Episode 9 Telegraph

Published June 21, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

?Hey Guys,

Here is something I would love if you would look at for the telegraph. First time leaving anything, I recorded myself reading because I think I sound better and more confident when I do. This also means I have a sound recording which is potentially more engaging for you guys and may give you something good to use on the show tomorrow, and if not, I also thought I would include the written version of what I read in case you like any of my points and want to include anything on the website instead or as well. So glad to have made my first steps into the shat community, and really eager to hear what you guys might have to say about any of these thoughts.

I apolagize for it being so long, but since it’s my first one, I had to get some stuff out of the way. I promise my next one will be shorter! I also had to load the damn thing as a google drive link to send over gmail, so I apolagize for that as well. You should still be able to download it, but if not, feel free to contact me or just use the text. I hope all these extra steps don’t dissuade you from wanting to listen to it!

The telegraph reads as followed:

Hey guys,

My name is Zach, and I’m from the San Francisco area, but calling from Israel where I am teaching English for a year. I’m a long time listener and fan of the podcast, and I’ve meant to write or call in many times but I can never seem to get my thoughts together before Friday’s, so I always miss my chance. So I want to share some thoughts about the episode and what it means, and where it’s going, but I also wanted to take this opportunity to say how much I truly appreciate how despite how big your podcast has grown, your devotion to making sure the fans are recognized and feel like part of the conversation has not wavered. It’s the only reason I am taking the time to call today, I listen to a few other big podcasts but sending them feedback is like pissing in the wind, so my sense that you guys will really take my feedback to heart makes you guys stand out from the rest, depends the conversation, and strengthens everyone’s understanding of what’s being discussed. So thank you!

I completely empathize with some of the responses you’ve gotten from people saying they have fallen on hard times and that coming back to your podcast each week has been a safe place to become vulnerable again, question my long-held ideals, and activate mental processes that had been shut down for a while, and helps me feel like me again. I majored in media studies, which is a very hard field to get work in if it is the only degree you have. This has led me down some dark paths, but having a place to go to hear people think critically and actively about something I hold so close to my heart literally gets me out of bed 3 days a week some weeks. I honestly look forward to the podcast more than the episodes themselves, I’ll sit down on Monday morning to watch a new episode (that’s when they release on Israel time), and I will finish an episode and find myself saying “that’s it?” Even to a truly great episode, and I’ve realized that my excitement about westworld is not about the experience of watching the show itself-but rather the experience of attempting to understand what it all means, and no one does it better than you guys. So I thank you and hope that you are able to keep up the good work. I promise that as soon as I am financially stable, I will contribute, so go buy yourselves something nice as a reward knowing that you’ve made a positive impact on at least someone out there. And with any luck, I can take my newfound excitement and curb it into spreading the joy you helped me feel to others in my life, all thanks to your commitment to fair and balanced coverage of this show and it’s story.

By the way, please feel free and encouraged to edit this down. I know I said I’m calling because I don’t want to waste my breath on a message that won’t be heard, but I certainly don’t mean I am hoping you will include a full untruncated version of this in the telegraph.

So on to some thoughts about the episode. I have four points to make this week so bare with me.

First, I don’t think we’re going to see ford in Maeve again because he told Bernard that he was leaving her a message, which I think took the form of a bedside visit and re granting her core permissions. I think we should expect a lot from her next week, but Not ford to be in her still. However, I don’t think we are done with Ford. Based on the way that scene was written and edited, I feel like Nolan and joy are using some time-tested sci-fi tropes to make the potential success of Bernard’s “package deletion” ambiguous. I am running with the impression that ford tricked Bernard into thinking that he was successful in deleting Ford, but think he will reveal that he is still in control next week. My evidence for this is that ford earlier this season told Bernard that he is not ready to “end this” on his own. Ford takes responsibility for this, saying that he did not prepare Bernard for the real world adequately, and that he will have to take control. Not much has changed since then, but now as Ford states as Bernard is trying to delete him-suddenly Bernard is the only person who can “end this?” I don’t believe ford would just make a complete 180 on this so quickly. What do you guys think? Based on how that scene was shown to us, what do you see as the next step for bernord?

Second, I want to point out some evidence to help shed light on the “whose a host and whose a human” game that William and Emily are/were locked in. So…The man in black was shot 4 times in the same area that Emily got shot, but she was only hit one or two times. After williams injury, he was crawling around, being carried on horseback, and after some first aid, was basically fixed. But one or two shots kills Emily? I don’t think I need to read too hard into this to come away thinking that I know how to answer to which is the host built to endure otherwise fatal injuries and which one is the delicate bag of flesh. Obviously there is plenty of trickery going on here and wothball the moving parts, there’s no way to really be confident one way or another, and we will find out for sure on Sunday (or Monday for some of us). Does reflection of this one piece of evidence impact your assumptions about who is what at all? How much stock should I be putting into the medical and physical reactions of hosts vs humans? I’d love to hear your thought.

Third, here’s the real meat n potatoes of my call today. We know this season has been about 11 days-maybe 12 days by now-in the shows chronology, starting the night of the gala and ending most likely with the flood next episode which has been confirmed to be 11 days later. I’m not sure if we know how much time passes in season 1, (maybe you guys can help jog my memory about the span of last seasons “present day” timeline) but it couldn’t have been more than a week and some change. Daddy Delos lasted 35 days in the last test William did. If William turns out to be a host hybrid, could this be the beginning of him breaking down, as his mind rejects his new reality, as we’ve only been tracking him since the beginning of the show which I am proposing was less than a month of “canonized time” ago. We don’t know how old the William host hybrid was at the start of season 1, but this madness over learning who is and isn’t a host that he’s consumed by could be the way William expresses reaching his cognitive plateau. As you guys have discussed, we don’t really know how this process works, and it’s entirely possible that a host hybrid that is never made aware of their transition to a new body might never notice, meaning they would never hit a cognitive plateau. So if that’s true, it doesn’t matter how old the William hybrid is at the start of season 1 as long as he’s never had to question the nature of his reality. Now that he’s being presented by ford and Emily with reasons to doubt his humanity, he is finally starting to fall apart-daddy Delia style. Him shooting his daughter is his version of daddy Delos’ “I feel good as new! Tickers beating like a… like a… ruh!” And carving up his own arm is his version of Jim Delos carving his own face and coming to the “there is no god, just the devils reflection” realization. If true, we can look to the evidence that Both characters expressed their cognitive plateaus through self mutilation with the goal of self dissection in order to gain information on the nature of their own reality, as well as a sense of autonomy over their situation. Humans spend their whole lives coming to terms with our bodies mortality, and we learn to exercise control in our daily lives to build meaning that nullifies our sense of nialism, accepting what we can and cannot control, and internalizing that as part of our world view, allowing us to feel comfortable with what we understand to be the nature of our own fates. As a host hybrid-or even just being unsure if you are one or not-would completely change this paradigm for you and makes complete sense that even as you try to embrace your new found livelihood, you would still have ideas that conflict with your world view on a deep subcontious level, and would impact your behavior and eventually compound into completely abnormal behaviors once enough contradicting ideals destabilize that internalized world view. So Even if William is not a hybrid-it seems like the show has been telling us that people don’t go mad as host hybrids because of something wrong with the technology-they go mad because human consciousnesses are not malleable enough to undergo at least a perceived physical overhaul and stay sane. So it doesn’t matter if William is a host or not, the fact that he is not sure and questioning his reality means that he is already on the same path as a Jim Delos who would have just learned about his host hybrid status. So whether William is a host or not, I like that the show is trying to create a sense of consistency, adding to its believability, by showing that the realization of the implication that your body is no longer your body will lead anyone down a path of madness and self mutilation in an effort to gain information and regain a feeling of control and authority to prove to yourself that despite the changing input from your senses, you are still you on at least some level, and desperate to prove this to yourself, making choices you wouldn’t have made if you were not questioning your reality, leading you down a new path, a new mental journey with new goals for yourself. You want to show yourself that you are still able to make your own choices, and base the rational of those choices on a set of internal heuristics that you built for yourself over your whole life as a product of rationalizing your mortality-which is now gone. So are the choices you make now a product of the consistent track of thoughts you’ve had you’re whole life-making it truly “your” choice, or is it a product of your fcnew mental state, which is not something you control, and by the time it takes over, leaves your personality resembling nothing of the version of you that was not on this path. Perhaps William as a regular human is still hitting his cognitive plateau because no human mind, despite its container, can handle these philosophical self-reflexive questions and remain consistent in the way they actualize their thoughts in the real world, and turning you into-for lack of a better term-a monster of sorts. Not quite human anymore by how we define human consciousness, not a true host (if at all) either, and more violent than either.

And finally, my last point is some overarching framing. In season one, during fords speech at the gala, he says that “the story STARTS in a time of war with a villain named Wyatt,” clearly talking about Dolores shooting him to begin the revolution. But we are missing something to think that this whole story is about her. He also says “but then I realized someone was paying attention. Someone who could change. So I began to compose a new story for them. This time with real stakes. A story about the choices they will have to make, and the people they will choose to become.” I think here is is clearly referencing Bernard, Maeve, and most importantly, Akechetta. So well done to Nolan and joy for planting that seed so well in plain sight and adapting the story as needed but maintaining such an important thread across another 11 episodes. I also wanted to add and get your thoughts on whether that last line-“and the people they will choose to become” was meant literally. We don’t know how the 4ge will allow the host to transition to a new world, what that process looks like, but what do we think it would look like if the host literally choose humans to take the place of or impersonate in the real world? Literally choosing the people they will become out of the options stored in the 4ge? If hosts have to replace a human to leave the park, How might This revelation change how we view the hosts enlightenment struggle? How does this inform what we take away from the show reguarding the value of human consiouness vs the value of all life, or the value of a virtuous life over a non-virtuous one? Is Maeve-the host turned hero-in the real world as valuable as an ex-convict? Is dolores in a humans body objectively better or worse than a human philanthropist in the same body? Does it matter? Basically, Do you murder the rapist to save the children, or is all life precious, like Morgan on twd would have us believe. Sometimes.

Anyway, that’s all guys, I know that was a lot, thanks for listening and I can’t wait to hear your responses and thoughts! Looking forward to being part of the community from here forward!

All the best,
-Zach S.

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