Westworld Catch-All - Spoilers Ahoy!

I did a little digging, and spotted an Ars commenter who pointed out that Dolores learned to fire her weapon from the MIB, and only then did she fall into the arms of William. So the two timelines theory is unlikely.

Also, from other comments: Stubbs (the QA guy) reacts to both the MIB's cigar scene and to Dolores being off her loop with William, so it could only be two timelines if he's a host. Otherwise, he'd be thirty years older (and in the same job!) in the MIB's story. I've already mused about him being the other possible host, though, so that's not hard disproof. But, even if he's a host, thirty years in the identical position? With nobody noticing?

Malor wrote:

I did a little digging, and spotted an Ars commenter who pointed out that Dolores learned to fire her weapon from the MIB, and only then did she fall into the arms of William. So the two timelines theory is unlikely.

Also, from other comments: Stubbs (the QA guy) reacts to both the MIB's cigar scene and to Dolores being off her loop with William, so it could only be two timelines if he's a host. Otherwise, he'd be thirty years older (and in the same job!) in the MIB's story. I've already mused about him being the other possible host, though, so that's not hard disproof. But, even if he's a host, thirty years in the identical position? With nobody noticing?

Sweet.

One temporal thing I'm confused by:

Spoilering since I'm touching on more than one episode:

Spoiler:

Old Ford is clearly standing next to buried, burned steeple in one episode. Let's call this time period 'NOW'
Old Ford has had a scene with The Man in Black placing the Man in Black in 'NOW'
While it seemed William was in the past previously, he just had a scene with Dolores at the buried, burned steeple which might indicate William is also in 'NOW'.
Dolores memory would have been of the 'PAST'.

Does that seem right or is there a third time period?

They showed us the maze, at least I think they did, in this episode. if you were paying attention, it was quick...

IMAGE(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/Jfedorczyk/D384254F-6629-403E-B6E3-D0E1B94FF26A_zpseu5edh07.jpg)

Rahmen wrote:

One temporal thing I'm confused by:

Spoilering since I'm touching on more than one episode:

Spoiler:

Old Ford is clearly standing next to buried, burned steeple in one episode. Let's call this time period 'NOW'
Old Ford has had a scene with The Man in Black placing the Man in Black in 'NOW'
While it seemed William was in the past previously, he just had a scene with Dolores at the buried, burned steeple which might indicate William is also in 'NOW'.
Dolores memory would have been of the 'PAST'.

Does that seem right or is there a third time period?

I hate temporal mechanics.

Rahmen wrote:

One temporal thing I'm confused by:

Spoilering since I'm touching on more than one episode:

Spoiler:

Old Ford is clearly standing next to buried, burned steeple in one episode. Let's call this time period 'NOW'
Old Ford has had a scene with The Man in Black placing the Man in Black in 'NOW'
While it seemed William was in the past previously, he just had a scene with Dolores at the buried, burned steeple which might indicate William is also in 'NOW'.
Dolores memory would have been of the 'PAST'.

Does that seem right or is there a third time period?

That's how I read it.

JC wrote:

They showed us the maze, at least I think they did, in this episode. if you were paying attention, it was quick...

IMAGE(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/Jfedorczyk/D384254F-6629-403E-B6E3-D0E1B94FF26A_zpseu5edh07.jpg)

I wonder what the heck that would imply? I also wonder if all the maze images we've seen are the same. If they're different, the maze could just be a general symbol of the solution being AI gaining consciousness.

Remember when the little girl says to the Man in Black something about "the maze is not for you?"

I think the man in Black touched on it at the end when he said that Maeve refused to die and for a brief moment she became truly human. The androids becoming self-aware and truly conscious is the maze. They're finding their way through it.

JC wrote:

I think the man in Black touched on it at the end when he said that Maeve refused to die and for a brief moment she became truly human. The androids becoming self-aware and truly conscious is the maze. They're finding their way through it.

Ah, and the reason he's searching for it is that he feels unhuman. He felt nothing for being the reason behind his wife's death. He felt nothing "normal" when killing Maeve. He mentioned something about not leaving the park or it being his last time. I wonder if he's searching for an answer and plans to kill himself once he finds it. Presumably, he's looking for Arnold who has the answer.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
JC wrote:

I think the man in Black touched on it at the end when he said that Maeve refused to die and for a brief moment she became truly human. The androids becoming self-aware and truly conscious is the maze. They're finding their way through it.

Ah, and the reason he's searching for it is that he feels unhuman. He felt nothing for being the reason behind his wife's death. He felt nothing "normal" when killing Maeve. He mentioned something about not leaving the park or it being his last time. I wonder if he's searching for an answer and plans to kill himself once he finds it. Presumably, he's looking for Arnold who has the answer.

Yes. It's a dichotomy. The androids are gaining humanity, while the humans are losing it.

Thoughts about MiB and Teddy's fight with the minotaur? It seemed rather on point as a guardian of a maze.

I think there's enough holes to disprove my theory.

MIB killed Meave's daughter which forced Ford and Bernard to transfer her to the Madame role.

Unless Ford is also a Host, I can't see how he's old enough to change Meave's role and 30 years later, have a drink with the MIB and Teddy.

Also, that last scene with MIB, Teddy and the hostess/Wyatt survivor; are hosts pouring in from

Spoiler:

Viking world

or something?

The MIB said he killed Maeve's daughter a year prior to current events, which jives with the tech's telling Maeve that she had only been the Madame for a short time.

Pure speculation: Logan is MiB's son and William is engaged to his daughter. There is a parent / child motif running through the series, and those characters have not taken on those roles.

JC wrote:

They showed us the maze, at least I think they did, in this episode. if you were paying attention, it was quick...

IMAGE(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/Jfedorczyk/D384254F-6629-403E-B6E3-D0E1B94FF26A_zpseu5edh07.jpg)

When Maeve fell with her kid on top of the maze symbol, I thought "hey, is this supposed to represent the brain?"
Soon after, that image pops up.
Someone said the maze isn't a physical thing. I'm in that camp too.

Dolores' vision (the hosts dancing scene) is from the time Arnold was still alive. We're at least seeing 3 timelines.

Thought this was moderately amusing, The Not So Many Emotions of Ford:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/P7FVsqu.jpg)

Ha! Ford Excursion is when he goes and visits the park.

Aristophan wrote:

Pure speculation: Logan is MiB's son and William is engaged to his daughter. There is a parent / child motif running through the series, and those characters have not taken on those roles.

That'd be a shocker. Not sure how I'd feel about that because I don't really see the point given what they've shown about the characters, although I'm glad you brought it up in case it turns out that way.

Mostly, it seems like they'd be introducing way more questions by doing that, and they only have the two episodes left.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/L2lKcD5.jpg)

Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of Anthony Hopkins on horseback for Ford Mustang.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

I think there's enough holes to disprove my theory.

I think so too, but it was fun to speculate. As others said, it was probably an intentional red herring.

BadKen, your image worked when I first looked, but it seems to have stopped? Dunno what's up with that.

IMAGE(http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/Jfedorczyk/D384254F-6629-403E-B6E3-D0E1B94FF26A_zpseu5edh07.jpg)

Also, am I the only one that starts salivating when those appear on screen? I would LOVE to have one of those gizmos

Malor wrote:

BadKen, your image worked when I first looked, but it seems to have stopped? Dunno what's up with that.

Weird. It's a google image direct link, so it should work fine...

Oh for pete's sake, it requires you to be logged in to Google to view it. They're getting eviler all the time. I put it on Google because I was having technical issues with imgur. Rehosted. Fkrz.

So, this week's episode of Decrypted was really good. That said, they did bring up a lot of reasons to be critical of the show. We'll see how things go in the last couple episodes, but I don't have much hope. Mostly, I'm just trying to manage expectations.

In other news, I'm watching the first season of Humans on Amazon Prime Instant. It's also flawed, but there are many great aspects, and they actually go into the types of moral questions I wanted Westworld to go into after the first couple episodes. Instead Westworld devolved into a mystery show.

So, if you find Westworld lacking, and want a show that explores AI, consciousness, and humanity, definitely watch Humans. It has some issues, but overall it's quite good.

Yeah, Humans is much more Ex Machina than Westworld.
The second season showed up out of nowhere for me. I didn't know it was renewed. Really liked the first season.

Going back to Westworld, if the MiB really is William, does that mean that Logan has to die for William to inherit the company (through his marriage) and become a "titan of industry"?

slazev wrote:

Yeah, Humans is much more Ex Machina than Westworld.
The second season showed up out of nowhere for me. I didn't know it was renewed. Really liked the first season.

The second season so far feels somewhat less focused, and a little unsure on what direction it's going.

slazev wrote:

Yeah, Humans is much more Ex Machina than Westworld.
The second season showed up out of nowhere for me. I didn't know it was renewed. Really liked the first season.

Going back to Westworld, if the MiB really is William, does that mean that Logan has to die for William to inherit the company (through his marriage) and become a "titan of industry"?

I think that possibility has been pretty well refuted. But now I'm wondering if William's bride-to-be in the real world is MiB's daughter. That would mean Logan would have to be his son, but MiB has only referred to a wife and daughter at this point.

I'm confused. What possibility was refuted? William being the man in black?

slazev wrote:

I'm confused. What possibility was refuted? William being the man in black?

Malor wrote:

I did a little digging, and spotted an Ars commenter who pointed out that Dolores learned to fire her weapon from the MIB, and only then did she fall into the arms of William. So the two timelines theory is unlikely.

Also, from other comments: Stubbs (the QA guy) reacts to both the MIB's cigar scene and to Dolores being off her loop with William, so it could only be two timelines if he's a host. Otherwise, he'd be thirty years older (and in the same job!) in the MIB's story. I've already mused about him being the other possible host, though, so that's not hard disproof. But, even if he's a host, thirty years in the identical position? With nobody noticing?

But maybe that is not the first time that Dolores has "learned" to fire a gun.

And I'm pretty sure that the Stubbs scene, while coming on the heels of a Dolores scene, does not refer to Dolores by name as being off of her loop.

I'm still agnostic on William being the MIB but Johnathan Nolan did write Memento, so...

does not refer to Dolores by name as being off of her loop.

No, they do refer to her by name. The aide lady says that they have a host deviating from her loop. Stubbs asks who, and she says 'the rancher's daughter from Sweetwater'. Stubbs then says "Dolores." Then the aide complains about Ford's disruption of storylines, and how they're not sure whether she's with a guest.

And we know that only old Ford is disrupting storylines, so William has to be in the present.

edit: and we've seen old Ford and the MIB directly interacting, so it's definitely not two timelines.

I'm not convinced of that.

Old Ford and MiB interacting doesn't disprove the different timelines. They're both supposed to be in "now". William is supposed to be 30 years ago.
The Stubbs thing could just be editing trickery.
Have you noticed that in many scenes with William, Dolores sees visions where she's alone. Those visions are could be her in the "now" and she's probably retreading her arch with William.