I know I am a little late to the party, but I recently finished Westworld and felt compelled to express my thoughts on the show. There be spoilers ahead! If you have not viewed Westworld yet and want to experience the full richness of the show, then read no further. With the spoiler alert out of the way, here are my thoughts.
Westworld is hands-down one of the best series in 2016. The plot, while hard to follow at times due to the shuffling of the chronological order, seems to fall into place by the last episode. OK, that last statement is best categorized as an alternative fact. I found it necessary to watch many YouTube videos dissecting the plot before I fully understood everything I just watched! Westworld is one of those shows where every little thing served up to you exquisitely ties into the plot so pay attention you must.
The hosts exist for the pleasure of the park guests who are known as newcomers, or visitors. The newcomers can do whatever they want to the hosts because the hosts are organically grown cyborgs. Or is it androids? See this discussion on Reddit which discusses this issue and make up your mind for yourself. For purposes of this debate, I will call them cyborgs since I feel that is the closest definition. The cyborg hosts run on “loops,” or paths, that play out a storyline and attempt to draw out the essential nature of the park’s guests. Sure, you can stay in town and play it safe getting drunk and visiting prostitutes, but if you want to get the full effect of Westworld, you must leave the city and enter the wide-open spaces of the park and take a journey into what Joseph Conrad calls the “heart of darkness.” The further you go from the small frontier city the deeper you get involved in elaborate scripts written by Westworld’s narrative director Lee Sizemore, as played by Simon Quarterman. The further you go into the wilderness the darker your soul becomes.
I have struggled with writing this post for some time. I desired to write about the path the cyborg Dolores takes on her journey to self-awareness. I am drawn to the Dolores as I empathize with her plight and find myself relating to her predicament. After spending weeks watching countless youtube videos dissecting Westworld, I still could not organize my thoughts on this show that I find both beautiful and horrifying. I finally stumbled upon a video titled “The Secret Philosophy of Westworld” by Hippopotaman (see video below). The vid ends with these words:
“Westworld is less about robots becoming self-aware than our culture itself and when our culture is one of rape and senseless violence – well, we all know how that story ends.”
Westworld both is and is not about cyborgs reaching self-awareness. The western themed amusement park is used as a mirror to reflect our current society. Dolores’ quest for freedom is everyone’s quest for freedom. Using the Theory of the Bicameral Mind (see Hippopotaman’s video for a detailed description/discussion), you are not free until you stop following the narration placed in your consciousness by the media, by friends and family, by a myriad of sources, and begin forming an opinion of your own. You are only free when you stop listening to the scripted beliefs of others and start listening to your true self.
Many people in the world are following a scripted path placed in their minds by others and are not actually free. These individuals often dress as others tell them they must, or blindly follow the programmed script of political parties regardless of how those institutions act or behave. Internalized pre-programmed self-narrations limit your social mobility and paralyze your worldview to the extent that you can no longer determine what’s real. When you break free of the beliefs of others that were intentionally placed in your mind and begin thinking for yourself is when you become free and reach true self-awareness. In Westworld, Dolores begins to question the path literally programmed for her and placed in her mind by park staff and starts to listen to herself – to follow the path she chooses for herself.
Compare these two sections from Dolores featured in the Hippopotaman video:
Dolores Inner Monologue:
“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose.”
Dolores – Speaking with Arnold:
“I don’t know but this world… I think there may be something wrong with this world, something hiding underneath. Either that or there’s something wrong with me. I may be losing my mind.”
Where do you stand? Do you believe people choose to see only ugly in this world? Or do you believe it’s possible to block all that is ugly in existence and focus with laser precision exclusively on what’s right in the world? Do you force yourself only to see the beauty and block out any hint of the disarray? Or do you believe, as in the second sentence, that either you are insane or there is something seriously wrong in this world?
I suggest that if you choose to see the beauty in this world and disregard the ugly, you are not true to yourself. You are perhaps following the scripted narration laid down by others. You might even think a place like Westworld would be great fun. What a hoot to have a place where you can rape and kill without fear of recrimination. What were your thoughts when you watched the first video at the top of this post? When the desperados come into town and start killing everyone in sight were you shocked or in love with the idea that such a place could exist? I cannot help but wonder how many Westworld viewers fail to see the ugly in Westworld and instead conceptualize the park as an example of pure beauty? No way to know I guess.
If upon self-examination you take the position of the second sentence and believe that either you are insane or there is something seriously wrong with this world, then you are truly self-aware and are not living a life scripted for you by others. I fall into this category, and it furthers my belief that Westworld forces us to examine our reality and what’s happening in our world on a social, economic, political, and military level. It’s not OK to only see the beauty in this world and disregard the ugliness; Just as it’s equally not OK to only see the disarray, overlooking the beauty. You need to see the world for what it is and forge a path through the jungle canopy of internal doubt and self-realization.
Which path will you follow?
Freakout time:
The day after I finished watching season one of Westworld I went to the library. At random, I picked up an audio book to look at its cover. A shiver went up and down my spine when this is what I saw.
Note:
Dolores Abernathy fan art by Hungarian artist Akos Szabo.