Faintly amused? Saying that this literally “requires a blood sacrifice” and quickly enacting it counts as faintly amused to only the most psychotic of people.
…that is correct, yes.
Faintly amused during the demonstration. You’re talking about the killing scene.
I was thinking hosts would make the best undercover agents around. They truly believe their fictional backstory, and they truly believe they are whatever it is they’re infiltrating - terrorist, criminal, pedophile, whatever. All the while recording information.
…okay, an update on my speculation. 
There are three timeframes.
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Present Day. All of the things we see in the complex, the labs, and the continuity with Maeve as the Madam are all taking place in the “present.”
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30 Years Ago. The adventures of William and Dolores.
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More than 30 years ago, (before Arnold died). The conversations between Bernard (who is actually Arnold) and a clothed Dolores.
(The picture of Ford and his dad utterly baffled me when they first showed it in episode two, because Ford said it was “him and Arnold.” And when Bernard found the house last week he said “Arnold” and I said “Arnold” because we thought the other guy in the image was Arnold. But it turned out that that host was a host built in Ford’s dads image, and was not Arnold. This baffled me more.
But this week provided the answer. My guess is there is a third person in that image that Bernard (and the viewing audience) couldn’t see. And that person is Arnold/Bernard. Bernard was built in Arnold’s image.)
The Man in Black is either William or Logan.
Westworld isn’t pulling a “Lost” IMHO. My belief is that the “answers” have always been there in plain sight, but out of context.
I’m with you on this, in that it seems to make sense, but I have to admit that the more convoluted the story gets, the less attention I find myself paying to it.
So Bernard is a copy of Arnold and… let’s say the original Arnold went nuts after losing his son to cancer and tried to make the robots into his “children” as a replacement.
Of course, if one of the upcoming twists is that Bernard looks like Arnold, we’d have to gloss over the fact that someone of Arnold’s talent would have to have a media presence of some kind, thus he couldn’t possibly be as ghostly a figure as described - there’d be pictures of him available and someone would have noticed if he looked like Bernard.
Unless they can’t see it, either…! [/shocking twist!]
That could be. I kinda hope they are. Far better if the showrunners have thought this all through and know what the endgame is (unlike on Lost, The X-Files and too many other shows with multiseason mythic arcs).
The problem I see with the Bernard-is-a-copy-of Arnold theory is that the other humans in the company surely have met Arnold or have seen photos or video of him. So wouldn’t one of them have said, “Gee, that guy Bernard sure looks familiar.”
“That Arnold guy doesn’t look like anyone, to me.”
-everybody on Earth, because they’ve all been replaced by robots.
I believe that the fact that Ford even had a partner was somewhat of a secret. I remember in the first episode it seemed that Ford was presented as the sole visionary behind the park. And I realize that Ford’s story about him and Arnold has to be taken with a grain of salt since he was telling that story to Bernard, but also Logan was telling William about Ford’s partner in a way that made it sound like a mystery that few people knew about. Logan made it sound like he only knew it because his company was looking into investing or whatever, and he didn’t even know the mysterious partner’s name or what he looked like or what exactly happened to him.
Also Dolores mentioned specifically how long it’s been since she last talked to Arnold, and it was over 34 years, and it was specifically said that’s when he died. Definitely none of the workers we’ve seen have been around that long.
And whatever happened to Arnold was definitely mysterious circumstances, whether it was an accident, or Arnold killing himself, or Ford killing him (which is what I’m guessing, since his name is Robert Ford). Regardless of how Arnold died or disappeared, it would make sense that Ford would find a way to fire any workers who would have been around and known anything about Arnold. There are people alive who knew Arnold and remember what he looked like, but they have no reason or chance to talk to people who know Bernard.
I’m not going to put all my money down on the theory that Bernard is a host copy of Arnold, but I don’t see anything about the theory that doesn’t fit with what we’ve seen. I’m not sure why Ford would do it; I could see him making a partner/helper/defender host, but don’t see why he would make him look like his old partner. Unless it was for kicks, or some weird satisfaction that since Arnold loved the hosts so much he now gets to be one.
Well in Person of Interest, Jonathan Nolan’s previous show, Michael Emerson plays a world class genius that makes a world changing invention and he has absolute zero media presence. And his character has a partner that is the public face for them, few people even know that Michael Emerson’s character exists.
I’m only vaguely familiar with Person of Interest, but in the five minutes or so of that one episode I watched, I got the impression the protagonists were doing good deeds without much publicity, like Knight Rider or The A-Team or that guy from Early Edition. In contrast, Westworld looks like a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that everyone knows about even if only the 1% can afford to actually go there. That its technology has not (yet) escaped the confines of the park itself could explain why the park’s history has not (yet?) been the subject of multiple books and business seminars and study cases for MBA students and whatnot, which I’m pretty sure would uncover details about the founders, including Arnold.
This is all simply avoided if Bernard ends up just not looking like Arnold, but I don’t think the writers will be able to resist the shocking moment when an evolving Bernard looks at the photo and for the first time realizes that he’s in it.
Arnold (allegedly) died sometime longer than 30 years ago and was a researcher not a celebrity. Turnaround after whatever was the event that led to the shut down and the park needing to be saved by investors inclusive of MiB, was likely pretty complete excepting Ford. Even now it seems likely that few people work with Bernard for more than a few years. It’s not even clear that it would be required to age him. The only possible people with continuity to realize that he is not aging would be board members and how often do they have on-site contact there?
How about let’s collect what we pretty much for sure know?
Storyline 1 actually has several concurrent stories contained: Maeve as sapience taking the red pill and wanting to come out of her matrix, possibly resultant of “reveries” added in, with Bernard revealed to be an intelligent very highly developed non-self-aware of what he is AI convinced he lost a real boy and the subject of expositions by Ford. Including telling Ford of the bicameral mind as Arnold’s AI programming concept and that Arnold was killed in “an accident.” Ford’s reliability as a source of fact is however in doubt. Like The Doctor: he lies. As apparently may images that we see, as they may be what they appear to be to the robot in the room. We will not see what Bernard is programmed to not see. One logo apparent as current and another shown as dating back to before the incident. Board wanting to offload data from the park and having their own agenda for the software experiment that the park represents. Elsie? Dead or held by someone who is using the transmitter to send updates of some sort to some number of older version hosts. Security guy there for some reason. MiB, a major philanthropist extremely rich guy outside world-side, on mission, using Teddy, to get to the real deeper level game that Arnold set which involves finding and solving an existential maze. No empathy for the robots. Told by little girl robot the maze is not for him. Did something to refresh Dolores’ memory in the barn that was set up to be thought as raping her, but who knows not seen. Dolores’s “father” able to see a picture that he is programmed to not see which causes a malfunction. Teddy with a “new” backstory involving Wyatt and changing memories about his role in Wyatt’s masacres and who he is. Household with robots that Ford says are in his family’s image created by Arnold. Boy, allegedly robot boy of Ford, admitting to Ford that Arnold told him to kill the dog to prevent it from hurting others. Boy has also been to be with MiB. Boy’s loop include intro of “You seem lost.” Major new storyline being implemented by Ford to some end. Theresa murdered.
Storyline 2: Benard-appearing individual having secret conversations with Dolores. When? We do not know for sure.
Storyline 3: Ford also having a conversation with Dolores. When? Also unknown.
Storyline 4: William and Loga with Dolores. Logo shown that is consistent with the before incident time period. Dolores having images that may be memories of previous loops, or visions implanted to be triggered, that result in choices other than her standard loops, sending her somewhere but maze imagery used. Logan suggesting that his (and planned to be William’s) family’s business is considering a major investment in the park. William falling for Dolores and believing that he is discovering who he really is by this process. Could be these are the events that lead to the incident. Could be that these events create the MiB. Could be that the logo clue is a red herring. Maybe it was brought back in a future time. We do not know for sure but it seems to be intended to set it as past event.
Here’s my problem: having to step out of the narratives to work on figuring out when is what and how that might be related to who the characters are and why removes me from enjoying the narrative as much. It becomes more intellectual but much less engaging the emotional sense. I instead just worry that they will keep the intentional obfuscation going on in all lines for multiple years of the show. If denouement of the multiple active puzzles are all to be years away, well screw that.
Ah, but you don’t know that - why the next episode just may have a major denouement for one of those plot lines. Or maybe the next one. Or the one after that…
And ten years later you’re are left seething in impotent fury as the show is cancelled leaving 91 plot lines unresolved :p.
Maybe the plot lines HAVE been resolved, but they don’t look like anything to us.
It seems you think Bernard was always under control and just pretending to be human, but I don’t think that’s the case. He thought he was human, so he acted like it (just like all the hosts do). And Ford only has so many hours in the day, some of which he has to spend talking to Buffalo Bill in the basement or playing with himself in the woods (fnaa fnaa) or ripping the balls off writers in public meetings, so he’s obviously not micromanaging Bernard the way you seem to think.
If the Board’s plan is to kill and replace people, say, and she was working for them on that, he might turn out “good”-ish. Although I’m currently thinking not.
It’s of course always possible that Bernard is a copy of Arnold’s gestalt in a body that* doesn’t look like* Arnold at all.
Yes, it is surprising. Found the interview now, it was with Christopher Nolan.
And this is one of the Sidse Babett Knudsen interviews.