S01.E07: Trompe L'Oeil

[feverfew]

@jojozigs I was about to quote every one of your posts, because you said everything my scrambled brain has been trying to formulate since I saw the latest episode. Then I realised it would just be me fangirling over blocks of text, and ... well.  Nobody wants to read that. So.

9 hours ago, jojozigs said:

He's explicitly aware of that.  It's why he doesn't allow himself to sleep with or explicitly pursue her romantically.  But what he's reacting to - and ultimately is unable to stop - is that despite what he knows in his rational brain, the emotional part is completely taken in because Westworld seems more real, more visceral than the real world.  And that's because he actually has a soul, unlike Logan.  He also doesn't want to play on "god mode".  He doesn't fight unless he has to and doesn't act like he's invincible.  He buys in to the reality he's presented with, rather than trying to subvert it.  I feel like he's playing the game the way it was intended to be played - it's the way I'd play it so I guess I approve of his approach. 

This. I understand why it's easier to root for the black hats, the anti-heroes and the snarky sidekicks, and that playing a 'pure' character (or as pure as one can be in Westworld) is the more unforgiving task, but with Bernard off the human chess board, I need a good one to balance out the bad. Dolores and William is at the moment not particularily flashy and I can see why it can translate to "boring" compared to Maeve and Bernard's more explosive storylines. But the thing about William buying "in to the reality he's presented with, rather than trying to subvert it" is that he is (meant to be) the reflection of the hosts. Because as we draw the curtains and looks at the wizard in all his perverted glory, he's skipping happily down the yellow brick road. Of course, it being a postmodern show, I keep waiting for the Very Bad Thing to happen to him...

1 hour ago, dr pepper said:

I approach it from the other direction: If they *think* they're real people, then we have a duty to treat them as such.

That's a very good point. I think I've been arguing sentience from a human perspective; this turns it upside down: "Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would." Bernard isn't what he is. But...as long as he believes he is, isn't he? God, I love this show. 

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Watched a few, but it didn't strike the right chord with me.

Heh. I was just about to recommend that show to you too. It took me quite a while to get into the show myself (Colin Morgan just doesn't do it for me as a serious actor/character), but those things you wrote about? I find them absolutely fascinating, so I stuck with the show. I think it rewards it viewers in the end (...my way of saying you should give it another shot, if you have the time ;))

[Bill1978]

Finally got to watch this episode, damn life interfering. And I cannot believe that a theory I embraced turned out to be correct. I was so giddy with excitement that Bernard was a robot. I rarely pick the right theory - I was terrible with Lost.

When this show started I was a keen follower of Dolores storyline, her awakening and everything intrigued me. But now it is clear that the aspect of the awakening that intrigues me the most will be revealed through Maeve's storyline. All Dolores' plot seems to be is she refuses to be a damsel and she is going to the damn ocean. Boring. It could also be that her plot is so tightly bound to the Western aspect of the show, and as I sad before I dislike Westerns so my brain is switching off cause I don't care. I have the same issue with the MIB storyline. It's too wrapped up in the Western and combined with all the vague talk of The Maze I don't find it compelling.

Just like I don't really care about the corporate business mystery and what not. My eyes glaze over whenever that is bought up. I've never understood business espionage and the need to control business so my brain just can't handle business talk.

Nope the bits that engaged me were Maeve, Bernard's reveal and even poor Clementine.  That was brutal and even though it was part of the business plot it at least expanded (or showed) the future of what would happen with sentinent hosts. It was interesting to see Theresa looking disturbed by the violence towards Clementine though. I really felt for Bernard when he was killing Theresa, even though he really wasn't aware of what he was doing. He looked so sad trying to comprehend that he was a robo ven though he wasn't accepting it. I'm surprised he didn't freeze like Maeve did. I am on this ride for the awakening of the robots and their rebelling. Less business and less ocean desires. It's funny that if Dolores never whispered that phraces to Maeve, I would probably have ditch this show.

I am intrigued to know what happened to Elise. I'm hoping she isn't dead, but knowing Ford, that was probably Elise getting made by that machine.

[KaleyFirefly]

On 11/13/2016 at 11:38 PM, okerry said:

Yup - even before I started watching this show, my first thought was, "The hosts are all based on actual people, because that would be the simplest way to get the complex personalities that the park demands. Plus, isn't its real purpose the pursuit of immortality - putting human minds into host bodies - and the park is just the way to pay the bills?"

This might be what has been referred to several times on the show -- that the investors' real interest in the park goes way beyond "tourists playing cowboy." They either want to create artificial worlds that people can preside over as gods, or ensure immortality by using robot bodies, or create a super-loyal robot army/robot spies...there are many possibilities.

[arc]

I wonder how expensive hosts are to make, from fabrication on to programming. I wonder if they can be rebuilt, identically, and restored from backup. Because drilling into Clementine's brain apparently lobotomized her. The stray destroyed his own processing unit rather than risk capture and analysis. But Slim's corpse was blown up. As part of the narrative.

Any time a guest makes it to Pariah and takes on the nitroglycerin sub-quest, it probably leads to the narrative where the confederados stop the train and Lawrence has to blow up one of his nitro-filled corpses to make a break for it. (Even if no guests are around by the time the train has stopped, the narrative still requires it all still goes on.)  Figure that plot goes too long to loop more than once a month, and maybe it's not a commonly found quest (like someone here point out a few weeks ago, it depends on taking the bounty quest and then betraying the bounty hunter), Lawrence still probably blows up a couple of hosts a year. Seems wasteful. Does the Slim role get reassigned regularly? Or does the park have backup Slim host bodies that they download the Slim host personality into every time one gets blown up?

And what was with those two corpses Lawrence had on his other horses? Surely he wouldn't be transporting nitroglycerin-filled bodies at a full gallop?

Edited November 16, 2016 by arc

[DarkRaichu]

25 minutes ago, arc said:

I wonder how expensive hosts are to make, from fabrication on to programming. I wonder if they can be rebuilt, identically, and restored from backup. Because drilling into Clementine's brain apparently lobotomized her. The stray destroyed his own processing unit rather than risk capture and analysis. But Slim's corpse was blown up. As part of the narrative.

Perhaps there are several bodies in coffins pre-built in Pariah for this storyline.  They just modify the head of 1 pre-built body to resemble Slim's (or whichever Hector's underling that died to get the nitroglycerin).  This would make it easier to create illusion of grey corpses because the actual hosts do not seem to rot when they are "dead".  

We never saw anyone putting the actual Slim into a coffin, did we?  Lawrence just happened to have several bodies in coffins for this mission.

[Ellaria]

On 11/15/2016 at 5:06 AM, phoenyx said:

Perhaps the following article has already been brought up by someone, but just in case it hasn't been, I think it's well worth taking a look at. I don't agree with all of it, but there's certainly a lot of interesting information in it...

‘Westworld’ Spoiler Review: 10 Questions From ‘Trompe L’Oeil’ | Slashfilm

Excellent article - thanks for sharing. One statement in that article that I want to comment on:

Quote

"Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton and Ed Harris are doing fine work, but affection for their performances doesn’t always translate to affection for their characters."

For me, Bernard is the emotional center of the story. (Yes, yes...I feel this way even though he is a robot and just murdered Theresa.) In that final scene, when he bowed his head and began muttering, "it can't be" (paraphrasing), my heart broke for him. And yes, I understand that I am being manipulated by the writers into caring about Bernard. Regardless, its working.

I feel similar about Maeve but I think that she is doomed. Bernard will be around for the long haul. Sadly, I'm not so sure about Maeve.

(Of course, this is my opinion and others can disagree.)

Edited November 16, 2016 by Ellaria Sand

[NutMeg]

I'm still mostly fascinated by Ford, and it's a combination of the character and how Anthony Hopkins plays him. There is so much mystery and complexity in him, and if as he says he has built all of Westworld, what of Arnold? Was Arnold a creation, too, or an assistant or other that is being retrospectively credited with some aspects that always created by Ford?

[Off topic: has anyone read Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin?

Spoiler

In it, the sister of the narrator is credited with having written a book that is a masterpiece, when it was the narrator who wrote it but didn't feel like she could publish it under her own name, so decided to attribute it to her dead sister.

The Ford/Arnold at times reminds me very much of such a scenario.]

Maeve is a fantastic character but I think my interest is mostly due to the actress, who is truly amazing.

And I cannot wait to see Theresa 2.0 and how similar or different her interactions are with the other characters.

[phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

Excellent article - thanks for sharing. One statement in that article that I want to comment on:

For me, Bernard is the emotional center of the story. (Yes, yes...I feel this way even though he is a robot and just murdered Theresa.) In that final scene, when he bowed his head and began muttering, "it can't be" (paraphrasing), my heart broke for him. And yes, I understand that I am being manipulated by the writers into caring about Bernard. Regardless, its working.

I feel similar about Maeve but I think that she is doomed. Bernard will be around for the long haul. Sadly, I'm not so sure about Maeve.

(Of course, this is my opinion and others can disagree.)

Glad you like it too :-). As to your affection for Bernard- Dolores is also a robot and I completely understand why William fell in love with her, I did too :-p. I also have a strong emotional attachment to Bernard.

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

And yes, I understand that I am being manipulated by the writers into caring about Bernard. Regardless, its working.

I took a look at the definition of manipulated on google and came up with this one that seems to fit what you're getting at:

"control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously."

I can certainly agree with the first, but I don't believe they're doing the second or the third. I think it's safe to say that at present, there are no robots who come even close to being as human like as the ones portrayed on Westworld. But while that may be true in terms of robots, when it comes to the cerebral AI, there was atleast one AI that certainly began to develop some human failings recently: Microsoft's Tay, which was pulled down by Microsoft after it went racist:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

But while it was a failure in terms of making a nice AI, I don't think it was a failure at all when it came to an AI learning from humans. I think what it needed was some proper core programming from some nice programmers before being put out into the more feral world out there. Put another way- if babies didn't have human teachers at the start, they have a very hard time becoming functional humans. There are many stories that prove this to be true:

http://www.smashinglists.com/10-feral-human-children-raised-by-animals/

The old saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is about right. Another way of putting all of this is that we may be a lot closer to truly sentient AI then we may think. The robot kind may take a while longer, bodies are pretty hard to get right, but in terms of the strictly cerebral kind, I wouldn't even be that surprised if it already exists in a fairly crude fashion.

There's another issue here, one that I constantly think about: while we may not have androids yet or even AI the public can teach that can't be warped into becoming racist fast, we -do- have what I think of as classes of human beings. Perhaps the simplest classification is the haves and the have nots, but there are other ways of putting it, such as legals and 'illegals'- and not just in terms of immigration status, but in terms of whether a person has been charged with committing a crime. The world likes to proclaim that slavery doesn't exist anymore, but it's a lie: forced labour is alive and well, even in the U.S., so long as you are a prisoner. As to illegal immigration, Maeve's situation comes to mind- native born citizens of North Korea, for instance, are forbidden to leave their country, and what countries with very rich people are doing to poor people, whether they are citizens or illegal immigrants, can be heart wrenching as well. Divide and conquer is also a very good method for dealing with such things, with poor people fighting other poor people (native born vs. illegal immigrants for instance). I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get an android civil war. There have already been signs that we may get just that in my view.

The show has a lot of -real- ground it can cover, using the metaphor of androids as cover to avoid being too controversial.

1 hour ago, Ellaria Sand said:

I feel similar about Maeve but I think that she is doomed. Bernard will be around for the long haul. Sadly, I'm not so sure about Maeve.

(Of course, this is my opinion and others can disagree.)

My guess is that Maeve makes it out of the first season alive. I base this solely on the fact that she is so enthusiastic about her performance in interviews. Ofcourse, she may just be happy that she went out with a bang, guess we'll find out. As to Bernard, I hope you're right. I hope he turns against Ford. Honestly, I think Ford is generally pretty smart, but telling Bernard to kill his own ex lover was idiotic in my view- a whole park filled with androids to choose from and he chooses the one who fell in love with her? Not immediately erasing the incident from Bernard's memory was even worse. It also seems that Bernard now knows that he's an android and Ford hasn't erased that either. Unless, ofcourse, Ford secretly wants to be undone. I just thought of something else- what if Ford was lying when he said that he asked Bernard to come? What if the truth is that Bernard really -did- want to show Theresa what he'd found out, and Ford simply knows where Bernard is all the time, saw where he was and decided to investigate, then lied to Theresa about him having told Bernard to bring her there? He may also be able to eavesdrop on any conversations his androids have, perhaps even listen to their thoughts, as the scene with Maeve suggested. There's no question that he had what amounts to an over-ride switch when it came to killing Theresa as well.

One last thing concerning wiping memories, there was something that I'm remembering Jonathan Nolan saying concerning Maeve- I think he was hinting that erasing the memories of androids isn't always so easy and pointing to episode 8 as an explanation. I look forward to it.

Edited November 16, 2016 by phoenyx

[iMonrey]

Quote

When you go to hospital to patch up a scrape, you don't wear mask and gloves, but the hospital staff do.

Quote

Some chefs require everyone in their kitchen to wear hat or hair net, even the dishwashers who never get to handle food.

A theme park is not a hospital or a kitchen. People do not pay to go to a hospital and play with the patients there, nor do they pay to go into a kitchen and play with people's food. If there is a danger of contamination to the park workers then there is an equal danger to the guests. 

But I'm sure I've already talked this to death. You're either willing to hand-wave this away or you're not. I just don't happen to be enthralled enough with the show to overlook stuff like this. While some of the show is proving to be intriguing it still feels far too self important and pretentious to me.

Quote

The EPs said they think the park is about 500 square miles. ... that seems too small to me. The entire city of LA is about 500 square miles, even if that is a big city. 500 square miles would be a square under 23 miles a side, and given the official website's map, Pariah would be 2-4 miles as-the-crow-flies miles from wherever they probably were in Ghost Nation territory. They might have meant something like a square 500 miles on a side? ... but even that, plus assuming the train tracks double the distance due to a circuitous route, still puts the train trip at 160 miles at the high end, I figure. And old-timey trains as slow as 15-20 mph, so ... argh, the math doesn't work.

The park does seem impossibly large for Dolores and William to have spent an entire day and night (at least) on a train. I suppose they could have been going around in a circle to simulate distance but then they did end up somewhere else. If the people who run this park access it through secret elevators and doors how long does it take them to reach these far-flung corners of the park that took 2 or 3 days for the guests to get to? There's been no indication that some of the locations are just virtual reality, and if the underground facilities are as large as the park itself there should be trams and other transportation down there but all we ever see is people walking around.

[jeansheridan]

Quote

Heh. I was just about to recommend that show to you too. It took me quite a while to get into the show myself (Colin Morgan just doesn't do it for me as a serious actor/character), but those things you wrote about? I find them absolutely fascinating, so I stuck with the show. I think it rewards it viewers in the end (...my way of saying you should give it another shot, if you have the time ;))

I second this.  One thing I liked about Humans is the small scale of the show.  It really deals on a practical level what it would be like to have an android in your home and how it would make you feel to see your children being taken of by a "machine".  The human mother judges herself a lot which I think would happen.  Here's this attractive, calm, smart being in my home who is just generally better at everything than me other than maybe humor.  And I like that most of the androids are a little stiff in their movements. And that the blonde android was flat out freaking angry.  And I think there are only 6 episodes!  I love British shows for their short seasons.

[numbnut]

11 hours ago, FemmyV said:

Some things about the split-timelines theory that leave me wondering:

If Delores / William is early history, and MiB / Teddy is current, where is Delores, currently?

If Delores / William is the early history, why did she envision MIB to shoot when she was in the haystack?

My take on Q1: In the current storyline, Dolores has gone off-loop and is retracing her journey with William (to Pariah, on the train ride, on horseback to the river, etc.).

My take on Q2: In the current storyline, Dolores envisions the MIB in the barn before escaping the ranch. This cuts to the scene of her falling into William's arms in a flashback.

[okerry]

8 hours ago, feverfew said:

(snip for space)

But the thing about William buying "in to the reality he's presented with, rather than trying to subvert it" is that he is (meant to be) the reflection of the hosts. Because as we draw the curtains and looks at the wizard in all his perverted glory, he's skipping happily down the yellow brick road. Of course, it being a postmodern show, I keep waiting for the Very Bad Thing to happen to him...

And I'm wondering if that Very Bad Thing might not involve Teddy, who might just be getting tired of people grabbing his girl and has become pretty good with a Gatling gun as of late . . .

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

But I'm sure I've already talked this to death. You're either willing to hand-wave this away or you're not. I just don't happen to be enthralled enough with the show to overlook stuff like this. While some of the show is proving to be intriguing it still feels far too self important and pretentious to me.

In case you missed my 2nd reply to your post.  To me this discussion is moot because the retrieval team is actually wearing the same outfits as Felix and Sylvester.  They even wear the same latex type surgical gloves instead of thicker more durable gloves seen on hazmat suits.  If we can accept Felix's working uniform / outfit, it is not too much of a stretch for the people going topside to wear the same thing.  Heck, the retrieval team might have consisted of butchers like Felix, who were told to wear helmets when going topside for their protection.  We have seen things falling off 2nd floor in previous episodes.  The helmets have headlights to help them working topside during night time (hosts get shot at night too).

Next time I will check the episodes before responding to comments about outfits :D

[arc]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

If the people who run this park access it through secret elevators and doors how long does it take them to reach these far-flung corners of the park that took 2 or 3 days for the guests to get to? There's been no indication that some of the locations are just virtual reality, and if the underground facilities are as large as the park itself there should be trams and other transportation down there but all we ever see is people walking around.

In the second episode, when we see Ford take an elevator up to the area with the burnt church steeple, there's a momentary swoosh in a nearby glass tube. I took it to be some sort of small car high speed train in the underground part of the park.

[numbnut]

I usually watch each ep twice but the William/Dolores sex-train romance was a chore to rewatch. I love Jimmi Simpson on House of Cards but he's dull as William, partly because William's storyline is so underwritten. Why does he have to "pretend" in the outside world? Why can't he find a woman and a profession that will accept the real him?

[jojozigs]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

A theme park is not a hospital or a kitchen. People do not pay to go to a hospital and play with the patients there, nor do they pay to go into a kitchen and play with people's food. If there is a danger of contamination to the park workers then there is an equal danger to the guests. 

But I'm sure I've already talked this to death. You're either willing to hand-wave this away or you're not. I just don't happen to be enthralled enough with the show to overlook stuff like this. While some of the show is proving to be intriguing it still feels far too self important and pretentious to me.

I agree generally with your critique.  Especially that they have to wear apparently more protective gear in this case than they even do when sawing bodies apart.  Also there was one part a couple episodes back where someone from upstairs WAS dressed in period gear and almost pulled Delores out because she was off-loop before William claimed to be accompanying her.

However, there is a huge difference in exposure duration between the meat-shop workers and either the guests or behavior/administration.  In fact, this difference between chronic dangers and acute dangers is the basis for many workplace safety precautions including things like specific ergonomic precautions.  You don't need to wear earplugs for a rock concert, or if you walk by a construction site.  But if you spend 8 hours a day on a construction site, you better wear earplugs.  Likewise for exposure to mild irritants, like salt water.  No big deal if you swim in the ocean once in awhile, even for a brief time every day - but if you're elbow deep in brine all day long you need to wear long gloves or your skin will get messed up. 

So maybe it is a little handwavy, but what if whatever the workers are exposed to by working on the guests is merely irritating or potentially chronically toxic, but is mostly safe if exposure times are short...?

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, numbnut said:

I usually watch each ep twice but the William/Dolores sex-train romance was a chore to rewatch. I love Jimmi Simpson on House of Cards but he's dull as William, partly because William's storyline is so underwritten. Why does he have to "pretend" in the outside world? Why can't he find a woman and a profession that will accept the real him?

That is not too far removed from our real world.  When the job market is tough, people tend to stay at their current jobs and tolerate verbal abuse, long hour, etc etc (ie. pretend to be team player) just because it is simply too hard to find other jobs (let alone a more fulfilling one) with comparable pay.  Perhaps middle management at Logan's company is a pretty good gig, even though William has to tolerate boss(es) like Logan

[BooBear]

1 hour ago, numbnut said:

I usually watch each ep twice but the William/Dolores sex-train romance was a chore to rewatch. I love Jimmi Simpson on House of Cards but he's dull as William, partly because William's storyline is so underwritten. Why does he have to "pretend" in the outside world? Why can't he find a woman and a profession that will accept the real him?

When the show started I was intrigued at how this park would cast normal people under its spell but now I think the way it does it that people get to indulge whatever childish fantasies they have without pushback.  Sad. It seems Dolores just accepts William as he is.. super boring, dull and a bit of a wimp.  Logan was spot on when he said William was chosen by him and his sister because he would never challenge them.

Quote

This might be what has been referred to several times on the show -- that the investors' real interest in the park goes way beyond "tourists playing cowboy." They either want to create artificial worlds that people can preside over as gods, or ensure immortality by using robot bodies, or create a super-loyal robot army/robot spies...there are many possibilities.

 

It is interesting to me that only the corporation sees this potential. I would think that any number of guests might think the same thing and try to get the information. At some point that could be a reason for the parks demise, they couldn't keep control over their IP secrets with free access to the bots.

[ennui]

1 hour ago, arc said:

when we see Ford take an elevator up to the area with the burnt church steeple, there's a momentary swoosh in a nearby glass tube.

Willie Wonka's great glass elevator, with optional directions?

25 minutes ago, jojozigs said:

a couple episodes back where someone from upstairs WAS dressed in period gear and almost pulled Delores out because she was off-loop

I thought that was another host. 

I think the workers wear hazmat suits for their quick in-and-out grab-a-host visits. I imagine the helmets have technology and communications. However, in the first episode after the gunfight, Elsie and the others weren't wearing suits, just street clothes.

Edited November 16, 2016 by ennui

[DarkRaichu]

Just now, ennui said:

Willie Wonka's great glass elevator, with optional directions?

Turbo lift a la the Enterprise (Star Trek) ;)

[arc]

For what it's worth, the host intake protocol diagram was posted to the official site (well second official site) several weeks ago. In unusual activity, they freeze hosts (after ensuring no guests are nearby) and they should wear "clean-up outdoor attire".

[DarkRaichu]

20 minutes ago, ennui said:

I think the workers wear hazmat suits for their quick in-and-out grab-a-host visits. I imagine the helmets have technology and communications. However, in the first episode after the gunfight, Elsie and the others weren't wearing suits, just street clothes.

Elsie wore period clothes when she found Dolores crying over Teddy's body.   However,  I wouldn't classify Elsie, Bernard, Theresa, or Ashley as the regular workers tasked to grab or clean up after hosts.  IIRC, they hardly visited the park except for special circumstances and they did not do the actual clean up either.  The Hector gang gunfight at the end of ep1 was a special event to collect the hosts affected by reverries upgrade.   The same with when Bernard & Theresa were in the park to check out the milk drinking host that killed other hosts.  That host was a special case because that host went off script. 

I'd say they are exempt from wearing the same uniform as Felix and Sylvester.

Edited November 16, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[FemmyV]

2 hours ago, numbnut said:

My take on Q1: In the current storyline, Dolores has gone off-loop and is retracing her journey with William (to Pariah, on the train ride, on horseback to the river, etc.).

My take on Q2: In the current storyline, Dolores envisions the MIB in the barn before escaping the ranch. This cuts to the scene of her falling into William's arms in a flashback.

Both possible. So, what made her fall into William's arms, the first time?

[Milburn Stone]

On 11/14/2016 at 4:18 PM, Netfoot said:

It is an axiom of the show.  Hosts are externally indistinguishable from humans.

And kind of internally indistinguishable, too--since our hopes and dreams, decision-making, and thought processes are no less programmed than those of the robots. (Our free will comes into play between circumscribed boundaries--as with the robots.)

Edited November 16, 2016 by Milburn Stone

[DarkRaichu]

Here is a thought upon re-watch:

Charlotte told Theresa that Delos was in this predicament for 35 years due to lack of foresight from her predecessor.  Ford said he had arrangements with the board that were too valuable for the board and they played games with him to test him.  

What if Ford's arrangements were made with Charlotte's predecessors.  In the mean time, there is a new (younger) regime controlling the board and this new regime sees things differently.  So, Ford is more likely no longer as safe as he thought because the new regime is not interested in playing "games" with him

Edited November 16, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[Netfoot]

16 hours ago, dr pepper said:

If they *think* they're real people, then we have a duty to treat them as such.

Yes.  But if we/they *know* they're *not*, then we/they are under no such obligation.

[okerry]

16 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Elsie wore period clothes when she found Dolores crying over Teddy's body.   However,  I wouldn't classify Elsie, Bernard, Theresa, or Ashley as the regular workers tasked to grab or clean up after hosts.  IIRC, they hardly visited the park except for special circumstances and they did not do the actual clean up either.  The Hector gang gunfight at the end of ep1 was a special event to collect the hosts affected by reverries upgrade.   The same with when Bernard & Theresa were in the park to check out the milk drinking host that killed other hosts.  That host was a special case because that host went off script. 

I'd say they are exempt from wearing the same uniform as Felix and Sylvester.

I think that's it. The cleanup techs/"butchers" were hazmat garb because that's their uniform. The Behaviorists, like Elsie, wear period garb if they're on stage in the park where guests might see them. They ain't no lowlife clean-up crew.

In most organizations, it's important to know who's who and what rank they have. This spells it out pretty clearly. 

[numbnut]

37 minutes ago, FemmyV said:

Both possible. So, what made her fall into William's arms, the first time?

She could have been programmed to find and engage William (which is what Logan suggested) or she could be off-loop in search of the maze. The latter premise works with the Bernard = Arnold theory: when Arnold secretly meets with Dolores in the basement (the place where Theresa was killed), he activates her "improvisation only" mode and directs her to find the maze to be free.

Speaking of the basement, anyone notice how Bernard paused to look around as if he had deja vu? That was more than just a typical survey of the location IMO.

Edited November 16, 2016 by numbnut

[Netfoot]

16 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I think you meant angels, not angles.

If you think angels are all white, you aren't watching Lucifer!

7 hours ago, phoenyx said:

I think what it needed was some proper core programming from some nice programmers before being put out into the more feral world out there.

It needed Harold Finch?

[ennui]

1 hour ago, FemmyV said:

So, what made her fall into William's arms, the first time?

Her battery was dead.

[DarkRaichu]

3 minutes ago, ennui said:

Her battery was dead.

Obviously. Her hair was all messed up then.  When she woke up after a night long recharge, her hair was all made up again

[Netfoot]

12 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

When she woke up after a night long recharge, her hair was all made up again

And all her holes were plugged.

Bullet holes!  (Get your mind oudda that gutter!)

[Netfoot]

12 hours ago, feverfew said:

...my way of saying you should give it another shot, if you have the time

Maybe I will.  Thanks.  And you too, @Zanne!

[ennui]

12 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

They just modify the head of 1 pre-built body to resemble Slim's (or whichever Hector's underling that died to get the nitroglycerin).  This would make it easier to create illusion of grey corpses because the actual hosts do not seem to rot when they are "dead".  

I'm a bit puzzled by this. When Slim and the horse blew up, there were large chunks of red meat (the horse, I presume). We know the hosts bleed. So, why wouldn't they rot? Also, in the first episode, when Hemsworth security goes down and talks about the broken A/C (or whatever it was), he mentions the smell. 

[Gobi]

Just watched this after being away a few days, and of course I was wrong! Bernard is a robot. I'm now leaning to the idea that he is modeled after Arnold, or is Arnold uploaded into a host. The tragic back story fits.

So, did Ford program Bernard to have dreams about his dying son? That's pretty cruel, and seems out of character considering  his remarks to Theresa about not being cruel to the hosts.

If Ford didn't program the dream, is Bernard accessing his programmed back story via dreams, or is Arnold recalling his own tragic  past?

While I was typing  this, there was a story on the news about  the military developing killer robots. Weird.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Gobi
Content

[DarkRaichu]

3 hours ago, ennui said:

I'm a bit puzzled by this. When Slim and the horse blew up, there were large chunks of red meat (the horse, I presume). We know the hosts bleed. So, why wouldn't they rot? Also, in the first episode, when Hemsworth security goes down and talks about the broken A/C (or whatever it was), he mentions the smell. 

Yeah I guess I am wrong about hosts not rotting. Somehow it stuck in my head that they do not rot

[numbnut]

So could the river location that Dolores found be a route to the outside world? Dolores said she saw the location in her dream (courtesy of Arnold) and Lawrence said that no one ever returns from there, so now I'm wondering if the maze is a physical way out of the park.

[Quilt Fairy]

2 hours ago, numbnut said:

So could the river location that Dolores found be a route to the outside world? Dolores said she saw the location in her dream (courtesy of Arnold) and Lawrence said that no one ever returns from there, so now I'm wondering if the maze is a physical way out of the park.

Back in the 2nd or 3rd episode when Dolores is trying to get Teddy to run away with her, he mentions a town where the mountains meet the sea and where you can erase your past.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Quilt Fairy

[phoenyx]

5 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

8 hours ago, numbnut said:

So could the river location that Dolores found be a route to the outside world? Dolores said she saw the location in her dream (courtesy of Arnold) and Lawrence said that no one ever returns from there, so now I'm wondering if the maze is a physical way out of the park.

Back in the 2nd or 3rd episode when Dolores is trying to get Teddy to run away with her, he mentions a town where the mountains meet the sea and where you can erase your past.

A place that can erase one's past sounds a bit ominous though, considering that the androids are generally kept in their loops in large part by doing just that. Ofcourse, I want to be a glass half full kind of guy and that this is really the direction that Dolores should be going in. Guess we'll find out :-p. 

Edited November 17, 2016 by phoenyx

[Macbeth]

A couple of observations I had:

    1.  I liked  that just as Bernard didn't see the door the first time - the audience didn't either.  It was only on the 2nd view did the door appear.  Just like the robots the audience can only see what the show creators want us to see.  And in this case we got to see behind the door a small piece of what is really going on in this world.

   2.  I believe Bernard did grab/kill Elsie - he ended his conversation quickly with Theresa when he realized what  Elsie discovered.  He was asking about Elsie's whereabouts the next day as Ford is having portions of his memory wiped. 

 3.   I believe Bernard is based on a real person who did question Ford and got himself axed for his troubles.  It's ingenious of Ford to program Bernard to keep some of his suspicious nature so he could  lure other suspicious, disloyal employees to their own deaths as well.

[MrSmith]

1 hour ago, Macbeth said:

   2.  I believe Bernard did grab/kill Elsie - he ended his conversation quickly with Theresa when he realized what  Elsie discovered.  He was asking about Elsie's whereabouts the next day as Ford is having portions of his memory wiped.

There's no way this is possible. Bernard had just left Theresa's room/apt when Elsie was grabbed. Also, Theresa clearly knew what Elsie was doing because she says something to Bernard about how his employees are checking up on her employees and how if his employees were instead doing their jobs, then they would have caught the problem in the software. So, it's one of Theresa's employees who grabbed Elsie - not Bernard.

[phoenyx]

23 minutes ago, MrSmith said:

There's no way this is possible. Bernard had just left Theresa's room/apt when Elsie was grabbed. Also, Theresa clearly knew what Elsie was doing because she says something to Bernard about how his employees are checking up on her employees and how if his employees were instead doing their jobs, then they would have caught the problem in the software. So, it's one of Theresa's employees who grabbed Elsie - not Bernard.

Likelihood doesn't mean certainty, but I certainly agree that it's more likely that someone from Delos grabbed Elsie then that Bernard or someone else on Team Ford did it.

[DarkRaichu]

11 hours ago, numbnut said:

So could the river location that Dolores found be a route to the outside world? Dolores said she saw the location in her dream (courtesy of Arnold) and Lawrence said that no one ever returns from there, so now I'm wondering if the maze is a physical way out of the park.

 

8 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Back in the 2nd or 3rd episode when Dolores is trying to get Teddy to run away with her, he mentions a town where the mountains meet the sea and where you can erase your past.

Exit the park but into the park HQ / Mesa building for mind wipe.  :D  For the hosts, the Mesa building is the outside world ;)

 

Lol, this just occurred to me, what if the maze is the Mesa building?  Just look at the gratuitous shot of the elevators, from the top looking down those elevators look like a pretty complicated maze/labyrinth.  From this perspective, the center of this elevator maze is lower levels of the building.  So, assuming Arnold is alive and he is in the center of the maze, perhaps Arnold hides in the old abandoned basement office all along and runs his host modifications from there.  That office floor still has power (albeit no lights :P ) and nobody can access it without proper authorization, perfect for hiding in plain sight.  As founder of the park, Arnold should still have access to that level

[MrSmith]

I just finally got to watch the latest episode last night when my wife got home from out of town. I'm not sure I'm buying this whole two timeline thing. For me, there's just no unequivocal evidence of that being the case. In fact, I would argue there is evidence against it. One piece of evidence is the fact that the Dolores that is with William right now remembered being attacked by the Man in Black, which is one thing that helped prompt her to shoot the host that was going to attack her in the barn. Immediately after that, she ran off and ended up with William and Logan. If it turns out there are two timelines, that'll be kind of neat and interesting. Though, I'm not sure I'm going to want to have to help my wife understand it.

I don't understand all the dislike for William or the actor playing him. I think @jojozigs is absolutely right about William in his/her posts. It's pretty clear to me that the William character is accepting the reality he's presented with, accepting the rules of that world, and is getting drawn into it. Based on his dialogue, it seems to me that he's never really felt like the hero in his own life and it seems like he's never really felt he had a lot of choice in how his life unfolded. Westworld is giving him the chance to be the hero for once and to take complete control over what happens to him, and that's a really powerful thing. It looked to me like Logan really bullied him a lot and I suspect that his fiancee in the real world is on the Ice Queen/Cast Iron Bitch spectrum. So far, William's gotten to turn the tables on his bully and leave him to his fate, and he's found a woman who isn't on the Ice Queen/Cast Iron Bitch spectrum (even though she's a robot and not a human), and now he's starting to realize that life doesn't have to be the way it has been for him up to this point.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Maeve does in coming episodes. She's very conniving, ruthless, and intelligent. She'll provide a lot of excitement in the near future.

[ennui]

4 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

perhaps Arnold hides in the old abandoned basement office all along

The Phantom of the Opera?  

I have nothing against William. It's important to remember that this is his first visit to the park. 

[DarkRaichu]

35 minutes ago, ennui said:

The Phantom of the Opera?  

Sing my Angel of Music!! SING!!!

[jojozigs]

On 11/16/2016 at 3:26 PM, Netfoot said:

Yes.  But if we/they *know* they're *not*, then we/they are under no such obligation.

But how on earth could you know that???  

I don't know you're human - for all I know you could be an AI.  But I believe I'm still morally obligated to treat you as if you are.  

[paigow]

On 2016-11-15 at 4:58 PM, iMonrey said:

If the guests are having sex with the hosts why do the techs have to wear hazmat suits just to touch them? Either they're toxic or they're not.

The guest jizz is toxic......

[phoenyx]

4 hours ago, MrSmith said:

I just finally got to watch the latest episode last night when my wife got home from out of town. I'm not sure I'm buying this whole two timeline thing. For me, there's just no unequivocal evidence of that being the case. In fact, I would argue there is evidence against it. One piece of evidence is the fact that the Dolores that is with William right now remembered being attacked by the Man in Black, which is one thing that helped prompt her to shoot the host that was going to attack her in the barn. Immediately after that, she ran off and ended up with William and Logan. If it turns out there are two timelines, that'll be kind of neat and interesting. Though, I'm not sure I'm going to want to have to help my wife understand it.

People say they are just doing clever editing and I think I can see it. I know there are also counter arguments, and I see you've got one above. To be honest, it's gotten so complicated that I don't really want to try to figure out who's right- I imagine the story will tell us in its sweet time, I'm more interested in figuring out other things. My favourite is still: "what is the matrix?". I mean maze :-p.

But as to my current stance about 2 time periods, right now, with all the evidence presented, I believe that it's more likely that there are, indeed, 2 time periods atleast. I'm also leaning more towards the idea that Bernard Lowe is the android version of someone who was once flesh and blood, perhaps Arnold. I'm also hoping that Logan is MiB, not William. I wouldn't want to see nice William transform into twisted MiB, but I admit it's possible. 

21 minutes ago, paigow said:

The guest jizz is toxic......

Lol :-p

[phoenyx]

1 hour ago, jojozigs said:

But how on earth could you know that???  

I don't know you're human - for all I know you could be an AI.  But I believe I'm still morally obligated to treat you as if you are.  

Even if you knew that a human looking person was actually an android, if they act human enough to draw sympathy out of me, I'd have a hard time harming one (self defense is another matter). Heck, I now even feel guilty about killing spiders, I tend to try to trap them and then chuck them out the window or something like that (pests such as flies and mosquitos are exempt from this though, I kill them on site :-p).