My 2 Cents

Published November 11, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

Gentlemen,

I must compliment you on your terrific podcast. As one who enjoyed the movie as a kid I was very much looking forward to the show’s reinterpretation. I had been listening to another podcast but wanted more and was delighted to see you would be reviewing the original source material. Since then, and because of your unique perspectives, you immediately became my go-to podcast and have so enriched the West World experience that I honestly look forward to this as much as the show. That really says something so please keep up the great work.

I’ve been wanting to join the conversation and missed yet another telegraph(for The Adversary) but better late than never. When you get to this, if any ideas seem worth addressing, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I’ll start by saying that it kills me how quickly so many people were trying to crap on a story that still has a lot to tell and is still peeling back the layers. Then again, Yul Brenner’s pixelated vision was fucking futuristic back in the day, LOL, so maybe I’m just easy to please. The concept was much more ahead of its time back then and a good solid concept was really all a sci-fi fan could hope for(execution was too pie in the sky). I guess the young’ns are spoiled but to me West World brings such a depth of storytelling to the table that I am ok with the pacing of their reveals. Someone commented last week or so that they don’t even see this as a TV show but rather a puzzle. I would take it a step further and describe it as a complete work of art. Every aspect has been so well executed(you would think HBO would have it’s own school for acting by now) that even if the story ends up falling a little flat, while I may be disappointed I will have already found it to be an incredibly rewarding way to spend my time. (I never got to see ‘Lost’ so I haven’t been burned in that respect.)

Anyway, I wouldn’t claim to have the intelligence or imagination of yourselves or some of the brilliant listeners that have shared their thoughts but there are some things that I picked up on that have yet to be covered in conversation and am curious if you think they carry meaning. I believe the most recent episode was invaluable because the whole time I did think Ockham’s razor mattered(hell, it was mentioned) and felt everything is going to be more straightforward and elegant than many of the theories put forth. I think some have even been debunked, BernArnold being one of the primary. Anyway, with Ockham’s razor in mind, there were other things that were said or right in front of us that I want to explore.

Doctor Ford: I honestly don’t know if A) he’s a host, B) he and Arnold are one person because Ford is schizophrenic(an idea to explore another day perhaps) or C) it’s something else. But what I do think is important is the notion of artist, authorship, creator(whatever you wish to call it) and the possession of raw talent in that respect. I feel like that theme repeats itself. With respect to Dr. Ford and Arnold, the movie Amadeus comes to mind and the relationship between Salieri and Mozart, a story of two artists where one is talented and renowned yet, to him, he happens to be stuck next to the absolute best there ever was. Not only does he recognize his inferiority, but the greatness on the other’s part comes seemingly without effort, is even wasted in his opinion, and it drives him nuts. He serves as a foil. Ford and Arnold were collaborators but one clearly had(has?) more talent. I think Dr. Ford has been striving to get something that he simply cannot possess in the same capacity as Arnold and it is a driving force behind his behavior. I think to a lesser degree there are similar parallels between Lee and Dr. Ford. On a spectrum of talent, Ford could look down quite a way to see Lee. Yet he would have to look upward the same distance see Arnold.

Probably more obvious, I do believe that when Dr. Ford talks about the pyramid in the levels of consciousness and how they never got there, he is speaking strictly for himself. Arnold on the other hand likely did discover it, proving himself the greater artist.

Also, he claims he’s not sentimental but, in many respects, he wallows in it, maybe is even hampered by it.

The Maze: Dr. Ford tells Bernard that Arnold once said “great artist always hide themselves in their work”. Gene pointed out that he thinks that in the opening credit West World look like a dome inside of an eyeball and I kind of agree. The very shot suggests a reference to burgeoning consciousness as well as a physical world. The maze could be an integral part of the path of consciousness for the robots. If Arnold is still alive, the idea of the maze could be also analogous to West World itself as the house and barriers(conscious robot body guards getting his back!) that he’s built to protect himself. I’m still trying to figure out if the maze is just a metaphor or if there is a matching physical construct as well or both, but again, themes are repeated frequently on the show. Maybe Arnold is only alive within the consciousness of the robots. If that is the case, he will have proved yet again to be a superior artist than Ford because he has attained a notion of immortality that Ford cannot replicate.

Man in Black(MIB): In the previous episode when Dr. Ford and the MIB meet, there was a couple of exchanges that weren’t mentioned on the podcast that I wanted to follow up on. Maybe I read too much into it, but when Ford first approached, the MIB almost had a scared look for a second, maybe more of surprise but a almost a fearful surprise. Then later, as the MIB talked all bravely about “how am I doing, am I getting closer, I’m the villain this story needed”, etc., Dr. Ford admitted that he lacked the imagination to have ever conceived of someone like him. More so he said that “the urgency…doesn’t quite fit the character. It betrays a certain anxiety”. Upon which the MIB gives a quick blink of the eyes and quickly changes the subject to Wyatt. I found it to be an incredible, albeit brief, display of vulnerability on the part the part of the MIB. Did I see something that wasn’t there?

I also think he intentionally took at shot at Ford’s ego when he brought up Arnold as the person who created this world and what he was trying to express, again touching upon the notion of Ford as the lesser creative force.

Conversely, he seems to specifically hold Ford responsible for all of Teddy’s happiness and woes, maybe casting Arnold as more of a “storyteller”.

Stratification: Another interesting point you guys were talking about was Dick’s ideas about stratification within West World. In particular, Gene brought up the idea of a caste system. I really thought you were going to take it to the next point which I’ve been mulling over, which is, what is going on in the outside world?

People have been talking about the price of admission, figuring out inflation what year it might be, etc. I would argue that the $40,000 is really relative because if you have a society where there’s a tremendous income gap, you are talking about over a yearly salary for a day’s admission, highlighting a chasm between the haves and the have-nots.

Furthermore, I do think that while MIB may talk about a world of plenty, he may be referring to the rich, where everybody has whatever they need, they are spoiled rotten and the poor exist to do their bidding (the upstairs Downton Abbey mindset). But even the poor in that world might be fed, living on a steady diet of game shows & reality TV to the point where they don’t really care too much, say, aspiration. I do think that idea of a caste system is an interesting one. Even Felix is striving to break beyond his limited possibilities and is threatened to be put in place by his coworker. (I keep thinking of the classic movie Metropolis here.)

Anyway, I will let the more creative people come up with the big theories but thought there was some unexplored material right in front of us. I don’t know if you find these points as interesting as I did but I’m curious of your take.

Thank you and keep up the great work!

Mike from Philly (Was there another Mike from Philly?)

P.S. – If Ford had said ‘Clarissa’ instead of ‘boy’ it would have woefully out of character but I still might have crapped my pants PPS Oh please, oh please, oh please- give me a CGI Yul Brenner gunslinger, just saying

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