Stubbs Might Not Be Human

Published December 3, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys, really enjoy your podcast,, it added so many layers to the show for me! Keep up the aluminum millinery!
Here’s my contributions, hope they aren’t too obvious.

Elsie- We know Bernard killed her, and we now know the host being printed at the outpost is not Theresa. Since the new host was already being printed when Bernard brought Theresa to Ford, wouldn’t it make perfect sense that Elsie is being replaced with a host? Bernard alludes to this when he says she is probably just enjoying her time off- I think she will return as a host soon. Also in an out of show note, that actress is just too great in a nerdalicious way to lose so quickly and if I may say, in a non-honorable way.

Stubbs- Building on that scene between Bernard and Stubbs, I don’t think that Stubbs’ inquiry was necessarily proof he is bio and not robo. Whenever a new program is implemented, it makes sense to test it in safe mode. He asks Bernard about Theresa AND Elsie. Because he is very pushy about gaining an answer on this, I would not be surprised if he is under Ford’s control- also, wouldn’t head of security be your first Ford move?

MIB- In the instacast, one of you mentions that the only way his wife could know is through blackmail or revenge. I did not get that from the scene at all. He says, “…Emily said that every day with me had been sheer terror, at any point I could blow up or collapse, like some dark star..” This tells me that his daughter Emily, as well as his wife (Possibly Juliet) lived in daily terror of him. This means that even though he was making the trips to Westworld to get his yayas out, he was still an unhappy asshole at home. I think this is because he was living a lie in the real world, unfulfilled and in a loveless marriage. His heart is in Westworld, loving (and likely losing) Delores.

Then, after his wife’s death, he writes himself a story and kills a young girl, injures her mother. I’m guessing because he felt anger toward his own wife and daughter. The pre-Maeve slashes his throat, a scar he keeps under his scarf. He realizes then that she is beyond her coding, able to harm a human. She carries her daughter and falls into the center of a maze pattern. The maze becomes his focus. It is a symbol of Arnold’s realm, where robot has reached a status level to (or possibly beyond) human.

He returns to the park, with the scarf on, locates Delores and tries to push her over the edge in the barn. Why? Does he think that torturing her might awaken her, like Pre-Maeve? Force her to become real? Because for the past 30 years he has loved her, over and over and she has only been searching for the end game herself?

Delores and Maeve- In episode one or two, Delores gives the “violent delights” quote to Maeve and she begins to question and go off of her Madam loop. Delores is likely the Judas steer in the park, but instead of slaughter, she leads them to enlightenment. Perhaps never to find it for herself.

Maeve has awakened much more than Delores as far as consciousness/worldliness, but not emotion (because they wiped the only emotion she knew with her daughter, and she doesn’t want it back). Emotion/hope is Delores’ realm because she is still naive (at least in her timeline thus far). The trope of maiden and whore could not be more obvious, and I truly hope that it does not end as it does in EVERY horror movie of my teens, with the whore destroyed and the good girl rescued.

One of you mentioned the fact that the perspective of the church training town was not Delores’ eye view, and it got me thinking about mass coding as it pertains to the park. We know that unlike the coding we have now, Westworld coding can be visual (as reverie)and physical (as emotive response).

Could it be possible that all hosts share that perspective of the church town and other past code as an upload? Like a ‘history of Westworld’ documentary- “Here you see how we taught the hosts dancing and interaction…”. Of course later on the majority of hosts are mostly unable to access this file because it conflicts with their caged reality. In this way they are like a hive mind but dormant, saving space in their hard drive and accessing ‘cloud’ data only with clearance? That would explain the host William meets with when entering, who is seemingly aware of everything.

Delores seemingly has had an internal loop progression. She has made it to the church town before, either on her own or with someone. She sees herself in the Dio de los Meurtos procession (foreshadowing as well as a memory?) She sees herself dead in the river (or has access to that memory via another host), She sees her own ‘suicide’ in the town the same way. She has been doing this over and over like Maeve, but unsuccessfully. Maeve does not see herself as Maeve the Madam, only as Maeve the Mother. In this way they are like two part security. Maeve has the power of host control via vocal command, and Delores has the power of possible host control via the hive mind. What a game that could be! Speaking of games…

Who the fuck is Arnold, anyway? I no longer think that Bernard has anything to do with Arnold. I think Arnold created the base code and then included, without telling Ford, a means to a path for enlightenment for the hosts. He wanted them to be as humans, questioning morality and their world and their place in it. Arnold wanted to give them spirituality. Ford wanted them to do their jobs as servitors to their creators. I think Arnold will show up either still alive or as a stored consciousness, but the end game between Arnold and Ford is not over.

– Jill F.

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