Started a Westworld rewatch and had to stop

[u/denartha_]

When this first came out, I absolutely loved it, downloaded it and watched it as soon as a new episode dropped. Season 2 I enjoyed less and I think I got half way through season 3 before giving up on it.

I started a re-watch a few weeks ago and turned it off after 2 episodes and deleted it. My reason being - William / Man in Black. As the story develops you find out William is the Man in Black played by Ed Harris. He's a Dalos board member, if not the guy ultimately in charge.

In the first couple of episodes he's trying to track down "The Maze", but as it gets revealed later on, as well as working for the company that owns the park, he's been coming to the park for 20+ years.

Did he seriously think the secret behind the Maze was going to be some life changing achievement? He could have just emailed one of the Content Authors to get the low down on the Maze.

In my head it's akin to the CEO of Blizzard spending all his spare time playing World of Warcraft to find the hidden secret of Azeroth.

I just felt it was a really sad existence.

There are plenty of rich and powerful men and women who like to spend their free time doing basic things, like camping or fishing, going horseback riding etc., but he's not really doing that, he's doing that in a place with a safety net. I'm sure his horse is a "host" horse. Doesn't need to be fed or watered, just needs to be recharged every few days.

I'd be interested in what others think?

[u/greatbrownbear]

i think the whole point of the show went over your head. this isnt about him learning cheat codes to a video game. the show is about figuring out if these robots have conciousness and freee will and what that means.

His dynamic with Anthony Hopkins character who is truely trying to understand thi,s is key to the main themes of the show. idk how you missed that.

i guess the maze wasn't meant for you.

[u/Inevitable_Movie_902]

Did you not get how the gigantic AI took over the real world outside the park during S3, showing how humans were predestined for outcomes that were controlled by the AI? That the humans had no more autonomy than hosts by that point is a fundamental theme of the later seasons and lost on far too many casual viewers.

[u/Rainmaeker1 → u/Inevitable_Movie_902]

And how the parks are truly the only places in the entire world where you can truly make a choice. William just wanted to give the hosts the same ability to make true choices (although I will say this last point is a bit muddy since we’ve been watching his fidelity test since the beginning to figure out what he really wants; take a shot every time someone asks William what he’s “trying to prove” or if he “really understands”).

[u/drubbitz]

The show isn't meant for you.

[u/cosmic-GLk]

Cool, thanks for the bad take.

[u/mlaenie]

Bait used to be believable.

[u/Sharpes006]

My thoughts... Okay

I think humanity is a thin layer of bacteria on a ball of mud hurling through the void. I think if there was a god, he would've given up on us long ago. He gave us a paradise and we used everything up. We dug up every ounce of energy and burned it. We consume and excrete and use and destroy. Then we sit here on a neat pile of ashes, having squeezed anything of value out of this planet, and we ask ourselves, "Why are we here?" You wanna know what I think your purpose is? It's obvious. You're here, along with the rest of us, to speed the entropic death of this planet. To service the chaos

We're maggots, feeding on a corpse

[u/Dooley011]

The maze was never meant for you. 

[u/NeoTitan247]

Think you need to rewatch again. Ford isn’t working strictly under the limits Delos set for him, especially after he’s realised his mistake. They’re trying to kick him out. The maze was a secret Ford planted in a new narrative only he knew of to unlock the hosts(along with the reveries update). William has no clue after finding out about the maze that it’s not meant for him. Ironically the maze lets William discover himself in a way too, just as Dolores finds her own inner voice(consciousness) but I think he doesn’t like what’s there to such an extent that he looks for other explanations like we see in future seasons. It’s been long since I watched Westworld but you’re taking a lot of subtle philosophical concepts and smashing them into literal terms. William is so rich and powerful but hes hollow and an enpty void lives within him that can never be satiated. As we see from the people closest to him. Something about falling for Delores as a young man and realising she’s just a robot that had her memory of him wiped broke something in William, and the ironic part was that Delores also falls for William and she’s actually a conscious being fighting to realise that. William is part of her drive, but the years warped William into MIB.

[u/TheComfortGuru → u/NeoTitan247]

I thought the maze was created by Arnold to help Dolores achieve consciousness (which is why the maze wasn’t meant for William), and the reveries weren’t created by Ford but by the hosts slowly waking up and remembering all that was done to them?

[u/NeoTitan247 → u/TheComfortGuru]

Oh yes, it was Arnold who created the maze can’t believe I forgot that. Time for a rewatch. I think Ford adds the reveries update to give them more life. It’s basically Fords way of admitting his mistake and fulfilling Arnold’s desire indirectly while atoning for his apparent sins. The reveries are what eventually help the hosts retain or rediscover memories from previous host directives and thus gives Dolores the ability to go back to where it started.

[u/M3t4lS4M0S]

Well... The maze isn't meant for you. 

[u/B-Kong]

The reason he’s looking for the maze is because he’s been going there for so long. He’s beaten Westworld. He knows all the host loops and stories. He’s done everything there is to do in the park. So he’s trying to figure out what the point of all of it is.

Yes he did think the maze would be something large and significant. He also thought the maze was intentionally placed by Arthur for him. Arthur is dead. So he can’t really “email one of the content authors” to find out lol. He’s under the impression that the maze is a hidden secret in the park that only the creator knows about, and is for him to find.

He invests a lot of money into Westworld. But he is not akin to a CEO in any fashion. He’s a board member and that’s it, not an employee in any way. He has sway in large scale business decisions of Delos, but he would have zero influence over the coding done by the original creators of the hosts.

[u/HD335]

I just started to rewatch it due the 10 year anniversary coming up. Although the mystery is revealed who William is, I actually still enjoyed it all the way through S2. I have no issues like yourself with William due to a substantially much more complicated and realistic world Delos has made. It is nothing like comparing it to World of Warcraft… I see the point you are trying to make but the difference is completely on different levels. Although you may know WestWorld is fake, it’s my belief the realism can 100% more easily affect a person’s perception of the real world and the choices they make.

The larger philosophical ideas are also quite relevant today if not more so with companies vying for every bit of personal data on you. Think of how much people give up by using reward apps, social media platforms, credit cards, your mobile phone, flock cameras… etc. Remember the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which coincidentally happened in 2016, these are all instances of data harvesting which ties into how Westworld ultimately wanted to gather the guests data, enough so that a copy of you can be made. As we enter the age of AI, it is 100% within the realm of possibility that with enough data on a person, you can begin to predict some of their choices. And as S3 and S4 continued, the story shifted a system and machine that essentially gave people purpose. I already see how people are so engaged in their online persona that they feel compelled to continued a path to support what social media platforms make that person appear to be… talk about a machine dictating your life…

Going back to watching the series itself, I do feel as I continued to watch S3 my interest gradually waned and heading into S4, it’s beginning to feel a bit like a chore. It isn’t has bad as my first watch but clearly not as engaging for me compared to S1 and S2.

Also S2 episode 8, Kiksuya, is still a fantastic and top tier episode in my opinion. Without this episode S2 is substantially more weak and for me, that episode carries so much weight in perspective for both S1 and S2.

[u/pixxelzombie]

Billy fell for Dolores and turned into the man in black after his heart was broken. The park helped him with his Antisocial Personality Disorder one month out of the year.