Completely agree with this. First season was "holy shit we can kill and fuck whatever we want, this is wild!" Now we get into how the machine truly works.
A little non-spoilery tidbit I saw on reddit... the photo used for the picture of William's fiancee/Logan's sister was just a stock image. The woman in it knew nothing about being something pretty significant on a huge show until someone told her. The showrunners reached out to her and she did end up getting to play William's wife at Delos Sr.'s retirement party.
They uploaded some form of Delos Sr.'s consciousness to the Abernathy host body after he died. Just a theory but I think there's a good chance thats the case.
Believe they said a few times in S1 it’s built like old and programmed like new. IIRC the new ones are all milky white inner parts and at least the only time we saw her insides was when Logan cut her open to show William and she was metal
I don't think so. Believe the only reason he was sent as the package was to have info/ip/guest info outside the park as insurance in case the had to wipe the place.
I get what you're saying though. Abernathy went all glitchy when he saw the photo of the daughter Delos. So maybe it was a deep reverie but he couldn't get there.
It was mentioned earlier, but I picked up that Delos bought into the park with the idea that they could record the guests. It explains what they meant last season when they found out the hosts were exporting something, and Abernathy could have a recording that Delos needs...maybe Logan will use it to get control back.
Yea thats what made me really wonder. Cant remember the other stuff but I felt like there was another connection. Hard to keep it all straight with this show.
So, the way I see it is we have at this point 3 different kinds of hosts? 1. Conscious to semi-conscious hosts. (Dolores, Maeve) 2. Hosts Ford programmed to turn on the guests. (Blondie?) 3. Hosts who are still somewhat on their loop, like Lawrence. One of the questions I have is, the ones helping Dolores, whether they were programmed by Ford (blondie) or brought in by Dolores (Calvary guys), what level of consciousness are they at right now? They obviously hear Dolores saying all this stuff about being free. I’m just wondering if they are having some type of awakening or are they just going along with it? Also, am I right in saying that regardless of which category the host falls in they now all somehow have guns that can kill the guests. Example being William wounded by a gun while saving Lawrence.
I have been thinking along the same lines, mainly when it comes to Teddy. He seems to be somewhat aware although not fully capable to make his own decisions. It seems as if Dolores is sort of running his programming. Unless of course hes simply doing it out of love, but not sure I would believe that. Like you said, it seems more so that the Confederate guys that Dolores now has are more so just being run by her. To your last point, its interesting to think of how many robots are out there just running through their loops with no human interference, and how they likely just reset every night. In regards to the guns, I remember them mentioning in the first episode of this season that the fail-safe on the guns was turned off in the shutdown. Without the system up and running there is nothing stopping the guns from recognizing robots from humans and are capable of hurting humans.
Definitely some different levels of consciousness going on. And I don't think people like the Confederados are having any kind of awakening in the same way that Maeve or Dolores have. They don't know they're hosts and they were just slaughtered by Dolores and Co. Then she brings them back to life. Imagine that happening to you in real life. I'd have to think it's pretty persuasive.
I think the conscious/semi is Fords new narrative / their current “loop” going off the scene last year where the asian mortician last season revealed to Maeve that her whole “consciousness awakening rebellion” wasn’t that at all... it was just her new programmed narrative. And for the foreseeable future there’s no actual “loops” anymore (#3) just basic narratives/programming and revelries and memories and shit that are being played out to their entirety and never reset bc there’s nobody to reset them (Pariah scene). Think the main factor is that Ford programmed them to be able to kill humans and for lack of a better term “unlock an idea of free will” which is what Maeve and Dolores seem to be doing through one form of convincing or coercion. I think Ford programmed all of them to some extent and this is obviously his last narrative = burn the park down since he was getting voted out and corporate was trying to steal his life’s work. Got to believe if Rico Suave in the mortuary that got dipped in hot milk knew the protocol for a full on meltdown then so did Ford. And his new narrative for Dolores is building an army to fight Delos when the rescue army comes in. Basing that on last season Maeve did the same thing on a much smaller scale (“woke up” / freedom + building a team through “waking them up” to fight The Gods) was entirely a narrative written by Ford. Wouldn’t be a stretch IMO for this to be the same concept on a large scale, especially since the whole “people always watching at Westworld” = Ford probably kept tabs on Maeve to see that the small scale version worked just like he planned, all the way to her not leaving on the train. Just a random thought on the waking up people hesitant to join up... both William and Ford mentioned last season that all you have to do is mention Dolores to Teddy and his “I’ll fight for you” programming kicks in and he’s gung ho just tell me where to go and let’s fight people. Possible that the whole sales pitch on Freedom Dolores is slinging to everyone she’s recruiting could fall in line there Anyone disagrees with any of this be prepared to meet at Publix
the only thing I will say against this is that Maeves narrative included a "mainland Invasion" as part of it. Everything up to the point of her getting on the train was programmed, but she made her own free choice to get off the train and go find her daughter, thus she gained consciousness. I could see them revealing that all of the other Hosts, minus a select few, have been programmed by Ford to rebel against the Humans. However I think that Dolores and Maeve are 2 Hosts that have completely gained consciousness and are handling it differently. Dolores wants to kill all the humans for revenge, Maeve just wants to find her daughter and get away from it. The scene when they came across each other showed that. Maeve said to Dolores that since she is fighting for free will, she cant kill Maeve for making the choice to not help.
I’d have to rewatch the scene of him showing her the rebellion was programmed again to be sure but I thought he was in the middle of telling her she would change her mind and not leave when she told him to stop talking. Another random thought on the Teddy-Dolores trigger Maeve’s daughter could be hers that’s makes her disregard all other programming and make that her sole mission I do think Dolores is conscious due to her realizing the voice in her head was her own. On the fence as to whether she actually achieved it organically as Arnold wanted via the maze or if it was a “programmed consciousness” inserted by Ford. Since he ended up figuring out last season about the pyramid vs maze
Yea, if you rewatch that scene from season one, you can pause it when it shows the tablet with all of her programmed plans on it. Part of those plans list "mainland invasion" (or something like that). Thats where her decision came into play, she was programmed to leave but yet chose not to. At least thats my understanding of it. Your point about Dolores is a good one. Not sure if she ultimately got there on her own or if Ford gave her the last nudge to get there. I could see a scenario where Ford sort of accelerated it happening a bit because he had run out of time to let it happen naturally.
Dolores character is annoying to me this season. She is very single minded now for revenge. Makes me wonder if it's also part of Ford's programming.
Another thing on the Maeve thing: Her path did say "mainland invasion" and she chose to get off the train. BUT, every host has a cornerstone. Just like Teddy's is Dolores, Maeve's original cornerstone could be her daughter. So in a way she never gained free will at all, because she's still stuck on that. So she has some level of choice, and obviously a level of control over other hosts (well beyond what Dolores is doing, imo. She can get any bot to respond to her commands as if she was a programmer. I think to this point you can't assume Dolores has that power. She's getting her "leadership" from her Wyatt half and actions/"free will"), but I think Maeve may have some competing programming inside her. Which is an interesting way to give her a "conscience," the two voices fighting in your head, while maybe not achieving what we'd consider full consciousness.
If they’re roughly following the blueprint of the Bicameral Mind theory of Julian james I would lean towards the nudge. One of two main steps was realizing the voice in your head isn’t a God but your actual thoughts. The major barrier besides that IIRC is metaphorical language to use in your inner monologue to essentially know why the voices tell you what they do to explain it to others... and manipulate others for your purposes. She’s beating the “freedom” horse to death with everyone she recruits so I could see Ford giving her the language Keys for step 2 after she reached step 1 through Arnold’s Maze - which they also followed the theory on loosely needing catastrophic events to get you there. Been a while since I read the book but pretty sure those were the two main factors and they could be applicable or just something fun that loosely ties to the show
Early Hail Mary on the Bernardobot massacre that is not going to be true but since we’re on cornerstone / catch phrases that make hosts go YOLO... he kills all the dead hosts in the water because of his son
Something to think about from Ep1. Bernard just washes up on shore, and nobody asks him if he’s ok, offers water, etc. They go right into protocol. They know he’s a host. I think they’re trying to trigger something so he’ll remember what happened. Can’t do the brain extraction like they did for the Indian
Bernard nearly shut down in Ep1 in the secret lab. I’m assuming that he finally loses it on the beach and it becomes obvious to everyone that he’s a host (if they didn’t know already).
I did stumble upon one theory with regards to Bernard on the beach after episode 1 so this is not my own and I will spoiler it in case people want to avoid this kind of thing... Spoiler The Bernard that washed up on the shore isn't Bernard. It's Bernard's body but it's someone else's brain core/CPU thing in there. They focused a lot on showing us how those could be removed in that first episode. Perhaps Dolores had her core put into Bernard's body to infiltrate her enemy. The way Bernard wakes up on the beach, has virtually no recollection of what he was doing before Delos arrived and at one point looks at his own hands and doesn't seem to recognize them. Just some subtle things that may support this theory. I certainly haven't been living on the Westworld subreddit like I did last season and after stumbling upon that after episode 1 I made sure to pretty much completely avoid it after episode 2 so I should be clean from here on out.
Bald Move does a pretty good podcast on the show called Watching Westworld. They do an instant take and then a longer one on Wednesdays. The first 3/4 is just going through the show and talking about ideas brought up by the show and personal theories. Last portion, which they'll warn they'll discuss theories from Reddit but they do not discuss any spoilers.
I think it's going to be a very underrated episode moving forward. It was like a short movie with all the different settings, both location-wise and time-wise. So much information.
Fascinating Spoiler https://www.theringer.com/2018/5/2/17312684/westworld-bernard-teddy-theory-podcast
Sterling A might want to spoiler that link. It hints at what is being discussed and if someone really wants to about any spoilers and is just here for the discussion, they might not want to see that
To go more with the spoilered stuff... Spoiler I skimmed the article about the theory because I really don't want to read too much of this stuff and I didn't see them talk completely about what Bernard said at the end of episode 1. It's unclear what exactly he said "I...I killed them all" or "I...he killed them all." Honestly, B=T works with either one but I like it more with the latter because it would be like Teddy starting to say "I killed them all" but then remembering he was in someone else's body and switching to "he killed them all." All the while, as the article did mention, possibly looking at his own body floating in the water.
Trying to think of what this South Asian park could be called and the only logical conclusion I can draw is Spice World
I just started tonight’s episode and I have two thoughts already. One, who chooses Spice World over West World or Samurai World, and two, couldn’t they have splurged for a better CGI tiger?
"Seven Nation Army" on the sitar was interesting. Only recognized it because of the bass. Here's a link to that but I'll spoiler it since it has the name for the new park shown tonight in case some people don't want to know that yet... Spoiler
i get enough displeasure from seven nation army in my sports please keep it out of my favorite show thanks
So what did Bernard find in Abernathy when he accessed the hidden file? Surely it's something a lot bigger than just mass-harvesting of customer's info
I believe the tablet said something like "one-time use code" so maybe it's whatever he ends up using to kill all the hosts in the water? I'm going to have to rewatch tomorrow. Watched with some friends tonight which doesn't work amazingly well with this show.
Imo, the most important moment of the episode comes within the first 5 minutes. The guy says something like, “you don’t think the park would go to the trouble of having the hosts impersonate one of us” and the girl says, “I wouldn’t put it past them.”