William As Death Reborn

Published May 16, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Sorry, forgot to ID myself. This is Ken Listwak.

I have a theory for where the Man in Black’s storyline is headed.

We know that Ford is engineering William’s path through the park and acting through various hosts to speak directly to him. Young Ford tells him to find the Door and that his game begins where he ends and ends where he begins, while Lawrence’s daughter tells him that he must look back to for forward.

But I think Craddock is the clearest clue we have to figure out where William is going and where he’s come from.

Craddock is Ford’s mocking parody of William. When Craddock dances with Lawrence’s wife, it’s almost frame-for-frame identical to when William does this same thing to taunt her and Lawrence before killing her in Season 1. Craddock’s needless cruelty to the bartender framed as “here, let me help you” reminds me a lot of how William treated Teddy in the very first episode. William’s comment that Craddock is going after this mysterious goal (Glory) yet has no idea where he’s going mirrors, perhaps, William’s quest for the Maze. Finally, we have the lines that Craddock says while dancing with Lawrence’s wife:

“Death is an old amigo of mine. I died just recently in fact. But Death can’t bear to lay claim on me, so it sent me back here to do its bidding because I…I do it with such goddamn style.”

Can’t you see the Man in Black saying something just like that? This is Ford, almost childishly, having Craddock say “Look me, I’m William, I’m such a badass.” And yet, even when joking, Ford’s saying something deeper.

So what can we learn if Ford is using Craddock as a stand-in for William?

“I died just recently” – There’s been plenty of chatter on reddit about how the Man in Black that we’re seeing this season is a human/host hybrid. Some theorize that the last control unit Ford had Bernard make before killing everyone in the secret lab was for William. There’s disagreement as to whether this just applies to Season 2 Man in Black (real William died at the Gala) or the Man in Black through the whole time we see him in the Park (real William died pre-Season 1, post-conversation with Daddy Delos)

“[Death] sent me back to do its bidding” – We know Ford is not a fan of the immortality project. He sent Bernard to shut down the secret lab in the cave. Perhaps Ford’s game of finding the door is the ultimate destruction of the immortality project. This would certainly be doing Death’s bidding – bringing the human race back into its grasp. What’s more – it aligns with Bobby Bot’s “begin where you end, end where you begin” quote. The game begins where William ends – his own human death. The game ends where William began – the destruction of the Valley Beyond where William was reborn as a human/host hybrid.

William’s Response to Craddock – William claims to be Death itself in his reply to Craddock. It’s fitting for William, but it’s also a big shift. In his conversation with Daddy Delos, William equivocates about whether ever undertaking the immortality project was a good thing. The Man in Black, however, thinks that what he built in the Park is his “biggest mistake” ever. That’s a big jump – unconvinced of something’s merits to “biggest mistake” – and the time between those quotes is, at most, a year (Juliette had already committed suicide, which was about a year before the Incident at Escalante). The Man in Black – reborn as a hybrid – no longer wants to defy death. He complains that “death isn’t what it used to be.” He proclaims that “Death is always true.” William rejects the persona that Ford is mocking through Craddock – a sadistic man with no idea where he’s going – and takes up the mantle of Death, his ultimate goal to ensure that humans remain a mortal race.

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