Lots of Questions and Some Crack Potting

Published November 25, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey guys,

I’ve just recently discovered your podcast (and Westworld in general), and I love it. So thank you very much for the time and effort you’re putting in it.

Normally I enjoy reading or listening to theories, but I’m really bad at coming up with them. So I have never participated in any of those debates, so excuse me if my questions are stupid. But on my second rewatch of Westworld, I found some things that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around, and I haven’t found them debated anywhere, so I thought I just mail you and see what you think about it [ ]

1. Why isn’t Bernard affected by voice commands?

In this weeks Telegraph you said that Bernard is probably just like any other host. However, this seems highly unlikely to me. The staff must have some kind of “freeze everybody in the area” command, which is used for example when they collect Clementine. Bernard cannot be affected by this kind of commands because otherwise people would have found out that he’s a host. So we must assume that Bernard, just like his ghost family, is only affected by Fords commands. But this also raises some problems I believe. As coincidence wants it, there must have been moments in their work, where Ford gave an “freeze all in the area” command and where other human employees were present. So either Bernard didn’t freeze, which leaves me wondering why not? Or he did freeze, but then people must have noticed. So the question how exactly Ford’s mind control/voice command functions exactly is a huge mystery, that hopefully will be solved soon.

2. Two timelines

First of all, I believe that the two timeline theory is very plausible and there are a lot of hints that will be hard to explain in a one timeline theory. But: there are a few things that I believe don’t really fit the two timeline theory. So I’m basicly playing devil’s advocate here hoping that you might have some answers. a. The MIB says that he first came to the park 30 years ago. He also says that at the beginning he opened some of the hosts up to see what they were made of and that back then they were beautiful and not sad pieces of flesh. However, in the William and Logan timeline, that supposedly is from 30 years ago, we see some violent scenes (Logan ramming a fork in some guy’s hand, explosions, fill the dead guy with nitro etc.) and at no point do we see anything else than sad pieces of flesh. Nothing even remotely close to what Child-Ford looks on the inside. But okay, I guess we could say that we have never one being cut open precisely for that purpose.

b. Then there is this episode where William and Dolores have to flee from Paraia after all hell breaks lose there. Dolores says something like “we have to get on the train, that’s the only way out now”. So we can assume that after all that mess with stolen nitro, the confederados put up some kind of a road block or something to restrict people from entering or leaving Paraia. And then, in that same episode the MIB and Teddy hit some kind of a roadblock and are told by some dudes on a wagon that “after what happened in Paraia, this road is closed”, so they take Teddy’s suicide road. My point is that William and Dolores making a mess in Paraia and in the same episode the MIB and Teddy facing a road block “after what happened in Paraia”, it seems to big of a coincidence. I mean Logan seems very happy when they find what he calls an easter egg, that leads them to Paraia. Which means before that Logan would not have known how to get there, so probably it’s pretty far out. That means that probably not many guests get as far as Paraia, so it seems very unlikely that in two different timelines there just happens to be an incident in Paraia. So I think there is reason to believe that both William and the MIB are experiencing the same Paraia incident.

c. When Dolores is in Paraia in this giant brothel and wanders around hallucinating, at some point she sees the satellite transmitter in her arm and rips it out. However, if it was Theresa who inserted those transmitters to smuggel out data (I think there is reason to believe so, because if the transmitters would be a standard built in feature, Elsie wouldn’t have been so shocked when she found one in the wood cutters arm), then how is it possible that Dolores has one in her arm back in the William timeline much before the Theresa timeline. But okay, I guess if she’s retracing her adventure from 30 years ago, it makes sense that this gets scrambeled up as she’s hallucinating.

d. Also in Paraia during the carneval when she sees herself in the ground, it is present day Ford’s voice that tells her to wake up and then has this unpleasant conversation with her (“are we friends?” – “no, i wouldn’t say that”). So again two possibilities: Either he wakes her up from the William timeline, which would mean that the William timeline and old Ford are in the same timeline, ergo there is only one timeline. Or he wakes her up from her present day quest on reliving her experience from 30 years ago, which would mean that Ford is very much aware of Dolores’ quest but still lets her continue (because afterswards she gets to the village of the shooting and all). If present day Ford knew that Dolores was alone on a quest of self discovery, it seems more than likely that he would put her back in her loop and do some memory wiping, instead of letting her continue. If she was with William and Logan however, it would make sense that he had to let her continue because otherwise it would be interfering the William and Logan’s experience.

e. This one is related to William=MIB. In the telegraph you say that the MIB might just be trying to trigger Dolores’ humanity through some kind of trauma and that he does it because he actually loves her. I think there are two points against this theory. First when he drags her into the barn and she screams and fights he says “I didn’t pay all this money cause I want it easy. I want you to fight.” I think this strongly contradicts any theory that suggests that he has any other motivation than enjoying Dolores’ suffering. And secondly, after the night in the barn the MIB and Dolores meet again the next morning in the city where Dolores is nice as always and seems to have forgotten the previous night. To what the MIB says something like sorry, today I have already other plans Dolores. This also suggests that Dolores is not even close to being the center piece of his stay in the park. It sounds more like she’s the fun welcome rape he does every time before he goes of for some other quests.

So all those details might have some other explanations, but all of them together make me at least doubt the two timeline theory. I would really appreciate it if you could shed some light on it for me.

3. Peter Abernathy is patient zero

Last but not least, I believe Peter Abernathy’s role in the whole maze and quest for consciousness and all hasn’t been pointed out yet. People usually talk about Dolores being the first one that awakened 30 years ago. Or Dolores being the one that triggered Maeve by whispering “those violent delights…” which brings Maeve to being the first one awakening. However, actually the first (at least from the scenes we have seen so far) to start this is Peter Abernathy. He sees the photo and suddenly it does look like something to him, which makes him sit the whole night outside thinking about it. The next morning he shows it to Dolores who has no reaction whatsoever to it. Only when he whispers “the violent delights..” thing, she seems startled and some processing begins in here.

The same with Maeve. As we see when she finds her repeated drawings of the bio hazard guys. This means she must have seen and rememberd and drawn them before. And when she put the drawing in her hiding spot she must have seen her previous drawing. But for some reason this never lead to the chain reaction we see after Dolores whisperes the “violent delight” thingy to her. So I believe this must be some code phrase to unlock something. But the one who “came up” with it and transmits it other host was Peter Abernathy.

So when they took him out and put him in cold storage and he was never seen of or heard of again, I felt really disappointed since there was a lot of explaining to do, in my opinion, about why exactly he was the first one to react without apparent interference other than a photo. And last episode, when Charlotte went to cold storage and picked precisely him I was beyond excited. For her it might have just been a random pick (there is no reason to believe that she even knew who he was), but for the story this is important.

They didn’t just bring him back because he’s cool and the actor is awesome. I believe he is the key to understanding what triggered the awakening in the present timeline, he was the patient zero that infected Dolores who infected Maeve. “The violent delights…” seems to be the trigger, but how he himself got triggered is crucial to understanding the present day awakening I believe.

I am so very sorry, my original intention was to write you a few lines with my points, but this has become a little extensive… Thank you for reading!

Keep up the great work and lots of greetings from Portugal,

Vanessa

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