It Took a Few Days, and the Deep Dive, But This Is My Final Take

Published December 8, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

I cannot express enough how much I appreciate you guys. I will say after watching the finale, I was pissed off. I felt confused, rushed, and had too many questions running through my head to enjoy. After the Instacast (thanks gene for expressing how I felt), and then the deep dive, and reading around on the data dump that comes after the finish of a full season, I’m now in love with the finale, and have developed my grand theory of putting it all together, which for me, makes me excited for season 2.

Yes, I will admit I was caught up in the side twists and turns of the series (still mad that Teddy isn’t made in William’s likeness; I still see no proof that hosts eat) I clung on to them, instead of seeing the bigger picture. It is because of your telegraph (yes I went back and listened to a majority of them after the finale), I have zoomed out of the little gotcha moments and can see, what I think, is the big picture. So here it goes:

I do not believe Ford is a “Good God”. I do not believe, even in that last scene with his touching goodbye to Dolores and Bernard, that he in any way, truly cares about the Hosts bettering of life. I believe he is still doing everything for his own person agenda. I will admit I am a full believer that Ford created a Host Self in the basement (when Bernard killed Teresa) and that he has downloaded his human consciousness into that Hosts, to stay alive forever. I think we have seen a full season of how Ford has his own ideas for humanity or host-humanity, and I think there is evidence of this all.

First, Ford has an entire Ford Family hanging out in a cabin in the woods. Maybe I am hung up on the details, but to make such a point in giving us this mini-Ford-family that is untouched by all, who Hosts cannot even see, to leave them there and willingly die without wrapping that up seems suspicious. Again they spent time with his greyhound analogy and little-Ford killing the dog because “Arnold told him to”. I understand the metaphor of the dog was on a grander scale, Dolores is the dog that has now caught the rabbit of “free will” or consciousness, and now the rest of this series will be an unfolding of what happens now that she’s got just what she’s always wanted, but on a much smaller scale, there is something else there. A surprise in Ford’s voice when talking to his little counterpart, or maybe it was just the reaction on his face when he realized the boy had killed the dog, there is something else going on there, besides the stark parallel to Dolores’ life.

Second, the Maze. When Bernard is speaking with Ford, way back when, about Arnold and his theories, Ford does not mention the maze, at all, to Bernard. He shows him the pyramid, he draws it out on his chalkboard like oh here’s what my insane partner dreamt up that made him go mad. If he knew about “the maze” and how a Host truly gains consciousness, why wouldn’t you at that moment say “well we first thought it was was this pyramid but then we realized it was a Maze but hey Bernard no ones gotten to the center yet so let’s sit back and wait!” I mean, there could be obvious reasons that he didn’t explain it, but if he knew about the Maze, why then, when he was walking through Las Mudas with the construction demo team did he stop, look at the men playing a game see the Maze and race back to his office, find Arnold’s notebook and stare at it?

Third, Ford’s huge monologue in the first or second episode where he addresses that we, as human society, have advanced as far as we could, cured diseases, made even the weakest of us strong, but we have not cured death yet, we have not made death inevitable. He lingered on that thought, at least, I felt he lingered on that thought, that the last thing standing in the way was somehow making eternal life. This conversation was profound when it first happened but now looking at what he has done, this “sacrifice” he has made…for the hosts…? something is off.

So where am I getting at? Here’s the rub of it: Dr. Ford is a maniacal God, whatever label you want to use really, but he is not the savior of the hosts, he did not just spend the last 35 years torturing them to then one day let them free, kill him, and run the world, he does not give a fuck about their happiness their consciousness or their feelings at all. No. He spent the last 35 years looking for how to make them conscious, for his own fucking gain. He wants to be immortal, and the Hosts he was producing were just that, immortal, but not fully perfected, they were not conscious, and he wanted a way to retain his consciousness while being immortal.

The cabin in the woods with his lil-Ford family? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that was his first real test subject, how much torture could one host go through, before they obtain consciousness. So when lil-Ford kills the dog and says “Arnold told me to, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone” it clicked, he’s gained empathy, he saw the dog killing another living thing and he had to do something, off his loop, of “free” mind. But little-Ford was still in the bi-cameral state, he still heard what he labeled as the “voice” of Arnold justifying the action of killing the dog by reasoning it was a good decision to stop the animal from continuing to kill. So he was getting closer, but no real cigar.

He starts stumbling on the image of the “Maze”, and even has a talk with the biggest investor, and someone who had a Host on the brink of consciousness, William(MiB) who speaks about a Maze, and then he goes and runs to Arnold’s book and finds “the maze” in there, and it clicks. He realizes right then and there that it isn’t a pyramid, it’s a maze, it’s the series of choices that one goes through, and the decisions one makes, and how they JUSTIFY THOSE REASONS AFTER THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE (props to the telegrapher who submitted this, I can’t find his name at the moment but THANK YOU!). But now it clicks within Ford that the Hosts, in order to be fully conscious, need to hear their own minds, to make their own decisions and then hear their own reasoning for those decisions in their own voices to truly be “alive”.

Which brings us to his monologue. I think he wants immortality, and he has now the puzzle pieces in place that he knows how to obtain consciousness in a Host, and therefore, he can download his consciousness into a Host, and live on forever. After he realizes that Bernard, Maeve, and Dolores, and even little Ford out in the woods have all suffered to the point where they each have been on the brink of consciousness, he is now ready to give up his human body, transfer himself into a Host, and wait for the hosts to take over the world before he emerges to take control of them all and live out infinity ruling the world. (yes I know its sort of planet of the apes….but I mean….is that really such a bad thing?)

There is also that whole “know your enemy Dolores” that he said. If you are a God, and you are looking to better your people, why are you sending them off on a mission to know an enemy and destroy? (yes i get the irony that religion, in general, has been put on a path to hate anything BUT those who agree with the religion but in my own personal belief I refuse to believe any “God” would want anyone to hate another, but rather understand and accept the differences for the betterment of society as a whole, but I’m a dreamer). He doesn’t want to create a society where Humans and Hosts live in this symbiotic world, he wants the Hosts to take over, because the only way he can live forever is to be a host, and the only way to ensure that no one ever does to him what he has done to these hosts, is to eliminate humans entirely! And this plot could be even further enforced if you take into account he was pulling all of Maeve’s strings, her entire faking of real consciousness was nothing more than a ploy to get her out of the park. Why would that be her narrative? why did the tablet specifically instruct as for the last step “Mainland Infiltration” unless he wanted someone on the outside, who would help him further his takeover of the world? Yes he gave her the will to choose, but then he is the anti-Dolores and where Dolores choose freely to do what he wanted, Maeve did not. What repercussions could she face now that she has betrayed God’s true will?

[I will also note that there is some good in Ford. Whether it is for his own benefit still I can’t figure out just yet, but I will say Elsie and Stubbs are alive, and I will say that Felix and Sylvester were also spared because all four of those humans showed some sort of humanity to the hosts (unlike the guests who populate it). So ill go out on a limb and say maybe he doesn’t hate ALL humans right now, but really hates a majority.]

Ok so I know we’re going on like, thesis-sized theory but here it is. We have not see the last of Ford. While he had made the sacrifice (like in the movie prestige, Huge Jackman’s character killing himself every night for the trick) of killing his human self. But he has, somewhere in that Park, a Host Ford that we will not see until either the end of season 2, or the end of the series, I can’t foresee when, but he is not long gone. He did nothing noble, he did it for himself. He does not love the Hosts and wish for them a full alive conscious life, he has just forced evolution, and instead of advancing the human race which is at a dead end in his opinion, Humans are the Neanderthals he referenced before, and will soon be eaten by the more dominate race, Hosts.

Again, re-watching the finale, thinking about this bigger machine running the whole show, this is how I’ve come to cope with the finale being the rush job I felt it was. I also think. what a spectacular view of our world, if the “present” is taking place really in 2052, and Arnold’s death would be roughly 2018, that would mean Ford is a fucking Millennial, he’s me, he’s my generation, and with how egotistical, snobby, pretentious, self-centered and feeling almighty that my generation seems to have, I can TOTALLY see that someone right now, in 30 years time, given this type of technological advancement, would want the same fucking thing, immortality, and control. Isn’t it fitting?

And just to prove how on the money right you guys are sometimes: You guys talked about in a podcast once, that if the math of the park was correct (1400 guests or so) the line for Maeve would be greater than anything Space Mountain has seen. HOW RIGHT WERE YOU! it didn’t make logical sense, but if the math is correct and we are talking about MULTIPLE PARKS, then in I can see why there is not a line out the brothel, or why there isn’t a hoard going on bounty hunts. You were the only ones to point out this seemingly fundamental flaw in what we were being told, 1400 people in a park even the size of Westworld, you would still be in the line for plenty of the attractions. so hats off to you three. I can’t help but think of how funny it is now.

Now let’s watch some chaos ensue.

(I’m sorry for the rambling and if I go off and repeat myself I’m cramming to get this in before 5 and out of all days, today work is hectic HA! I didn’t even proof read this but yeah rushing!!)

Thanks again for everything you do,

Gillian

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