S01.E06: The Adversary

[arc]

34 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Stupid question, and this has probably been addressed in earlier weeks, but do the hosts need to use the bathroom? 

MIB said he knew what song Lawrence whistled when he's taking a piss.

34 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Also, the host boy Robert, his face opened up to reveal the mechanical insides.  I think Ford said only the older models could do this?

Yeah, it's implied that older models were mechanical, new ones are biological or synthetic but much more closely mimicking human design internally.

16 minutes ago, Gobi said:

I think even the older models, except the robo-Fords, have been upgraded to biological models, with their original AI incorporated.

Hopefully. Otherwise, why saw off the stray's head when they could have just had him open his face up to get access to the processing unit?????

Personally, I'm amused by Sizemore's antics, but he's definitely not irreplaceable to the point where he could piss on the Control Room's map. Theresa dangled the possibility of him being picked to replace Ford, but that also implies whoever his direct underlings are, are in line to take his job. (Again, to get meta with it, there are stories of real Hollywood directors - in film, esp - who get away with truly atrocious behavior and don't get replaced.)

What does distract me a little is that the actor looks like a poor man's Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

[Broderbits]

2 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

Even though he is an arrogant dick, Sizemore seems to be the kind of person who can develop a grand storyline while pay attention to meticulous details. These are needed to maintain how ever many thousands narratives currently ongoing

He doesn't impress me as being so brilliantly creative that no one else could possibly do his job. His latest narrative wasn't that special, just sick and twisted. There are people and computers to keep track of the many storylines; in fact he probably has a laptop full of notes that are the company's legal property. He's a liability, a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

[Goatherd]

1 hour ago, dgpolo said:

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

He drinks, publicly pees, shouts insults and somehow keeps his job. Maybe he will be the first human killed by a host.

I'm thinking it will be the Delos lady.

omg I read this and thought you meant that the Delos lady will be the one to kill Sizemore. I loved this idea so much that I couldn't bear to ask what on earth you were basing this on.

[Hootis]

DOES NOT COMPUTE: It takes thousands of hours to build your personalities.  Or, we can just adjust 'em right here on this sliding scale.

Courage.  Loyalty.  Charm.  Humor.  These are personality traits.  Developed over a lifetime.  Patience.  Humility.  Cruelty.  Learned behaviors.

So which is it?  Thousands of hours, or changing the stats on a D&D character?  It's like trying to do surgery by running someone over.

[numbnut]

2 hours ago, morgankobi said:

What if whoever is taking information form the older models is getting information from Old Bill as well, and so "heard" Ford's story about the Greyhound?

Arnold created the robot family and dog for a sentimental Ford, so he probably already knew Ford's greyhound/rabbit story.

1 hour ago, dgpolo said:

Given how shows like these make me very skeptical, I'm not sure at all that it -was- Theresa doing the uplinks. I think someone else was just using her codes or whatever.

I'm not rooting for Theresa (after she dumped Bernard) but I like this idea.

The Westworld "live without limits" ad tagline is interesting. How is the outside world is limiting rich people? Are they limited because they can't rape and kill?

Edited November 8, 2016 by numbnut

[arc]

17 minutes ago, Hootis said:

DOES NOT COMPUTE: It takes thousands of hours to build your personalities.  Or, we can just adjust 'em right here on this sliding scale.

Courage.  Loyalty.  Charm.  Humor.  These are personality traits.  Developed over a lifetime.  Patience.  Humility.  Cruelty.  Learned behaviors.

So which is it?  Thousands of hours, or changing the stats on a D&D character?  It's like trying to do surgery by running someone over.

To be fair, adjusting Maeve was shown in a previous ep to be that easy. Bump up her aggression by 100%, or her perception (apperception?) by 1.5%.

One could fanwank it as it takes time to build up a coherent personality that the internal backstory supports, but little time to just adjust numbers later.

[Gobi]

Just now, arc said:

To be fair, adjusting Maeve was shown in a previous ep to be that easy. Bump up her aggression by 100%, or her perception (apperception?) by 1.5%.

One could fanwank it as it takes time to build up a coherent personality that the internal backstory supports, but little time to just adjust numbers later.

I agree. Building a personality takes a lot of time, but once it has been done, it's easy to tweak.

[Gobi]

I'm starting to think that Bernard's scenes with Dolores are taking place in the future, after the events of TMIB.

Bernard knows about the maze in those scenes, yet there's no indication he does in the present. Nor, I think, does Ford really know. He was cagey with TMIB about it, just saying "What do you expect to find there?" to him. This episode, Ford pulled out an old journal of Arnold's (I believe) with a drawing of the maze. The maze may have been an idea of Arnold's that, as far as Ford knew, was never realized. Now he has doubts.

Bernard's talks with Dolores could be part of a post-robot revolt investigation (perhaps not the full rebellion, one that was suppressed). Dolores is clothed because Bernard, after Ford's death in the revolt, is treating the hosts with more respect.

And is it my imagination, but would Maeve's personality display, if all elements were maximized, not resemble the maze?

[AuntTora]

Two Fords -- android and human. The android is currently inhabited by Arnold.

OK, that's the craziest theory I can come up with. But it WOULD explain why he's not sentimental and yet very sentimental....

Anyway, all I could think about when Charlotte showed up was -- really? Guests who pay $40K to visit spend time at what amounts to a Hyatt pool bar? Glad there was more to it!

[numbnut]

Hmm. Vanity Fair is swaying me toward the "Bernard is unaware that he's Arnold" theory --

Spoiler

especially when you add the anagram and clones (!) to the mix.

That photo of Ford and "Arnold" has always stuck out to me as odd. At first I thought it was young Ford (his pose is weirdly stiff) but it looks like a bad cut-and-paste job with poor framing (like a third figure was erased). Anyhoo, after this ep, Bernard should def. ask why Ford lied about it.

1 hour ago, Gobi said:

I'm starting to think that Bernard's scenes with Dolores are taking place in the future, after the events of TMIB.

Bernard knows about the maze in those scenes, yet there's no indication he does in the present. Nor, I think, does Ford really know. He was cagey with TMIB about it, just saying "What do you expect to find there?" to him. This episode, Ford pulled out an old journal of Arnold's (I believe) with a drawing of the maze. The maze may have been an idea of Arnold's that, as far as Ford knew, was never realized. Now he has doubts.

Bernard's talks with Dolores could be part of a post-robot revolt investigation (perhaps not the full rebellion, one that was suppressed). Dolores is clothed because Bernard, after Ford's death in the revolt, is treating the hosts with more respect.

I'm leaning toward the third timeline where Bernard and fully dressed Dolores meet in the past and his encouragement of Dolores's sentience leads to the critical failure. But Bernard looking the same for 30 years ties in with the Bernard = Arnold theory (Arnold wants the hosts to be sentient; he encourages Dolores to rebel; Ford has Arnold killed but regrets it; Ford creates a new Arnold but as an agreeable underling named Bernard). After Arnold's death, Ford calls all the shots and insists that hosts must be naked when they're being serviced (insert obvious sex joke here).

Edited November 8, 2016 by numbnut

[jeansheridan]

Quote

I'm leaning toward the third timeline where Bernard and fully dressed Dolores meet in the past and his encouragement of Dolores's sentience leads to the critical failure. But Bernard looking the same for 30 years ties in with the Bernard = Arnold theory (Arnold wants the hosts to be sentient; he encourages Dolores to rebel; Ford has Arnold killed but regrets it; Ford creates a new Arnold but as an agreeable underling named Bernard). After Arnold's death, Ford calls all the shots and insists that hosts must be naked when they're being serviced (insert obvious sex joke here).

Ug, making my head hurt!  Too much, too much!  Ford makes a little dig at Bernard about family.  If he could see his son again, wouldn't he want to? I don't see Ford saying that to an android Bernard.  Unless Ford doesn't KNOW he's an android, but I think the show has been pretty clear that all the androids require maintenance, even the ones not beaten up all the time.  So logically who is the only person who could maintain a Bernard-bot?  Ford.  And so I circle around to my contention that Ford wouldn't make a comment about a fake son to a Bernard-bot and get SUCH a reaction.  Bernard doesn't quite glare at him.  It's a telling look--a bit of I can't believe you mentioned him and perhaps you are right but really a robot son?  Shudder.  And seeing Ford's "family" disturbs him a lot.  He runs to Theresa to tell her.  I feel like these are the reactions of a human.  

I realize Maeve is just as subtle and has been almost from the get-go.  Thandie Newton is wonderful but she's not great at going dead-eyed like some of the actors.  James Marsden in particular always feels robotic to me and I know he's not a robotic actor.  He's just a bit stiff and blank all the time.  

But Bernard just seems too human too me.   He has a slightly tired walk too.  Maybe I just want him to be human.

[Lingo]

I have almost no problem believing that present-day Bernard could be a very intelligent, super-realistic android secretly created by Ford. If anyone could build such a robot, it would be Ford. And it doesn't bother me that Ford would talk to such a robot as if he were a real human, just for the sake of having a vestige of his old friend back. Under this theory, of course, Bernard would have no idea he's a robot, and come to think of it, I'm not sure anyone else would know either. After all, why would they allow a robot to be put in charge of other robots' behavior? So I think it would have to be Ford's secret. Maybe Bernard is indeed intelligent enough to program other robots, but maybe Ford actually does it for him, and Bernard just THINKS he's doing it.

Overall, I'm about 66% convinced of the theory that past-Bernard is actually Arnold and present-day Bernard is an android duplicate. (And about 95% confident that William is the MIB.) By "past-Bernard is Arnold", I'm referring almost exclusively to the scenes in which he's talking to Dolores (but also the scene in which he's talking to his son's mother). Part of the reason is that otherwise I don't know how those scenes square with other scenes of Bernard. Most of the time, Bernard seems to be just minding his own business and is just as puzzled by the robots' odd behaviors as Elsie is. Why would Bernard be so interested in Dolores? Assuming the MIB is correct in saying the Maze is Arnold's creation, how would Bernard know of this Maze that Ford doesn't even seem to know completely about? And wouldn't it also be an odd coincidence that he takes interest in the same android who saw Arnold on the day he died?

People keep mentioning that Dolores is clothed in her scenes with Bernard. This has an easy explanation. Bernard is doing something surreptitious with Dolores. He's having secret conversations, and at the end of each one he urges her to run along before someone notices she's missing. No time or need for dressing/undressing. And notice, even though it has glass walls, that these meetings are in an entirely different location than all the other scenes of techs maintaining the hosts (and the scene of Ford talking to her). It's a dirty old room with old fixtures and a simple concrete staircase in the background that we've seen Bernard descend. There also seem to be some small windows to the outside at the top of one wall, as in a basement. This is his secret meeting place with her. I imagine it to be very close to Sweetwater, probably in a basement just below the ground that techs occasionally use for simple maintenance procedures. (Well, this paragraph doesn't really add to the argument that this is Arnold, or is set in the past, but it's not inconsistent with it.)

Anyway, I can't take credit for hardly any of these observations -- I've read them in articles on other websites. But I think it's very plausible. 

[LittleIggy]

I agree on it being ridiculous for those techs to just amp up Maeve's intelligence just because she told them to. However, I love Maeve, so this should be fun!

[feverfew]

Curses! Four pages already! ;)

I'm going to go against the grain and say that I - however much I love Maeve and Thandie Newton - missed Dolores and William in this episode. In sense it almost felt like a set-up episode for me; lots of background information, new players being introduced, but less heavy on the action. Even Teddy's machine gun action feel...fake, since we so clearly can tell it's a deviation from his key personality traits - or; what we've been led to believe is his character's key traits. I find it so interesting that the show per it's storyline foundation can play around with our (the viewers') expectations: Teddy is a White Hat and as such he'll do so and so - until he isn't. And we'll have to ajust our expectations. It also plays with our idea of what makes a person: Is it our biology ("We're the same - except we're not"), our memories, or our choices? I look forward to see what'll happen with Maeve in the next episode, because contrary to Teddy, she now knows she has been and can be tampered with; her memories, her dreams are not her own. So what is she now?

7 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

I'd say yes, considering the older hosts are the only ones capable of receiving the the behavior modifications from the transmitter.  

But how old was older host?  When did they abandon the basement?  They indicated Meave was an older model, BUT were her behavior metrics changed via the transmitter or was she a completely separate case ??? 

I think Maeve is one of Arnold's too. Otherwise the line "These violent delights have violent ends" wouldn't have triggered anything in her - at least if you buy into @Hanahope clever concept of Arnold's broadcast functioning like a computer virus, infecting the older hosts.  Like @Gobi I think all the older hosts, except Ford's creepy frozen family memory - has been upgraded to biological models, like moving the memory from one computer to the next. So it's less to do with the actual technical components and more to do with the 'wiring', if that makes sense?

As for the logo-watching two-timeliners out there, here's the logo on the old computer Bernard used:

It does look like the logo from William's visit, but with the colors inversed. Curses! :)

Edited November 8, 2016 by feverfew
Because spelling is *my* adversary, apparently...

[Goatherd]

Two random thoughts...

1. When we're standing in a field of crosses, I keep half-expecting the camera to zoom up to an overhead view that reveals they're forming the pattern of the maze. Not the ones on the cliff above Pariah -- those seem to be clearly in long straight lines. But in one of Dolores's weird memory-flashes, she's near some cross grave markers that are in a vaguely circular pattern. Combining this with the voice Dolores heard saying "Find me," and the memory-flash of her digging up a grave, I think there's an actual physical location for the maze, and something's buried there.

2. I keep wondering if we're going to meet (or have already!) some member of Logan's family. (Yes, based on the assumption that Logan's family invested in the park some 30 years ago.) I even wondered if Theresa could be Logan's sister (i.e. William's fiancee), but we know she visited the park as a child, making Logan's comment that she "rode a lot of cowboys" pretty gross. But if the family did invest (and I'm assuming that's what MiB is referring to when he says he saved the park), it could be reasonable for some family member to end up working there. Could Stubbs or Elsie be a child of William or Logan? All longshot guesses, I'm sure, but I would be surprised if we *don't* discover some familial tie eventually.

[Quilt Fairy]

Thanks to a review that had a screencap, this is Maeve's attribute matrix:

1. humor - 9
2. charm - 18
3. sensuality - 18
4. courage - 15
5. tenacity - 17
6. empathy - 9
7. loyalty - 16
8. aggression - 5
9. curiosity - 8
10. imagination - 13
11. decisiveness - 14
12. patience - 3
13. self-preservation - 10
14. cruelty - 1
15. humility - 3
16. meekness - 2
17. coordination - 10
18. vivacity - 17
19. candor - 19
20. bulk apperception - 14 (later bumped up to 20)

Edited November 8, 2016 by Quilt Fairy
Ooops, coordination should be 10 not 19.

[jeansheridan]

Maeve' s curiosity seems a tad low.  How fun to see your personality laid out so neatly.  I want one for me.

[arc]

58 minutes ago, feverfew said:

Even Teddy's machine gun action feel...fake, since we so clearly can tell it's a deviation from his key personality traits - or; what we've been led to believe is his character's key traits. I find it so interesting that the show per it's storyline foundation can play around with our (the viewers') expectations: Teddy is a White Hat and as such he'll do so and so - until he isn't.

In a previous ep, at the saloon Teddy expressed some subtle disapproval of Maeve and prostitution, I guess, to which Maeve said that at least when she was done with people they were still breathing. I think (pre-Wyatt-update) Teddy was a pretty dark grey hat, even if all we've seen of that version was rescuing Dolores and going on fairly ethical bounty hunts.

18 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

Maeve' s curiosity seems a tad low.  How fun to see your personality laid out so neatly.  I want one for me.

Sylvester said her paranoia was bumped up, and that stat wasn't one of the ones we saw on screen, so there have to be more dials to adjust than just those. Presumably the page with "bulk apperception" is the main page, though.

Edited November 8, 2016 by arc

[Lingo]

I just rewatched. I wanted to see Maeve's parts again, plus all the conspiracy parts. This episode definitely feels like the middle of a mystery novel, where the clues start to come together and all the potential victims have suddenly realized that there's a mystery killer in their midst!

I rewatched because as I wrote my reply I suddenly came up with a new crazy theory, that it's Bernard who has been working with Theresa all along. At the end of the episode, I was thinking, he came up there to actually warn Theresa about Elsie's snooping, which leads to her being taken. Part of the reason I thought of that is because we don't see how his conversation with Theresa continues after Elsie calls him. But rewatching it, the private conversations he has with her don't seem to add up that way. Actually right now, I've come up with a new even crazier theory: If Bernard is a robot, then Theresa is using him without his knowledge! She forces him to do things and spy on people for her, then deletes his memories of it! OK, that's way out there.

I still wonder what secrets he's keeping though. In earlier episodes, it seemed that he was trying to get Elsie to stop her investigations in a gentle way. He always tries to get her to do her job, but she takes the initiative to continue the investigation. And when she reports new findings to him, his responses are always very measured. And it seems significant that she's only told him about all this. If he wanted to keep things secret, all he'd have to do is get rid of Elsie. But in this episode, he actually helped Elsie's investigation by looking up the data in the basement. And if he were part of the satellite conspiracy, he wouldn't have sent Elsie after the stray to begin with. So I don't know. It could of course be that the only secret he's keeping (besides his liaison with Theresa) is his secret conversations with Dolores. But that would conflict with my belief that her conversations are actually with past-Arnold, so I don't want that to be true ;)

Here's another theory I have, concerning our killer Arnold (or whoever's pretending to be Arnold): Maeve's rebellion is just a planned distraction; his real master plan involves Dolores. It has to be significant that only a few robots have been misbehaving so far, and that Dolores told only Maeve the secret activation phrase ("The violent acts have violent ends"). Arnold doesn't want all the robots to rebel at once. That would cause the park to be immediately shut down and all the robots captured, scrapped or reprogrammed to avoid future rebellions. Right now he's just causing a little chaos and terrorism here and there to distract the park managers. Maeve's rebellion is essentially a script of Arnold's design; he predicted she would react this way. Right now she's being surreptitious, but soon it will lead to an attempted takeover of the park by Maeve and her friends. It will be big and bloody -- and it will tragically fail. But that's all part of Arnold's design. He just wants to distract the management from his actual goals with Dolores -- whatever those are. But she'll survive the purge following Maeve's rebellion because she won't be suspected to be part of it. 

[Quilt Fairy]

I'm wary of the way the show uses the term "bulk apperception" as an apparent synonym for "intelligence".  If TPTB meant intelligence, why not just use the word "intelligence"? Merriam-Webster defines "apperception" as follows:

1 :  introspective self-consciousness

2 :  mental perception; especially :  the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience

I think bulk apperception really means how self-aware, how "awake" the hosts are.  And for Maeve a bright new day is dawning........

Edited November 8, 2016 by Quilt Fairy

[Gobi]

Here's a proposed timeline for the show:

The Past - William, Logan, and Dolores; William or Logan may be TMIB when he was young.

The Present - TMIB's search for the maze, Ford's new narrative, corporate intrigue, Maeve's awakening.

The Future - Bernard's questioning of Dolores, Dolores retracing her journey with William in order to find the maze. 

If this theory is correct, this season should bring us up to the Bernard/Dolores timeframe.

I have a harder time fitting in the Bernard/Dolores scenes to any timeframe than I do having the William/TMIB scenes being contemporaneous.

Perhaps my biggest problem with the Bernard is Arnold or a robot theory is how would  people not notice that he never aged?

My other big problem is that if the William/Logan story is in the past, we're going to have a long story that just leads up to where we started. Why bother?

Here's another theory: Ed Harris' availability and cost preclude having him around very much. Since he is being paid a lot (I'm sure only Hopkins is being paid the same, or more), it makes sense to film all of his scenes for the season in one stretch, probably in two or three weeks. Therefore, most of his scenes involve extras or only one or two of the main characters. He is usually just seen with Teddy or Lawrence. His scene with Maeve, and Dolores' flashback are filmed in such a way that they are never in the frame at the same time, and his part and theirs could have been filmed separately. Even his scene with Hopkins is framed in a way that each part could have been filmed separately, with doubles. I don't think we were ever able to see both their faces clearly at the same time.

Therefore, there is no separate story, just a limited amount of time that Harris and William/Logan were available together. 

Or it could be that his availability led to the separate stories concept. Go figure.

[Uncle JUICE]

14 hours ago, arc said:

 

What does distract me a little is that the actor looks like a poor man's Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

This show has a bunch of those weird "bobo" actors. Sizemore also looks like Hugh Jackman's smaller younger brother. Elsie looks like Rickie Lake (dating myself). William looks like Christian Slater and Clay Aiken had a baby. Logan is like a weird Eric Bana. The one beardo tech is the guy from Mythbusters. The list goes on. 

[Gobi]

9 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

This show has a bunch of those weird "bobo" actors. Sizemore also looks like Hugh Jackman's smaller younger brother. Elsie looks like Rickie Lake (dating myself). William looks like Christian Slater and Clay Aiken had a baby. Logan is like a weird Eric Bana. The one beardo tech is the guy from Mythbusters. The list goes on. 

The show is obviously using robot versions of those actors, to avoid paying salaries.

[Netfoot]

There seems to be a fair amount of focus on the player piano, each episode.  And on the long piano-roll, which transforms the piano from one genre to another as easily as the hosts themselves are transformed by a change of their programming.  Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here, about the humanity (or lack thereof) of the hosts themselves?

Also, glad to see my suspicions confirmed:  There is secret access to/from the catacombs all over the park!

 

On 11/6/2016 at 11:51 PM, bmoore4026 said:

So the show takes place within the movie's continuity?

No, it doesn't. The movie is not part of the history of the park.  This was just an homage.

On 11/7/2016 at 6:14 AM, Bill1978 said:

I've hand waved her tour as some sort of maintenance drill they regularly do with bots. It's why Felix had the control pad to keep up the illusion.

We also saw other, clothed hosts undergoing testing or training, so I think it is plausible that she could have walked through and the other busy-bee employees not thinking something amiss.  

On 11/7/2016 at 8:28 AM, DarkRaichu said:

Also the background music went low when the 2 dum dums increased Meave's intelligent... then bam.. introducing smart Meave.. Very nice

Yes.  Two great scenes:  First when she overloads and essentially crashes her brain with the realization that she is a machine, and then a while later, when the super-smarts kick in.  TN stuck the landing on both those moments!

16 hours ago, Hootis said:

Thousands of hours, or changing the stats on a D&D character?

They can be changed easily, but tuning them so that the final behaviour is satisfactory?  That might take thousands of hours of experimentation.

12 hours ago, feverfew said:

It does look like the logo from William's visit, but with the colors inversed. Curses!

Three logos!  That means three timelines!  Plus maybe a fourth timeline wherein Martin Wallström is really a figment of Rami Malek's imagination, same as Christian Slater!  And another timeline wherein Rami Malek is Anthony Hopkins at a younger age!

12 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

this is Maeve's attribute matrix:

Actually, it's only a very small part of Maeve's Attribute Matrix:

They opened a sub-matrix with 20 attributes (the ones you listed), but apparently there something like 120 such sub-matrices seen in this display.  And this image may even show a sub-matrix of an even larger array, for all we know.  

11 hours ago, Lingo said:

I just rewatched. I wanted to see Maeve's parts again...

Eh?  What?  Are you referring to the "Swimsuit Parts," as another poster so delicately called them?

11 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

If TPTB meant intelligence, why not just use the word "intelligence"?

Because they didn't mean "intelligence," which is perhaps too narrow a definition.

[tvsoothesthespirit]

Unlike some others, this episode made me believe more firmly that Bernard could be a robot. Namely, the repeated "you've been here forever," lines.  They repeated that several times.

I think that Arnold uploaded his consciousness into the Westworld "system" somehow. Therefore, he can access most of the robots and start the virus running with his key phrase -- These violent pursuits have violent ends (that was it, right?). How could he do that? I have no idea! Why is he manifesting at this point? I have no idea!

It appears that there are plots within plots happening, right? We've got the host/satellite hookups, the Board maneuverings, Ford's plan (whatever that is -- maybe to thwart the other plots - at least the ones he's aware of), Arnold's activation of some of the robots to explore their state of existence, TMIB and the maze (maybe a part of Arnold's plan). I may have missed some. We also have rogue lab techs mucking around. If Felix has a little side hobby, there are probably more out there.

Well, seven pretty great episodes in, I'm invested enough to come up with theories and try to keep track of the plots. Here's hoping TPB are just as invested!

[Gobi]

I don't put much weight on the "You've been here forever" comments about Bernard. To Elsie, who seems to be in her twenties, someone like Bernard who has been at Westworld for, say, 20 years or so, would seem to have been there forever. He hasn't been there as long as Ford, and I haven't seen any interaction between them that seems as if Ford knows Bernard Is a robot.

[feverfew]

7 hours ago, Gobi said:

Here's a proposed timeline for the show:

The Past - William, Logan, and Dolores; William or Logan may be TMIB when he was young.

The Present - TMIB's search for the maze, Ford's new narrative, corporate intrigue, Maeve's awakening.

The Future - Bernard's questioning of Dolores, Dolores retracing her journey with William in order to find the maze. 

If this theory is correct, this season should bring us up to the Bernard/Dolores timeframe.

If there's more than one timeline this could work. However if Dolores* is supposed to awaken not only by Arnold's mechanical hand, so to speak, but because she herself - like Maeve - is questioning her...humanity, those conversations between her and Bernard must happen before she goes in search of the maze. Or do you mean Dolores goes in search of the maze after her conversations with Bernard, but we're watching those events concurrently? Is she looking for the maze both in the timeline with William and later in a timeline by herself? And where does her conversation with Ford fit in? She's obviously already 'infected' with Arnold's virus when they speak, because she lies to him...?

*I almost typed "Dorothy" - it's the blue dress, Ford as the wizard, D off to the yellow brick road to find courage, brains and soul that threw me off ;)

12 hours ago, arc said:

In a previous ep, at the saloon Teddy expressed some subtle disapproval of Maeve and prostitution, I guess, to which Maeve said that at least when she was done with people they were still breathing. I think (pre-Wyatt-update) Teddy was a pretty dark grey hat, even if all we've seen of that version was rescuing Dolores and going on fairly ethical bounty hunts.

I didn't quite read that scene the same way you did; right after Teddy rebuffs Maeve, he looks out of the window and spots Dolores, and his face goes all soft and mushy-like. I thought we were supposed to infer that he is in love with Dolores and therefore is 'saving himself for her', not that he's judging Maeve and her profession. Also, the way the MIB reacts to Teddy going dark side in this episode makes me think Teddy was fairly white hat before Ford tinkered with him - after all, the MIB knows him fairly well ;)

[ennui]

20 hours ago, Ellaria Sand said:

He drinks, publicly pees, shouts insults and somehow keeps his job.

If he has a good contract, they'll send him to rehab and he keeps his job. I've seen it in the real world.

[Gobi]

5 hours ago, feverfew said:

If there's more than one timeline this could work. However if Dolores* is supposed to awaken not only by Arnold's mechanical hand, so to speak, but because she herself - like Maeve - is questioning her...humanity, those conversations between her and Bernard must happen before she goes in search of the maze. Or do you mean Dolores goes in search of the maze after her conversations with Bernard, but we're watching those events concurrently? Is she looking for the maze both in the timeline with William and later in a timeline by herself? And where does her conversation with Ford fit in? She's obviously already 'infected' with Arnold's virus when they speak, because she lies to him...?

 

If this theory is correct (and I have no reason to believe it is), I see it like this. After Maeve' s failed rebellion, Bernard starts questioning Dolores unofficially, to try to determine what happened. Dolores, as one of the oldest hosts, is perfect for this. Bernard Is beginning to wonder whether hosts are sentient beings worthy of being  treated as humans. Her system has already been corrupted in some way by Arnold in the past.

He sends her in search of the maze, which he has learned about through TMIB or some other way. At that point, we begin seeing Dolores searching for the maze and having flashbacks to her journey with William. When she sees her double, or is alone when William or someone else should be with her, we are seeing  the  future. Notice that it is in those moments that she sees an image of the maze.

For example: seeing Lawrence's daughter drawing the maze; when she sees herself as the fortune teller, who gives her a Tarot card with the maze on it; when she is alone in the train (although William and Lawrence should be with her) with the coffin, and the coffin has the maze on it; when she sees her double in the street, her interrogation by Ford took place during the journey with William.

I haven't re-watched every episode to examine this theory, so slack should be cut for me.

ETA: Just watched Ford's scene with Dolores. It has to be in the present, because she says it's been 34 years since Arnold died. Don't think that kills my theory, though.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Gobi
Content

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, ennui said:

If he has a good contract, they'll send him to rehab and he keeps his job.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to kill him and replace him with a host?

[arc]

2 hours ago, feverfew said:

I didn't quite read that scene the same way you did; right after Teddy rebuffs Maeve, he looks out of the window and spots Dolores, and his face goes all soft and mushy-like. I thought we were supposed to infer that he is in love with Dolores and therefore is 'saving himself for her', not that he's judging Maeve and her profession. Also, the way the MIB reacts to Teddy going dark side in this episode makes me think Teddy was fairly white hat before Ford tinkered with him - after all, the MIB knows him fairly well ;)

Here's the lines:

Quote

Teddy: Well, then I guess you could add lying to your list of sins.

Maeve: The only thing wrong with the seven deadly sins is that there aren't more of them. And while we're on the subject, my transgressions wash off a little easier than yours. At least when my girls are done with a man, he's still left drawing breath. For the most part.

Even his pre-Wyatt backstory was that he's killed a bunch of people, probably not that justly.

[Goatherd]

I think I'm missing something. Where is the "Bernard is a robot" speculation coming from? Does it help explain something we've seen, or solve some otherwise unresolvable anomaly? Because I'm not seeing it. I haven't seen a single thing it helps resolve, and I can think of a dozen things that would have to be further explained or wriggled out of (e.g. who knows he's a robot? who maintains him? what's the long-term effect of having a host whose memory is never wiped? why don't people notice he hasn't aged in twenty years?). It would also (for me) make the character almost completely uninteresting, because we'd be watching programming play out as designed, rather than watching a human with his own aims, goals, hopes, and sorrows.

Ford stated that Bernard was human, when he said that Bernard is the culmination of trillions of mistakes (they may have made thousands or millions of mistakes designing the hosts, but "trillions" is clearly referring to human evolution). But if we're going to doubt everything Ford or others have told us, then I suppose all theories are equally likely.

 

Also -- Ford explained why his "ghost father" looks like Arnold -- it was explicitly addressed in dialog. So why are people coming up with convoluted suggestions that host-Bernard is really Arnold, and the photo we saw was actually showing Ford, Ford's father (have we heard that he ever even visited the park??), and Arnold, but Bernard was unable to perceive Arnold in the photo.  To go that far away from what we've observed and been told, we'd have to stomp on Occam's razor, then burn it, then throw it out the window.

These seem like theories for the sake of making theories. I like trying to figure out what clues the show-runners may have left for us (yes, the changing logo included). But in the absence of any clues, this feels more like fan-fic or "If I was writing this story, I'd make this guy a robot!" type of thinking.

 

And, of course, I'm leaving myself wide open for you all to mock me when these theories are proved true eventually....sigh....

[Netfoot]

13 minutes ago, Goatherd said:

I think I'm missing something. Where is the "Bernard is a robot" speculation coming from?

This guy

authorized the use of two pyrotechnic devices when TMIB blew the jail to escape.  And this guy

Discussed Dolores departure from her usual loop to be with William.  

It's the same guy, as far as I can see, putting the kibosh to any suggestion that William/TMIB exist in different timelines and/or are the same person.  But the twin-timeline fraternity, never willing to let their opinion be molded by mere facts, save their theory by concluding that this guy is a bot.

So, don't be too upset if Bernard is declared to be a bot as well, because wild speculation always trumps logical deduction.  And crazy-assed theories are automatically assumed to be true, until disproven!

[Gobi]

Another reason I don't like the Bernard is a robot theory is that he is, in my opinion, the audience stand-in. By that I mean, he is the main human character that the audience can most identify/sympathize with. He's the closest thing to a hero in the show.

[Quilt Fairy]

6 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Because they didn't mean "intelligence," which is perhaps too narrow a definition.

I was referring to the fact that Felix defined the term "bulk apperception" to Maeve as meaning "intelligence".  It's certainly possible he didn't understand the difference or was intentionally trying to deceive her.

[numbnut]

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

And this guy

Discussed Dolores departure from her usual loop to be with William.  

It's the same guy, as far as I can see, putting the kibosh to any suggestion that William/TMIB exist in different timelines and/or are the same person.

IIRC Stubbs was informed that Dolores was off-loop but it wasn't confirmed if she was with a guest or who that guest may be (it's a classic JJ Abrams moment when a character doesn't get an answer to a key question). If Dolores went off-loop in two different timelines, this Stubbs moment works for the present-day timeline (in which Dolores goes to Pariah alone to retrace her steps with William).

Edited November 9, 2016 by numbnut

[LittleIggy]

Do hosts need to eat and drink like humans to survive?

[TudorQueen]

Quote

I find Sizemore to be tiresome. If a human is to be "offed" by a host, I nominate him.

I was thinking that exact same thing during the episode. I didn't like him from the beginning with his pretentious snarkiness, and now I see no redeeming characteristics in him (yet I love Teddy, who kills people).

Another example of my internal moral inconsistency is that I find William utterly boring (and he's turning a little smug,) and am interested in Logan, the douchebag. Maybe it's the relative chemistry/presence of the actors, maybe it's that I want Dolores with Teddy (I know, I know, they're not 'people', but isn't this show, in part, about how you don't have to be flesh to have feelings, to have some right to self-determination? I'm not putting this well...)

Agree with everyone who has noted how kick-ass and awesome Maeve is, and how Thandie Newton is knocking it out of the park. 

[numbnut]

I'm puzzled by the Wyatt storyline. If Ford created the storyline and Teddy's new backstory, then Teddy's description of the maze was written by Ford. So did Ford create the maze? Or did Arnold write the Wyatt storyline and Ford is now using it to track down the maze (and Arnold)?

Edited to add: Maybe Wyatt isn't a storyline and was the "critical failure" as he killed a bunch of guests and hosts. I dunno.

Edited November 9, 2016 by numbnut

[Goatherd]

I think I know why Ford went to visit MiB. He wanted to ask him about his search for the maze, and decide whether to allow him to pursue it. Once Ford made his decision, he gave a code phrase to Teddy to release a new part of the program updates he had previously uploaded. At the time, it seemed like his command just made Teddy stand up quickly and say he was ready to get going. 

But in this episode, MiB even refers to the programming change ("I think Robert gave you some extra vinegar back there, maybe took away some sense, too...") and he is deferring to Teddy to decide where to go. So whatever code phrase Robert gave is determining where MiB is heading now. And who knows where that is -- Teddy says the tunnel goes to Pariah, but it could actually lead somewhere...mazier.

[iMonrey]

So Bernard is stumbling around in the dark in the sub-level basement, until he finds a computer and switches it on. So - clearly they have power down there. Why not turn on some damn lights?

[ennui]

16 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Do hosts need to eat and drink like humans to survive?

I don't know if they need to, but I found it curious that Clementine was eager for a cup of coffee. 

[Gobi]

1 hour ago, ennui said:

I don't know if they need to, but I found it curious that Clementine was eager for a cup of coffee. 

From what we've seen, the hosts do drink, maybe they don't eat (it was unclear whether the cattle drive would actually eat). They probably don't digest anything, it's something they do to appear human.

[numbnut]

I think I'm the only one who didn't love the music used during the Maeve/Felix tour (I know it was a Radiohead song but the orchestration was too overbearing and Lost-y).

I'm on board with whoever posted that Theresa is being framed, but I can't decide if she's being framed by Bernard or Stubbs. I do think it was Stubbs who grabbed Velma, er, Elsie.

Edited November 10, 2016 by numbnut

[arc]

8 hours ago, Gobi said:

From what we've seen, the hosts do drink, maybe they don't eat (it was unclear whether the cattle drive would actually eat). They probably don't digest anything, it's something they do to appear human.

I would assume the hosts do eat. Guests can ride out with Hector's gang for days, have campfire moments... there's no way it doesn't break immersion if the guests eat and the hosts don't. Plus, like Felix said, they're "the same, these days" which even suggests that they're powered by food, like real people. (Though that then raises the question of how hosts can be put in cold storage indefinitely without food or maintenance though...)

[Solace247]

Just binged the first six episodes. It's an interesting watch. Anyone think that Arnold is Ford's brother? That could be a reason Bernard thought the father was Arnold - family resemblance?

[DarkRaichu]

19 hours ago, iMonrey said:

So Bernard is stumbling around in the dark in the sub-level basement, until he finds a computer and switches it on. So - clearly they have power down there. Why not turn on some damn lights?

I know some IT people who prefer to code in the dark, ie with their PC monitors as the only source of light.  

Bernard's office was not that bright either and he was shown working when Elsie stopped by.  So he might be used to the dark

Edited November 10, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[DarkRaichu]

18 hours ago, ennui said:

I don't know if they need to, but I found it curious that Clementine was eager for a cup of coffee. 

This was not the first time we saw her yawning.  We saw it in ep2 when Maeve first malfunctioned.  

I do not get why she yawns or "feels" sleepy, surely her battery/power source is fully charged over night regardless of how much sleep she gets.  The only reason seems to be as a conversation starter for Maeve.   I do not see how yawning would entice guests to pay for her service. 

OR maybe the yawning is a clue to 2 timeline theory as well :D :D :D 

[numbnut]

1 hour ago, Solace247 said:

Just binged the first six episodes. It's an interesting watch. Anyone think that Arnold is Ford's brother? That could be a reason Bernard thought the father was Arnold - family resemblance?

Ford's robot father looks exactly like the photo of Arnold (he's even wearing the same clothing IIRC) so Bernard's thinking was based on that.

Edited November 10, 2016 by numbnut

[okerry]

On 11/7/2016 at 1:40 PM, Gobi said:

 

As far as the hosts eating, we did see Maeve eating something for breakfast and apparently drinking coffee at the beginning of this episode. And in an earlier episode, we saw some techs placing what looked like a stomach inside an uncompleted horse.

11 hours ago, arc said:

 

As far as power sources for the hosts, I keep waiting to see that they've got super high-tech batteries of some kind that can last for a long time. (Makes it even worse to think about Teddy hanging from that tree.) Maybe they *can* eat but don't have to - but maybe they need to be replenished with "blood" to keep the living tissue parts of them alive. These are the kind of questions that need to be answered!