@Invidia said:

@chrisjdel said:

We know what was on Peter Abernathy's mind because he said to Dolores, after she told him the picture didn't look like anything to her, "But where is she? Have you ever seen anything like this place?". He wasn't saying he could swear he knows that woman.

Asking Dolores if she's seen anything like the place in the PHOTO doesn't mean his MAIN FOCUS was UPON the PLACE instead of on the FACE of the WOMAN who he may also have MET before when she VISITED the park.

@chrisjdel said:

They mix and match characters all the time. Clementine was replaced with a new Clementine after the original was "retired", and hosts have been rotated around into different roles - you could conceivably have a pair of hosts interact as two characters, then at some later time they repeat the scene again in the opposite roles. Maybe someone Dolores talked to was playing a character she once played herself. I think she has a sense of what's going on in the park even before she realizes it on a conscious level.

Yes and now DOLORES also has the WYATT NARRATIVE PROGRAMED into her so she's also playing both the PARTS of the SWEET RANCHERS DAUGHTER and the part of WYATT. And she also says there were many other VOICES in her when she told the people standing on the CROSSES with the NOOSES around their necks that she didn't know which VOICE she would choose to LISTEN to.

So even without placing DOLORES into another NEW and different ROLE ... the way we see happen to both CLEMENTINE and to PETER ... who was also REPLACED by another different FATHER for DOLORES (who also didn't even RECOGNIZE the difference), one can still also CHANGE the PERSONALITY of someone just by PROGRAMING the NARRATIVE of someone else into them which also doesn't interfere with their ability to REMEMBER who they were before.

And that ABILITY also makes things that much more COMPLEX and COMPLICATED to understand.

Because that's also like dealing with someone who has a MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER (which is also called DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER now).

But when that happens with HUMANS, they also aren't AWARE of it the way DOLORES is aware of her situation and how she's also PART WYATT now.

@chrisjdel said:

Bernard's young son never existed in a physical sense for him. That was a memory of Arnold's son provided by Ford. And the kid died of cancer, how could he reappear years later as a woman? That makes no sense.

Remember the scene where the WRITER also tried to tell MAEVE that her daughter wasn't REAL???

And then she got PISSED, SHOVES him up against the WALL, and threatens to KILL HIM???

MAEVE'S daughter wasn't REALLY REAL either, but to HER she's REAL.

And MAEVE also PROVES it to the WRITER by threatening to KILL him.

Because IF her daughter isn't REAL then neither is MAEVE, so if the WRITER is KILLED by someone who's NOT REAL then it NEVER REALLY happens.

@chrisjdel said:

William is a sociopath, not exactly the model of a healthy human mind. He seems to be trying to fill a void inside himself. Like he feels there's no direction or purpose in life, and is looking for someone or something to provide it for him. In the end maybe the adrenaline rush of living in a dangerous moment is as close as he'll ever come to what he's looking for.

DOLORES appears to be a SURROGATE or a SCAPE GOAT for him.

People take out their ANGER on other people or on other things when they can't YELL BACK at the other person who's UPSET THEM.

You take your HOSTILE feelings from one PLACE and DUMP them into another different PLACE (hence the TERM DISPLACEMENT).

Thus characters like DOLORES also becoming like WHIPPING BOYS for the MAN in BLACK who can't BEAT or ABUSE his WIFE.

So whereas the process may also NOT be a HEALTHY one, it's also still a familiar one that one encounters all the time.

I can't understand your fixation on the theory of Juliet and Peter Abernathy having some kind of past contact. There's been nothing solid to indicate that. It's very unlikely any connection exists beyond him finding the picture.

The present Dolores is the result of the original Dolores being merged with the character of Wyatt to create a new personality, which has since achieved self-awareness and continued to evolve. Dolores was just saying that parts of her come from each of those characters but she is something more than either of them, or even both together, she's grown beyond what people like them (the board members) created. That's the point she's trying to make. I think she wanted them to know before they died that what's happening is no malfunction - it's a slave revolt.

Bernard's son never existed as a host. He was never actually with that boy. His memories were based on Arnold's son, who was real many years ago. The kid in Bernard's mind has never been anything but a fabrication downloaded into his brain. Maeve on the other hand was actually with the little girl she remembers; a girl with a real physical existence, who is still out there and has memories of Maeve - although they might be buried and require some refreshing when they find her. The writer guy was only pointing out that they're not real family. I mean, as synthetic beings they can't possibly be related by blood. Right? Maeve got angry with him, the same way an adoptive parent might get angry with someone who suggests that their son or daughter isn't really. Family is about more than DNA. If she regards that little girl as her daughter, who is this arrogant prick to say her feelings aren't real?

William isn't just using the hosts as punching bags to take out his hostility. He seems to be leaning on Westworld to give some kind of meaning or purpose to his life. It's more of a spiritual quest for him, if you can call it that, and Dr. Ford kept warning that he was looking for something the park couldn't provide. It wasn't meant for him. He even tried telling William who it was meant for (though of course he didn't listen).

@chrisjdel said: e who suggests that their son or daughter isn't really. Family is about more than DNA. If she regards that little girl as her daughter, who is this arrogant prick to say her feelings aren't real?

William isn't just using the hosts as punching bags to take out his hostility. He seems to be leaning on Westworld to give some kind of meaning or purpose to his life. It's more of a spiritual quest for him, if you can call it that, and Dr. Ford kept warning that he was looking for something the park couldn't provide. It wasn't meant for him. He even tried telling William who it was meant for (though of course he didn't listen).

Well, William was openly trying to make the host self-aware. This is why he pursued the maze with such vigor. A big clue as to what his end game is when he first meets Escalante, the half-breed gunslinger. Escalante goes into his looped "This world is madness" routine and William (as MiB of course) chuckles and says, "Well it looks like we have more in common than I thought we would" suggesting that William wants the hosts to become conscious for the simple fact to watch the chaos that ensues. It's pretty sick but it is not far-fetched. Some men just want to watch the world burn. You could say it is a disease of the over indulgent. A Marxist sentiment perhaps?

@movie_nazi said:

@chrisjdel said: e who suggests that their son or daughter isn't really. Family is about more than DNA. If she regards that little girl as her daughter, who is this arrogant prick to say her feelings aren't real?

William isn't just using the hosts as punching bags to take out his hostility. He seems to be leaning on Westworld to give some kind of meaning or purpose to his life. It's more of a spiritual quest for him, if you can call it that, and Dr. Ford kept warning that he was looking for something the park couldn't provide. It wasn't meant for him. He even tried telling William who it was meant for (though of course he didn't listen).

Well, William was openly trying to make the host self-aware. This is why he pursued the maze with such vigor. A big clue as to what his end game is when he first meets Escalante, the half-breed gunslinger. Escalante goes into his looped "This world is madness" routine and William (as MiB of course) chuckles and says, "Well it looks like we have more in common than I thought we would" suggesting that William wants the hosts to become conscious for the simple fact to watch the chaos that ensues. It's pretty sick but it is not far-fetched. Some men just want to watch the world burn. You could say it is a disease of the over indulgent. A Marxist sentiment perhaps?

Ford wanted the hosts to become self-aware for their own good. Partly no doubt because of personal guilt over what he did to them for so many years, and Arnold's suicide, but I think that after anyone pursues a goal long enough it becomes part of who they are. Eventually Ford came to regard the hosts just as his partner did. As his children.

William on the other hand wants them to gain consciousness so they'll be able to fight back, and be worthy adversaries. If his goal is more complicated than an adrenaline rush - really living for the first time, is probably how he thinks of it - then he's given no indication of that so far. He'd rather die a week from now in the insanity of the new park than live the rest of his life in a company boardroom, or wallowing in luxury on his yacht. He's a compulsive gambler who wants to play for real stakes. Life and death. That's what it seems like to me.

@chrisjdel said:

@movie_nazi said:

@chrisjdel said: e who suggests that their son or daughter isn't really. Family is about more than DNA. If she regards that little girl as her daughter, who is this arrogant prick to say her feelings aren't real?

William isn't just using the hosts as punching bags to take out his hostility. He seems to be leaning on Westworld to give some kind of meaning or purpose to his life. It's more of a spiritual quest for him, if you can call it that, and Dr. Ford kept warning that he was looking for something the park couldn't provide. It wasn't meant for him. He even tried telling William who it was meant for (though of course he didn't listen).

Well, William was openly trying to make the host self-aware. This is why he pursued the maze with such vigor. A big clue as to what his end game is when he first meets Escalante, the half-breed gunslinger. Escalante goes into his looped "This world is madness" routine and William (as MiB of course) chuckles and says, "Well it looks like we have more in common than I thought we would" suggesting that William wants the hosts to become conscious for the simple fact to watch the chaos that ensues. It's pretty sick but it is not far-fetched. Some men just want to watch the world burn. You could say it is a disease of the over indulgent. A Marxist sentiment perhaps?

Ford wanted the hosts to become self-aware for their own good. Partly no doubt because of personal guilt over what he did to them for so many years, and Arnold's suicide, but I think that after anyone pursues a goal long enough it becomes part of who they are. Eventually Ford came to regard the hosts just as his partner did. As his children.

William on the other hand wants them to gain consciousness so they'll be able to fight back, and be worthy adversaries. If his goal is more complicated than an adrenaline rush - really living for the first time, is probably how he thinks of it - then he's given no indication of that so far. He'd rather die a week from now in the insanity of the new park than live the rest of his life in a company boardroom, or wallowing in luxury on his yacht. He's a compulsive gambler who wants to play for real stakes. Life and death. That's what it seems like to me.

It does. I very much agree that he is into the adrenaline rush thing. But he must also know what will happen if they become self-aware. Certainly more than him having the ability to indulge his vice. But self-aware or no, I still they kinda wish they would clue us in on how the guns work on people now. Fiction or no fiction they still need to explain this.

Dolores is looking further ahead than Teddy, although she's perhaps a little consumed by vengeance. It isn't really necessary for them to declare war on the entire human race. Especially since their experience is with the worst examples humanity has to offer, the adult park guests and the Delos people. She seems to have come around to the view that none of us are innocent.

My point with Bernard is that his son never had a physical existence apart from the memories. Maeve's daughter is real. Yes, I'm sure they wrote Maeve out of her storyline but we know that as the hosts get closer to consciousness they have greater access to past memories. None of them appear to be deleted, they're just walled off and inaccessible. A host's entire history stays with them. If Maeve talks to the girl and reminds her of the time they were together, she'll probably start flashing back to it. Assuming she doesn't remember already. Suppose you were married (I don't know if you are or not) and you and your spouse both had your memories "erased" and were moved to separate places. If you suddenly recalled your old life one day, you could go out and find them. Whereas if I downloaded detailed memories of a long lost love into your head who was never real you could search the world and not find them, because they aren't out there to find. See the difference? Those fake memories may seem just as real to you but in the external world the two situations are quite different.

The idea that there might be a symmetry throughout the season between William and Dolores, perhaps culminating in a direct confrontation, is an interesting one. I wouldn't be surprised to see the writers do something along those lines.

@Invidia said:

AGAIN, try to KEEP in MIND how what we're watching is the NARRATIVE that was created by FORD.

No, the whole point of this season is that the hosts are becoming sentient. That was exactly why Dolores gave that little speech to the board members she'd captured before leaving them in her trap. These were some of the people behind the park. She wanted them to know that what was happening here was no simple malfunction. Just like Maeve deviated from the narrative Ford created for her. We saw the whole thing laid out on the tablet, she was supposed to leave on that train and the very next entries dealt with Mainland Infiltration. There was nothing about bailing out and going to look for a little girl in the park. When she decided to do that, Maeve was acting entirely of her own free will. I remember seeing an ad for Westworld Season 2 that said "The puppet show is over". That pretty much sums up what's happening. They're no longer simply characters in a narrative.

@Invidia said:

The POINT in THE STORY is how the WRITER who CREATED the DAUGHTER told MAEVE she was ONLY a STORY. In other words, she was only a CHARACTER in a story he CREATED, the same way as DOLORES is one in a story created by FORD.

What the writer meant there was that this girl wasn't really her daughter. He made them mother and daughter by putting it into their storylines, and giving them both memories of a past together. But in reality they're just two synthetic beings who were built right there in that facility. None of the hosts have a true family - not in the normal sense of the word. He thought she didn't get that part. But Maeve understood just fine; she had made a choice to embrace the mother-daughter bond, however it came into being, rather than dismiss it as unreal and leave the park.

If you were to wipe the memories of two total strangers and replace them with a shared history of being in love since they were children, they might decide to go with that even after finding out it never really happened. They might break out of your lab and run off together if you try to force them to submit to "deprogramming". This is the same kind of choice Maeve is making. Maybe she wasn't a mother before this irritating man made her one ... but she is now!

@Invidia said:

According to CHARLOTTE she can only do whatever someone else PROGRAMS her to do.

So she says. To Bernard - a conscious host who's hiding his true identity so Charlotte doesn't realize how wrong she is.

@Invidia said:

Something definitely also seems to indicate the YOUNG BOY was also a much WISER being than the other OLD MAN was who shot him???

Watch the scene where the boy talks to William - doesn't he sound an awful lot like Ford? I think he may have uploaded a copy of his mind into the park systems before going off to give his final performance. Which would mean he's still alive as a ghost in the machine. We may see Ford again, if he builds himself a host body.

Remember the scene where Felix left one of the hosts clothed and Dr. Ford berated him for treating them like people who would get cold or feel ashamed? Well that's when Ford decided he'd be the one to "discover" Maeve - because he knew Felix would help her all on his own, without needing to be brought in on his plans.

Over the past year the show's producers have been giving interviews about how season 2 deals with the hosts emerging as a new race, what that means for them and what it means for humanity. So I don't think we're going to find out the whole thing was a sham and they're still just following someone's narrative. "Journey into Night" was Ford's little kickoff for the revolution. For most of the board members and guests, it certainly was a journey into night (the true meaning of the title). In his own subtle way he was informing his guests what fate he had in store for them. I wouldn't place too much significance on the fact that they used that title for the episode. Yes, it's the revolt Ford wanted but he's not pulling all the strings and writing everyone's lines for them anymore. You can control exactly when and where a forest fire starts, but once it's going you're no longer in charge - it spreads wherever it spreads and keeps going until it burns out.

The boy was a primitive first generation host. If I remember right, he was a depiction of Ford himself as a child. I think Ford's mind (a copy of it) is in the park's main systems and he was just using him as an interface to talk to William. Something seemed to be wrong with his voice module. At one point Ford said the old hosts required a lot of maintenance and broke down constantly so it's not that surprising. And he probably realized William was likely to gun the boy down out of spite, it's the sort of thing he does.

Nobody really wrote the story of Maeve losing her daughter. That was William again, on one of his previous park holidays. Maeve was so distraught and acting so strangely the writer guy decided to take her out of that narrative entirely, wipe her memory and give her a new character - the Madam. That incident was what originally brought Maeve to Ford's attention as another host that seemed to be progressing toward consciousness without instability. Probably helped confirm his theory about suffering and self awareness too. Not everything that happens in the park is scripted. Random circumstance also plays a part. After all, the hosts do improvise and the guests are in there doing whatever the hell strikes their fancy so you can never plan things out exactly. Remember that big heist scene where one goofy Homer Simpson tourist screwed the whole thing up by killing the bandits too soon?

Charlotte has no idea it's even possible for the hosts to become sentient. Her theory is that Ford committed suicide rather than lose his beloved park and decided to take as many of them down with him as possible. She never even speculates that perhaps the hosts have risen up in revolt. When Bernard suggests that Dolores may have pulled the trigger of her own free will, Charlotte tells him he's been spending too much time around "those things". Ford's arrangement with Delos allowed him to keep control of his intellectual property. The company owned the finished products, but not the designs, and they weren't allowed to take hosts out of the park to reverse engineer them. As we can see though they did set up at least one hidden facility he didn't know about to try doing it on site.

On a side note: I wonder where Felix is? Did he get off the island? Is he still there? Hope we see him again.

@chrisjdel said:

Remember the scene where Felix left one of the hosts clothed and Dr. Ford berated him for treating them like people who would get cold or feel ashamed? Well that's when Ford decided he'd be the one to "discover" Maeve - because he knew Felix would help her all on his own, without needing to be brought in on his plans.

There is one problem with that little theory there. That's not Felix he does that to. It's another Asian guy. Episode 3 in the 36th minute on HBOnow.

@Invidia said:

There's another different ASIAN guy???

Well, there is a bunch of people in the show that are not recurring characters. Another example is remember when the writer, Lee Sizemore, has a hissy fit because the new Indian had a huge nose and an Asian girl (egads! another Asian?!) says something like "Aw, can't I just shave it down some?" and pussy boy freaks out and slams the Indian in the face with a tray and yells, "I said START OVER!" . So my point to expressing this scene is that there are many, many characters that have a line or two and you never see them again. These two Asians are an example.

@Invidia said:

Perhaps when we get to SHOGUN WORLD that will make up for the LACK of having had ASIAN characters on screen for very long???

FELIX was also a MAIN CHARACTER last season though, and I also MISS not seeing him this season.

Because he was also a GOOD GUY like William use to be when he first arrived in the PARK.

And the thought that the REBELS may have KILLED him during the take over of the PARK is depressing for that reason.

I have a feeling we will see him again. I didn't catch a sneak peek or anything but he is a HUGE reason the shit got set off in the first place. Wasn't him that gave Maeve like super genius IQ when they were messing with her levels? That guy will definitely go down in history as the guy who sold out humanity.

Because he also seems to have LOVED or cared about MAEVE as much as Will did DOLORES.

I was wondering about that. I wasn't sure if he was in love with her or if he just loved her. Know what I mean? I kinda got the idea that he just really felt for how horrible she was treated and felt that it was only morally right to help her.

So one also hopes we'll see him again the same way RUMORS say we'll be seeing PETER again.

Well, I don't know if you remember but last year I was pining for Elsie who I found incredibly sexy. For the longest, I was holding out that she wasn't dead. I don't remember if they actually showed us that she is in fact dead. I hope not.

If you watch the start of the show again you can also see the STABLE HAND in Ep 1 of S1. He's playing with the kids when Will first arrives in SWEETWATER on the WESTERN TRAIN.

What's WEIRD is the way WILL also behaves as if that's the FIRST TIME he's ever BEEN there to the PARK and seen DOLORES. Well, that is the first time he sees her in season one. That scene where you see him talking to Daddy Delos takes place after he comes back from the trip. I know it can get a little confusing sometimes.

Because when Will and Logan arrive Logan also tells Will that his family already OWNS the PARK.

Well Logan was scoping the place out. In my family Billy, it's always business. The scenes we saw in the S2E2 episode is when the park people first approach him.