HBO’s Westworld VI- This Game Is Meant For You...[SPOILERS]

[Theda Baratheon]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

Because the reveries update included "these violent delights have violent ends" as a trigger phrase that started hosts that were close to waking up on the path to transcending their limitations. As mentioned earlier, most hosts that hit this point and were unshackled broke rather than waking, like what happened to Peter Abernathy after he triggers Dolores (and he was in turn triggered by the photo - I credit this sequence of events to Ford). The scene with the fly is shortly after he says this to her, and was to indicate that she has changed.

@Theda Baratheon and I were arguing during season 1 that this is the kind of world we are seeing. In the middle of season 1, when grumpy tech catches Felix working on the stolen bird he says something like "they should have caught these defects and aborted you before you were born" which suggests a world with a very rigid caste system and genetic filtering of fetuses to comply with the caste they are being born into. Its also the psychological piece of the puzzle for why they went to such extreme lengths obeying Maeve to keep their crimes covered up - they would lose their jobs if they confessed to what had happened, and in such a society, losing your job means getting demoted a caste if not all the way to the bottom which would be a fate worse than death. That was only a theory granted, but it fits the behaviour we have seen from the staff, what we have seen of the world, and explains that behaviour.

It even still fits with William and Logan's contempt for him - he was in the mid level businessman/bureaucrat caste and was extremely rare individual that managed to rise to the executive caste through working his ass off and playing the game ruthlessly - see Logan utterly dripping with contempt when he describes giving the job to William and how much it meant to William. Under normal circumstances this is as high as he should ever have been able to rise, and it was the pinnacle of his life - still fitting with what Logan says at the time - but the combination of marrying into the elite capitalist caste and psychologically destroying his boss and brother-in-law, leaving his father-in-law in need of an heir. From S02E02 he clearly continues his ruthless behaviour, freezing his FIL out of the company slowly and being the one in a million that manages to rise to the very top and ascend the throne. As was mentioned up thread there is even the mirroring of what FIL says to him in S02E02 "You're a cheeky cunt, not a man alive speaks to me that way" to what William says in (earlyish? to Lawrence?) season one "Out in the real world no one dares to talk to me that way" or something to that effect.

In combination with the argument with the (Chinese?) solider/sailor where the Delos exec essentially says "we own this island, get the fuck off and don't say a word about what you've seen here" its seems to me that the capitalist elite have equivalent power to nation states.

Yes this is pretty much exactly my theory, I spent a lot of time rewarding episodes and figuring out clues to build my theory about the outside world. I need to rewatch the season 2 eps

[Cas Stark]

Ford and William also talk in ways that sound like diseases have been cured and that in general the outside world no longer carries much risk...that humans have triumphed over all...which is why the park exists....so it doesn't sound like a dystopia out there.

[Theda Baratheon]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Ford and William also talk in ways that sound like diseases have been cured and that in general the outside world no longer carries much risk...that humans have triumphed over all...which is why the park exists....so it doesn't sound like a dystopia out there.

I don’t think it’s a dystopia but that doesn’t mean it’s a utopia instead and it’s certainly not going to be a utopia for all 

[Cas Stark]

1 hour ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I don’t think it’s a dystopia but that doesn’t mean it’s a utopia instead and it’s certainly not going to be a utopia for all 

Yeah, I don't think it's a utopia for everyone, but I am skeptical it's a highly stratified society where your DNA is manipulated to put you in whatever category and keep you there.  I just never got that sense.  

[red snow]

5 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Ford and William also talk in ways that sound like diseases have been cured and that in general the outside world no longer carries much risk...that humans have triumphed over all...which is why the park exists....so it doesn't sound like a dystopia out there.

What if said Utopia only comes at the cost of billions of others though?

Delores might get a surpise on the outside world that there are humans who are regarded with a similar lack of respect/consideration to the hosts.

[Cas Stark]

9 minutes ago, red snow said:

What if said Utopia only comes at the cost of billions of others though?

Delores might get a surpise on the outside world that there are humans who are regarded with a similar lack of respect/consideration to the hosts.

The show can only tackle so many themes, and I just don't get the sense it's supposed to be a dystopian world out there, with billions of people living in servitude or at poverty level.  That is not how I took the dialogue, of course I could be wrong, we'll see.

[red snow]

36 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The show can only tackle so many themes, and I just don't get the sense it's supposed to be a dystopian world out there, with billions of people living in servitude or at poverty level.  That is not how I took the dialogue, of course I could be wrong, we'll see.

But it's not that different a theme in the sense that there are those at the top taking advantage of those below them. And while it's a crowded idea for the show at the moment it might be a useful thing to explore if they ever get out of the park.

I'd rather we got to see the other themeworlds before they get into the real world though.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

The show can only tackle so many themes, and I just don't get the sense it's supposed to be a dystopian world out there, with billions of people living in servitude or at poverty level.  That is not how I took the dialogue, of course I could be wrong, we'll see.

I agree, it's unlikely to me that a dystopian world is a theme in this show. It's about man's relationship with AI and creation. There's more than enough to chew on there without adding in a hellscape theme.

3 hours ago, red snow said:

I'd rather we got to see the other themeworlds before they get into the real world though.

I kind of think this is the way they'll go:

S1: Westworld

S2: Westworld and Shogun World with a sneak peak and 1 or 2 other locations 

S3: Explore other parks

S4: Continue exploring the other parks and escape at the end

 

[Jace, Extat]

That opening scene was not for Jace.

Didn't care for it at all, really. I'm happy to see the India park, and the lady seems cool but very sequence.

[Ramsay B.]

20 minutes ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

Didn't care for it at all, really. I'm happy to see the India park, and the lady seems cool but very sequence.

I thought it was a young Theresa.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

 I'm kinda into RajWorld (?), I should have known the hosts in every park were infected or whatever you want to call it. 

[Cas Stark]

I could have really done without the tiger.  I don't need or want to see dead tigers, even pretend robot tigers.

So, presumably we are all clear that Dolores has broken bad.

I still love the show but this episode is getting close to mishmash.  I hope they know what they're doing.

[Mark Antony]

6 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

 I'm kinda into RajWorld (?), I should have known the hosts in every park were infected or whatever you want to call it. 

That world seemed pretty lame to me. Definitely wouldn’t be my choice to go on a trip. 

Loved the Dolores stuff this ep. Wonder how she will react to Teddys disobedience. Dude who played Abernathy killed it again

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

6 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

That world seemed pretty lame to me. Definitely wouldn’t be my choice to go on a trip. 

Loved the Dolores stuff this ep. Wonder how she will react to Teddys disobedience. Dude who played Abernathy killed it again

I can so how the woman's companion would be into it though.  I feel like it's the U.K. version of the Wild West. 

She's not going to like it, I have a feeling that the people he let go are going to start working with the Man in Black. 

[Ramsay B.]

7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I still love the show but this episode is getting close to mishmash.  I hope they know what they're doing.

Yeah, I don’t know what to make of this episode. My mind started to wander a few times which is never a good thing. I feel like the Dolores storyline is losing steam quickly, or something.

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Ramsay B. said:

Yeah, I don’t know what to make of this episode. My mind started to wander a few times which is never a good thing. I feel like the Dolores storyline is losing steam quickly, or something.

It was really meandering.  And, okay, I get it, Dolores is now a megalomaniac, willing to 'sacrifice' almost anyone to her cause of world domination.  Next. It was interesting that she acted on her emotional connect to Abernathy, similar to Maeve and her daughter.  And it may be an interesting contrast where Maeve is all high tech, and is truly operating in the real world, and Dolores is working on whatever her memories and intuition tell her, but is still working within the park narratives.  Or not.  

 

[DMC]

I actually really liked this episode, definitely entirely different than the first twelve episodes in terms of pacing.  I'm calling the new world Safari World, because that seems to be the appeal - get to hunt tigers and ride elephants.

I thought it was hilarious when they made Steven Ogg super noble - "I'll escort you."  

And while Dolores is certainly "breaking bad," I think her reasoning was pretty sound when Bernard questioned her motives.  I also really liked Wood's work throughout the episode, putting on many different hats to show that Dolores is both growing in complexity and evolving.  

Happy Teddy spared Jonathan Tucker's character, and happy Maeve has her gang all back together again.  When the chick from the opening showed up at the end, I expected William to be standing above her and her to say "hi daddy."  Thought it'd be cool if that was his daughter, but at least according to imdb the character's name is Grace.

[Corvinus85]

35 minutes ago, Triskele said:

i'm calling the new world Colonial World.

ETA:  Heh, I see that both this and British Raj had occurred to one of the Atlantic reviewers.

I had called it Victorian World because of the time period.

[Fragile Bird]

So after that long back and forth we had about Maeve being able to control the other hosts, by voice, or hand signals, or mentally, we see she can't. The Jedi mind trick didn't work.

[Fragile Bird]

Question: how did Dolores know Bernard was a host? And how long has she known?

What I found quite interesting in this episode is that the hosts are developing consciousness in different ways and are diverging in the paths they are taking. Teddy has a sense of right and wrong quite different from Dolores, and Maeve and her bandito are actually falling in love, much to the shock of Sizemore. Interesting that Hector may be the man he wishes he was.

Maeve's daughter will be in 9 episodes.

Grace is in three.

And a timeline issue.

When Charlotte and Bernard make it to the secret lab, she gets the message that there will be no rescue without the package, and so they go off Abernathy hunting. When Bernard wakes up on the beach, it's two weeks since the rebellion started and the rescue squad has just landed. But Charlotte finds the security team. I guess the team she meets up with are the remainder of the park's internal security team?