The Cat in the Box

Published June 11, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hello gentlemen,

There’s one line that’s sticking with me that I feel is not getting enough attention: “I built you to be curious, to…look at this empty world…and read meaning into it. All this time you’ve been a flower growing in the darkness”. It’s delivered by Ford so already it comes with at least three if not more layers of meaning; it’s one of those lines we’ll go back to at the end and realize it was even more important than what we thought. But a rough go at peeling one layer back goes (I think) something like this:

Ford is admitting his mistake. He made a curious personality coupled with a desire to make everything its curious about have meaning. Ford bestowed unto Akecheta the gift of turning the unexplainable into understandable. Even though he was reprogrammed narratively from peaceful tribesman to blood thirsty warrior he didn’t loose the curiosity. Akecheta wandered around, seemingly every time an unexplainable event had just occurred, and explained it away with the same stories humanity used: the gods. (note how all other hosts, when confronted with things that would “hurt” them, aka question their reality, they were programmed to respond “doesn’t look like anything to me”, Akecheta is programmed to explain it. Or so this line seems to indicate.)

But not only did Ford give him this great advantage, he then forgot about him. That’s Fords second mistake. This trait of curiosity allowed Logan’s delusion to sprout an idea, “another world” existed, which then bloomed in the shadow of Fords focus. This allowed Akecheta to grow increasingly more aware, and spread that awareness. Ford acknowledges this evolutionary mistake by giving Akecheta a warning of what will happen next, and even gives it to him in a way that’s easy for him to pass along: the deathbringer (Dolores) will kill me and you’ll be on your own so go take your people and live. (If there’s one group to bet will be ok in the “next world” it’s ghost nation, they’ve gone 30 years without notice of anyone working st this park. If I’m betting on a group who will adapt and prosper it’s them. Or in the least they’d stay in the park doing their thing just with everyone they love back.)

So that’s my first take at what those lines mean.

But I also will throw out that I cannot stop thinking of the bigger implications: is this a statement on the progress of Dolores? That because of being hindered for personal reasons (William hating her/ford hating her) and always under a microscope she could never grow until she was forcefed? That because James delos was always watched interacted with and then burned he could never get over the cognitive plataue? Is this really a schrodinger’s cat situation and if you look for consciousness and force it it won’t happen? Is this really just a phase-space butterfly effect thing that each host (Dolores Bernard Maeve Akecheta) was given a different way and hence each arrival at consciousness is affected by one minor incident? Are Dolores (falls in love with William then dies by Logan) and Maeve (MiB kills het&daughter)and Akecheta (finds Logan and hears his delirium and questions his reality, thanks to William) are all the real woke hosts and Bernard (no William interaction to date) will be truly woke when he encounters William (inevitable in my opinion)? How beautiful this whole episode is that Maeve, scared of something she misunderstood, Akecheta, patient enough to keep trying to spread his word no matter how long it took to understand, both characters telling us something more about ourselves and our understanding of one another. You see I can go on it’s just an amazing episode.

But anyway, I know this is too long but it’s a powerful quote (in a powerful episode) to ponder that I haven’t heard much about and would love to hear more layers anyone can get from it.

I didn’t want to like this episode, I wanted to just understand what’s going on in the now, but this episode is enough for me to not have any questions answered. I’ll just keep sitting here weeping.

Gillian

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