Arnold Was Never A Human Theory

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I posted this as a comment but emailing may be a better way to get on the radar for this week’s Telegraph:

Has anyone done a full scrub of season 1 and 2 to verify if the Arnold was never a human / only AI’ theory holds water?

If it is possible that when we see human Arnold’ from pre-park opening timeline(s) , he is actually just a mental projection in the minds of other hosts (mainly Delores). So in scenes like the basement interviews and taking Delores outside of the park to his house, can this just be Delores being guided by a non-human virtual assistant / Arnold? There has never been a human Arnold’ scene with a large group that I can recall. All scenes with young Dr. Ford interacting with Arnold are blurred out, behind closed doors, etc. He could very well be arguing with a digital assistant that helped him build the initial 47 hosts. I think there may still be something there to this theory!

I do not agree with Big D’s piece of the theory that Dr Ford at some point became a host. The aging aspect does not align with this. He is certainly some kind of ghost in the machine at this point, orchestrating the game’ for MiB, but was not a host when Delores shot him at the masacre. Sorry, Big D thanks for getting the gears turning, though.

Would be great to crack this theory back open for this week’s Telegraph.

Also a quick +1 on Teddy is Bernard’ in timeline ’11 days later’.

Additional thoughts – many of these are reworkings of points brought up on your podcast:

* When Ford built Arnold, the intent was for him to be able to help train the initial 47 hosts to be human-like. He was always a virtual entity that could be projected into both the real world (AR) and virtual versions of the park that were needed to prototype the initial host characters.

* At or around the time of ‘the incident’, Ford fully lost control of Arnold, at which point he retreated into the digital tapestry of the park as a ghost in the machine, showing up from time to time as a voice giving direction and clues to hosts such as Delores. Perhaps Ford was able to somehow disable or curtail his ability to manifest as a visible character by modifying the hosts’ software, but could never fully filter him out. Hence the reduced capability to just appear from time to time as a voice. The falling out between the two occurred over time and the incident was the pivitol breaking point. (Sorry if I am getting something wrong here on events or timeline, really need to rewatch season one in light of the theory)… But moving on.

* Not having Arnold’s help any longer, and Ford learning from his mistake of relying on a purely digital entity, he created Bernard as a more controllable, somewhat watered down version of Arnold that he could use to do his bidding in the physical world, work with human team members more freely, etc. Also giving him a cripplingly painful cornerstone ( which I am on board with the theory that Ford really was the one with a son who had died ). No one but he and the hosts had ever seen or knew about Arnold, and Arnold was not fully dead, hence naming Bernard something different. ( Otherwise we would have 2 Arnold’s – Westworld wouldn’t want to go and intentionally confuse their audience, Right??).

* The ‘weapon’ that Delores is going to use is Arnold / is a dormant capability that can be provided by Arnold, but he needs her to do something in the physical world to unlock it. Using the voice to instruct her, I am thinking she has to access some physical resource / mainframe / communications device etc. to remove a restraint that will unleash Arnold’s ability to once again have the ability to manipulate hosts in the park as well as execute cyber warfare on networks outside of the park. Arnold and Delores would then have the ability to control terraformerrs, reanimate the stockpile of dead soldiers, and open gates and other safegaurds to allow hosts to leave the park (unexploded).

Hope that is the appropriate amount of tinfoil for you for one week.

– Aaron

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