That's kinda the whole point of showing us the past and the present at the same time, at a point they're going to diverge.
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Westworld - Live in Your World, Play in Ours - Sundays on HBO
- Thread starter RatskyWatsky
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That's kinda the whole point of showing us the past and the present at the same time, at a point they're going to diverge.
None of those seem to have affected Dolores yet, apart from whatever MiB did to her and Teddy being pulled away to the Wyatt storyline. But I was asking why you see Dolores as Arnold's pawn in the past timeline, but not as his pawn in the present, when she's clearly being manipulated by his programming.
Every episode = more questions and no answers to previous ones. Leave each episode with the same theories and no new knowledge of potential directions the story can take. You get to see cool new character development (Dolores shooting her gun), but nothing that changes the conversation
SuperStiltzkin
Member
I think the reason people hate the two timelines theory is because they don't like knowing how the William/Logan story ends. It feels pointless if we already know what is happening 30 years later. Except we don't know how their story ends even though we are getting perspectives from the future. I don't think having two timelines automatically makes William's story pointless. I'm still intrigued by William and Logan's side of the story and want to see their significance in the overall story with Dolores. I don't think it's going to be as simple as people think with a dark Darth Vader turn or anything. I think what she remembers at the end of her and William's journey will be a huge turning point in her character and the story for the present timeline. I think it's going to be a lot more complicated than people think it is.
More_Badass
Member
How can people say we haven't gotten answers? We've learned about in part what the maze is, some of the park's history, the how and why hosts are gaining sentience, about the Man In Black and his motives, and so on.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
And it turns out the bad guy is just the hammy swearing British guy who wants revenge on Ford for getting rid of his story expansion pack.
Let's compare Dolores' story arc:
LINEAR THEORY
Arnold plants secret code in Dolores and other hosts
-> Arnold dies
--> 34 years pass
---> Ford implements reveries in certain hosts
----> Reveries cause dormant code to surface
-----> "Violent delights" codephrase spreads the dormant code activation to Dolores & Maeve
------> Dolores begins to remember prior events and gain new abilities
-------> New abilities allow her to break out of her loop
--------> Breaking out of her loop results in her joining William on his adventure
---------> Bernard encourages Dolores to continue going off-loop and seek the maze
----------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet)
NONLINEAR THEORY
Arnold plants secret code in Dolores and other hosts
-> Arnold dies
--> 4(?) years pass
---> William picks up the can for Dolores
----> ??? (Something happens to Dolores off-screen)
-----> Dolores stumbles into William's camp
------> Dolores shows signs of awareness
-------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet)
--------> 30 years pass
---------> Reveries & codephrase allow Dolores to gain awareness again, and retrace her adventure with William
----------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet either)
Viewed as a linear narrative, each plot point clearly and elegantly leads into the next. The nonlinear version is comparatively full of holes. For example, why would Dolores be left in service after the original incident? Or if not retired, why wouldn't they at least wipe all traces of Arnold's code from her system? Why is she apparently the only robot malfunctioning in the past timeline?
If someone wants to take a stab at laying out the nonlinear version in a way that makes more sense, be my guest.
LINEAR THEORY
Arnold plants secret code in Dolores and other hosts
-> Arnold dies
--> 34 years pass
---> Ford implements reveries in certain hosts
----> Reveries cause dormant code to surface
-----> "Violent delights" codephrase spreads the dormant code activation to Dolores & Maeve
------> Dolores begins to remember prior events and gain new abilities
-------> New abilities allow her to break out of her loop
--------> Breaking out of her loop results in her joining William on his adventure
---------> Bernard encourages Dolores to continue going off-loop and seek the maze
----------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet)
NONLINEAR THEORY
Arnold plants secret code in Dolores and other hosts
-> Arnold dies
--> 4(?) years pass
---> William picks up the can for Dolores
----> ??? (Something happens to Dolores off-screen)
-----> Dolores stumbles into William's camp
------> Dolores shows signs of awareness
-------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet)
--------> 30 years pass
---------> Reveries & codephrase allow Dolores to gain awareness again, and retrace her adventure with William
----------> ??? (we haven't seen this part yet either)
Viewed as a linear narrative, each plot point clearly and elegantly leads into the next. The nonlinear version is comparatively full of holes. For example, why would Dolores be left in service after the original incident? Or if not retired, why wouldn't they at least wipe all traces of Arnold's code from her system? Why is she apparently the only robot malfunctioning in the past timeline?
If someone wants to take a stab at laying out the nonlinear version in a way that makes more sense, be my guest.
Squid_Vicious
Member
Isn't that just good storytelling? Filling in those holes you have laid out. I think William not being the MiB is incredibly bad storytelling. Someone just happened to figure it out sooner than the show writers would have liked.
Why?? He can still be an example of the park turning a good person bad without them literally being the same character.
(I'm not even convinced that his arc will be about him going from white hat to black hat. My bet is that his adventure with Dolores will allow him to be a white hat character to a much more meaningful extent than he's expecting.)
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Calling those plot holes seems premature considering the show has yet to show us these things.
Even if you subscribe to the one timeline theory, the show STILL shows things in a nonlinear fashion. How many times has Bernard pulled Dolores into the interview room even while she is still with William. Unless he drives out there to get her himself. If William and Logan are Delos employees, I doubt it would go unnoticed if Bernard kept pulling a host accompanying them just to have secret conversations. The show is clearly going with an unreliable narrator/non-linear approach to telling its story. The show presents events out of order even in a single timeline.
These can easily be linear scenes. The robots have digital minds and can be transferred to new duplicate bodies if one is damaged beyond repair. Analysis sessions could therefore be conducted by downloading the host's mind into a spare body, leaving the original body out in the field. Or, some have speculated that the analysis scenes take place in VR.
The show is clearly implying that he's pulling her out while she's still in the park, usually when she's sleeping/unconscious. They refer to those meetings as dreams, and he always mentions that she needs to get back before she's missed. As for how they're doing this without physically moving her, we don't know yet. Could all this be a lie? Maybe. But that's how the show has been presenting it so far.
But this has never been shown on the show?
Why do these idiots put bodies into cold storage? Why did they replace Dolores's dad with a new body if they could've just swapped in a new "mind"?
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Here's my question. Why make that a mystery at all? Why isn't it clear unless they are trying to hide something? Why not show that he is in a VR interview simulation? Why not show Bernard transferring consciousnesses? Why show Dolores clearly walking out of the room to go back to where she was? Bernard makes no mention of guests at all during the interviews and asks nothing about what Dolores feels when traveling with guests. Likewise Dolores doesn't mention them.
If it's really such a simple linear explanation, why make it so obtuse?
Squid_Vicious
Member
I just personally feel like him being the MiB is too good of plot development that anything less would be a let down. It's also possible that this is just someone's theory and now that I am watching the show with that in mind, it's skewing the experience.
Maybe being obtuse isn't an active choice on the part of the creators.
Chiaroscuro
Member
You made a great linear narrative and a lousy non-linear one, of course it the first would be better. But...
We don´t know yet how the William narrative ended in the past or how bad was Dolores actions. Maybe it would be more cost efetive to just wipe her and keep her functioning. Maybe William had something to do with that decision too. Maybe something related to Arnold too, since she was the last one to see him alive.
They could have tried to do that, after all it took another 30 years to the code be active again. We don´t know how the hosts are programmed, we can assume that Arnold´s works are the core of how the hosts works. Why? Because every host, not only Dolores, still have Arnold´s pieces of code even today. If they could clean Dolores of all Arnold's code, why wouldn´t they do the same for all hosts, including new ones that were build after the incident?
Only because the show is only showing Dolores it does not mean that it would not spread too. But... more important, Dolores was Arnold's greatest creation, in scene that Ford inqueres Dolores it is said so, and that Dolores will be the agent of Arnold's plans (which it is said it is to destroy the park, but it can also be read as to make all hosts sentient, since it would destroy the park).[/QUOTE]
A better non-linear narrative:
Arnold works is the base of how all hosts work, but Dolores is his great creation, the one that will help him to achieve his goals.
-> Arnold dies, Dolores is the last person/host to see him alive. We don´t know the circunstances of his death yet, or what he could have said to Dolores.
--> A few years pass
---> William picks up the can for Dolores, monitoring staff see that Dolores is the one thing up to that point that interest William. They monitor every quest, as Ford said. See, if Willian is the companion of someone insterested in investing the park, it would make even since to make sure they will be having a good time in the park.
----> Staff noticed that Willian is apathic in relation to the park. So while they are in a quest, they intentionally sent Dolores to meet them somehow (since Ted does not exist to save her yet, the staff could just redirect her story to meet William, as they did in the present with Hector.
-----> Dolores stumbles into William's camp
------> Dolores shows signs of awareness. Why? Maybe the staff intervention to make her join Willian triggered something in her, maybe some Arnold code, maybe his last instructions.
-------> The resolution of the Willian storyline. This is not a real gap, the story is being told to us, just we did not see it yet.
--------> 30 years pass
---------> Reveries & codephrase allow Dolores to gain awareness again, and retrace her adventure with William
----------> The resolution of Dolores storyline. Why this time it could be potentially different? Because MiB is involved.
We don´t know yet how the William narrative ended in the past or how bad was Dolores actions. Maybe it would be more cost efetive to just wipe her and keep her functioning. Maybe William had something to do with that decision too. Maybe something related to Arnold too, since she was the last one to see him alive.
They could have tried to do that, after all it took another 30 years to the code be active again. We don´t know how the hosts are programmed, we can assume that Arnold´s works are the core of how the hosts works. Why? Because every host, not only Dolores, still have Arnold´s pieces of code even today. If they could clean Dolores of all Arnold's code, why wouldn´t they do the same for all hosts, including new ones that were build after the incident?
Only because the show is only showing Dolores it does not mean that it would not spread too. But... more important, Dolores was Arnold's greatest creation, in scene that Ford inqueres Dolores it is said so, and that Dolores will be the agent of Arnold's plans (which it is said it is to destroy the park, but it can also be read as to make all hosts sentient, since it would destroy the park).[/QUOTE]
A better non-linear narrative:
Arnold works is the base of how all hosts work, but Dolores is his great creation, the one that will help him to achieve his goals.
-> Arnold dies, Dolores is the last person/host to see him alive. We don´t know the circunstances of his death yet, or what he could have said to Dolores.
--> A few years pass
---> William picks up the can for Dolores, monitoring staff see that Dolores is the one thing up to that point that interest William. They monitor every quest, as Ford said. See, if Willian is the companion of someone insterested in investing the park, it would make even since to make sure they will be having a good time in the park.
----> Staff noticed that Willian is apathic in relation to the park. So while they are in a quest, they intentionally sent Dolores to meet them somehow (since Ted does not exist to save her yet, the staff could just redirect her story to meet William, as they did in the present with Hector.
-----> Dolores stumbles into William's camp
------> Dolores shows signs of awareness. Why? Maybe the staff intervention to make her join Willian triggered something in her, maybe some Arnold code, maybe his last instructions.
-------> The resolution of the Willian storyline. This is not a real gap, the story is being told to us, just we did not see it yet.
--------> 30 years pass
---------> Reveries & codephrase allow Dolores to gain awareness again, and retrace her adventure with William
----------> The resolution of Dolores storyline. Why this time it could be potentially different? Because MiB is involved.
Chiaroscuro
Member
there is something here too and the writers clearly wanted a second layer mistery.
Why when Dolores met Bernard she is always fully dressed, something that never happens with other hosts, and did not happen with Dolores herself when she was interviewed by Ford, when she was naked? Why the difference?
Thus, pay attention to Ford's words. In debug mode do the hosts have access to all memory loops? She would not be able to answer about Arnold if not so. So reveries only allow them to access those memory segments on operational mode? Why Ford asks if she remembers the man he used to be? If Arnold can be remembered, so Ford can be.
This is exactly why I believe it's a linear narrative. Arnold's code still exists in the robots today because, until now, it hasn't caused any problems!
SuperStiltzkin
Member
I don't think its so simple. I don't think whatever happens in the past is going to be a Westworld (1970s) massacre. It's going to be significant for Dolores, but not a park wide event. The park is hemmoraging money in the past. They're not gonna scrap pioneering robotics engineering and coding just to start from scratch because of one faulty host. From what we know. Arnold's code is embedded deep in the hosts where even doing a full system wipe, it will still remain dormant. This is even addressed with memories from the reveries. And Arnold being dead means people wouldn't suspect him of sabotage 4 years beyond the grave. We don't know if they knew that Arnold's code was the catalyst back then.
Chiaroscuro
Member
or is this something they need to live with, in order to keep the hosts operating? If Arnold's works were really a break-through, a fundamental thing, it cannot be removed. otherwise it means to close the park. Maybe that is Ford seems to be so resentful about Arnold. Arnold ghosts seems to ling around.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Dolores having two meltdowns flies in the face of Stubbs utter confidence that "good ol' Dolores" would never have any issues like Abernathy had. The line pretty heavily implies that she's been the perfect host since day one. Being the root of a previous issue kind of throws that whole confidence out the window. How would someone be sure assured that the original problem bot wouldn't have problems now? It doesn't make much sense.
And again, I have to reiterate the significant issues of control talking about Dolores being off-loop and wondering if she's with a guest and in the next scene us seeing a host trying to return her to her loop before verifying she's with William, and the progression of her very clearly having a meltdown in the "present" to her fleeing the barn and stumbling into William and Logan's camp. And before anyone says it, yes, I know the explanations among ardent flashback theory supporters - that it's a trick, that the scenes are actually not progressing literally, that she ran off twice, etc.. Except, those aren't tricks. Those are lies. For it to be a trick, there needs to be a way for the audience to see through it, and hint for those re-watching that maybe it's not exactly as represented. Some sort of tell. There's not one. So for those sequences, for it to be anything other than as represented you're effectively lying flat-out to the audience. That is not good storytelling.
Now, I've said several times I'm not willing to rule out the flashback theory 100%, and I have admitted that there are elements that can be taken as clues (particularly in the last episode or so). But the problem with a lot of people in the flashback theory camp is that they are 100% dead certain it's the case, and when something conflicts with that it's "just a trick", which is a bad explanation, without being able to consider that perhaps what they're taking as evidence is the trick, or even that they're just over-reading. Obviously that's not that case for everyone, but there are at least a few people in that camp who are overly positive in their theory and just dismiss everything outright.
And again, I have to reiterate the significant issues of control talking about Dolores being off-loop and wondering if she's with a guest and in the next scene us seeing a host trying to return her to her loop before verifying she's with William, and the progression of her very clearly having a meltdown in the "present" to her fleeing the barn and stumbling into William and Logan's camp. And before anyone says it, yes, I know the explanations among ardent flashback theory supporters - that it's a trick, that the scenes are actually not progressing literally, that she ran off twice, etc.. Except, those aren't tricks. Those are lies. For it to be a trick, there needs to be a way for the audience to see through it, and hint for those re-watching that maybe it's not exactly as represented. Some sort of tell. There's not one. So for those sequences, for it to be anything other than as represented you're effectively lying flat-out to the audience. That is not good storytelling.
Now, I've said several times I'm not willing to rule out the flashback theory 100%, and I have admitted that there are elements that can be taken as clues (particularly in the last episode or so). But the problem with a lot of people in the flashback theory camp is that they are 100% dead certain it's the case, and when something conflicts with that it's "just a trick", which is a bad explanation, without being able to consider that perhaps what they're taking as evidence is the trick, or even that they're just over-reading. Obviously that's not that case for everyone, but there are at least a few people in that camp who are overly positive in their theory and just dismiss everything outright.
I hate it cause William and the MiB are not even the focus of the show... why dedicate half of it to his backstory. It makes no sense, for a show about AI to dedicate so much time to MiB backstory. That is like season 5 single episode flashback special crap.
We also see that william is pretty much done with the park and wants to leave. MiB wants to stay forever. They are the most opposite characters ever. William is kind of falling in love with Dolores... so that big of a heel turn would have to be her dying... but she can't die, and is around in MiB "timeline".
It just doesn't make as much sense as you think it does.
exactly, the minute the hosts start exhibiting strange behavior they pull them and put them in cold storage. I think their brains are somewhat organic and can't just be wiped like a hard drive. It is too risky to have a host malfunctioning and open up liability for the park.
Last episode showed that William is actually starting to get comfortable within the park, I don't see where you're getting this he wants to leave thing from other than his first day or so in the park.
The problem is you assume the only way he could change is through her dying and not a ton of other different reasons such as wanting to set things right for something he did wrong in the past. IMO MiB isn't actually much changed. I don't believe the character is actually evil or has any ill intentions for Dolores.
But you've just said it. The show isn't about AI.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
I can already see the people who are going to say "well that's just bad storytelling. Show sucks" if the theory is true lol.
You can't use "that's just good sensical linear storytelling!" As a defense. It just makes sense that William will confront the Man in Black because that's what the way these stories always go? Concurrent timelines as a twist has been done in movies and games plenty of times before.
And if we're gonna go with "but storytelling 101 dictates!" How come William and Logan's story seem to exist in a vacuum outside of the characters who are connected to the overarching plot? It's something I've noticed while watching the show. A sense of unsatisfactory with William and Logan's pov. I thought it was cause they don't have enough screentime. But I realized it's cause no one acknowledges their existence. No one who is connected to the greater story comments on them five episodes in. MiB and Teddy are in Pariah as of the last episode. If they run into Logan in the next episode will eat my fucking shoe.
You can't use "that's just good sensical linear storytelling!" As a defense. It just makes sense that William will confront the Man in Black because that's what the way these stories always go? Concurrent timelines as a twist has been done in movies and games plenty of times before.
And if we're gonna go with "but storytelling 101 dictates!" How come William and Logan's story seem to exist in a vacuum outside of the characters who are connected to the overarching plot? It's something I've noticed while watching the show. A sense of unsatisfactory with William and Logan's pov. I thought it was cause they don't have enough screentime. But I realized it's cause no one acknowledges their existence. No one who is connected to the greater story comments on them five episodes in. MiB and Teddy are in Pariah as of the last episode. If they run into Logan in the next episode will eat my fucking shoe.
More_Badass
Member
We all know why
Why does each character's story in GOT exist in a vacuum? It's so that the writers can explore what's happening in various corners of the world (or park, in this case). It makes the world and plot seem more sprawling and allows us to feel different moods, see different types of places, explore different segments of Westworld society. Like in GOT, eventually these different threads will meet.
Imagine if someone had a theory that all of the scenes at the Wall in GOT actually took place 30 years in the future, and explained all of the resulting inconsistencies away because GOT's world has magic and immortal characters.
Except the characters on the wall directly reference other people outside of it.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
I disagree with you on the idea that that William's story couldn't transition into the Man in Black we have now. If anything, how clear the path is from William to the Man in Black is the single biggest reason I can't explicitly rule out the flashback theory. William is strong and determined and wants to prove himself. He's been climbing the ranks and feels he has been earning his slow climb in life, but Logan shows him that those around him might not take him so seriously. Logan dismisses him outright, shitting all over the proudest moment in his life because it's nothing to him, just to get a rise out of him, and we see how far that pushes him. We see his in-park character grow and harden, from wanting to be the generic good guy to executing the soldiers and going "downhill" from there as the events proceed. We know he has an appreciation for the little details of the park. And of course Dolores is rooted at the center of this.
All of this pretty easily could lead to the Man in Black we see now, who has become an extremely powerful business man renowned for his charity work, who has obsessively searched for every little detail in the park, and who has ultimately become the hardened "villain" of the park, with again, Dolores very strongly connected to his story. It's far from absurd.
That said, I do agree with the rest of your post. I like talking about stuff like this in terms of utility to the story being told. That is, what does an idea add, what does it take away, and what is the general purpose of it all. I agree, the William story being an extended origin story for the Man in Black doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose for the show. It overly focuses on the "duo" when they're really not what the show is actually about. Furthermore, it arguably takes away from what purposes the characters currently serve. The Man in Black represents a darker, obsessive side of humanity, the "player" willing to cut everything down in order to serve his own goals. He's kind of a twisted mirror of Ford in many ways, despite the two of them clearly not getting along. Both are obsessed with the details and the story, both are willing to dismiss and abuse the hosts as glorified props in a grand game, and both have a bit of god complex, but both approach this from separate directions, as player and game master.
William on the other hand is the traditional audience insert. He's thrust into this world much the same way we are and has to figure it all out on his own. He starts off as the idealistic and cautious player many viewers would imagine themselves to be, before he starts slipping, but in a way the audience understands and can potentially relate to. Additionally, through his similarities to the Man in Black we can see how such a player might emerge, without William literally being his younger self. It's an origin story by proxy, but one that they can take in a different direction. Perhaps he gets close to becoming the Man in Black "type", but then forges his own path. I think that's more interesting than him simply being revealed to actually becoming the Man in Black 30 years later.
Also, I still personally don't see the utility in the entire series of flashback scenes being disguised. What's the purpose of it being a "surprise"? What does that add to the show? Also, how do they deal with how that massively fucks with audience expectations going forward? A twist like that means we can never expect what we're seeing to be chronologically ordered going forwards, because they already tricked us that way. It just muddles expectations and viewer comprehension, to the point where across season 2 we'll all be asking "wait, are all THESE scenes even happening right now"? That's not a great thing to establish.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
It makes sense in GoT because there are no corporate overseers who have literal cameras on every tree to monitor every person in the realm. But it doesn't make sense here. If Bernard is so curious about Dolores's emergent AI behavior, wouldn't logic dictate he wonder how she interacts with the guests who she has been accompanying longer than anyone we have seen her with before?
Characters in GoT at least acknowledge that other characters exist and events that happened to them has transpired. Daenarys does not exist in a vacuum. People across the narrow sea know of her.
Any possible reference to William is vague on purpose. "Dolores went off the ranch." " Is she accompanying a host?" "Were not sure."
It's been established that the park overseers keep close tabs on the hosts - they immediately know when Dolores and the woodcutter are off loop - but not so much the guests. The only guest we've seen them mention is the MiB, and even then only Hemsworth knew anything about him. This makes a degree of sense - the hosts probably transmit their location and other information (unwittingly) to the overseers, while the overseers probably only have a general idea of where each guest is (otherwise they would have been able to immediately answer whether a guest was with Dolores).
Regarding Bernard, I would argue that he IS keeping close tabs on Dolores, possibly including her interactions with William. But he's doing this on his own time, in secret, so I'm not sure how that supports your argument.
You're conveniently forgetting that the presence of Dolores in both the MiB and William storylines pops the "exists in a vacuum" argument.
A multiple timeline theory should be something that's *very* easily 100% dismissed, yet we don't even have the evidence to do that. All it takes is two characters from the two proposed timelines interacting directly in some way, either face to face or directly referencing each other. For something like that not to happen yet seems like a big coincidence.
Chiaroscuro
Member
Today staff was not the one in charge 30 years ago. If something went wrong with Dolores, they would not know. Only Ford seems to remember that time, so he is the only one left that were part of the team at the time. For the newer staff, she is the good ol' Dolores, which is being active since the park beginning, a relic.
Plus, again, we don´t know nothing about how Dolores quest would have ended 30 years ago. MiB has being told several times that the Maze isn´t for him. Why? maybe the Maze is Arnold´s Ultimate Turing Test, the host which can go through it will have to have develop sentience to do so. And maybe Dolores failed the first time, and that is why she was kept in duty. Maybe William had something to do with her failure, and that haunted him so much that he kept coming to Westworld year after year and become MiB.
This is not a lie, but a trick to the audience. Of course the effective of the trick depends on how they will reveal it. Do it bad, and the audience will think like you, bad storytelling, lies. But do it right, like showing parts of the sequences again with new information, and the audience will be either "I knew it" or "How could I not see it".
Now I want to talk about Ford and his relantionship with Arnold. They were partners once, but they did not ended as partners. There were a disagreement between them that split them. Ford said that Arnold lost perspective and went mad. But for someone with serious God complex like Ford, anyone that disagrees with you is mad. Did we hear Arnold's version of the history? No, of course. Maybe we will hear it through Dolores.
And why Ford seems to like to talk with Old Bill? Ford does not seem to be a romantic old time nostalgic guy. He even said that in the restaurant scene. He is a practical guy. What if Old Bill is the as far as Ford could have go all by himself? That Arnold´s works made WestWorld possible?
I took that to be them showing how Bernard views her and maybe just the hosts in general. It's a direct contrast to the way Ford views them. I think Bernard sees the hosts more akin to how Arnold saw them. He's becoming attached to them and viewing them as human. Ford warns him about Arnold and tells him not to make the same mistake. Compare this to Ford who cuts a hosts face to make a point.
Alternatively he's just attached to her specifically as he has been using her to help him grieve.
I can't even believe some people are watching the same show. William is clearly disgusted by the park and it's games. He is ready to leave. He leaves with Dolores who also wants to escape.
molnizzle
Member
I imagine Arnold has something to do with the "faulty" hosts going into cold storage. Something tells me they won't stay there forever. "The cooling system has been busted for weeks" is a plot device to make sure they're not actually frozen when the time comes.
That's my theory at least. You're asking a lot of questions that the show wants you to be asking. That's kinda the point.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
No, it's not good storytelling. You might take me a numbers nerd when I say it, but the finest storytelling is simply told in a direct, linear manner. Because anything other than that is either a waste of time -like flashbacks- or a vehicle to make the creation of elaborate confusion seem 'deep'. Nothing gets added by the overdependence on 'the twist' other than it being there because TWIST. In fact, it deflates most tension in arcs almost immediately, because once there's been a far-ranging twist, there is nothing left to do for any characters within arcs that are now pretty much moot.
And yes, even the Star Wars had that problem. Just look at how people review Jedi to Empire, despite being 'the final battle'. What kind of story arc puts its primary emotional upheaval before the actual finale? Answer: a bad one.
If you want an example of "twist addiction", I believe Swordfish has got that covered. Where it's one right after the other, because 'fuck it'. It's so terrible.
In a different movie, it gets you shit like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntiPIVSiysQ
That latter notion is more likely. Think of it this way: what does MiB gain as a character from being 'revealed' to be another character that we consider to distinctly different from him in every way? I mean, it's literally already been parodied as a shallow trope in the 90's, as you may suddenly recognize a certain gif from this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4fI3TruAOw
Do you really think Ed Harris would have signed on based on 'my character's only importance is being a trope' ? He's a serious man, he ain't got time for amateur shit like that. The only value of playing a character is if that character is a holistic seeming entity, with its own values, dreams, ambitions, and unspoken fears. This whole unfortunate takeover of discussion of the show by the crazies is kind of detrimental to it, since it takes people out of what it's actually trying to do.
(also, he talks about cutting hosts open 30 years ago, which we have no reason to believe William is even capable of, and more importantly: the hosts he encounters are equally advanced. So that's pretty much where that whole 'theory' dies right away)
biggersmaller
Banned
Didn't see Shadt so I had to YouTube some clips...gotta admit you got me on that one!
It gives a mysterious character with unknown intentions that's central to the plot a backstory. Right now he's just an eccentric rich guy that's going around fucking shit up, that's not a very compelling character.
Ed Harris isn't lasting more than 1 season i bet. He'll be the Sean Bean of this series.
molnizzle
Member
More_Badass
Member
But William turning out to be a MIB's origin wouldn't be a "twist". Bernard being a host or Ford really being a host that Arnold uploaded himself into would be
Tell that to Dracula, Frankenstein, Memento, Psycho, House of Leaves, and so on
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
I'm pretty sure "old bots that have previously had major meltdown and are currently still in service" would be literal required reading for the head of security in a park full of potentially dangerous robots and multi-millionaire guests. Furthermore, him "just not being there and thus not knowing" isn't a strong excuse anyway, because then his insistence that this specific bot couldn't go bad because of its long history rings extremely hollow.
But I literally just said how that's not a trick. Both sequences are presented quite explicitly with no tells, even if you through with the direct assumption that they are split across 30 years. You can't just show a sequence like that that presents an extremely clear progression of events and then say "ah, we were just fucking with you, that second shot took place 30 years earlier".
We all know why
Um, they're are in direct contact with dolores, the main character of the show. They also are in contact with clementine, desperado bounty guy, Lawrence, etc. who are all also present in the other timeline, if there are 2 timelines.
They also could be the board reps that Ford mentions, if board reps might be folks with stakes in the park and delos isn't the sole owner but just a majority owner. Logan might be talking about buying out delos' stake in the park, and maybe Ford is keyed into that, and would also explain Meredith being clueless because she's with delos.
His character worked way better before they humanized him. He's the antagonist to Dolores' protagonist, and he works best when seen through the eyes of the hosts - as a nightmarish invulnerable force of nature.
Giving him understandable motives and redeeming qualities in the recent episodes was, I think, a mistake. Giving him an entire backstory would be more so. "Once upon a time, he was naive and good!" Who cares? He's supposed to be filling the "heartless death machine" role from the original movie.
(I also suspect he's an homage to the "man with no name" trope from movies like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I wouldn't be surprised if we never learn his name.)
More_Badass
Member
No, that's what you want and think he should be.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
That's the point: he's a (bored) player looking for something new, something he probably won't get a second chance to do. And he's related to the park from near its inception. Please tell how this character is less compelling than 'EINHORN IS FINKLE!'. Seriously, I'd love someone to explain to me, in fucking detail - because I keep doing that and then it's all "oh you're wrong" - why that would possible be worthwhile story.
Btw, psychology teaches us that personality does not fundamentally change, so the very idea is so out there that it requires ridiculous amount of exposition to 'explain' it. Seriously, the finale would be a two hour exposition reel just to explain that happened, and it would still not be enough. It's amateur hour squared. Whereas currently, things are playing out just fine in terms of pacing for either character, leading them to whatever end their path leads them to.
Well, they are clearly setting up a twist with Arnold, yeah. But that one is expected, whereas two unrelated character being related is completely not. You're way too stuck in that model to see that, but there is no good reason why anyone watching the show and not hanging out on a message board, would assume any relation between them. And most would grasp that it's a crappy thing to do. Story telling is about rewarding people for their involvement. Twists that come from nowhere are unrewarding , because it's the writer doing a 'whatever'. Like Deus Ex Machina plot resolution, literally named by the ancient Greeks themselves for being shitty writing.
I did mean on the screen and to the audience though. On the written page, you can do whatever you want. On film, that is sequentially juxtaposed audiovisual frames you are bound to the 'now' of the playback and what information has been passed to viewer to remain committed to it. Memento isn't a incomprehensible movie because it clearly ties event A to event B in reversed order and takes great care to places its breadcrumbs in a way that everyone can follow the story.
I think he's right on the money. The hosts aren't human, and MiB is inhuman in how he 'plays', which is pretty much any video game ever. "What a shame".
I think the rift is some people seem to think the Mib is the main character, so obviously the show revolves around him.
You're actually saying "X does it cause he's bored" is more compelling than a backstory that gives a person motives to keep visiting the park for 30 years as well as how he came to learn about the maze (something not even the park operators know outside of Ford)?