- This topic has 54 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
If I had to guess, I’d he’s become disillusioned with “real” people–why else would anyone go to that amount of effort and trouble to create such realistic AI’s if not because they find the real world and its people so repugnant? He’s the one who has given all the updates to make them more realistic, the little human touches like touching one’s lips, that seemed to cause the initial breakdown. Is he trying to set up his own human race and declare himself its god? I suspect there’s more nuance to it than that, but that’s all I got so far.
I think it is something like this two. Also, i think an incident with the robots was mentioned as happening in the past, so he has been playing at this for awhile. Maybe that incident caused damage or death of people they cared about.
[adrotate group="5"]Also, i think an incident with the robots was mentioned as happening in the past, so he has been playing at this for awhile
Yes, as if he’s trying to perfect his robots in order to achieve perfect humans–ironic given that he’s writing their personalities, their little nuances, everything that makes Human A different from Human B and makes us unperfect. He’s definitely the Frankenstein trope of scientist meets God complex but I can’t stop thinking about his interaction with the child Host. We saw that Ford can clearly control all aspects of the Park, including dismissing the kid Host when Ford was done with him (it?). So that makes me think that he ensured that the kid would be the one to meet Ford when he entered the park; again, he clearly likes having total control over his creations. So…why this kid? The creation he chose to interact with wasn’t a whore, it wasn’t a gunslinger, it wasn’t even Dolores, the good girl. It was a bored kid. This is where @nevermore’s above point about duality comes back in–both Ford and the Man in Black are bored but where Ford keeps creating new “life” and apparently has a whole new project in the works, the Man in Black will destroy everything that stands in his path of achieving his ends without thought of the loss of life whereas Ford seems contemplative and sad at decommissioning his creations because to him, there’s still so much to create and do with them.
Where they are alike though is that they see these lives as toys to control, to change, to play with even if for different purposes.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"So…why this kid? The creation he chose to interact with wasn’t a whore, it wasn’t a gunslinger, it wasn’t even Dolores, the good girl.
This makes me think of the little girl who knew about the maze. I thought this was one of the creepiest scenes in the show so far, where she is clearly there as a messenger/quest giver, and the facade of humanity just drops. It’s also intriguing that the Man in Black is not the intended recipient of the quest, so one wonders — who is? And what is the purpose of the maze?
1×03 “The Stray” thoughts!
Holy MOLY that was a good episode. There is so much to unpack that I’m going to do this stream of conscienceness style (I think Albert would approve!)
ETA: for clarity’s sake, I’m going to keep using the word “uncomplex” instead of uncomplicated because I think the world “complicated” has a different connotation and I don’t want to muddy the already extremely dirty waters.
If the first two episodes were essentially about being real then I think this episode is tackling the idea of “are you complex?” The two ideas feed into one another, I think, but it’s not as easy as you might imagine. For example you might say that you can be real but be uncomplex–a newborn baby is certainly real and perhaps physically complex but he is not complex in an emotional, internal way. He has no self awareness, no complex language or ideas to be able to express who he is, how he feels, how he interacts with the world around him and how it turns interacts with him. He has no ability to create metaphors or discuss or even think about higher order concepts like art, life, religion, politics, aesthetics. We wouldn’t say the baby is un-real, mearly new and untrained in the ways of complex thinking. He must be introduced to complexity through growth and interaction. But is your realness dependent on your complexity?
What if this newborn baby grows up and still doesn’t have the ability to think and discuss complexity. Either because of a biological reason or because he was untrained or kept in seclusion. Is he any less real because he doesn’t posses metaphorical language which leads to introspection which leads to self awareness? Can you be real and uncomplex or does your lack of emotional and internal complexity mean you aren’t real???
Teddy isn’t real in the same way a birthed human is real but he was also really uncomplex for the first two episodes–in fact his character was pretty cliche and flat. But then he’s given complexty by Dr. Ford and suddenly his character has more stakes in the game (the game of life, not just the Westworld game). He’s given a backstory which “anchors” his character and gives him depth to perceive right from wrong and good from evil not only with those around him (his hunt for Wyatt) but also in himself. BUT!!! BUT!!! Can you really be complex is complexity is GIVEN to you? It wasn’t learned. It wasn’t born upon years of interacting with his world, developing a better code by way of life, but this better code which leads to complexity was literally uploaded to him! So is he still uncomplex because his complexity exists only at the whims of another?!
And then there’s Dolores! While she was obviously having some memory flashes in episode 1 and 2 but her responses to Bernard at the beginning of the hour demonstrate a LACK of complexity. “It’s about change. It seems to be a common theme” is about as uncomplicated an answer as one can give when discussing narrative. All stories are, at the end of the day, about change. That statement–that stories are about change–is as commonplace as it gets and any English teacher worth their salt wouldn’t accept it as a response. Dolores gives the appearance of complexity, hence why Bernard keeps pushing her, but she’s not actually complex until she fires that gun and seems to come into some awareness that she can control her own story, a story that like everyone else is about change. So her complexity isn’t manufactured like Teddy so is she more real than Teddy? Can you be more real than another person (but Teddy’s not even a person?! OR IS HE A PERSON BECAUSE OF HIS NEW FOUND COMPLEXITY THAT ISN’T EVEN NATURAL COMPLEXITY!!)
I’m not overly familiar with the concept of the bicameral mind so I had to do some reading up but it doesn’t actually sound like it’s been debunked but rather ignored and forgotten and I think this is where Westworld is headed, into the of idea of not only can technology mimic people but it can become consciousness. The pyramid Ford draws is the basis for distinguishing real from unreal.
Memory: the hosts have memories but they are buried and deleted during each reset. But these things DID happen and they ARE starting to remember.
Improvisation: Bernard commands Dolores to turn off scripted answers and instead use improvisation during their conversations because Bernard is hoping he’ll find conscienceness inside Dolores. But is improv in the Hosts already? I think it is. Look at the titular “Stray” host Elsie and Ashley went after. Elsie even says it best “it’s like he had an idea!” Yeah he had an idea that wasn’t part of his script and he went to follow it. I mean it ended badly for him, but that’s part of being real.
3) Self interest: Aren’t all the hosts self-interested. They all want to stay alive, to eat to drink, to sleep with someone, to go about their day. It’s manufactured self-interest though. So is it…real?
4) I think what Ford is getting at and what Albert died trying to find was metaphorical language. That you are sophisticated enough to speak complexly and become an introspective self aware individual. And I think that’s what happening to Dolores (though, again, how did this happen? It’s not a glitch or a virus. I thought it came from Dr. Ford’s reveries but in this episode he seems pretty emphatic that the Hosts are NOT real–he even slices up a face of one to prove his point. But is he lying to himself? He also spends a lot of time looking at his creation and marveling at it. He seems sad when one has to be taken out of the park and put into cold storage. AND he’s the one trying to build an overly complex, brand new narrative instead of letting the head writer create his overly cliche stories! Complex stories and interactions lead to complexity. How could they not! Whatever Ford is planning in his narrative, isn’t it going to exasperate the problem his Hosts are having? Isn’t he also chasing consciousness? )
I have some other thoughts but I’ll bullet point them
–There’s a popular theory I heard from @runaroundmacy that the Gunslinger/Man in Black is really William, the White Hat. When we see William and Logan, we are seeing the park many years ago when the Man in Black was introduced to this park. I think it makes a lot of sense except that I’m wondering how Dolores stumbling into their campsite fits because if it’s long ago, she shouldn’t be running away from the bandits at her house, right? Unless this same story (Dolores running away after the bandits kill her mother and father) has happened before?
–Soooo…who’s voice was that at the end? Who told Dolores to kill the bandit? Was it “God” (Albert who I’m gonna go ahead and say is NOT dead); was it Ford; was it Dolores’s own internal self (but why imagine the voice as male? Is it because of her interactions with Bernard? Did her mind make Bernard into God because of their conversations?)
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Oh man you certainly delved into it didn’t you? Haha. So I think you mean Arnold, not Albert. I spent like 10 minutes trying to figure out who you were talking about. Anyway, I’m going with Arnold being the one in her head telling her to shoot. This show certainly makes you think. I thought Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright got to show some of their acting ability this week and they were quite good. Bernard really is trekking down a path he shouldn’t and I wonder where this is going to take us. Count me intrigued on all accounts. I just want more man in black.
I also love that the show isn’t really pointing out who the guests are so we don’t know what’s really at stake in some of the action scenes.
Oh gosh, you’re right. Sorry! I wrote his name down wrong in my notes.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Oh wow, I just had a chance to watch this, so I have a bunch of questions/reactions, but for now they’re all jumbled.
@RG, I was having similar questions to yours, but will get back to this in a later post. But in the meantime, here’s some things I thought were really intriguing from a narrative standpoint (rather than a philosophical one, I have to think about those more):
Who is Arnold? Is he in fact the Man in Black (in that photo, which one is Arnold? The man on the right?)
Is Dr. Ford playing a double game? He disciplined one of the workers who was covering one of the hosts — what was the aim of that little demonstration? Who was its beneficiary? Is this really how he feels about hosts, or is this double-speak? What is his motive?
Were the masked berserkers at the end hosts or guests? They couldn’t be killed with bullets, but I suppose that it wouldn’t be crazy to make hosts immune to bullets if you put your mind to it. If they are actually guests, is this part of the new narrative? And if so, what is to prevent a guest form turning on another guest and potentially get away with murder?
The Stray self-destructed by way of giant boulder — was that a reaction to having the park’s staff attempt to take his head? In that sense, was that simply an act of suicide, or was he trying to destroy evidence? Was he told to do this by the voice?
Who is Arnold? Is he in fact the Man in Black (in that photo, which one is Arnold? The man on the right?)
I also couldn’t tell which one was Arnold which I think was intentional. The young actor we did see briefly looked strikingly like Anthony Hopkins but the way the character reacted to the Host waking up (almost like fatherly pride) doesn’t match how Ford presented himself this week with his demonstration (unless that was a ploy because his reactions to Hosts keep changing depending on who’s in the room and the context of the scene).
The Stray self-destructed by way of giant boulder — was that a reaction to having the park’s staff attempt to take his head? In that sense, was that simply an act of suicide, or was he trying to destroy evidence? Was he told to do this by the voice?
I noticed a common theme with the Hosts so far: desire for freedom, to escape their current situation (or at least the narrative situation they think they are living–none of them are yet aware of Westworld). Teddy and Dolores both want to leave and travel “out there” together having the life they’ve always dreamed of (were implanted with…); Maeve tells her backstory in this iteration of leaving her country and coming to America; The Stray suddenly got an idea and tried to leave his story–what was the idea? Was it some sort of self aware moment?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"1×04 “Dissonance Theory”
–Not a whole lot to say this week but a few observations.
1) Lots of chatter about gods and religion this week (which excites me to no end!). Ford felt like a god in his world little world, he controls every aspect of it and by extension he knows everything. But this isn’t a benevolent, kind god. He’s dictatorial and cruel. And WHAT on god’s green earth is he building???? Seriously what was popping up out of the ground?
2) The MiB made several references to the fact that he’s “here to set people free” because they are all in prison. It’s sort of…Savior language. He’s still a nasty piece of work but what he’s trying to figure out, the story he wants to discover, is likewise what Dolores is trying find: freedom. While the MiB probably does not have altruistic intentions, his efforts could help the Hosts gain consciousness and freedom. Does anyone else think the Maze might be more figurative than literal? Bernard teased it as a game at the top of the hour but what you get out of the game–freedom–sounded less like a literal freedom and more like metaphorical freedom.
3) Finally we get the idea that the Natives have turned their memories or their past recollections of the game workers into Gods. Shades, men who walk between worlds, are part of their religion because that’s the only way their mind can conceive of these memories. It must be otherworldly because their world does not have “science” and “technology” the likes of which the extremely modern world of Ford and Bernard has (speaking of, what year do we imagine Westworld is in??)
–Dolores is heading down the “bicameral mind” route of last week. She adapted her speech about being bigger on the inside from a script about love but it’s closer to metaphorical language, complex ideas than we’ve heard from her before. Is anyone else wondering about the time frame? When are she and Bernard having these conversations? She woke up back with William and Logan.
— Therese says that the Board has already sent in their representative—is it Logan? I think so. His “family” keeps getting teased and he clearly knows his way around the Park. Plus his line “it’s always business” was a bit on the nose.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"
The topic ‘Are You Real? HBO's "Westworld"’ is closed to new replies.