William and Teddy and the Man in Black Are the Same Person!

Published December 4, 2016 · Updated July 6, 2022

I have been trying to figure out what function Teddy serves in the narrative of Westworld and I think I’ve finally figured it out:

Teddy is a robot version of William who was created by the park so that William’s experience with Dolores would continue to play out over and over again. We’ve seen Ford create androids out of real people before (his family, Bernard) and change their names, so he may have done this with William, too. It’s possible that Ford created a William character – “Teddy” – so that the romantic hero role that William played, attempting to rescue Dolores, would continue to loop as part of the perpetual narrative of the park, potentially “punishing” both of them for their disobedience, or just because it made a good story.

We see some parallels between William and Teddy – they are both main white hat characters, Clementine propositions both the same way when they enter the park, both enter via the train, both pick up Dolores’ rolling can and eventually attempt to run off with her. >

This would also explain why The Man in Black repeatedly murders Teddy and thwarts his love affair with Dolores, and also why he takes him along on his journey through the maze. Assuming William is a younger version of the Man in Black, Teddy is an android version of the Man in Black’s younger self. Teddy serves as the MIB’s “cornerstone” – a past moment in his personal history that he repeatedly revisits – much in the same way the androids have a cornerstone they repeatedly see – and the MIB is attempting to “kill off” his cornerstone in order to free himself from it, much in the same way Bernard does with the memory of his son.

I don’t think the MIB is an android, but I do think there’s a way in which humans have a cornerstone moment that defines their identity much like the androids do. If the MIB can somehow destroy that repeating loop of his former self-attempting to be the romantic hero with Dolores (as embodied by Teddy) then he can be free.

You guys also discussed the fact that Teddy may not be a first-gen bot, which would mean that he could have been created after William’s time period occurred. Also, Teddy’s memory of gunning down the townspeople may be something that William is going to do in the final episode.

After William left the park, he potentially was able to influence the narratives that the park produced because he is an investor, so maybe he, not Ford, decided to introduce the Teddy character to give himself the opportunity to immortalize his experience with Dolores in the park forever… ????

Elizabeth Graham

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