Tremors Create A Bernard/Delos Connection?

Published May 14, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi, Guys,

So I just finished listening to your instacast, and I wanted to pass along some thoughts from this week’s journey into the Westworld maze. I think we need to spend some time really looking at what Bernard finds in lab 12, and how that relates to what MIB says to Jim Delos in that final interaction between William (MIB) and Pappa D #149. So, to start, William introduces us to the idea of cognitive plateaus, and we find out that they have only increased the number of days Delos is able to exist in a stable fashion from 7 to 35. To us, the viewer, it seems that the experiment is a failure, but that might not be the whole story. Just because Jim Delos’ mind is not syncing correctly with the host technology does not mean no one else will or has. Perhaps there is something to do with the quality of the mind or the integrity of the mind that determines if it can be uploaded into a host body and work successfully. Jim Delos was horribly sick when they began to capture his mind. Maybe like how code can become corrupted, his DNA was corrupted, so it isn’t transferring correctly or as seamlessly.

Further, we know that Bernard was sent to the lab to print another person’s consciousness onto that red ball and then the lab was basically rendered useless, so whoever is on that red ball would have to be one of the most important people in our story. The obvious answer here is Ford, so it could prove to be true that Ford expects or expected his own mind to be uploaded into a host or into the network on the whole. That is certainly evidenced by how often the hosts randomly will speak his words, his thoughts to the MIB in the park. We saw that with Baby Bob Bot in the first episode and again this week with the daughter.

Moreover, I think we already know where this has occurred in some fashion with Bernard. Perhaps aspects of Arnold’s mind were transferred to Bernard, which is why he’s so good at fixing hosts, since Arnold was the true maker and mind behind that technology. And I think we cannot ignore that the signal of a cognitive plateau in Delos has been repeated with Bernard this entire season- the shaking of the hands and limbs. It cannot be coincidence that Bernard also shakes when going critical, so perhaps what he is experiencing is a cognitive plateau as a result of the experience of being shot in the head. Now, stick with me here. Think about it. Arnold chose to die by being shot in the head by Delores. Then, Bernard was forced to shoot himself in the head by Ford. That type of trauma and an unexpected loop between host and human may have broken him in some way. Perhaps our idea of cornerstones can be extended here. We know that we have cornerstones that connect our hosts to reality (Bernard’s son… Maeve’s daughter) but perhaps there is more than one cornerstone. Maybe a cornerstone of trauma, like the way Arnold chose to die could be replicating itself with Bernard and causing there to be a cognitive break, a critical error. I would be curious to know if you think I’m crazy about that, but I think we can never ignore the details on West world, and this is one detail (the shaking of Delos and the tremors experienced by Bernard) that we need to pay attention to over the coming weeks.

Anyhow, happy theory hunting. Looking forward to the deep dive.

-Ashley from Houston

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