Final Westworld Speculations

Published December 11, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey guys,

Love your podcast, I listen to it as religiously as I watch the show, but anyway I got a theory to wrap the season 1 story together. It’s not complete because I can’t wrap my mind around the motivations behind the whole massacre thing, but here goes.

35 years ago, Arnold wanted to create true consciousness, he did not want to essentially enslave a group of sentient creatures for profit. Ford refused to see them as anything more then robots. “The incident” was orchestrated by Arnold but spoiled and covered up by Ford. It included Arnold’s death by Dolores, and a massacre by her and Teddy. Arnold hoped the result would be the desruction of Westworld as an amusement park.

5 years later Dolores meets William, and tries to remember her past (more specifically “the incident” and killing Arnold). She and William travel to the town, but Logan kills her, resetting her loop, erasing her progress, and devestating William.

William marries Juliet, invests in Westworld and continues a “relationship” with Dolores (50 first dates style). Sometimes he’s romantic and sometimes he’s just frustrated and mean.

Eventually, after 29 years of this, his wife kills herself from years of neglect, and William kills Maeve and her daughter in a savage act of self discovery. He witnesses something he has never seen before, the ability of the hosts to remember, to live beyound death, to be conscious; the maze. William then begins his journey as the Man in Black (1) to unlock the mysteries of the maze, (2) to uncover the last secret (Arnold’s origin story), or (3) to unlock Dolores again, maybe.

Meanwhile, Ford knows that Delos wants him out. He updates the hosts with the new reveries, giving them access to past memories knowing that certain 1st generation hosts will respond and act out of loop. He creates his new narrative, rooted in truth, the original narrative, Arnold’s narritive. Dolores begins her solo journey to find the maze again, bringing her back to the original town, Escalante, where she is remembering a time when her and the other 1st generation hosts lived there.

Everyone is now converging on Escalante, and Dolores and Teddy will be reunited but both will remember massacring the town and why, creating a new event that Ford (1) hopes will scare away Delos, (2) uses to keep control of the park (blackmail?), or (3) hopes will destroy the park like Arnold wanted to do 35 years ago.

In the end, I hope I’m really just right about this: season 1 is just the origin story. Westworld hints at a lot of interesting topics and ideas without diving head first into them. One huge example being the true intentions of Delos (I do beleive we will see some storylines around the genetic property acquired by the park). I hope and beleive they will wrap up the mystery of 35 yeats agos, the identity of the MIB, Ford’s real narrative and motivations, and the motivations behind Dolores and Teddy.

What things they will keep us waiting on are the outcome of Maeve’s rebellion, the true intentions of Delos, and if Ford will continue his work at the park.

Keep up the good work

~Mindy

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