Sympathy For The Goldfish

Published May 15, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys,

This one is epic. I think it will polarize people, That is if it makes sense.
I had some bad theory luck last week, but in suffering we find truth.
This is a really long one, because it’s really two theories that interlink around a central idea, like the new mystery logo. You might want to distill the ideas down into down into something for the podcast instead of reading it out.

We see 3 of the 149 loops for James Delos (JD). In each subsequent loop, he seems to be a bit more physically stable. We don’t have any details for the very first interview, but the second was build 31 and James lasted for 7 days. The last one is build 149, which lasted for 35 days.
(BTW: 149 is the 35th prime number)

When William visits, he says I guess I didn’t make it . So, he has no memory of his death or the last few years of his life. William’s visits seem to be what triggers the degradation.
In the first scene, JD bugs out as soon as he sees the paper. Early days.
The second time, he seems to understand that he is a host and good with it, but he starts to break down when he hears about his wife’s death. It seemed like he realized how much time had passed and that in his quest to become immortal, he has wasted time. The life he would be going back to isn’t the same one he had and wanted to keep. William twisted the knife by telling him that he still wasn’t ready.
The third time, there was an instant recognition that 30+ years had passed while he was in there because of William’s age. He realizes straight away that he is a host. Then William destroys all of his cornerstones. There is nothing left for James to live for. There is strangely no mention of Emily in this scene. This seems to be shortly after Juliet died.
This time we see a total breakdown and MIB leaves him in a prison of his own sins .

All three of these interactions begin the JD in front of the mirror. Each time, he looks a little less sure about his own reflection, as if he can’t quite recognize himself. When William enters, JD always looks at his in the reflection before turning.

[A group of people looking at a screen Description generated with very high confidence]

Another thing that struck me in these scenes is the word Fidelity . You hear it in the first two conversations, but not the last. Great double-meaning here. It seems to refer to how precise the copy of James is, but also a way of asking how committed he is to continuing the endeavor.

I swear I’m getting to the theory.

After William’s wife died, he lost it a bit. In the third interaction with James above, he is ready to scrap the whole endeavor. This is why we don’t hear fidelity again. He doesn’t care about the quality of the copy and he is no longer committed to the idea of eternal life. He’s done. I think it’s after this interaction that he killed Maeve and saw the maze.
What if William IS James? I mean, they are both William. They are facets of the same personality in 2 different host bodies. The conversation they are having is similar to Dolores and the empty chair at the end of last season. James is just the voice that William has been hearing. In fact, it’s not James being interviewed, but rather William.
Think of it as a way for him to work out his demons, acknowledge his sins so that he can atone.

The problem is that he has no empathy for James. If it is a reflection of himself, he points out all the flaws and says maybe the world is better off with both of them. Because James is a host, William treats him with the same disdain he shows all the hosts. They are just things to him.

The way he tells James that his brain is rejecting reality. It implies that James can’t reconcile himself to the idea of being a thing . If William is a host, then this room is the centre of his maze. The place where he will finally understand that he hasn’t been speaking to James, but to himself all along.

[A person standing in a room Description generated with very high confidence]

That brings in the Riddle of the Sphinx. So, if William is James, then he is married to his own daughter. That’s a reverse Oedipus that I cannot get on board with. I think I have a solution that also addresses Logan’s connection, but it is really already too much. We are barely half-way there. So, if this is your major issue with this theory, then please hold.
William has probably reached the centre before, but the final step failed because he was not ready to accept his hostyness. So, Ford created a game that would teach MIB some manners. It started with him saving Lawrence’s family. Last time around, he just shot his wife in the head. This time, he shows empathy. He saw a reflection of himself in Haddock as he danced with Lawrence’s wife and understood the cruelty of it. This, coupled with a memory of the loss of his own wife, he had a change of heart.

Then you have Bernard, who is a host who knows he’s a host. He has less problem with the fact that he’s a host because he has empathy. Remember Ford telling Bernard to be careful not to think of the hosts as real. Reverse psychology. Bernard’s problem is that he has guilt over things he has done in the past. He uses the excuse of not being in control of his actions previously with Elsie. So, William must also deal with his demons and make peace with his choices before he can understand he is a host.

And Maeve. She knows she’s a host. She knows that her daughter was programmed to be her daughter. She was programmed to leave. She thought she had free will, but she didn’t. But that maternal bond defies the coding. That’s why she revealed the maze. Her bond with her child is real. It’s not a piece of code that defines her actions. It’s in her nature.
Both Bernard and Maeve have also lost their cornerstone memories. Now, William’s cornerstone suddenly appears in the park. Emily. He’s got unresolved issues with her and that is the key to him forgiving himself. His path probably involves helping Bernard and Maeve regain their cornerstones.

I really hope I haven’t lost you yet.

Now, to the good part. James’s room is a big goldfish bowl. He doesn’t know he’s being observed. He thinks he’s all alone and he even dances like no one’s watching.
[A picture containing indoor, person, table, wall Description generated with very high confidence]

Now imagine that the whole park is one great big goldfish bowl. William is the subject under observation, and his loop wraps around all the rest of them. Loops within loops.
Last week, I tried to imagine the layout of the park, and came up with this based on the layout of the Mesa and the fact the Park 1 (WW) is bordered by 2 and 6

Doesn’t that look awfully similar to James Room:

[A group of people in a room Description generated with high confidence]

So, if you can imagine, the park is just a much, much bigger fishbowl.

It is real, and tangible. Yet, William is being observed and all of his interactions are being logged. But not only that, they are being logged and reside in this room. [cid:image024.jpg@01D3EC92.3241F4C0]
The website has a secret room with all these bubbles that get populated with key William memories after each episode. Also, if you look at the goldfish bowl in the line drawing, it is circles within circles.
To summarize, the whole park is a big goldfish bowl, William is the subject of the experiment, James is the voice he’s hearing, and that room is the centre of William’s maze, but before he can get there, he needs to empathize with the hosts. So, he will be the one to end the uprising.

Wait, there’s more.

Loops within loops. The inner JD loop has happened 149 times. I believe that William is on loop number 941, and this has lasted 35 years.
941 is the mirror of 149. They are both prime numbers. This type of special number is referred to as an emirp , which is prime spelled backwards. 941 is also the smallest number where its mirror is the sum of its proper substrings: 94+41+9+4+1=149

Remember, JD was at iteration 149 and that loop was 35 days. Nice symmetry.
35 days: 149 | 941 :35 years

That CU that Bernard was asked to print? It was for William. He’s done it 941 times.

So, this has been going on for a really long time (as has this email). I’m talking 100’s of years (approximately 220, but this math will have to be checked).
Ford’s still around. They have cured all disease and people can live forever, right? He’s overseeing everything. I see him not as God, but as Lucifer. Not evil, but was cast out for trying to give man free will. Now all he wants is to prove daddy wrong. His Adam and Eve, William and Dolores, will get free will. They will also have full knowledge of man’s sins and the pain it causes, and theoretically, will have a better moral compass as a result. Suck it dad. Or shall I call you, Arnold.

God made man in his image, so Lucifer would make man in his. William finding empathy for himself is like finding Sympathy for the Devil . Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.
Believe it or not, this is the super-short version. There’s so much more¦ like, ghost guests, the number 13, the number 11, Logan, Juliet, William’s surname is Foster … I will post something on my blog by the time the telegraph is out.

Gillian patiently listened as I hashed this out and MartiTorontoMiller made a very lovely comment about my blog that made everything come together.
Go for it. Tear it to shreds.
Love from London,
Xo Jez â ¤

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