US: Westworld

[Vonhelmet]

Bullets...

Maybe there's something in the fact that the girl in the control room asked for authorisation for pyrotechnics when Ed Harris was blasting his way out of jail. Now obviously you couldn't make decisions about bullets in real time the same way you could with an explosive charge with a fuse, but perhaps there's some sort of system in place which decides what happens when a "bullet", whatever that may constitute, hits something. Like a computer tracks where the bullets go and they act accordingly. Like if hits a guest it just stings, but if it hits a host it explodes or triggers the damage in some other way.

Think about something like an RPG round which counts how many rotations it's made and knows how far from the person firing it is so it knows whether to arm the round or not so that you don't blow yourself up if you accidentally fire it into a wall 6 feet in front of you. If a grenade can do that, maybe a "bullet" can be programmed to do damage or not depending on where a computer can tell it's going to hit.

Edit: Yet the bullets can penetrate doors and break glass. Argh.

 

[Scrutinize]

I suspect the real bullet carcass was planted in her, to trigger the proceeding events. So she would find something physical to reinforce her self actualisation and repressed memories.

 

[Hades]

Spoiler

The whole direction of the series seems to be pointing to the hosts gaining intelligence / consciousness and becoming sentient.

Ford (Hopkins) might be an older MIB after he found the maze. I'm also guessing he was a host at one point but has become a sentient being/human. He wanted to find the maze to meet his maker, just like we worship our gods.

The bullets aren't able to hurt a sentient being and once he became conscious they could no longer hurt him.

Some, or maybe all, of the staff are likely to be hosts.

 

[daz]

Bernard is a host, right?

Perhaps this is too far flung but I wonder if it is post-apocalyptic and they are all hosts - even the guests are "robots" and there are no humans left.

 

[v0n]

I suspect the real bullet carcass was planted in her, to trigger the proceeding events.

In episode 2 when Meave managed to wake herself up on "repair" table by counting to 4 in her nightmare dream it looked like she was being operated on specifically to remove that bullet, she opens her eyes just as the service guys (in different uniforms and masks to those in the last episode) were talking that they found the problem - "little MRSA in her abdomen". Going by the non linear theory, her waking up in lab in ep 2 is actually after Hector cut a bullet fragment out of her in episode 4, infecting the wound.

From ep 4 flashback it seemed like the maintenance crew literally run out of time before next cycle had to begin. We've seen this type of thing shown to us before - guest becomes a problem, goes berserk with a gun, there are other guest around, so it threatens too many story lines, HQ send "cavalry" to stop the drunk guest in his carnage, throw him in jail for few hours, while repair crew does an ultra quick clean up before the next wave of guests arrive. From the conversation between men in masks in Ep 4 we can guess Meave and bullet is just a side effect of such rushed clean up job.

Which triggers another theory - what if there are multiple copies of hosts - Dolores 1 and Dolores 2, Meave 1 and Meave 2. Perhaps even there are two Westworld parks (Westworld Florida and Westworld Paris ). And people they meet and talk to in their completely separate scenarios are synced between loops, just so they can recognise the guests "you came back" and all that. And the "flashbacks" are side effect of differential backups.

Ford (Hopkins) might be an older MIB after he found the maze.

I think we are about to see a face to face conversation between Ford and MiB in the next episode.

Bernard is a host, right?

Perhaps this is too far flung but I wonder if it is post-apocalyptic and they are all hosts - even the guests are "robots" and there are no humans left.

It is one of theories - arguably Westworld is on a remote planet (management talk about "long rotations" away from home, plus Bernard complains about prolonged lack of signal during his video call home) - one of theories goes into "Moon" (The Movie) like scenario, where all staff except Ford are in fact more advanced hosts living some sort of "extended groundhog day". It's those models that reached self awareness to the point where they are suspicious about their own existence, that's why Bernard is trying to find a trigger in Dolores through his secret interviews, if he finds it and use it on himself, he will get all the answers.

 

[FTM]

it might be like a Total Recall deal, where you are never physically there

the bit where he steps straight from the changing room through a door and he's on a moving train, it might not be actually happening but the 'simulation' allows it to happen

 

[Vonhelmet]

it might be like a Total Recall deal, where you are never physically there

the bit where he steps straight from the changing room through a door and he's on a moving train, it might not be actually happening but the 'simulation' allows it to happen

I wondered that. It would take care of a lot of things if it was VR... but if that were the case why even have physical androids?

 

[Stelly]

Spoiler

Two different time lines?

Stelly

 

[Destination]

it might be like a Total Recall deal, where you are never physically there

the bit where he steps straight from the changing room through a door and he's on a moving train, it might not be actually happening but the 'simulation' allows it to happen

Wondered this, as when Bernard has a takk with the girl, she is in a dream, yet in reality we know she is sitting beside two guests passed out at a campfire, so couldn't have physically left the area.

 

[ElliorR]

Spoiler

I'm starting to wonder if Jimmi Simpson's character is Ed Harris character years earlier.

I think this is one of the best programs I've ever seen.

 

[Kyo]

Am I missing something? Thought the hosts couldn't hurt a fly? But you can still get physically assaulted by the hosts?? The whole bullet thing has totally confused me.

 

[Burt]

Am I missing something? Thought the hosts couldn't hurt a fly? But you can still get physically assaulted by the hosts?? The whole bullet thing has totally confused me.

I think it's heavily implied that you can be roughed up a bit, but not seriously injured.

For example in episode 2, William is shot and comments that he thought guests couldn't be hurt, yet the bullet stings/knocked him back - to which Logan makes a comment along the lines of "it wouldn't be fun if they couldn't fight back" (don't quote me on that).

Also there's been repeated indication that the further into the outskirts of the park you go the more extreme the experience. That may also apply to the level of fighting back the hosts employ against guests.

 

[point decay]

EP 6 trailer

Spoiler

 

[glenimp617]

I'm really struggling getting past the mindset that they are just a computer program. Assume many viewers are now thinking they are becoming human, but to me....they are still just computer code. Due to this, I really don't care what happens to them. Perhaps the battle between the board of directors and the creator will keep me hooked.

 

[FutileBreadMachine]

Episode 5 spoilers:

Spoiler

When William met Eliza/Lawrence I thought it was further proof that William becomes the MiB and everything with William and Dolores is in the past. The MiB even says something like he spared Eliza and was keeping him alive due to their history together. However this doesn't really work, since Dolores began her whole "detour" when she was able to fire the gun in the barn after remembering being attacked by the MiB there (he comes at her with a knife). This means she has met the MiB before running off to William, thus destroying the "past/present" timeline theory, as fas I I can tell.

 

[ShortWarning]

Episode 5 spoilers:

Spoiler

When William met Eliza/Lawrence I thought it was further proof that William becomes the MiB and everything with William and Dolores is in the past. The MiB even says something like he spared Eliza and was keeping him alive due to their history together. However this doesn't really work, since Dolores began her whole "detour" when she was able to fire the gun in the barn after remembering being attacked by the MiB there (he comes at her with a knife). This means she has met the MiB before running off to William, thus destroying the "past/present" timeline theory, as fas I I can tell.

Spoiler

Not necessarily, her programming could have been changed since then.

I think the people working in the labs are hosts.

When they wheeled in Muarve (or whatever her name is) for the second time only one of the butchers seemed to recognise her which was very strange. What's up with that bird??

 

[v0n]

However this doesn't really work, since Dolores began her whole "detour" when she was able to fire the gun in the barn after remembering being attacked by the MiB there (he comes at her with a knife). This means she has met the MiB before running off to William, thus destroying the "past/present" timeline theory, as fas I I can tell.

I think we are wrong presuming she "run off to William" right after the barn shooting. That's how it was shown to us, but we have no point of time reference in their stories. She will always be the girl in blue dress, 30 years prior, 30 years later, stuck in a loop of a 19th century wild west scenario, with the same look, the same hair. In early episodes MiB tells her "Oh Dolores, still playing damsel in distress?" What if in the early days that was exactly her scenario - Meave had the farm where every evening natives would shoot her family and Dolores would start her loop by running out of the woods and passing out in the arms of whoever got roped into the "Route to Pariah" script.

Secondly - we only think she was able to fire the gun after remembering being attacked by MiB. There is clearly an internal voice in programming of the "early Dolores". That voice is present in Ep 5 too - she ventures off track quite often, she's wandering, we hear the voice say "find me". Her bicameral mind voice might had been stronger in the past. The episode starts with Ford interviewing her and saying "underneath all those patches and updates, there is still Arnold's code"...

The big reveal of this episode was meant to be El Lazo. We were supposed to see Lawrence as the Pariah gang boss and go "WTF! He's with MiB right now". They also tried to throw us off track by showing us Dolores looking at another Dolores, as in - "do you think there are multiple copies of them". We don't, by now most viewers think there are multiple time lines. It is still possible that there are multiple parks, MiB is in one, William is in the other, but past and present just works out better. In the past the maze scenario is part of Pariah adventure,, in the present the actors of that scenario are diverted to other roles. We can presume something will go wrong for William in the Pariah Maze script, and he will spend most of his life returning to the park and trying to get to the end of that scenario, even if it means triggering old coding in hosts by trauma.

 

[Hambut_Bulge]

Spoiler

I'm starting to wonder if Jimmi Simpson's character is Ed Harris character years earlier.

I think this is one of the best programs I've ever seen.

Been wondering about this too, but I don't think so, because he talks about having taken previously a host apart to see how all the mechanical parts fit together. As he explains to Lawrence, the hosts are the way they are now (flesh and bone) because it's cheaper.

Spoiler

If William is the man-in-black as a young man, then Dolores is one of these earlier versions, but that doesn't seem to be the case

 

[Hambut_Bulge]

Also there's been repeated indication that the further into the outskirts of the park you go the more extreme the experience. That may also apply to the level of fighting back the hosts employ against guests.

Just like in a computer game. Sweetwater is your basic entry level, a safe-ish space for learning the rules. Once you get some experience (level up) you move on to places like Pariah where NPC's are much tougher/fight harder.

 

[v0n]

If William is the man-in-black as a young man, then Dolores is one of these earlier versions, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What makes you think she's not one of the earlier versions?