispute various bits of evidence:

* The Bernard/Dolores conversations could be what's out of sync with the narrative, rather than the Dolores/William scenes.

* The Man in Black being a good guy in the real world proves little; it just fits the theory.

* Logan is far from the only guest to frame the park in gaming terms.

* We don't know that William and Logan are part of Delos; their company could, in fact, be minority owners looking to expand their interest.

* We appeared to see Dolores go through multiple iterations of the massacre, including one where she gets shot in the stomach and one where she doesn't. So it's possible the memory flash came in the present, while the one she escaped was 30 years ago.

* Stubbs could be a robot himself? And/or this is more misdirection, and the security chief from 30 years ago also sent someone to intercept Dolores when she moved too far off her loop?

This week, the evidence seems weighted more against the theory than for it, but I look forward to a few hundred comments arguing strongly one way or the other.

(Also, one way the show could easily disprove the theory in the coming weeks: have William run into either Hector or Armistice, since the Man makes note that he has never met them before — him by choice, her by happenstance.)

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-the-westworld-robots-search-for-answers-in-dissonance-theory#WYMoRhP62O5W9QA6.99

The discussion of the park between Williams and his douchy friend made it seem newer IMO. Clifton Collins Jr's characters appearance in the Sin City place felt like it was supposed to be a key moment.

There are still some problems and it doesn't really affect the way that I watch the show but this was the episode that really made me feel like there was a connection between Williams and The Man in Black.

Also I love the way this unfolds like a novel with each episode building on the foundations of what came before while revealing new things slowly and propelling itself to the next chapter.

"Here’s my take:

This whole journey to consciousness / self recognition on the part of the androids IS the new plot line. The whole thing is being written by Hopkins. The drawings were planted, the toy planted, the flashbacks, all of it. The real tragedy / twist of the show will be that the robots....are just robots. And we will be, like the patrons of westworld, totally entertained by a narrative that is just precisely that—narrative."
http://themuse.jezebel.com/1788146490

like the co-founder did...interesting

*mind blown*

n/m

i may need that to be false as well lol

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

.

Well, I guess we now know which episode this casting call was for.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/westworld-sexually-explicit-casting-contract-828287


2:14am PT by Jonathan Handel
Sexually Explicit Casting Contract for HBO's 'Westworld' Extras Has SAG-AFTRA Concerned

Fully-nude bareback riding and "genital-to-genital touching" are among the acts that background performers on the show may be tasked with at a Wednesday shoot.


Fully-nude bareback riding and "genital-to-genital touching" are among the acts that background performers on the show may be tasked with at a Wednesday shoot.
Background actors — extras — for HBO’s Westworld were being required Tuesday to sign a nudity and sex consent form that reads like the Kama Sutra and that has SAG-AFTRA officials worried that performers won’t realize that if they get cold feet on set they have the right to withdraw.

Indeed, cold feet may be the least of a performer’s worries.

The explicit consent form itself wouldn’t pass standards reviews at a broadcast network as it recites that the performer "may be required to perform genital-to-genital touching, simulate oral sex with hand-to-genital touching, contort to form a table-like shape while being fully nude, pose on all fours while others who are fully nude ride on your back, ride on someone's back while you are both fully nude."

Less strenuously, others might simply "have genitals painted."

The consent form is on Central Casting letterhead. On Wednesday, HBO issued a statement disavowing the notice and some of the details: “The document that the background actors were given was created by an outside extras casting vendor. It was not requested, written or approved by HBO, Warner Bros. Television, or the producers, and contains situations that we do not require of any actor. We are rectifying immediately the discrepancies in this vendor’s document with our actual on-set practices, which provide a professional and comfortable working environment for all performers.”

Later on Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA fired back: "SAG-AFTRA sent the consent form to HBO yesterday afternoon and requested that the document be changed to more accurately reflect the contractual provisions. HBO had every opportunity to rectify this situation and it was only after their direct refusal to remedy this that we posted the notice on our website. The Union is very pleased to hear that HBO is doing the right thing now, but it is disappointing that we had to take such public measures to ensure compliance with our contracts and protect our background actors."

Like all lists drafted by a lawyer, the consent form list includes catch-all language at the end, indicating that the actor may also be pressed into service to perform "other assorted acts the project may require." The imagination wanders at that phrase, but an omission from the form suggests that whips and chains may be off the table: the union contract requires advance notice of "rough or dangerous" work, and no such warning appears on the form.

Still, if any of those "assorted acts" verge on stunt work — as seems within the realm of possibility — the union contract may entitle the actor to be upgraded to principal performer, which brings with it residuals and a boost in pay.

The union agreement also requires additional payment when a background performer is asked to bring specified wardrobe. However, no additional payment is required when the performer is told to bring no clothing whatsoever.

READ MORE
Watch the Teaser Trailer for HBO's Highly Anticipated 'Westworld'
The 2016 Westworld, described as "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin," is inspired by the eponymous 1973 Michael Crichton film that starred Yul Brynner and is produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions, Jerry Weintraub Productions and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s Kilter Films in association with Warner Bros. Television. The star-studded cast includes Anthony Hopkins,Ed Harris,Evan Rachel Wood,James Marsden,Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright.

A SAG-AFTRA member alert advises background performers that they have the right to withdraw consent at any time except as to scenes already shot, and that the set must be closed and still photography prohibited without the actor’s consent. The shoot takes place Wednesday, and a SAG-AFTRA representative will be at or near the set. The guild only tends to send member alerts when it is concerned.

Those protections only apply to union extras who are the first 19 on a television show. They’re usually referred to as "covered background performers," though in this case it seems that they’ll be covered by almost nothing except the union agreement.

The consent form includes a Central Casting logo that indicates the company was established in 1925, about a decade before SAG itself. The form is no doubt of more recent vintage and would not have been necessary in a pre-union era when movie companies were free to demand table-like nude contortions with abandon.

But today, the union agreement requires that producers obtain the performer’s advance written consent to nudity and sex acts, so the attorney who dutifully drafted the unusual form was apparently simply following the rules. The result, more risque than the usual boilerplate waivers, was probably not just another day at the office for its creator.

9/30/15 3:50 pm updated with HBO comment.

9/30/15 5:50 pm updated with SAG-AFTRA response to HBO comment.

Tonight's Westworld further illuminated and deepened the mysteries with some plot twists and revelations. This shit should getting Game of Thrones level ratings and hype. Also that much publicized orgy scene was in tonight's episode and it was not that big of a deal to be honest.



"I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel".

Goddamn, I love you, Westworld.

The show is really picking up. I am glad.

Question the new town where William and Delores meet the confederates. Is this the place where the violence is real or nah?

I'm starting to wonder if the maze is that lock up area where all the decommissioned hosts are. After that meeting between Ford and TMIB, it was very obvious they had some sort of working relationship and TMIB mentioned something about saving Arnold, but I"m not sure what that means. So maybe Ford is trying to kill TMIB because he knows something that no one else does.

and yay!

and wow this is getting deeper

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Never thought I'd root for a robot to take her agency back, but here I am.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/westworld-black-male-nudity-anatomy-of-a-scene.html


Why Westworld’s Throwaway Scene of Black Male Nudity Felt So Dehumanizing

There is a very brief moment in Westworld’s fifth episode — hardly even noticeable if you’re watching while doing other things — that’s worth considering more fully. It’s a transitional scene, meant to build a bridge into a bigger plot for the episode: Elsie Hughes, behavioral specialist for the park, is doing a tune-up on one of the hosts, who’s calibrating his distances incorrectly. She sighs at him, frustrated that he’s still pouring water all over a metal tray rather than into a glass. Elsie looks up, realizes some techs are transporting the body of the woodcutter host who went rogue, and immediately abandons her current task to pursue the bigger issue. The whole thing takes about 23 seconds.

The host’s name is Bart. He’s an attractive, muscular black man. Like all hosts in the behavior-modification areas of the park’s facilities, he’s completely naked. As Elsie looks up from her tablet, she swings around on her wheeled stool to assess him, and his penis comes into the camera shot. First it’s briefly in focus, very visible in profile, and then it remains in frame but out of focus in the foreground as Elsie regards him frankly. If he can’t stop pouring booze all over the guests, Elsie tells him (rhetorically, as he’s clearly not responsive), “I’m going to have to reassign you to a narrative where your … talents … will go tragically to waste.”

Probably you don’t need me to describe the inflection with which Elsie says “talents,” or the pointed tilt of her eyebrows as she says it. Probably you don’t need me to do any more close reading of the scene to understand exactly what “talent” Elsie is referring to. And maybe you, like me, read Wesley Morris’s remarkable New York Times Magazine piece “The Last Taboo: Why Pop Culture Just Can’t Deal With Black Male Sexuality,” and thought, huh. Those two things seem related.


They are. And I suppose you could see this as a form of progress — after all, Westworld has done exactly the thing Morris points out there is so little of. The show actually puts a black penis on-camera. But this is not “black male sexuality with the same range of seriousness, cheek and romance” that Morris says we give to white sexuality. This is just a black body as an object, made into something both safe and laughable because it’s the object of a white woman’s lust. Elsie does not see Bart as a person. He’s quite literally not a person, nor has he been given any of the humanizing, robot-waking-up-and-thus-sexuality-becomes-a-moral-question narrative that Dolores or Maeve get. In both Westworld and Westworld, Bart has been built as an inert, controllable sex toy, appealing for his size and the resulting implication of power and sexual prowess. And at the same time, he’s rendered safe because he’s restrained.

It’s a tiny, throwaway scene. In a show that spends extensive time engaged in deep, meaningful conversations about the nature of humanity, it’s easy to dismiss this as something ultimately trivial in the greater scheme of the show. But of course, the stuff you throw away — the stuff that becomes a little joke, that doesn’t get examined, that flies beneath the radar — that’s where you put all of the stuff you don’t care about. That’s where all of the ideological bodies are buried. To put Bart and his anatomy into such a small, unexamined scene is to suggest both that it’s not something the show wants to examine, and that no examination needs to be done. It’s the storytelling equivalent of a bad, politically incorrect joke that your co-worker insists is meaningless fun. Those thoughtless asides are also doing important cultural work, communicating what’s important and what can be safely marginalized. Bart, his nudity, and his sexuality don’t rise to the level of narrative priority.

And the scene itself is built as a joke. Elsie’s face is there in the background, with the frame focused on her as she muses about Bart’s anatomy. Hers is the perspective (the face and the self-hood) we care about. In the foreground, out of focus but prominently visible, is Bart’s penis, hanging there like a piece of physical comedy. We don’t need a punch line or any further explanation, because the object is enough.

Westworld is hugely invested in building characterization through sex. In this episode alone, I’d bet that by saying “I’m talking about that one nude scene” you’d assume I meant the giant, gold-painted orgy that takes up a huge chunk of the hour, not a 20-second joke about one host’s dick. But for all of its ample sexual content, Westworld gives us very little range. We get many women (as hosts) who are violated, and we’re meant to probe our feelings about that. We have lots of men who come to Westworld to engage in as much meaningless (and mostly straight) sex as they possibly can. Beyond those two frameworks, there’s very little.

So it’s troubling that in this one, fleeting divergence from the women-as-violated-hosts, men-as-horny-guests paradigm, we get something so frustratingly reductive. A black man’s large penis, onscreen! But he’s not allowed to be a man, he’s certainly not allowed to have any autonomy, and his sexual life is considered acceptable (and funny) only because it’s the object of his white female handler’s attraction.

Not great, Westworld. Not great.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

And I'm still not to be honest.

I agree with most of what the article is saying, but it's such a throwaway moment it's hard for me to get worked up about it.

that The Night Of had a very similar scene with a black cadaver on a medical examiner's slab as well. The scene occurred during one of the latter episodes for the season.


Can only wonder what the casting call for both roles was like. Pretty wild.

for me to read that in any particular way.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I had just read that great nytimes article she mentioned on how black male sexuality is abused on screen that came out the same weekend:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/30/magazine/black-male-sexuality-last-taboo.html?_r=0

TL : DR version: we stay desexualized on the screen (no simple non-exploitative dick shot after a sex scene for instance) to the point of asexuality...until they gotta whip out the big black dick in a threatening matter (jokes) or as a way to titillate(Westworld, Oz).

So watching the show after reading that it did give me a heavy pause. OBVIOUSLY the whole show is about how disposable the robots are to people and it couldda been anyone in that role, but id be lying if the color dynamic ain't bother me.

I'm just taking it all in
i was wondering if mapplethorpe was going to be mentioned and he was and Glenn Ligon

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

It just felt cheap to me. Not enough that I wont watch though, just a shaking of the head and KIM.

i'd really rather read the range of your thoughts on this

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

.

very good episode

I hope they explain the mechanic of how Ford is able to "will" all the components of Westworld around him. Not just host manipulation but IIRC he was controlling like the blades of grass around him and shit.

Obviously, he is the park's GOD and the last two episodes have just cemented the fact that he has that GOD like power.

But they have to expound on how he has that level of control.

>Obviously, he is the park's GOD and the last two episodes
>have just cemented the fact that he has that GOD like power.
>
>But they have to expound on how he has that level of control.
>


If that's the case, that makes it hard to believe he's completely clueless about the relationship Jeffrey Wright's character has with Delores.

Remember when he has that talk with him about Arnold and what happened and he gives him the warning not to go down Arnold's path? He knows man, just like how he revealed to the exec that "They know everything about everyone that works there." Those two scenes were enough to show he has control over the park and employees that no one else has.

...the William/Dolores/Logan scenes take place 30 years in the past and that William is the younger Man in Black?

I'm not going to talk about that theory anymore because I think it's dumb and has been disproven.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

being two timelines?


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

The only reason I thought this was a two-timeline thing last episode was because of the Clifton Collins Jr. portions of the story... but then I remembered that I'd have to wrap my head around a ton of shit that wouldn't make sense if that timeline was different than the Ed Harris one. So many things.

Namely, the fact that the employees at Westworld have interacted with both timelines. Unless you believe that literally everyone is a robot, shit doesn't work. And the logo theory was disproven too. So... outside of the fact that it could've been a cool narrative trick, it just doesn't add up.

I think a lot of the stuff that seems like people interacting with the Williams storyline is going to be tossed off as coincidence (the Westworld employee trying to bring Dolores back from the outskirts when she was with William).

Basically shows William in front of the "new logo" too, when he's in one of the rooms.

EDIT: so apparently the shot that people are showing with William in front of the new logo is a still... but in the actual episode of the show, they've edited in the old logo. Soooooo never mind. Logo theory still is credible. And the fact that they would go out of their way to highlight the logos like that...

... sigh. Not sure how I feel about this.

http://media.comicbook.com/2016/10/westworld-logo-timeline-207084.jpg

People were theorizing that that was a sign that they were at a different timeline than the one in which most of the Westworld workers we see are living.

its a back and forth lol
loving that
and see folks react to that

hope they don't play with us too much as a group we'll definitely get tired
but i think all of these is an acknowledgement of how as a group viewers have gotten sophisticated
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

for it's own good and becomes too convoluted for me to care to follow but right now it's in a sweet spot of not exactly sure what's going on but want to watch and figure it out.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAKGj98yn68

From the looks of it the two timeline theory is confirmed.
Maeve is fully aware and kicking ass.
William is the man in black.

I can't wait for Sunday.

it's more apparent if you look at the title of the HBO video they're freebooting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8J3nTfR23g

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

dude can write

first off, the cast? whew...they got a helluva cast on this show...went all out. some stellar acting all the way round.


yeah i'm into this show so far. while some might think the pacing is maybe a little slow, i actually think they have it just right....they are planting seeds and, right now, i'm curious enough to see what they grow into...


�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.meshell.com/site/
http://www.freemyheart.com


RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)

Did William go to the whorehouse while Maeve was there? If so the theory blows up because that Westworld Tech told Maeve she'd only been working at the whorehouse for a year.

It's one of the keys to the theory, I believe. The other girl was running the brothel when William visited.

Great episode. Teddy showing his true/new colors. Elise getting to the bottom of one of the mysteries while even Ford being surprised/disturbed by the news of the voice of Arnold speaking to his older robots.

I'm not a huge fan of the abrasive writer character but happy to see Tessa Thompson joining the fray.

Maeve gaining more insight/control was great. Sets up a ton of possibilities. And while I like their characters, it was nice to have a break from the Dolores/Williams storyline.

Also, great to see the original Man in Black in the background during Bernard's visit downstairs.

Pacing feels great for this show. Set-up in the first five and now things are starting to move a bit more. It will be interesting to see how many questions they answer in these last four episodes. Loving this show.

got a lil hype when i saw it.

V.

was the Asian technician feeling compelled to show Thandie Newton's character around the West World facility. Also, shouldn't one of the people monitoring the West World landscape notice that Thandie Newton's character was wondering way off her scripted route? Other than those two issues, interesting episode.

She got herself killed so she could be sent back to the lab. The walking around was a little odd but they showed other robots walking about so it could have been passed off as the guy taking her out for a test run.

Although the eye in the sky thing is the one element that I find has to be often dismissed with a suspension of disbelief. Seems like a lot of stuff escapes their watchful eye.

>Although the eye in the sky thing is the one element that I
>find has to be often dismissed with a suspension of disbelief.
>Seems like a lot of stuff escapes their watchful eye.


In this, it's even worse because she was shown as being monitored by that same Eye In The Sky device because she was verbally going of script. In last night's episode, she was walking around and functioning outside of her scripted routine and also had her personality attributes altered as well. I like the show and all, but that just doesn't add up to me.

I think the purpose of them realizing that she's been modified before they start making adjustments was to convey that they only reason they are getting away with it is because "Arnold" is enabling them.

...I think they're getting away with it because there are a lot of moving parts to this world and the powers that be don't do a great job of keeping track of what's going on with the hosts and clients....

whomever has already modified maeve will see what's happened and may try to change her back, but by then it'll probably be too late...

I don't think Arnold is as all knowing as people think he is...

>Although the eye in the sky thing is the one element that I
>find has to be often dismissed with a suspension of disbelief.
>Seems like a lot of stuff escapes their watchful eye.

Especially with the sophistication of their monitoring systems (via Bernard's scenes).

I just assume that since that complex is basically their "command center", there's a lot less internal monitoring.

>
>Although the eye in the sky thing is the one element that I
>find has to be often dismissed with a suspension of disbelief.
>Seems like a lot of stuff escapes their watchful eye.

they CLEARLY don't see everything and a lot of very important stuff goes unnoticed til it's too late.....They are watching over this thing like Overlords/Gods, but WE notice something they've missed in every episode...they are NOT very good at their jobs, they just think they are...

I don't think it's an issue of competence though, but rather scope. Monitoring security cameras in a building can already be overwhelming, let alone a huge land mass.

...it's a lot to keep up with, and like I said, so many moving parts that we see mistakes that they seem to catch later...

may as well get used to it now before the explanations don't appear later.


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

when she blackmailed dude



clearly they arent keeping all the way track and technicians have leeway or an out for getting up to their own shennanigans
as long at the product is back when it suposed to be
and they arent actually taking them home
they turn a blind eye
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

kind of play. They keep implying they are just "butchers" anyhow. But the walking around the facility was odd

still i dug this episode a lot

and Tessa Mae Thompson, jesuscristo! and I dig that so far it seems her character is going against what shes been caste in before

I loved that mixed with Theresa seeming kinda judgy seeing Charlotte fucking the other host who said it.

It's also weird that this is the first episode where i had kind of stopped suspecting that about Bernard.

Also, despite it being shot down repeatedly I'm leaning even more towards William being the man in black.

I sort of wish they'd just reveal it already. The longer they run without the reveal, the more annoyingly deceptive edits they'll have to put in place. Especially now that they've shown that (a) the show is being shown to us from unreliable character perspectives, and (b) literally *anyone* could be a host.

Weren't they in a similar area to where Ford was building a huge river? Is that river what Dolores was imagining and what they found?

It makes more sense to have William be the Man in Black but when I saw the river I couldn't help but think back to the earlier episode.

I wonder how that breaks down.

I haven't gone online and read too much about the show until now so I didn't know about the multiple timeline thing or who could be a host or whatever. But, I feel like we only ever see the dreams of hosts so when they start off with Bernard dreaming I was like "oh shit, he's a robot!"

how long now did Ford know about the board wanting to sneak out the IP property from him; I have a feeling he knew well before Bernard discovered things, but I suppose I could be wrong about that. And of course there's the mystery of why Ford programmed Bernard to sneak program Dolores. Also, where those sneak programming sessions occurring in this 'present' timeline or the past when William is wearing the White Hat?

Ford found out that they were stealing things so he fucked with it to make it useless or, at least, problematic.

I dunno what his end game would be there. Maybe he was trying to poke the bear in a sense to start an overt conflict with the board rather than having the board operate like snakes in the grass in terms of canning him? I pretty much try not to prognosticate too much with this show because I barely have a grasp on who these folks are, muchless their agendas.

That's what I want to know, he's playing God with everyone and somehow I feel like he's trying to protect WestWorld from Delos.

Bernard's recordings on a regular basis (and knew about the convo with Elsie).

Also because he arranged for all the data to remain only stored onsite, it'd be logical to assume someone would try to workaround that at some point.

re: the Dolores sessions, a theory I read on Reddit was that they are in the past, and that Bernard is actually a replica of Arnold, and so in the flashbacks that's actually Arnold interacting with her.

Bernard's recordings on a regular basis (and knew about the convo with Elsie).

Also because he arranged for all the data to remain only stored onsite, it'd be logical to assume someone would try to workaround that at some point.

re: the Dolores sessions, a theory I read on Reddit was that they are in the past, and that Bernard is actually a replica of Arnold, and so in the flashbacks that's actually Arnold interacting with her.

Especially the Marvel stuff is the that each episode is important. They stand on their own but contribute to the overall storytelling and character development while thrusting the narrative forward instead of stalling a bit on character development and spinning wheels with the narrative with filler just to meet the episode order.

I'm really excited to see how the revelations of tonight impact the show going forward cause I'll be honest I did not see Bernard being a host coming.

I assume he's making a new host to replace the woman they just killed.

Is Bernard Ford's remade version of his partner? Wouldn't be surprised if we see a photo of him and Arnold and Arnold is Geoffrey Wright.

It would explain Dolores getting questioned by Geoffrey Wright in the (possibly) past timeline. That was the actual Arnold questioning her.

>It would explain Dolores getting questioned by Geoffrey
>Wright in the (possibly) past timeline. That was the actual
>Arnold questioning her.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

its own terms.

I've been actively avoiding all theories and shit cause I just wanna enjoy the ride.

Plus I've seen how out hand theories get and how disappointed people get ala True Detective Season 1 (holy shit), Lost, and of course Game of Thrones.

I'll read some theories a bit
But don't attach
Dunno what it is but I do want the show to reveal itself as well
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Just something to play with during the week while waiting for the next episode. For me, it's tough to watch a show like Westworld and turn my brain off when the episode is done and not wonder where it might be going.

I'm exiting this post now because I don't want anything else to be spoiled due to a theory.

.

Per Hollywood Reporter

Seems as if HBO is being much more conservative in terms of renewing shows; West World is about 60%-70% done at this point and they are just now getting renewed for another season; it years past I remember HBO renewing shows a lot sooner.

I also remember this show being delayed because the show runners were planning out future seasons, so it's a bit weird to hear the show won't be back next calendar year because the scripts for the second season aren't written yet.

They have invested in some money pits before...Rome instantly comes to mind.

Great production values and scope come with a hefty cost which needs to be justified through ratings and potential revenue. WW is a very expensive show so in terms of risk adjustment, you have to be more cautious in terms of long-term commitments because the financial risk is higher.

Despite (IMO undeserved) dismal second season ratings, Leftovers got a third season!

>Despite (IMO undeserved) dismal second season ratings,
>Leftovers got a third season!

Is the next season of Leftovers the last season? I don't think the second season occured under the current HBO regime that appears to be a bit more tight fisted. Also, I believe Vinyl was a very expensive show; I don't see how The Leftovers would be all that expensive since it doesn't have big name stars on it and the special effects aren't all that special.

With that said, I hope the third upcoming season is the last one because I could easily see HBO cancelling it if the ratings are poor.

**edit**

I just did a search on these boards and I saw in the thread for the second season that the third season is indeed the last one. I hope it airs next year in place for when the second season for West World should be airing under normal circumstances.

Discovering Bernard was a host was a nice reveal. Of course, you all saw it coming and the seeds were laid pretty well. But the best part of that reveal is that it was rendered not the most important thing revealed in that scene but rather what happened immediately after revealed the bit of information that totally changes the trajectory of the show and how we view everyone. That is, the most important thing to come out of that scene was that Ford is a fucked up dude.

I feel like all this time we've been watching we've had the feeling that he is the wise gentle man who cherish's the humanity of the host and wants to treat them with some respect. He seemed like the one good guy through out it all. Turns out this dude got a God complex and feels like he has the right to take life when it serves him.

Just awesome.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

>Turns out this dude got a God complex and feels like he has
>the right to take life when it serves him.

is the reveal that the hosts/robots are capable of taking human life; the most we've seen so far are the hosts punching and smacking the human participants. That adds a level of potential danger for the humans taking part in the far outside margins of that West World universe.

>. That is, the most important thing
>to come out of that scene was that Ford is a fucked up dude.
>

And Sir Anthony Hopkins killed it. Dude was in full Menacing Hannibal Lechter mode in that scene. Him Thandie and Jeffrey should get awards consideration IMO. They are all doing very well.

.

who seemed to be roaming around with other motives, and trying either to reclaim what he lost with Arnold, or defending his work against the corpo powers that are trying to snatch his creation from them. I mean the intimidation he worked on Theresa during the convo when they were outside and the host over poured the wine, was a flex

what was revealed to me is that he is more than likely an anti-hero protagonist in a world full of shitty people: a tired western fictive paradigm in of itself, but with this show it works

I love when Theresa and Bernard enter the house and she says "this house doesn't show up on any of the surveys of the park" and Bernard explains that the hosts survey the park and were programmed to ignore that area. While he says that they literally wouldn't see it if they were staring right at it, we see the wall behind him fully wallpapered.

Then, Theresa says "what's behind this door?" and he Bernard says "what door?". When the camera goes back to the same wall, the door is right there. They basically told us right there that he is a host before Ford reveals it a few minutes later.

Can't wait to see where they go from here.

As in "holy shit, are they hinting at something or is something wild about to happen"....when Theresa picked up those documents, I figured it was about to be full reveal.

it got revealed three times in the dialogue alone.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

we all pretty much assumed ole bernie was a bot, but i loved the way that scene finally revealed it

oh yeah...thats what I'm talking about....

'...door?"

that was my favorite line of the series so far i think.
does anyone know what Theresa was broadcasting before Bernard threw her head into the wall at Mach 87?

They were basically running backups through the woodcutter and maybe another host so they could save all the park's raw data on it's guests.

is that if Westworld existed, no one who could afford it would ever go.

yeah, you can do whatever you want...and now corporation x has an exact record of your violent and sexual history locked in its database.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

"I'm a millionaire/billionaire let me go to this free willing murder park and do some of the worst shit I can imagine and not worry that someone might be recording it."

But that was the same problem with the sequel to the original, except replace the super rich with world leaders.

Who's constantly digging for info to write his myriad of pieces on how problematic the existence of Westworld is.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

it sounds as if that proposed character would be neck and neck for the worst character on that show coupled with that short overly angry British dude that curses as if he has a case of Tourette's.

Not saying I'd be down with going to town like some of the folks on the show, but it appears in the West World universe, 99% of the people don't care about the robots and view them as inanimate objects. I'm willing to guess the only folks that could be shamed are the techs that do certain illicit activities to the robots while they are powered down.

like, no rich person is putting themselves in that position

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

you'd have to see how folks operate outside of the West World universe to see if they would care about what occurs in West World. Given that West World is such a success, it doesn't appears as if folks outside of it care about what you're saying, but I could be wrong since the show hasn't divulged that world point of view yet.

...the argument of "Hey maybe the world just accepts a theme park based on rape and murder" doesn't bode well for the humans. Basic morality would have had to fallen apart for people to not be turned off by people acting horrifically just for fun.

I'm able to suspend by disbelief but it's a legitimate argument to put out there. The protests and think pieces about it would be non-stop.

>...the argument of "Hey maybe the world just accepts a theme
>park based on rape and murder" doesn't bode well for the
>humans. Basic morality would have had to fallen apart for
>people to not be turned off by people acting horrifically just
>for fun.
>
>I'm able to suspend by disbelief but it's a legitimate
>argument to put out there. The protests and think pieces about
>it would be non-stop.


Just looking at the show itself, it doesn't appear as if West World is hurting for business. Perhaps those rich enough to afford it are rich and powerful enough to the point they can influence those that would look down on them from a moral standpoint?

It would be interesting to look at the universe West World operates in outside of the theme park itself to explore what kind of morals folks govern in; given how complicated things are within the park itself, I doubt that'll happen. But then again, I could be wrong. I pretty much give up on trying to prognosticate too much with this show since I barely know people's motives on this show...and that's assuming they are even people themselves.

I doubt they think the hosts are saving data on what they do so they go in thinking the only people that will know are the other guests, who they probably wouldn't be a part of their social circles anyway.

Also doesn't look like you can bring recording devices into the park so they have that false sense of security.

Now with all that said...


Any high profile person in the real world would still be very apprehensive of going to a place that claims you can almost do whatever you want. They still are going to want to protect their image or brand and at least find out if it's truly a place of utmost discretion (i.e. nothing that happens there is going to make it out to TMZ, business associates, family, etc..)

I would not assume that people feel the same way about killing host as they do real people. I would imagine that there is probably no more stigma attached as it is to killing people in video games.

But even if it would present a problem if people knew I still wouldn't think it is a real concern for the very rich.

Like we all know that there are plenty of places that rich people go TODAY to do stuff away from the public eye that would get them in trouble if the public knew. You think Saudi Princes are concerned about their trips to west full of coke, whores and swine?


Also I think although we are seeing alot of the violent stuff because that's the focus of the show but I would wonder if the primary reason people go is to murder and have sex. It does seem like a lot of people go for the adventure.





>I doubt they think the hosts are saving data on what they do
>so they go in thinking the only people that will know are the
>other guests, who they probably wouldn't be a part of their
>social circles anyway.
>
>Also doesn't look like you can bring recording devices into
>the park so they have that false sense of security.
>
>Now with all that said...
>
>
>Any high profile person in the real world would still be very
>apprehensive of going to a place that claims you can almost do
>whatever you want. They still are going to want to protect
>their image or brand and at least find out if it's truly a
>place of utmost discretion (i.e. nothing that happens there is
>going to make it out to TMZ, business associates, family,
>etc..)


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Google offers an incognito mode and search because it HAS TO.

otherwise someone else would.

that the computers are logging everything, even if it's just to understand what's going on, goes without saying.

if the world is so evolved that no one ever got shamed for freaky shit they like anymore, that would be worth mentioning in the plot (also, you wouldn't really need westworld then)

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>if the world is so evolved that no one ever got shamed for
>freaky shit they like anymore, that would be worth mentioning
>in the plot (also, you wouldn't really need westworld then)

Acting abnormally in the West World environment against the robot hosts and acting out in the real world against and/or among other humans are two entirely different things though, both from a moral and legal perspective.

I truly think we as an audience view the robots much differently than the human participants since we partially view the show from their perspective. Not saying I'd want to shoot or do whatever else against a robot, but we the audience will never view the robots as inanimate objects like the guests visiting the park do.

the president of the united states getting pegged, whether by a machine or a human, is still super weird.


you can't walk that off with "well it was just a robot though" it does not work that way.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

can and went on to win the presidency.

We have no idea how far in the future this is, what planet this it is on, and if the puritanical values that this country is founded on have any sway on anyone anymore.

We don't know if humans number in trillions across 1000s of planets so that what a person does on one planet has little consequences or ever gets back to other planets.






**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

for this to not be a concern.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The reason why the debauchery exists is because the world that a "Westworld" would exist in doesn't evolve overnight. We're only seeing the barest hints of a "Westworld" world RIGHT THIS SECOND with the advent of VR and augmented reality. Like literally last night I read a post on /r/GooglePixel that related someone's first VR experience with porn. The post was approved by the mods because it contained highly relevant technical details on the user's experience with VR modules outside the normal tech demoes.

So how is that relevant with Westworld? Because long before 2016 users can experience actual sex with a hyper-realistic android those users need to experience a tech-driven world with all the stutter steps in between. The humans in Westworld would LAUGH at the absurd glasses we need to wear just to have a 360 degree visual experience... let alone touch, smell, and, most importantly, AI (DeepMind says hello).

The point to all this is that with each incremental advancement in technology (graphics, internet, smart phones, social media, 3D, augmented reality, VR, ..., ..., ..., androids that can fuck) there comes an accompanying societal and cultural acquiescence that comes with each technological step. Remember when HD porn was a thing? Well, now we got this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/5dyx20/nsfw_review_first_time_vr_user_and_first_time_vr/

Partial swipe: "Tl;dr: sex robots will be the end of mankind"


So, sure, from our caveman perspective we see that sex and violence with androids is a fucked up thing. I agree. The thing is, when you think about a world where that *actually* exists unapologetically then that means THAT society evolved in myriad ways to get to that point in the first place.

And THAT is why people that can indulge in Westworld would do it anyways. Because in a world where Westworld exists, people would be indulging in the same shit still, just with better technology.

yes it was an underling
yep she was power tripping

she answered that door butt nekkid

that scene showed a lot of what "people in charge" care about perception

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

but I read that as just her having so little respect for ol' girl that she doesn't even care.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

.

and other exotic destinations to wild the fuck out with no one ever knowing.

Also assume modern mores and people caring about what you do to host.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

which is essentially what the hosts are doing.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>is that if Westworld existed, no one who could afford it
>would ever go.
>
>yeah, you can do whatever you want...and now corporation x has
>an exact record of your violent and sexual history locked in
>its database.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

isn't west world also economically unsustainable? I mean in our world NASA is fucking losing funding, right after a decade of massive advance and discovery, and looking to private funds, but in this future world er'body is all in on an elite AI fantasy world where logs of sex and violence are kept, and it takes place in the "wild west" of all places

I can only imagine how much one host costs in the universe of that world...

anyway, back to enjoying this show

but like...everyone acts like the outside world is pretty normal, so.

it just doesn't make sense

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

... the way she did everything in her "takeover" was really sloppy..... she totally fell for the banana in the tailpipe...

can't believe she thought for one moment she was winning in this episode....

>... the way she did everything in her "takeover" was really
>sloppy..... she totally fell for the banana in the
>tailpipe...
>
>can't believe she thought for one moment she was winning in
>this episode....

1) She wasn't aware she was being led to a hidden portion of the part, muchless that she's was going to lose phone coverage.

2) She obviously wasn't aware Ford was capable of building robots off the main site of West World and that Bernard was a robot.

3) I could be mistaken about this, but I don't think she was aware of the fact the West World robots were capable of killing human beings. So far, the worst we've seen the robots do is punch, smack, and restrain the human guests in the park. I don't think being killed by a robot was even a possibility in her head.

Overall, I'm sure she was aware Ford was a threat, but I don't think she thought Ford was willing to take her life. Given all those facts from her perspective, I can't really get mad at her for falling prey to Ford and his very very hidden devices.

I don't think he's talking about her going down to that basement level with Bernard. I just think he means her attempt to trick Ford and Bernard and use that as a way to force Ford out and get the I.P..

how much control she knew he had is unclear, but she said they don't really have the source code etc.


AND YET

she discusses the plan with ms. board member while in a room with ONE OF THE ROBOTS

which he clearly was using to listen in, since he repeated the blood sacrifice line to her.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

reminds me of paranoid folks using facebook


very


but...


~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

....everything she did was so over the top

Doesn't quite pull off powerful board member.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The outside world has been dominated by vampires. Westworld is the last refuge for humans being the dominant being on Earth. It explains why people don't care about humans getting out their basest emotions/actions and the vampires like it as it helps people get their aggression out.

and tessa is killing it at the boss lady

i gaffed
and yes she's great
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

on the nose?


cause I think that would be pretty dope

especially if they use it right at the end

maybe Maeve tries to escape and finds some door that no one sees....walks through it bam right back in the cantina (or a different narrative)

cue hotel california...

house of the rising sun

why was it that wrangler guy's job to know Bernard and Theresa were intimate? I thought his job was the manager and track the known robots; to his knowledge, Bernard isn't a robot.

One aspect that blew me away was the fact the all the robots have explosives built into them. That is beyond insane given all that can go wrong in that Western environment. Maybe it's too small an explosive to potentially harm others?

Overall, I'm sure I'm going to have to re-watch this episode as I'm sure there's a ton I missed during my first viewing. I have to think those reviewers that trashed the show initially have to be killing themselves slowly. Hard to believe there's only two more episodes and it feels pretty terrible knowing the second season won't even show up during 2017. Hopefully the next Red Dead Redemption sequel from Rockstar will quell my longings for West World.

But covers employees also (ie, if the Bernard firing was 'real' and aggressive, his people would be the ones to physically escort him out of the park).

So I assume he's got basic information/access to the video which is how he knew they were going into each others rooms late by room key card swipes.

>One aspect that blew me away was the fact the all the robots
>have explosives built into them. That is beyond insane given
>all that can go wrong in that Western environment. Maybe it's
>too small an explosive to potentially harm others?

other than that, he's probably like...some kind of ex cop or maybe soldier

and just figured it out because y'know, he has eyes and is around them all the time

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

So while he is in charge of park security, he's also in charge of the security of the workers and their little town or area where they live. He seems a little too into his job if he thinks he needs to know who is sleeping with who though.

It was a little out of nowhere but I just rolled with it. There's little context about the world outside of Westworld so things like this are bound to come up out of nowhere and not be well explained.

>So while he is in charge of park security, he's also in
>charge of the security of the workers and their little town or
>area where they live. He seems a little too into his job if he
>thinks he needs to know who is sleeping with who though.
>
>It was a little out of nowhere but I just rolled with it.
>There's little context about the world outside of Westworld so
>things like this are bound to come up out of nowhere and not
>be well explained.

What makes it worse is that he was that intuitive about knowing Bernard and Theresa were sleeping with each other, yet it took him roughly two or three episodes to know Maeve was going well off her routines. That and the fact all the robots are hard wired with explosives in them are a little bit far-fetched, but I guess I have to accept the fiction portion of this sci-fi tale more than I want to in order to buy into this show.

Just enough to fry their spinal cord and render them inoperable.

But yeah, you'd think some sort of self-destruct code that just erased their operating system or something if they passed a certain point would be a more viable than an explosive.

I like the Maeve storyline but it's tough to watch those two knuckleheads get blackmailed when they hold so many options to fix things. The Asian dude needs to be more for it rather than acting scared. Then it would make more sense.

>Just enough to fry their spinal cord and render them
>inoperable.
>
>But yeah, you'd think some sort of self-destruct code that
>just erased their operating system or something if they passed
>a certain point would be a more viable than an explosive.

The danger of having so many explosives is one aspect that makes it hard to believe, but the sheer cost of having ALL the robots in the park have explosives built into them seems exceedingly expensive, at least to me, even if they are tiny.

>I like the Maeve storyline but it's tough to watch those two
>knuckleheads get blackmailed when they hold so many options to
>fix things. The Asian dude needs to be more for it rather than
>acting scared. Then it would make more sense.

What do you mean by 'be more for it'? I'm not following what you're trying to say with that line of thinking.

Most of the time he's helping her, it seems like it is out of fear. Those two guys should have been able to take care of her no problem IMO if they wanted to. I feel like it would have been better if he had been all-in to help her and was struggling to hide it from others (and then been shocked when she sliced the guy's neck).

I feel like every episode is the same for them. She wants an upgrade, they bicker, she gets the upgrade.

is he just mad curious about the technology of the hosts, or is he low-key in love with Maeve? With either or another reality, why is he all in... the risks for his career and life are so much greater

also Hopkin's riff on consciousness was so ridiculously dumb, it took me out the story. the show has been very hit or miss when it tries to get philosophical, because it's so deeply invested in western paradigms and narratives which actually sap the imaginative elements from the shows core.

his motivation is basically he brought that bird back to life

which leads me to believe he feels more is at stake/more sympathetic to the hosts and possibly believes they are infact alive

if that is the case then most likely hes going under the assumption that anything short of helping Maeve will result in her ultimate death and he wont allow that



thats how I feel about this(if felix isnt actually a host thats been manipulated somehow)

Since he seemed to be trying to learn more about the hosts, either to elevate his career or just a love of the science, I think he has started to see the humanity in them. Especially Maeve, who is exhibiting independent thought.

I think he is starting to see her as a living person, and isn't willing to just switch her off to save his ass, unlike his boy.

What we've learned about the outside world is that there are very defined roles and pathways for humans, similar to the hosts. The first time the co-worker saw the Asian dude trying to re-code the bird, he reinforced that by saying (paraphrasing): we are butchers, we aren't meant to code.

The Asian dude is clearly trying to transcend his role and sees the same thing with Maeve. That is a huge attachment in and of itself, and further, she is now his proof of concept that A) you aren't relegated to your pre-ordained destiny B) he may be more than a butcher as his coding has been essential.

Hopkins directly touched on the human and host parallel theme when he was talking to Bernard and reconciling human loops with host loops.

or if you're fucking around with a co-worker you usually feel like it's less obvious than it is.

Lots of things they need to explain that aren't easily rationalized away but the biggest issue(s) for me so far concern Bernard.

While that was an AWESOME reveal, it begs the question... how is Bernard so obviously far more advanced than the other hosts? And this despite him being a much older host (his blueprint was alongside Dolores)? They hinted at a duality in the hosts' coding (Arnold vs Ford? Ford vs Behavior? Or Arnold/Ford vs Delos?) but it doesn't make sense that the more "advanced" AI behavioral code is older than the scripted AI in the amusement park.

I mean, Bernard was acting virtually autonomously, going so far as to maintain a serious romantic relationship. Amongst humans obviously, who do not (technically) work off of scripts. And the show gave zero hints as to his origins up until the moments before the final reveal. No odd statements to his superior Theresa, no glitches in interactions with his subordinate Elise, no weird tics with his maker Ford.

All show long we've been inundated with hosts glitching out when confronted with dissociative elements that exist outside their coded purview. But then here's Bernard, who is able to function litrally perfectly when interacting mostly with unpredictable humans. I love the show so far but if they don't explore this disparity I'm going to be really disappointed.

>
>I mean, Bernard was acting virtually autonomously, going so
>far as to maintain a serious romantic relationship. Amongst
>humans obviously, who do not (technically) work off of
>scripts. And the show gave zero hints as to his origins up
>until the moments before the final reveal. No odd statements
>to his superior Theresa, no glitches in interactions with his
>subordinate Elise, no weird tics with his maker Ford.
>

his capacity for improvisation is probably turned up way higher than your average host that actually has to live in Westworld. other parts of his personality are probably turned up too (remember when Felix and Sylvester were explaining the 20 or so aspects of personality that the hosts have and that they can be turned up or down.)

we don't really know how often Ford is meeting with him and giving him secret directives. so we don't actually know how autonomously he's been acting and he wouldn't know either because those memories have been wiped.

also, bernard's not being murdered, repaired, and memory washed every 24 hours. he probably hasn't had to switch narratives as often as the other hosts either. his memory of his life is probably more continual than someone like Maeve. Bernard's endured a lot less damage, which probably leaves a lot less opportunity for "errors" to show up in his personality.


>All show long we've been inundated with hosts glitching out
>when confronted with dissociative elements that exist outside
>their coded purview. But then here's Bernard, who is able to
>function litrally perfectly when interacting mostly with
>unpredictable humans. I love the show so far but if they don't
>explore this disparity I'm going to be really disappointed.
>

is he always operating "perfectly"? now that his host identity has been revealed, maybe the show can show us more about how he is actually operating day to day internally (beyond those memories of his kid).

also, if everyone around him thinks he's human, then if he did experience a glitch in public, it would just look like he's remembering something painful, or he just had a brain fart, or he's just taking a really long time to think of the right words. The other staff wouldn't necessarily assume, "oh shit, my coworker is a host."* he'd just be a dude having a bad day or having a senior moment.


*well, obviously that chief security dude is now gonna be suspicious...

>his capacity for improvisation is probably turned up way
>higher than your average host that actually has to live in
>Westworld. other parts of his personality are probably turned
>up too (remember when Felix and Sylvester were explaining the
>20 or so aspects of personality that the hosts have and that
>they can be turned up or down.)

Well, that's what I'm saying. His capacity for improvisation is much, much higher than the park hosts since he has to deal with humans in the human world, not humans in the curated host world.

Imagine the permutation of topics for the hosts in the park. The humans visiting the park will obviously want to talk about the park: how/when/where to eat/fuck/kill/drink/explore. Typical stuff to expect.

Now imagine putting a host in the human world. Sure, his existence revolves around his occupation as head of Behavior. But the people around him have lives outside the park: sports, social presence, home life, world events, movies, music, etc. There's only so much he can learn from browsing the internet (and why would he even want to)?. He has no reason to be inquisitive about other people, but how does he handle questions about himself (especially the intimate conversations that happens in relationships)? He can wave off a number of questions based on dedication to his job but unless certain common knowledge topics are hardcoded how does he handle your everyday "water cooler" talk?

This is sort of what I'm referring to when his AI seems to be far more advanced than the park hosts, despite the implication he's a much older model. There's no need to program the park hosts to deal with "water cooler" talk because, for one, the visitors aren't there to talk about last night's game, or the recent election, or how their oldest is rebelling while the youngest is being a huge brat. They're there to fuck/drink/kill, so the purview of host improvisation is in a much narrower range.


>we don't really know how often Ford is meeting with him and
>giving him secret directives. so we don't actually know how
>autonomously he's been acting and he wouldn't know either
>because those memories have been wiped.

True. I did say "virtually autonomously" with the implication that Ford is really driving Bernard's behavior. But Ford isn't babysitting him either. What does he say when Elise idly asks him what his opinion is on (using today's topics) Doctor Strange/the Dallas Cowboys/Syria/the alt-right when they're working side by side? Or what college he went to, senior prom, things he loved to do as a kid? That is a LOT of improvisation for a host existing in the human world.


>also, bernard's not being murdered, repaired, and memory
>washed every 24 hours. he probably hasn't had to switch
>narratives as often as the other hosts either. his memory of
>his life is probably more continual than someone like Maeve.
>Bernard's endured a lot less damage, which probably leaves a
>lot less opportunity for "errors" to show up in his
>personality.

I agree with all this. But just because he's not constantly being killed doesn't mean he won't encounter unfamiliar topics/situations on a regular basis.

>is he always operating "perfectly"? now that his host identity
>has been revealed, maybe the show can show us more about how
>he is actually operating day to day internally (beyond those
>memories of his kid).

Unless I missed something, I don't think they've dropped many hints he was a host until the actual episode it was revealed.

>
>also, if everyone around him thinks he's human, then if he did
>experience a glitch in public, it would just look like he's
>remembering something painful, or he just had a brain fart, or
>he's just taking a really long time to think of the right
>words. The other staff wouldn't necessarily assume, "oh shit,
>my coworker is a host."* he'd just be a dude having a bad day
>or having a senior moment.
>
>*well, obviously that chief security dude is now gonna be
>suspicious...

Sure, I agree with this. But that goes back to my original point... his AI programming is so far advanced than the park hosts despite being an older model.

First off, a lot of people have taken the way the pic of young Ford looked to Bernard as a hint-- how there was a large gap to the side of the photo. (This is the key to the Bernard = Arnold theory, in addition to being a possible tell that he's a host.)

Then you have Ford's constant reiteration of his backstory... which others had pointed out online certainly seemed like some sort of mental manipulation, if not, again, a way of redirecting Bernard's thought.

Then you have the way the episode began, with Bernard dreaming about his kid-- to this point, the only "dreams" we've seen from anyone are from hosts. I know at least one person who said they suspected from the theorizing, but once we saw him having a vivid dream, they immediately knew that's where the episode was headed.

Finally, you have the way Ford snuck up in the cabin. At the time, it seemed really fucking weird and like the show just wanted to use a wack creepy horror trope ("he appeared out of nowhere!") but now it makes perfect sense. He just came out of the station that Bernard couldn't see.

So not flagrant hints, but the hints have been there.

I also disagree that Bernard is acting totally autonomously. Ford seemed to indicate last episode that Bernard is doing exactly what Ford wants him to do. He may not "repeat a loop" as notably as the others do, but it's possible that he's being constantly tinkered on, updated, and made more refined by Ford on a regular basis.

(I also wouldn't be surprised if Redditors or whoever find instances in which Bernard *has* repeated things or said things that other hosts say.)

"This pain is all i have left of her/him" (when each was speaking about their resprctive children.)

when i was watching the ep, i assumed it was a line Ford added to Bernards dialogue, but now it seems more likely thats its something Bernard incorporated without realizing it.

>
>(I also wouldn't be surprised if Redditors or whoever find
>instances in which Bernard *has* repeated things or said
>things that other hosts say.)

Edit: i'm also annoyed i didnt notice that the hosts are the only ones we see dreaming until reading your response

>First off, a lot of people have taken the way the pic of
>young Ford looked to Bernard as a hint-- how there was a large
>gap to the side of the photo. (This is the key to the Bernard
>= Arnold theory, in addition to being a possible tell that
>he's a host.)
>
>Then you have Ford's constant reiteration of his backstory...
>which others had pointed out online certainly seemed like some
>sort of mental manipulation, if not, again, a way of
>redirecting Bernard's thought.

>Then you have the way the episode began, with Bernard dreaming
>about his kid-- to this point, the only "dreams" we've seen
>from anyone are from hosts. I know at least one person who
>said they suspected from the theorizing, but once we saw him
>having a vivid dream, they immediately knew that's where the
>episode was headed.

>Finally, you have the way Ford snuck up in the cabin. At the
>time, it seemed really fucking weird and like the show just
>wanted to use a wack creepy horror trope ("he appeared out of
>nowhere!") but now it makes perfect sense. He just came out of
>the station that Bernard couldn't see.
>
>So not flagrant hints, but the hints have been there.


Definitely true, I forgot about certain moments like that picture. I was referring more to Bernard's behavior but there were certainly other hints he was a host. There's also the fact that Ford knew about Bernard's relationship with Theresa... at this point, presumably at Ford's behest.


>I also disagree that Bernard is acting totally autonomously.
>Ford seemed to indicate last episode that Bernard is doing
>exactly what Ford wants him to do. He may not "repeat a loop"
>as notably as the others do, but it's possible that he's being
>constantly tinkered on, updated, and made more refined by Ford
>on a regular basis.

I go into this more in my reply to Shamus, but I agree, he wasn't acting totally autonomously (hence my use of "virtually"). Bernard, up until this point, has unequivocally been acting upon Ford's orders but I was more alluding to the fact that Bernard needs to have the *appearance* of acting autonomously. Ford isn't hanging around Bernard 24/7, but Bernard is interacting on a regular basis with Elsie, Security Guy, Theresa, random butcher in the labs, etc. Sure, most conversation will revolve around work but humans are humans... we talk about random shit when time permits, especially at the workplace. Bernard probably doesn't have too many "interests" outside of work, but how does he deal with the unpredictable idle chatter that happens on a daily basis?

I also do agree that he's constantly being improved by Ford, that seems a given. But that still begs the question... how is Bernard's *capacity* for improvisation so much higher than the park hosts? When the park hosts are challenged, they lean on scripted lines and/or glitch out. But Bernard isn't dealing with humans in a narrow setting, he's dealing with them in the real world. And all the hints we were given that he is a host were external to his behavior. In other words, IIRC, we were never given a scene where he replied oddly to something someone said, where his *behavior* was questionable from a human standpoint. This is true until the scene with Security Guy(where Ford obviously tampered with Bernard's response) but that still doesn't really explain Bernard's ability to exist amongst humans without a single suspicion being raised.

>
>(I also wouldn't be surprised if Redditors or whoever find
>instances in which Bernard *has* repeated things or said
>things that other hosts say.)

Quite possible, although I've deliberately stayed away from the hivemind for this show. I'm happy I did, I'd rather discuss the show within a community context like this rather than with The Power of the Interwebs.

Delores is Wyatt(technially Wyatt is Delores)

and the top of the pyramid is suffering

I think Ford is using the "accident" that killed Arnold (by the hand of Delores) as the new narrative.

Wyatt is Delores and Benard is Arnold.

I believe that "Arnold" is a part of the base code found in all of the hosts. Maeve asks about Arnold when she examines her basic programming and more or less taps onto the bicamerial mind.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I hate that we have to wait 1.5- 2 years before season two hits.

I mean, I *maybe* would've figured out a couple of things-- but not everything. And basically every major theory widely held by the Internet sleuths over the past whatever has turned out to be right.

It's cool seeing how the show puts them together tho, and how they drop all their hints here and there.

****************





****











I think I pretty much came up with this on my own but here we go

Dolores went nutty 34-35 years ago the "incident". Arnold and some techs were killed by Dolores and possibly other hosts.

FF 5 years to William and Logan first visit.

Dolores, who is still running the maze but kinda because shes glitchy gets William and Logan caught up in this.

Something happens here important.

I suspect Dolores kills Logan, William helps Ford cover it up, the agreement is William gets lifetime privledges and ensures his company (who his fiance/logans sister is probably owner/ceo of) keeps the park open

FF to current time, Ford writes the narrative based on the kernal of truth(Dolores breaking out) which essentially is

a host realises its alive and tries to break out

He is guiding this "narrative" along while Maeve breaks out

Maeve is Wyatt

Dolores is the "kernal of truth" Wyatt is based on.


So get this you know what that means?

Teddy = William
Lawerence = Logan
Dolores/Maeve = Wyatt



^^what i mean about this part is teddy and lawrence are essentially place holders put by ford to keep dolores from breaking out


Whats better?

Felix = William
Lawrence = Sylvester

Now the reason? I suspect Ford has and endgame and wants to retire

So either kill all the remaining humans or all the remaining "old" hosts or both.

I unfortunately saw the posts above yours right before watching the episode so I couldn't help but watch with that lens. The hivemind is spot on, gotta admit.

That said, there are still some interesting questions left to be answered... like what is William going to find? What is Dolores' and Ford's endgame? How will this transition into next season?

I will say though, they were fairly thorough in how they explained Bernard's advanced intelligence. Making more clear both Ford and Arnold's original intentions with the hosts went a long way in explaining just why Bernard was so readily adaptable in the human world.

I believe William finds nothing
The MIB I'm not sure, I think that ties in to Ford's end game because he is essentially guiding MIB along


I believe Dolores is going to run the maze differently(arnolds way)

I believe Ford's endgame is to eliminate any more dissent

So that would be humans and "old" hosts infected by arnold

I still thoroughly enjoyed Ford's reveal speech to Bernard but I would have liked to have seen it cold. I'm not engaging with any forum during the second season.

If you crowdsource an analysis of every frame of a show, you're gonna have people who figure out the secrets. Then folks complain about how the secrets were easily figured out. "Bernard is a host. We knew that." "William is MiB. We know that."

I'm with you. I may have gotten a couple of hints, but there's no way I would have figured out the rest if the theories weren't rampant over the internet. Why can't we just enjoy the show for what it is? There seems to be this obsession with dissecting every show that offers any semblance of a mythology.

Okay, I'm just rambling at this point. Bottom line, I would enjoy the show more without all the theorizing and I think I'll bow out of the message board discussion for season 2.

but it's at least been watchable
www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

pseudo philosophical rant i'm punch my TV

because of the gaps in the story, the questions aren't really there imo.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

and how Ford the megalomaniac feels like hes doing the hosts a favor by keeping them from the burden of their memories


the literal conversations ford has about what constitutes being alive, humanity and consciousness

what gaps are you talking about? do you FF through any scene with Ford?


Not the gaps int he storyline or the timelines or whatever

im talking about the actual philosophical discussions that happen WITHIN the show

and so far, we have no confirmation that anything the hosts have done is something other than what ford and/or arnold programmed them very specifically to do.



www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Ford's and Arnold's

You have ford, the "Demurge*", the as I would call it, "Garden of Eden" God

he wants to be in absolute control of his little creations and sees himself as doing them a favor by keeping them "ignorant", he sees being self-aware and being able to remember suffering as a burden



Then you have Arnolds belief that they should be self aware, knowledgeble and have memories( eating the apple if you will)


These two points are constantly put in front of us throughout the show and if you are saying that these are not two philosophical questions that are posed in almost every episode and almost every scene where Ford speaks then we can probably stop our discussion right here because I feel this control vs free will is the basis of the show.

the only thing we've heard of it has come through Ford.

I don't know what a Demurge is.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

an opposing view point to Ford's

it doesnt matter if Arnold ever existed, these are two ideas or philosphies that are opposed to each other put in front of us in almost every episode


There is a conversation between bernard and ford in episode 8 that is basically an intro into existentialism and what it means to be "alive"


Sorry I spelled Demiurge wrong



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge


But basically the Gnostic "creator" but not the "true god"

and can say that is what it is, imo, we have no argument.

Anthony Hopkins is putting on an acting master class, but I'm not feeling the push-pull, because I don't know if maeve/white girlwhatshername/ teddy/ wyatt and whoever are working for arnold, ford, or whoever else, or even WHEN the events displayed are happening in the story's timeline.

if and when I can put it together I may have something to think about but I haven't come to it yet.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

these questions have been debated for about as long man has existed

atleast since the first time man had enough free time to consider such things

There was a whole shit ton of people in the 19th and 20th century that sat around talking about this very thing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

I think this show lays out some of these same topics very plainly and offers great arguments on both sides.

What I find even more intriguing, is Ford, the crazy ass meglomaniac makes a strong argument AGAINST free will.

Hes so good in this role hes able to make us consider something we as humans should inherently be against.



I'm confused how you can say this isnt whats playing out in front of us and I'd even go so far to say, again, its the basis for this whole show but its all good to each his own

Enjoy the show!

in the behavior of the oldest, highest-sentience-ceiling hosts in Maeve, Dolores and Bernarnold. They're the ones that question their existence via their remembrance of "dreams". It's the "reverie" code that Ford installed that's reviving the suppressed code Arnold wrote a long time ago.

Granted, it's not manifesting itself literally in Arnold's "words" but it's clear that Arnold's philosophy for host sentience is struggling to surface... the hosts keep hearing "remember", for one example.


With that said, another question just popped up that needs to be explained in the final episode. If the "reveries" are of Arnold's origin, then why would Ford want to risk losing his control over the hosts? I hope his "new narrative" will reasonably explain this gap in his motives.

wtf is Arnold trying to get them to remember?

everything?

to what end?

like...it has to go somewhere for it to be an argument

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Just saying that there are shades of self-aware-AI-sentience that have been explored in the show so far. Ford has carried the philosophical debate thus far but we still have the season finale.

To their credit, they explicitly explained Bernard's advanced AI to satisfy my issues. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt to round out the discussion in the last episode.

I'm not particularly happy that they haven't, and I'm waiting to see if they do.

that's all

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

as memory of their life is in arnolds opinion what seperates humans from hosts

specifically, memories of pain and suffering

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

*edit*

the top of the pyramid is suffering
arnolds entire MO is that what seperates us from hosts are "memories"

at the top, is suffering.

this still changes nothing about my reasons this isn't an argument.

the actual information we've been given, has only come via Ford.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

it doesnt matter if arnold ever existed

the two opposing ideas are presented to the viewer and the events in the show are reinforcing one or the other.

it's not an opposing idea, so much as an array of half-formed secondhand statements.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

to me its the opposite

we are essentially watching an intro to philosophy/existentialism


The topics of Free Will vs Control and What makes a human being different from the rest of the animals are being plainly laid out in front of us regardless of "who" is posing the questions, the questions are being posed to the viewer.


But hey I didnt mean to drag this out and I'm not the kind of person to try to change others opinion on subjective matters

I understand and accept what you are saying but disagree!

Cant wait for the finale!

Ford agreed with Arnold the whole time we're watching the show, there is no argument.

At no point this season did we see the host's exhibiting actual consciousness, they were always under Ford's control until the very end.

fin.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

and in fact as you can see the in my other posts I believed ford was manipulating everything to achieve some end goal (i was partially correct he wanted all the humans killed)


Now on to the philosophical part, I still vehemently disagree
Almost every episode and almost every scene with Ford the viewers are presented with the conflicting ideas of Free will vs Determinism

If you dont agree thats the underlying theme of the show thats totally fine.


random quote from a random article abotu a random episode from the season

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/arts/television/season-1-episode-4-truth-and-consequences.html?_r=0


"“Westworld” is engaging in the age-old philosophical debate over free will versus determinism, which is a favorite among science-fiction writers. And at this moment, Maeve realizes her life has become a crushing example of the latter. She locks Hector in a plane-going-down kiss, but the seeds of rebellion have been planted: If you know nothing you do has any consequences, you’re liberated to do what you please. It’s her first taste of real freedom."


They must be way off too...

she did exactly what she was written to do.

that's why no one could make assumptions until the finale, because we didn't know what was happening.

now we do know, and the answer is....not much

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

When Bernard starts detailing her narrative one of the later directives before she breaks the tablet is "MAINLAND INFILTRA-".

The twist is that despite her realization that her daughter's memories are false, it was the image of a mother and daughter that compelled her to return to the park.

What's poignant is that while her "daughter" has been driving her this whole time it's her lack of a real daughter that, presumably, gave her the "motherly instinct" to return to the park for unfinished business (e.g. Clementine).

we now know that everything prior to that was entirely scripted.

they were wrong.

as far as the train, we don't yet know what that was.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The only Westworld discussion I allowed myself all season was okayplayer, I didn't even read any recap articles. It wasn't until after the finale that I jumped into the subreddit, which had these two screenshots from the finale:

http://imgur.com/a/H3qMk

Yes, everything in this season for Maeve was entirely scripted... until the very end, when she finally decided to go off script.

Which makes sense, because the whole show is about the "dawn of consciousness" and what makes an entity "alive".

> as far as the train, we don't yet know what that was.

Yes we do, she went off script. If she was still on script, then the entire season is worthless because the whole show is about the exploration of self-awareness. If Maeve doesn't achieve "consciousness" then the arcs for Ford/Dolores/MiB are worthless.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

it talks about maeve's taste of freedom, which we now know wasn't freedom at all.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

But the whole idea of the bicameral mind is exploring how consciousness occurs. The "dawn of consciousness" is the moment when the bicameral mind (one speaks, the other obeys) is able to break that loop... through an adaptation to the changing environment.

This is precisely what we see with Maeve. The entire season we're led to believe she's acting on her own volition, then we realize she wasn't. Then at the very moment when confronted with her falsified "cornerstone" moment she... breaks the loop. She achieved "consciousness".

Like Ford said, the process requires time. Introducing the reveries was the final tipping point to achieve what Arnold wanted to achieve 35 years ago. Maeve's arc took us on this philosophical journey when the "bicameral" mind stopped taking orders and finally started living.

is that we can't trust what we're seeing.

if it is true, it is only true at the very end, and we can't be sure it's true because the show has already shown us how it can lie.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

But that finale held some very conclusive proofs. There's no question Maeve acted on her own in the train. There's motive to lead the viewer in one direction throughout the season but finales are there to wrap things up.

What would be the point of exploring the conscious mind the entire season if there isn't an actual moment of consciousness?

that is impossible.

that's what *you want*

we can't even be sure bernard was able to read the tablet he was holding.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I'm analyzing what's in front of me. Are you doing the same or are you just attacking me? I'm giving a number of pieces of evidence and you're not even addressing those points, just saying "I know you are but what am I".

Do you want to actually analyze those same scenes yourself or just repeat a familiar refrain?


And I have no idea where you're getting this from:

> we can't even be sure bernard was able to read the tablet he was holding.

He was literally reading down the list of directives for her.

what's there?

No one else saw it.

and Bernard's vision is controlled by his programming.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Their memories and behavior are programmed, yes. They'll play with the "dream" perspectives like Dolores seeing Bernard, then (the real) Arnold, then Ford, then herself in that chair.

But IIRC their "vision" has never been questioned. In other words we haven't seen a case where a host "sees" something we believe to be real then later it's revealed it's not.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

She got onto the train and then the fake memory of her child kept her from leaving.

Did we ever see something that said her ultimate directive was too escape?
If anything, it would seem that she is still part of Ford's plan of destruction, this time heading to World 1 (or whichever world was on the piece of paper) to fuck shit up while looking for her "daughter".

http://imgur.com/a/H3qMk

>She got onto the train and then the fake memory of her child kept her from leaving.

In the elevator with Felix, she knew the memory (and her daughter) was fake. Hence why she chose not to investigate the lead he gave her.

But when faced with an actual mother and daughter... something awoke in her. Choosing to remain (presumably to help the other hosts, like Clementine) was her first instance of true agency.

Again, my problem is that you can't say like Jonah Nolan does that nobody should assume anything and then have key moments be a flash of text on a tablet we can barely see during actually watching the show and assuming it means what it appears to mean.

There's understated and then there's needing to make frame grabs to figure out what might be happening at a key moment.

"What would be the point of exploring the conscious mind the entire season if there isn't an actual moment of consciousness?"

You don't need the screengrab to understand what's going on. That's for the internet hivemind to have fun with but it's not mandatory to interpret the critical scene.


> There's understated and then there's needing to make frame grabs to figure out what might be happening at a key moment.

The elevator scene set the stage for Maeve's moment of clarity. She discarded the notion of her daughter, saw an actual mother and daughter, then changed paths. You don't need to know what was on the tablet to see what happened in those two scenes. I'm not exactly making a leap of logic here. And, again, the whole show is about the exploration of consciousness, the episode was titled The Bicameral Mind and Maeve's arc was (IMO) by far the most compelling throughout the season. It's fitting that she achieved what Arnold, then Ford, long sought.

So, again... what would be the point of exploring the conscious mind the entire season if there isn't an actual moment of consciousness?

If your rationale for understanding a moment is, "Well, shit, it's the finale and this whole thing would be pointless if getting off the train ISN'T a choice, so it must be a choice." that's shoddy storytelling. It's like having two people trapped in Act 1 and then cutting to them running outside and answering, "How'd they get out?" with "Well, we're only 20 minutes into the movie, of course they escaped."

Outside of what's on the tablet, there's no reason to dismiss the notion that perhaps Maeve is still getting led by Ford (as she has the entire season) and he's sending her back in to mess with another World under the pretense of finding her fake daughter. We were led to believe that she was acting on her own once; what makes this moment different?

The writing on the pad is crucial to the understanding of that scene. I don't know how you can argue that Maeve's choice not to follow her prime directive doesn't require people knowing what her prime directive is.

>If your rationale for understanding a moment is, "Well, shit,
>it's the finale and this whole thing would be pointless if
>getting off the train ISN'T a choice, so it must be a choice."
>that's shoddy storytelling. It's like having two people
>trapped in Act 1 and then cutting to them running outside and
>answering, "How'd they get out?" with "Well, we're only 20
>minutes into the movie, of course they escaped."

They've been laying the groundwork for this all season. The memories of her daughter kept bringing her closer and closer to sentience then finally when given the moment she can resolve her cornerstone memory... she refuses.

We can agree to disagree on the entertainment value but Maeve's entire arc was leading up to that moment in the elevator... until her moment on the train.


>Outside of what's on the tablet, there's no reason to dismiss
>the notion that perhaps Maeve is still getting led by Ford (as
>she has the entire season) and he's sending her back in to
>mess with another World under the pretense of finding her fake
>daughter. We were led to believe that she was acting on her
>own once; what makes this moment different?
>
>The writing on the pad is crucial to the understanding of that
>scene. I don't know how you can argue that Maeve's choice not
>to follow her prime directive doesn't require people knowing
>what her prime directive is.

Because that was the whole theme of the episode. Maeve broke script, Dolores found the source of the voice in her head, Ford revealed his new narrative and William found the center of his maze. There was a turning point for each character arc. If Maeve doesn't break script then it would run counter to the theme of the entire episode (and season).

>We can agree to disagree on the entertainment value but
>Maeve's entire arc was leading up to that moment in the
>elevator... until her moment on the train.

LOL. EXACTLY!!!

The entire arc was leading to her breaking from the cornerstone memory of her daughter and freeing herself... until it turned out that that entire breakout storyline and mindset was not her own decision but her program. She was being told to want to escape. What we thought was her gaining consciousness throughout the show actually wasn't at all!

So now that she is on the train and makes the decision to go get the girl from her cornerstone memory (her original program), you're saying WELL OF COURSE THAT HAS TO BE THE REAL THING! THERE'S NO WAY FORD COULD HAVE WANTED HER TO GO TO PARK 1 AND MESS WITH IT!
And when asked, "Wait, why not?" your answer is simply that it doesn't fit the theme of the episode. To me, that's not a legitimate response. The action should determine the theme, not the other way around.

Nevermind the whole fact that if you didn't spy the tiny line saying that Maeve's directive was MAINLAND INFILTRATION, you'd have no idea whether her turning back was part of the plan or not. Maybe we still don't. Maybe Mainland is the name of Park 1. Ford's plan is to destroy the park; sending Maeve into another section of the park seems to fill that better than heading into the world.

Odds are that she made the choice because of the reasons you stated but given the approach/twists in the show, to simply deny any other possibility seems wrong. Especially when those reasons have nothing to do with the body of the show itself but with the overarching themes, although even there: Nolan has five seasons planned. Does Maeve necessarily HAVE to get her consciousness at the end of season 1? Could there be a longer end game here?

would make the show pointless, then that's the only valid interpretation.

BANG.

THE SHOW IS FUCKING POINTLESS.

and there you have it.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Basically, the show uses steadicam when hosts are acting "according to plan," and handheld when they're on their own cognition. It's a subtle thing, but pretty fantastic if you know to look for it:

http://uproxx.com/tv/know-answer-maeve-westworld-decision-before-2018/

"wait, what camera movement are they using in this particular scene?"

it's the ultimate in "I've crawled up inside of my own asshole" direction.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

But in a show that says assume nothing and has twists galore, I definitely think they needed to establish the last decision better than a glance at a tablet and taking the camera off of sticks.

The fact that the key "definitive" conscious moment at the end of season 1 has many fans wondering if the decision was real or not is a bad look.

I'm not sure how much more needs to be said.

You feel its fine for the theme (and runtime of the show) to drive the narrative. I disagree completely. Characters' motivations shouldn't be dictated by the show's theme or the episodes place in the run of the show.

There's a reason that one of the burning questions after the finale was about a moment you claim to be obvious and definitive.

Reordered to form a better flowing argument:


#418:

In the elevator with Felix, she knew the memory (and her daughter) was fake. Hence why she chose not to investigate the lead he gave her.

But when faced with an actual mother and daughter... something awoke in her. Choosing to remain (presumably to help the other hosts, like Clementine) was her first instance of true agency.

#340:

The twist is that despite her realization that her daughter's memories are false, it was the image of a mother and daughter that compelled her to return to the park.

What's poignant is that while her "daughter" has been driving her this whole time it's her lack of a real daughter that, presumably, gave her the "motherly instinct" to return to the park for unfinished business (e.g. Clementine).

#412:

Agreed, she was programmed with the pretense of freedom.

But the whole idea of the bicameral mind is exploring how consciousness occurs. The "dawn of consciousness" is the moment when the bicameral mind (one speaks, the other obeys) is able to break that loop... through an adaptation to the changing environment.

This is precisely what we see with Maeve. The entire season we're led to believe she's acting on her own volition, then we realize she wasn't. Then at the very moment when confronted with her falsified "cornerstone" moment she... breaks the loop. She achieved "consciousness".

Like Ford said, the process requires time. Introducing the reveries was the final tipping point to achieve what Arnold wanted to achieve 35 years ago. Maeve's arc took us on this philosophical journey when the "bicameral" mind stopped taking orders and finally started living.

#426:

The elevator scene set the stage for Maeve's moment of clarity. She discarded the notion of her daughter, saw an actual mother and daughter, then changed paths.


_______________________________________


To follow up with the above, we see other hints of this through the season. In her dream sequence with William, we saw that she she surprised him by somehow surviving the gutshot wound. She runs away with her daughter, finally collapsing on the ground in the maze. I doubt William saw an ACTUAL maze dug into the ground but, to the viewer, symbolically it linked Maeve with the center of the maze.

We also know that someone inserted the "consciousness" code specifically into Maeve. It's obviously Ford, who also unilaterally introduced reveries into specific hosts. Ford believed that hosts needed to suffer greatly in order to achieve consciousness and who better than Maeve, who suffered egregious trauma at the hands of William. Her relationship with her daughter is so significant that Westworld featured them in the lobby introducing guests to the park. The notion of the "dawn of consciousness" holds that the loop is broken in order to adapt to a changing environment. The "consciousness" script carried Maeve in navigating Westworld but once she broke out he hoped for her to break the loop with the help of her cornerstone memory. We see that challenged when she rejected the chance to find closure with her daughter. But that elevator was familiar confines. Once she encountered people not affiliated with Westworld... she needed to adapt.

So why would she need to, or even want to, adapt? Escape was literally her goal for most of the season. The answer here lies with her relationships with Clementine and Hector. With Clementine, we saw just how much she cared for her (whether programmed to or not). The loving touch on her frozen cheek was unabashed sadness and affection. And we saw just how violently she reacted to the "fake" Clementine.

As for Hector, take your pick: attraction, lust, unquestioned loyalty, combat ability, willingness to adapt, whatever. He was faithful to her up until the very end, when her (and his) programming stood in the way of joining her in the elevator. Those were her two core relationships but as maybe the only sentient host it's not unreasonable to think she felt a duty/connection/affection for the rest of the hosts in the park.



So. Yeah.... satisfied? Should I rewatch the series again and add more to this now that we know the intentions of the showrunners?

You could link pretty much all of these arguments with her initial plan to escape... which was part of a program.


>In the elevator with Felix, she knew the memory (and her
>daughter) was fake. Hence why she chose not to investigate the
>lead he gave her.
>
>But when faced with an actual mother and daughter... something
>awoke in her. Choosing to remain (presumably to help the other
>hosts, like Clementine) was her first instance of true
>agency.


"Something awoke" - How do we know it is true agency and not another program that awoke?


>#340:
>
>The twist is that despite her realization that her daughter's
>memories are false, it was the image of a mother and daughter
>that compelled her to return to the park.
>What's poignant is that while her "daughter" has been driving
>her this whole time it's her lack of a real daughter that,
>presumably, gave her the "motherly instinct" to return to the
>park for unfinished business (e.g. Clementine).


"Presumably" or it might be another directive. What in the story proves that distinction?


>#412:
>
>Agreed, she was programmed with the pretense of freedom.
>
>But the whole idea of the bicameral mind is exploring how
>consciousness occurs. The "dawn of consciousness" is the
>moment when the bicameral mind (one speaks, the other obeys)
>is able to break that loop... through an adaptation to the
>changing environment.
>
>This is precisely what we see with Maeve. The entire season
>we're led to believe she's acting on her own volition, then we
>realize she wasn't. Then at the very moment when confronted
>with her falsified "cornerstone" moment she... breaks the
>loop. She achieved "consciousness".


Stating that she achieved consciousness doesn't mean that the narrative shows it.


>#426:
>
>The elevator scene set the stage for Maeve's moment of
>clarity. She discarded the notion of her daughter, saw an
>actual mother and daughter, then changed paths.


Given the false starts of her consciousness, what in the narrative should make us believe this time is real?


>To follow up with the above, we see other hints of this
>through the season. In her dream sequence with William, we
>saw that she she surprised him by somehow surviving the
>gutshot wound. She runs away with her daughter, finally
>collapsing on the ground in the maze. I doubt William saw an
>ACTUAL maze dug into the ground but, to the viewer,
>symbolically it linked Maeve with the center of the maze.
>


Yep. It set the stage for her trying to escape! Which wasn't a conscious decision.


>We also know that someone inserted the "consciousness" code
>specifically into Maeve. It's obviously Ford, who also
>unilaterally introduced reveries into specific hosts. Ford
>believed that hosts needed to suffer greatly in order to
>achieve consciousness and who better than Maeve, who suffered
>egregious trauma at the hands of William. Her relationship
>with her daughter is so significant that Westworld featured
>them in the lobby introducing guests to the park. The notion
>of the "dawn of consciousness" holds that the loop is broken
>in order to adapt to a changing environment. The
>"consciousness" script carried Maeve in navigating Westworld
>but once she broke out he hoped for her to break the loop with
>the help of her cornerstone memory. We see that challenged
>when she rejected the chance to find closure with her
>daughter. But that elevator was familiar confines. Once she
>encountered people not affiliated with Westworld... she needed
>to adapt.
>
>So why would she need to, or even want to, adapt? Escape was
>literally her goal for most of the season. The answer here
>lies with her relationships with Clementine and Hector. With
>Clementine, we saw just how much she cared for her (whether
>programmed to or not). The loving touch on her frozen cheek
>was unabashed sadness and affection. And we saw just how
>violently she reacted to the "fake" Clementine.


Escape actually wasn't her goal. It was her program. You can't just drop a "WHETHER PROGRAMMED OR NOT" re: Clementine when that is the whole fucking discussion. And she reacted to fake Clementine when she was still under the ESCAPE program.



>As for Hector, take your pick: attraction, lust, unquestioned
>loyalty, combat ability, willingness to adapt, whatever. He
>was faithful to her up until the very end, when her (and his)
>programming stood in the way of joining her in the elevator.
>Those were her two core relationships but as maybe the only
>sentient host it's not unreasonable to think she felt a
>duty/connection/affection for the rest of the hosts in the
>park.


"It's not unreasonable" - It's also not unreasonable given what we've been told to think she might be acting under another program.


>So. Yeah.... satisfied? Should I rewatch the series again
>and add more to this now that we know the intentions of the
>showrunners?


Please do. Because while there are all hints as to it being a conscious decision, there is still nothing that makes it definitive or obvious that that is the answer.

...is the same picture that Dolores' father discovered in the first episode, which drove him crazy. Which pretty much confirms the "this is happening 30 years apart" theory.

I also like how they showed the results of Hector's Gang's shootout a few episodes ago: the security guy and Elsie "discovered" the aftermath while they were out looking for the Wood Cutter.

"ennuyee:

Love Maeve's character with a fierce passion (I'd say it's one of the best female roles on TV right now, and Newton is totally doing it justice); plus the fact that Maeve and Bernard are both black gave an added level of poignancy to their conversation - when they talk about their lack of agency and their subjugation, the subtext jumps out in all caps."

http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/westworld-recap-season-1-episode-9.html

they are robots to me. that subtext doesn't speak at all because the bricks of mystery they placed over the whole narrative arc clutters any real nuance and grace

I don't know why I like this show. i just talk shit about it all the time.

their race means something.

but...that we don't know wtf this story is about cuts that off at the knees

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

the narrative is constructed

most of the plot points are rehashed, but the tone )quite heavy handed i might add) draws you in.

'there's a mystery in every scene!'
some beautiful set design, with sharp contrasts.
characters that deliver lines with ease even when the lines themselves are ham fisted.

so along those same lines pretty sure they could have done the racial casting however they wanted, and so the one that they chose seems again a ham fisted way to push a point.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

It would seem like the board would have to not be aware of Arnold's existence (which I swear I remember them referencing) OR be aware that he was replaced by a host.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

or do they know that he's arnold and they just didn't tell whatshername (although that seems preposterous)


or did Ford modify him over time to give the appearance of aging.

there are gaps there.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

arnold(if there was one) was killed during the "incident" 34-35 years ago(before the park was officially opened)

the park opened ~30 years ago (within a couple years of William and Logan's visit)

So by the time of William and Logan's visit and the interest of the outside accompany(we can only assume is delos) "Arnold" is long gone


*edit*

about bernard not aging

the bernard host has only been in existence for ~10-15 years (when ford takes him back to his first memory ford is already a white/gray haired old man)


also add to the fact that ive yet to see a single person that works for that company that looks over the age of 40 except for theresa, its easy to see how no one notices "bernard" as most of the people working there have only been there for a short time

that like, people can see.

presumably in the real world there is a wikipedia and an internet,. it seems ridiculous that no one involved would know what one of the founders looks like well enough to notice that an actual clone of said person is working in the park.

also I just don't think Bernard could get by without anyone noticing his look hadn't moved an inch in ten years, but that may be asking too much.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I could be totally wrong here but just from my recollection, Ford and Bernard are the only people that I have seen in Ford's office.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

thats what im saying here

"So by the time of William and Logan's visit and the interest of the outside accompany(we can only assume is delos) "Arnold" is long gone"

remember when William and Logan visit their company is "considering" investing in the park

Arnold was an actual person.

like..they could find out who worked on the robots.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

youve made it clear youve decided that these are the facts so I'm not trying to change your mind.

It could be bad writing it could be something else I'm not real concerned honestly, thanks for the lively debate!

kills any "the board doesn't know about arnold" speculation.

clearly the information is out there.

presumably the man in black doesn't care? but even that's weird.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The timeline is a bit confusing but I assume it goes:

Dolores kills all the hosts (And that was the incident that they referred to during the show, NOT the original movie); Arnold is killed but, in order to not delay the opening of the park, Ford hides Arnold's death and claims that he is the guy who conjured up this idea and made it happen.

The park opens, does well but not well enough to fund itself until William falls for Dolores and has his people buy the park. The board takes control. Ford is kept at the head and nobody knows who Arnold is.

When asked why Bernard doesn't age, Ford fiddles with something on his desk and say, "Well, you see, my dear, the fact is... (looks up, stares at person asking) black don't crack."

the park and the hosts had to cost literally a zillion dollars to build.

it is impossible that ford and arnold were just tinkering away on their robots with no one knowing who they were.

if that's the explanation we need, I guesss that's where it goes, but it falls because we KNOW the man in black knows about arnold.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

The more you think of them, the more you question.

I'm not sold on William's plan to discredit Logan. Tying him up and stripping him naked is going to accomplish what? Did he die out there? (Also, how long were they gone?)

what happens when a guest decides they want to do their raping/murdering to another guest?

there doesn't seem to be any safeguard for that beyond the magic guns

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Logan trying to rape a guest or one human shooting another. Again, another Don't think too much.

Assaulting another person would lead to real-world repercussions... assaulting a host would not.

If someone wanted to be an asshole to real people, why bother with the amusement park?

Attacking a fellow guest didn't seem to hurt William too much.

But moreso, you're acting like people are reasonable and measured and will remain so in a place where they can rape and murder at will. That a park like that wouldn't become insanely dehumanizing. Nevermind that there would likely be countless examples of someone mistaking a guest for a host. I mean, Jesus, we have a ton of examples of people being shot by mistake in the real world; it's not happening in Westworld.

>Attacking a fellow guest didn't seem to hurt William too
>much.

Not just any guest but Logan specifically, who was established early on as being a loose cannon.


>But moreso, you're acting like people are reasonable and
>measured and will remain so in a place where they can rape and
>murder at will. That a park like that wouldn't become insanely
>dehumanizing. Nevermind that there would likely be countless
>examples of someone mistaking a guest for a host. I mean,
>Jesus, we have a ton of examples of people being shot by
>mistake in the real world; it's not happening in Westworld.

It's one thing to be shot on accident it's another to rape or murder someone on accident. This is basically a futuristic Disneyland. Sure, people can do fucked up shit at Disneyland but that means they would probably do fucked up shit anywhere. If someone gets attacked at Disneyland, they'll probably yell for help then security comes running. It's not hard to imagine the same thing for Westworld (although it's glaring how bullets are somehow host-cognizant on whether or not they're allowed to kill what they hit).

As for the "dehumanizing" element I go into this more in post #261 but in a world where people can fully interact with robots is a world where people are used to people interacting with robots.

That analogy doesn't work at all.

And your post #261 doesn't really make sense.

First off, robots like Westworld aren't the norm in the world of the show. If they were the norm, DELOS wouldn't be spending so much time trying to steal their plans and people wouldn't be so stunned at seeing them when they entered Westworld.

Secondly, if they were the norm, why would it then be OK to rape and murder them at Westworld? If people are used to interacting with robots, these perverse, insane actions would seem all the worse. Also, if people are used to reenacting with robots, then it would seem that the entire draw of Westworld is the ability to shoot and rape them.

Yes, the aims are different although the entertainment factor is not.

And yes, Westworld is cream of the crop when it comes to entertainment options. But my point in #261 is that Westworld isn't going to be the *only* entertainment option in a world where technology is advanced enough to support android hosts. I used the Pixel VR example as one where we're starting to break another boundary in technology. This VR technology (Oculus, PS4, Xbox, etc.) is going to be used for exploring foreign worlds, vocational sims and, yes, raping (porn) and murdering (video games).

In 5, 10, 15 years our advancing technology is going to be used for exploring worlds, vocational sims and, yes, raping and murdering.

In X amount of years robot technology will be used for exploring worlds, vocational sims and yes.... raping and murdering.

The point is, with each leap in technology there comes a corresponding leap in cultural acclimatization. If we're willing to accept a world where Westworld is technologically possible then it's reasonable to also accept a world where Westworld is culturally possible.

You've made up that there are other androids. Nothing in the show supports this. In fact, the show seems to argue against this since everyone is stunned by the androids, unsure of what to do when first interacting with the androids, and the plans for the androids are a key part of corporate espionage.

If there was other androids out there, firing Ford would be a hell of a lot easier. Especially since the board's main goal is to make the androids simpler!

- "If we're willing to accept a world where Westworld is technologically possible then it's reasonable to also accept a world where Westworld is culturally possible."

Again, how does the emergence of lifelike androids make rape and murder of said androids a reasonable and acceptable pastime? Who says, "Androids are so lifelike now, finally I get to rape something that feels real!" This isn't cultural acclimitization, this is a complete breakdown in morals.

>You've made up that there are other androids. Nothing in the
>show supports this. In fact, the show seems to argue against
>this since everyone is stunned by the androids, unsure of what
>to do when first interacting with the androids, and the plans
>for the androids are a key part of corporate espionage.

>If there was other androids out there, firing Ford would be a
>hell of a lot easier. Especially since the board's main goal
>is to make the androids simpler!


You're putting words in my mouth. My claim is that in a world where Westworld exists, there exists other advanced technology to get to the point where androids can exist. Westworld is the pinnacle of entertainment technology at that time but it doesn't mean that androids are ubiquitous.

In other words: in the near-future Space X eventually wants to have commercial space flights. Just because commercial space flights exist doesn't mean that everyone has access to commercial space flights.

>Again, how does the emergence of lifelike androids make rape
>and murder of said androids a reasonable and acceptable
>pastime? Who says, "Androids are so lifelike now, finally I
>get to rape something that feels real!"

It's another entertainment option. Just like whorehouses, red light districts, dirty theaters, Playboy, skinemax, fleshlight, bang bus, VR porn, whatever comes next. Porn evolves, just like everything else.

And by focusing on rape, you're glossing over the fact that Westworld is still, at its core, a place to do any number of things. They don't market rape, they market it as an interactive playground with a multitude of endeavors.


> This isn't cultural
>acclimitization, this is a complete breakdown in morals.
>

Isn't this a familiar refrain of religions around the world? Romance novels, smut films and video games are examples of religious zealots through history but reasonable people understand that people can consume these things without actually going out and raping and murdering people.

That's the whole basis of Westworld: you can consume these things, be a huge asshole/hero/drunk/rapist/whatever with no repercussions then go about your normal daily life. Because the hosts aren't (supposed to be) real.

Now, the show itself DOES explore the duality when humans are the base savages and the hosts may exhibit more humanity (as it should). But that doesn't mean we should apply 2016 morality to 2116 morality.

>Isn't this a familiar refrain of religions around the world?
>Romance novels, smut films and video games are examples of
>religious zealots through history but reasonable people
>understand that people can consume these things without
>actually going out and raping and murdering people.

I'm not saying they are going home and start raping. I'm saying that within Westworld, there will be people who pick fights with other guests or rape the other guests. Similar to how, in PvP video games, people are writing code that allow them to rape other players. To think the lines won't get blurred seems to ignore human nature.

Of the two guests we followed, William abused a fellow guest and the Man in Black's goal was to lifelong hunt to find hosts who fight back - I'm sure a non-investor might feel the same way and take on his fellow guests.

>I'm not saying they are going home and start raping. I'm
>saying that within Westworld, there will be people who pick
>fights with other guests or rape the other guests. Similar to
>how, in PvP video games, people are writing code that allow
>them to rape other players. To think the lines won't get
>blurred seems to ignore human nature.

Sure, I have no problems with that. And like I mentioned above, if a human is physically assaulting another human they're going to yell and scream and call for security. I didn't say it would never happen, just that the presence of the hosts isn't really going to influence more (or less) bad human behavior than statistically expected.


>
>Of the two guests we followed, William abused a fellow guest

You keep saying "fellow guest" as if the history between him and Logan has no bearing.


>and the Man in Black's goal was to lifelong hunt to find hosts
>who fight back

Sure, that's fine. Hosts, not humans. He gave two shits about humans and didn't even want them to interact with him.

- I'm sure a non-investor might feel the same
>way and take on his fellow guests.

Ok? Again, there's shitty people everywhere. Just because the show doesn't go into human vs human interactions doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's still a family friendly amusement park. We saw families attend. Would people take their children to a place that has a reputation of getting attacked by other guests? It's common sense, I don't understand why you're trying to belabor the point.

>Ok? Again, there's shitty people everywhere. Just because
>the show doesn't go into human vs human interactions doesn't
>mean it doesn't exist.

Your first response was to act incredulously that these actions might happen.
Now you're acting like you always admitted that they happened but just not statistically more than in the real world.
But then you sum it up with the fact that they probably don't happen that much because kids go to the park (in which case, you'd think no kids ever go to a Raiders game or sit in the bleachers for a Sox/Yankees game.)

Ah! But fights happen there! I'm sure you'll say. To which I'd reply, Yes. At a baseball game. Now imagine being at a place where they get to shoot and rape people! You think that's not going to make people worse? You think people would only transgress the way they were intended? You know who disagrees with you?

“We’re dealing with human nature... from the perspective of humans who have been ushered into a space that operates under the Vegas principle of, ‘What happens in Westworld stays in Westworld.’ Which is a catchy slogan but a truly evil idea." - Jonathon Nolan.

WESTWORLD - A TRULY EVIL IDEA FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

--

Bottom Line:
- Shit would go down in Westworld.
- Shit DID go down in Westworld (and the fact that Logan and Williams had previous issues is pointless; like other people don't have issues with family and friends.)
- RJCC and I wanted to see more about the park and how they'd react to shit going down because we wanted to see more of the world.
- You decided to attack the mere plausibility of shit going down in Westworld.

You've made this entire thing bigger than intended and then laughably ask me why I'M belaboring the point.

Which is either a function of the park's size, and the hosts' ability to filer people around, or that the $40k pricetag keeps visitorship fairly low.

https://theringer.com/westworld-is-about-writer-s-block-d7fffbc7369f#.3f1qi7kue

It's all about writer's block / loss of creativity.

that I read this while blocked and procrastinating was not lost on me.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I imagine the people that wrote these articles are the kind of people that would be mad at their parents for not hiding their Christmas presents good enough

Personally, I don't think I would have been able to follow everything that is going on the show without the commentary, and the show seems made with that in mind .

A show doesn't need a sixth sense type of reveal, you can know something is coming and enjoy how they get there.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

subreddits and websites devoted to shows


but also complain that these places are full of people actively trying to figure out whats going on in the show.

Black but rather assuming he is, HOW did he become the Man in Black.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

That was seriously good. I didn't see Ford committing suicide by Delores. I can't wait for season two.

I assumed he was making copies of them or something.

weird they never established what robots he was building for himself?

I wasn't expecting for him to commit suicide, but there you go.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

i quite liked it
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

exercising free will, or following a storyline?


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

It could easily be spun either way when they come back for next season.

That ending is so complete and satisfying that I'd be good if they ended it here.

But as JJ and Jonathan Nolan both said Season 1 is about control and Season 2 is about chaos. Can't wait to be taken on this journey again. Sucks we gotta wait till 2018 to see where we go next.

Really enjoyed the ending although Westworld security was laughably inconsistent (and did I miss it or did the other other Hemsworth just disappear?)

The post-credits sequence was pretty dumb. That makes me a bit nervous about season 2. Also, bummed that Maeve got off the train but I think that (and the fact that she was programmed to break out) shows that she's not as strong as she thinks she is.

All in all, I think the mysteries helped the show. I don't believe that the Williams/Man in Black origin story would have been strong enough had we known who he was from the beginning (even knowing the theory, that added to the story as little moments seemed bigger since we were finding proof of the twist.) Also, I've seen some complaints that it was a gimmicky twist but it did fit Dolores's POV, which is where we were coming from for her story.

More of a fun experience than a great show. Not sure it'll muster many rewatches but I enjoyed it for what it was.

or did they just not want to show her getting killed? or did they just not shoot it and that got changed somehow?

I think it's pretty good and I largely enjoyed it, I just think fans need to give up on any deeper meaning to the show. It doesn't have the story to back all that up




www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Not sure why yet, who saved them, etc... but in a show that is very un-shy about killing people on-screen and that loves having "big reveals," seems pretty clear to me that Season 2 will give us the return of Elsie and Stubbs. Otherwise, I feel like it would've reveled in the shedding of their blood.

probably at the hands of Ford. Stubbs was already very apprehensive of the hosts and him going to look for Elsie posed a threat to Ford's plans. He had to fall to Ford could continue his end game

If you're interested in possible future spoilers.

I liked Elsie and I even like Stubbs, but why would Ford keep them alive?

William/The Man in Black is only shown getting shot in the shoulder.

Dolores and the others open fire on the board, but they never show Tess Thompson getting killed.

And as you said, they could easily explain that Stubbs & Elise are still alive.

Hell, as also said below, Logan is probably still out there.

I figure Nolan and the rest of the writers hadn't/haven't decided and they want to see which actors they can bring back for another go season.

I can easily envision Ford making a host version of himself to send out there to get killed, to fake his own death so he can keep running shit.

But since Hopkins is super-old, I wouldn't be surprised if he only wanted to do one season.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Yeah, he could have sent out a host, but why? He's just reprogrammed the hosts to kill all the members of the board. Why would he then tell the board he's re-signing if he knows there all going to be dead in a few minutes anyway? Does he think it's important for the Dolores and the other hosts to **believe** he's dead? To "inspire" them to revolt?

I just think there were more interesting potential paths

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I bought the explanation that Ford echoed Arnold's belief that the stakes need to be real.

Ford controlled the hosts. Ford is now dead. There's nobody for the board to turn to to take control of the situation/the hosts.

He could have just walked off but given his dislike of human kind, the fact that he missed his friend, and his overall craziness killing himself doesn't seem that out of character.

I guess the murder/suicide is his way out, but...

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Bernard.

Quickly episode 8 and then in episode 9 clearly.

No idea where Stubbs went.

******

*****


********


The Westworld ARG suggests otherwise.

(Yeah, I finally couldn't resist diving into the show subreddit)

Elsie and Stubbs were saved for Season 2.

Glad about it, Elsie was a cool ass chick... no bullshit, straightforward, inquisitive and skeptical

Bernard remembers everything... except that he didn't actually kill Elsie?

Also, someone (Ford, I assume) went to the difficulty of planting the seed (somehow) that Elsie was on vacation - which is what someone tells Stubbs during an episode, I believe.

I liked Elsie but her being alive would be groanworthy.

We saw Bernard question the memory of his son, and Ford also confirmed that Bernard has achieved partial self-awareness several times over.

It would be reasonable to think that Ford planted Elsie's "death" into Bernard to continue with his progress for more suffering (and thus, closer to real consciousness).

Edit: And Theresa's death was a higher priority, considering her goals don't align with Ford's. It's not inconceivable to think Ford might want to recruit Elsie for his own ends.

his plan is pretty horrific.

For all we know he could have said "work for me or die". What's she supposed to do at that point?

For the few days between her faked death and Ford's suicide? If she's programming robots for mass murder, than yeah, you say kill me. And it's not like Ford could keep persuading her now that he's dead.

"be quiet or die". Or has Bernard just tie her up or something. Whatever, it doesn't really matter at this point. The point is there's probably a reason she's alive, and there's a reason she was the focal point for the ARG.

All I'm really arguing for is that there's a premise for Ford to plant her faked death into Bernard's "memories".

I just feel like the odds are strong that she's alive.

Being able to rationalize a reason something might happen doesn't mean that it's good storytelling or not a cheap fake out.

I bet they could find a good story reason for why Elsie was yanked, and then it'd be easy to say from there that Elsie is the one who yanked Stubbs.

... we see her getting choked and struggling. And Bernard seems to think he killed her. We don't see her die.

The last thing we hear about her is that she appears as a blip in the park for Stubbs, which then leads to his subsequent disappearance... again, no on-screen death, no body for him.

Combine all that with *** POSSIBLE FUTURE SPOILERS *** the revelations of the ARG after the finale, and all signs point to their return.

It's very probable that Ford showed Bernard only traces of what would get him to act his part.

He's thoroughly confused until the very end. All this time he's been chasing "Wyatt" to exorcise his demons, in large part motivated by his pure love for Dolores. Then at the very end his world is flipped upside down when he realizes that he has two extremely conflicted memories: that Dolores is Dolores and that Dolores is Wyatt.

Teddy was mostly a punchline and vehicle for other characters this season but it looks like they're really going to explore his "psyche" for next season.

is that now everyone is gonna be second guessing everything that happens.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

not bernard

it ended up being him
and i'm like
um...wheres elsie?
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

so that was Ford's play all along. So is it up to B and D to free the Hosts from Delos

1) That smile on William's face when he got shot was everything for me.

2) I think Dolores shot a host version of Ford (the one that was being constructed in the old lab when Bernard killed Theresa). No way he doesn't want to see how this plays out.

>1) That smile on William's face when he got shot was
>everything for me.
That was so good, William finally got what he wanted.
>2) I think Dolores shot a host version of Ford (the one that
>was being constructed in the old lab when Bernard killed
>Theresa). No way he doesn't want to see how this plays out.

You're probably right, but what happens when D and B find out he's not dead. They still got some anger towards him. Can't see him getting away even if he's still around.

>
>2) I think Dolores shot a host version of Ford (the one that
>was being constructed in the old lab when Bernard killed
>Theresa). No way he doesn't want to see how this plays out.

i don't want Ford to be gone

Did he die?


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Although unlike with Elsie and Stubbs, in the case of Logan, he disappeared shortly after the opening of the park and hasn't been seen for 30+ years. So if he did survive, there'd need to be a hell of an explanation as to how and why.

I'm thinking it's not a coincidence the actors look so similar

out of running the company
out maneuvered
and we don't know where logan is

could be plotting against MiB for all we know
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I thought he would kill Logan to take over the company. Not sure how sending him off would accomplish that since you'd think security would come and find him.

And embarrassing him doesn't make much sense either since Logan could still just tell people how William went crazy. Unless there was a backstory that we didn't know about the family not really trusting Logan and liking William better.

It was an odd non-ending to that story.

>I thought he would kill Logan to take over the company. Not
>sure how sending him off would accomplish that since you'd
>think security would come and find him.
>
>And embarrassing him doesn't make much sense either since
>Logan could still just tell people how William went crazy.

William said Logan was considered unstable

so yes something like this if found out would be an embarrassment and hurt any chance at trust and controlling anything in the company
clearly Logan saying anything is moot at that point, the company considers him unstable

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

When he was professing his love to Dolores?

He basically went crazy in the park and decided that's who he really was: a crazy person.

As he sent Logan off on that horse, William was clear-eyed, even-toned, and had a plan for keeping Westworld running. Logan was manic, and probably would have started blubbering to any "real" person that found him. It wouldn't have been hard for William to convince everyone back home that it was Logan who got too caught up, and with that in mind he saw huge value for Delos in that.

Dad: Why were you manic?!

Logan: William was leading me around in a noose and then stripped me and tied my hands and sent me off on a horse!

William: That's not true. He was doing some crazy shit out there. I don't know how he ended up like that. But give me control of the company so we can invest in the company that had your son end up naked and tied up on a horse.

Logan is Todd: the gay, emo son who is unbecoming of what that family wants in a son.

William is Sack: manly, connected and linked with the daughter.

Sure, the circumstances and personalities are entirely different but the premise is the same: son that isn't living up to the image of the family is usurped by daughter's fiancee that IS in the image of the family.... (well, until Vince Vaughn comes along of course)

William is Todd throughout the show until the VO/Montage turns him into a maniacal businessman.

William goes from:
- loser who is only in the family business because he's marrying into it but has no real future there.
- to a guy who finds who he truly is and realizes he doesn't want to get married or be in the family business.
- to a crazy person who realizes his feelings were wrong, kind of likes it anyway, and attacks Logan and decides he wants to be in control of the family business solely so he can invest in Westworld.

>William is Todd throughout the show until the VO/Montage
>turns him into a maniacal businessman.
>
>William goes from:
>- loser who is only in the family business because he's
>marrying into it but has no real future there.

I disagree on this point. We're dealing with only Logan's appraisal of William's career, and even before William took over, he seemed self-aggrandizing and two-faced. Which can get you to the White House or the head of a Confederate regiment, but isn't CEO material for a purportedly risk-averse company that we're led to believe Delos is. So that said, it sounds like William had a spark, and didn't join Delos before meeting Sara, but did calculate that taking up with her would be good for his career.

>- to a guy who finds who he truly is and realizes he doesn't
>want to get married or be in the family business.
>- to a crazy person who realizes his feelings were wrong, kind
>of likes it anyway, and attacks Logan and decides he wants to
>be in control of the family business solely so he can invest
>in Westworld.

And then after that, is disabused of the idea that the hosts are anything but convincing storytellers (unless they're connected to the maze), and he does love to get lost in a good story. He also had plenty of time on the range killing to formulate his plans for exactly how he could make his case to the Delos board, while Logan was trying to figure out an escape route.

William, in his talk with Dolores, doesn't seem to be that big on the company. I don't get the idea of him having a real spark about the job. At no point does William really seem to disagree with what Logan is saying where he stands in the grand scheme of things.

Ultimately, my problem is that you have to make a bunch of leaps and assumptions to explain some fairly key moments and Jonah Nolan's main advice about the show is assume nothing.

... when he "finds" himself. It was

> - loser who is only in the family business because he's marrying into it but has no real future there.

Is he really a loser? Or is that just through Logan's eyes? He's not immediately self-indulgent like Logan but that doesn't mean he's a loser. I also don't recall any talk about his worth to the company, other than Logan's (biased) perspective.

> - to a guy who finds who he truly is and realizes he doesn't want to get married or be in the family business.

Again, is this a biased perspective you're basing these on? I think he loved the idea of Dolores more than DOLORES herself. The notion that she showed a spark of life in what (to him) was a dull and lifeless park. Granted, I don't think he was head over heels about Juliet but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to get married (or be in the family business).

> - to a crazy person who realizes his feelings were wrong, kind of likes it anyway, and attacks Logan and decides he wants to be in control of the family business solely so he can invest in Westworld.

Yeah I mostly agree with this. Again, he loved more the idea of Dolores than the actual park itself though.

...the rationale for 90% of his actions was his feelings for Dolores and wanting to help her. If he just loved THE IDEA of Dolores, the moment she didn't recognize him wouldn't have been such a crucial moment in his life. He would have gotten over it. His character was essentially defined by his interactions with Dolores. If he wasn't in love with Dolores, it just makes him even more of a crazy person.


>Is he really a loser? Or is that just through Logan's eyes?
>He's not immediately self-indulgent like Logan but that
>doesn't mean he's a loser. I also don't recall any talk about
>his worth to the company, other than Logan's (biased)
>perspective.

William never really argues with Logan's perspective and seems to echo it in his discussion with Dolores about how he shouldn't be getting married or working there. Beyond that, there's no evidence to support anything you're stating about his place in the company or ability or connection with the father.

>...the rationale for 90% of his actions was his feelings for
>Dolores and wanting to help her. If he just loved THE IDEA of
>Dolores, the moment she didn't recognize him wouldn't have
>been such a crucial moment in his life. He would have gotten
>over it. His character was essentially defined by his
>interactions with Dolores. If he wasn't in love with Dolores,
>it just makes him even more of a crazy person.

Right, I agree that most of what we see on screen 30 ago were entirely driven by his love for Dolores, the girl. But it wasn't until she "rejected" him that he started realizing he was chasing a robot. He still tried rekindling that spark in her on further iterations but ultimately failed. Regardless of his failure with Dolores the girl, it was that initial spark of life that kept his interest in Westworld for the better part of the next 30 years.


>William never really argues with Logan's perspective and seems
>to echo it in his discussion with Dolores about how he
>shouldn't be getting married or working there. Beyond that,
>there's no evidence to support anything you're stating about
>his place in the company or ability or connection with the
>father.

You're looking too deep into the Wedding Crashers analogy. I basically just used it as a silly analogy to highlight the fact that just because Logan's the son doesn't mean he's The Chosen One. Shit, Kim Jong Un is the third son in that family and he was picked because one son is crazy and the other hates his country. Charles and David Koch are the two middle brothers in the family. History is rife with examples where the son (or oldest son) isn't fit to continue the family business.

We don't know about William's rapport with Logan's father but if he's not unstable then he's already got a leg up in that category.

Logan was a narrative device more than a character. It gave William an impediment every now and then and someone to talk to. And Logan seemed like an asshole, not necessarily unstable. I mean, it's not like William became stable at the end of everything.

And, again, if Logan becomes unstable at the end of his Westworld trip, I'm really not sure how "Hey, so that park that sent your son off his rocker, that seems like a healthy investment." will play.

I just think think this entire discussion revolves around Logan being handled poorly and the ending being rushed.

It's fine to debate whether or not Logan was an effective character, or if the arc was resolved satisfactorily. All I'm saying that there was an (arguable) effort made to paint Logan as an unworthy successor to the family company.

You're not making arguments based on the show.

This thread started with What happened to Logan? and that William's action at the end didn't make a ton of sense or make it seem like he'd suddenly be in charge of the company.

The ONLY thing in the show that points to this actions working is that Logan is a prick. In which case, William didn't actually have to do anything besides continue letting Logan be a prick. In fact, his actions and exposing his true self to Logan probably makes things harder for him to pull off.

When Logan's horse trots off, there's no reason to think, "William won!" There was no grand plan that gave him the upper hand. There's no reason to think, "Ah, so THAT'S how William gained control of the company!" The only reason to think that is because, well, we now know who William is, it's the season finale, and I doubt anybody is all that interested in seeing Williams and Logan battle for the company in the real world.

I'm placing a lot of stock in William's comments before he sends naked Logan off. They could have extrapolated more on the real world personas for William and Logan in order to have a more satisfactory ending to that arc. I did think it was really weird why Logan just showed up without clothes without any reasonable explanation.

William is working off perception of Logan at the company
From the beginning Logan gave that perception
William confirmed it
Williams present position also confirmed whatever he did worked
He's in control
It also came off as such a side thing it really isn't deep
Logan is effectively out the picture
Fin
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

... although since William said he met everyone in the park except Wyatt, he would've known if there was an old dude chilling and leading that group.

i think thats the only question I'm left with

i think

is this still a mystery?
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Arnold and Ford created it as way to make hosts homicidal maniacs if the necessary circumstances arise. Like they need someone to wipe all the other hosts, or the want they need them to rebel against the humans.

Wyatt was an in-progress character that Arnold loaded into Dolores and kind of into Teddy, which is why he was killing people but he didn't know why. The whole memory of an actual Wyatt seems a little odd, not sure how/why that happened.

since he existed before the incident happened.

how can wyatt be his cornerstone memory? if it's a thing that *actually happened*?

and why have it there at all?

you can't go too deep because this show falls apart when you pull the strings

the big answer is that wyatt doesn't exist and doesn't matter.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Teddy killed everyone. After that, they removed that memory and he had his Kenny character - always getting killed.

When Ford was putting his new narrative in place, he changed up Teddy's narrative, gave him back the memory of the Wyatt incident with a fake version of the incident to see if he could remember what really happened.

I think that was the timeline. That was Teddy's maze, I guess.

But she recruited Teddy to help her... who ended up doing the heavy lifting.

So Teddy's conflict isn't that he himself is Wyatt, it's that he's seeing Dolores doing the Wyatt killings.

He seemed stunned and upset that he was killing all of those people. And then he saw Dolores and seemed surprised. That doesn't play to someone who was convinced by Dolores to do it. Also, Arnold said that she needed help and started messing with his tablet and mentioned Teddy.

If he himself had "Wyatt" installed or if Dolores compelled him to participate. If Dolores asked him to do it, it still wouldn't make sense to him to kill everyone (especially since he's probably programmed to obey Dolores and/or Arnold at that point).

> Also, Arnold said that she needed help and started messing with his tablet and mentioned Teddy.

I think this was the scene. I would need to rewatch it, but I hazily interpreted this as the scene where Dolores implicitly recruits Teddy to kill everyone.

two other things leaning towards that

a. dolores changing into pants for those scenes

b. arnold seeing dolores as another child
he lost a son odds are good he would make another son "wyatt"

and that seemed to be the reveal at the end with teddy seeing dolores shooting arnold (previously she was the general in his memory)
and then seeing her shoot ford
and he was kinda freaked out both times
and her whispering in his ear before shooting ford suggests some sort of agency teddy still hasn't achieved


okay I'm good on looking any deeper

thanks folks
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

its that whole true detective crap
the world is a flat circle

this storyline is so damn circular ouroboros convoluted type shit

i should even try
can't help it cause i have questions
like charlotte

how many black main characters we have?
what are the odds there is a connection with her and arnold?
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Confirmed a number of internet theories, broke open some new ones and still provided some surprises. Like the Leftovers, it started off slowly with a lot of worldbuilding, asked a lot of questions from the viewer then wrapped them all up neatly at the end. Good call on the 90+ min finale, including the fan service-y post credits scene.

I'm especially happy they answered (and continued to answer) my biggest questions: Bernard's advanced AI and Ford's motivation to introduce the reveries. Those were two huge logical inconsistencies if left unaddressed. Ford's line in that scene: "Wasn't it Oppenheimer who said that any man whose mistakes take 10 years to correct is quite a man? Mine have taken 35." was fantastic.

2018 will be a long wait, but at least we're in the last month of 2016.

I'm curious how in the world William was able to get married into the family that initially grew to own Davos since he mistreated Logan so much, assuming he his still alive.

that uh oh/respect smile

loved it

but did they digitally enhance Dolores' eyes in that scene where William (now "bad" William" finally sees her again and she doesn't remember him at all?

her eyes were just so big in that scene...

it was him?

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

And after is the typical "I'm a nice guy" fall out
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

and then....let the existing GM keep running things and was hands off for the next 35 years?


let's be real, his character makes no sense. if he was after arnold's truth, he could just look at the code. he fucking OWNS IT.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>let's be real, his character makes no sense. if he was after
>arnold's truth, he could just look at the code. he fucking
>OWNS IT.

Everyone's accessing the source code all willy nilly on tablets and shit. Even the "butchers" who should give two shits about behavior.

It's like the the Google interns having access to DeepMind's algos.

is you start screwing with it even if you shouldn't.

like, every owner ever goes through that initial period where they screw with every little thing.

maybe we're seeing him after that part, but still, he's oddly restrained.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>let's be real, his character makes no sense. if he was after
>arnold's truth, he could just look at the code. he fucking
>OWNS IT.
>
>www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

The process and journey to establish the the bicameral mind and consciousness...bravo. I have no problem staying away from Internet theories, enjoyed every step of the journey as it came....and can't wait to do it again. The smile on William's face when he gets shot about sums up my feeling.

What a great finish to a great season...and as Teddy said, the end is only the beginning

good show overall, some odd/dumb plot holes

will be down for season 2 when it arrives