Ford -Hero Or Villian

Published May 10, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

I don’t know why I’m still emailing but when I need to get thoughts out I am going for it!

Now I will not go so far as the call him a hero. Now heroism to some can be subjective but the definition of a hero is fairly clear.

a person who, in the opinion of others, has special achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is regarded as a role model or idea a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character

Ford was no hero but more an anti-hero in response to loss. It reminds me of another show in which Annalise Keating is louted the hero when none of her actions or the actions of a hero. A hero does the right thing no matter their personal desires or consequences. Ford was very much a puppet master that played a very devilish, cruel, and disastrous game whose effects are still unknown. It’s almost premature labeling him a hero as there are too many missing variables. We only know a small clue to the outside world and we’ve watched everything through the eyes and the hosts but never from the outside world.

We assume it’s only “rich assholes” that are the abusers in the situation but that’s because we’ve only watched things from a black hat perspective. There are families that come to the park and DON’T attack hosts. The board members are equally “unclassified” as good or bad people. Simply put; we don’t know the full scope of what Westworld is and what it means and the effect it has had on many different people in the world.

As in all things that involve a divide; there are innocent victims. Again, these ” rich ass holes” are coming to place they see as machines who look like people but aren’t real. They have no concept of these hosts as people or how anyone would act accordingly. Right now, they are simply gamers. I mean the things played in video games right now in real life is appalling yet there’s a freedom in knowing it’s just “make believe.” The enticement is to act out and take actions you may not “normally take”

Ford was aware the hosts could achieve human consciousness via his own experience with Maeve. Now I understand his motives of why he tortured this beings with experience to teach them human nature as and from a logical standpoint he did what he felt was necessary and proved to be necessary in preparing the hosts to achieve a measure of freedom. However, he never shied away from the fact that he himself believes he’s liberator. A hero does not take action that benefits themselves in any way. Ford had all the characteristics of a megalomaniac. I liked the host analogy of “if a murdered saves kittens, that doesn’t make him any less a murderer.” Exactly.

Just because Ford relinquished his title of dictator didn’t stop him from ingratiating himself into this revolution to be seen in the cruelest. Hosts had been going mad for YEARS and they had been rolling them back for YEARS and the time was ready when “HE” was ready and HE was ready when DELOS was kicking him out. There’s just enough self-preservation there do eradicate any ideal of heroism however it’s such a common human flaw (to be remembered not by the worst versions of ourselves but the best). In the end he was just a man.

BTW, convinced Charlotte Hale is the MIB daughter.

Christina Jones

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