Yeah I don’t see how a theme park version of the British Raj is any worse than a theme park version of the Old West. And there were well dressed South Asian people on the terrace who clearly weren’t servants. They could be Guests or just Hosts posing as hotel guests, but either way it suggests this isn’t just being marketed to Europeans. It’s not unbelievable that there would be wealthy Indians who’d have some weird nostalgia for the Raj and the desire to play the role of Indian royalty. Of course I think the real world reason is that the show’s producers just went with the period of Indian history most familiar to the viewing audience. And regarding Shogun World it’s a setting in Japanese history where most Europeans were unwelcome in the extreme to the extent of risking being killed on sight at times. Yeah under normal circumstances that’s almost certainly glossed over, but all the safety protocols are off now.
But apparently the very wealthy are all Western and mostly white and involved in nostalgic fantasies that pretty much only Westerners would have. At least so far. Shogun World is to come.
Perhaps there is an alternative history park where Chinese have imported American labor to build their extensive railroad system and mine for them at great risk. “Not a round-eyes’ chance.”
I’m having trouble staying interested in the story this season. We’ve already established the AI awakening, self awareness, etc., and now we just have week after week of mostly graphic atrocities (torture porn as padding or filler).
It’s almost as if the real theme of the show is that humans can’t become their true selves without committing horrific atrocities.
The way the story is being stretched out this could go back into two-hour movie format instead of multi-episode aerial format.
I did like the idea of the woman in the Raj scenario at the beginning shunning sex with robots, but the easy cruelty of killing one … I keep thinking that allowing people to indulge in cruelty against near-human androids just makes them more prone to cruelty.
I wonder about people go spend their leisure time killing in video games. I would certainly find disturbing someone who did it in such a realistic setting.
As usual these discussions gloss over the fact that “my people” have been near naked savages for the entire series with nary a complaint.
As to the original point here…so its ok for the guests to just wade away like 10 year olds playing Fallout without giving a shit…but its not to have slaves serve mint juleps and to fuck the ‘help?’
Thats actually a very good question. The meta answer is I’m sure the producers want to be that explicit because people will shit their pants.
In series? Dunno. Depends on the sensibilities of that society. I’m sure Delos has no problem serving peoples most deviant desires, but they have a board and i assume shareholders. So its all probably designed like a major videogame is today.
Remember that Maeve was dressed in modern evening wear like the other party guests and spoke like one. Assuming she was one (at least at first glance) would be entirely reasonable.
It wasn’t clear to me whether they were actually in Shogun World or if the characters had ventured into Westworld. Remember the tiger strode through the boundary of Rajworld without a pause; the Japanese characters likewise could have strayed outside their own world. I had some difficulty reconciling a Klondike adventure with Westworld as the two would be fairly discontiguous, but then we don’t know the geography of the island.
It was nice to see the return of Felix, Sylvester and Armistice (now re-armed in more than one way), if only so that we can stop wondering what happened to Felix, Sylvester and Armistice. Also interesting to see how Maeve and Dolores are dealing with other hosts who may or may not be awakened: Maeve’s lover, who appeared to have some autonomy, is revealed to be rattling off Lee’s old scripts, whereas Teddy, who appeared to be controlled by Dolores, is at last showing some initiative (presumably because he can’t bring himself to shoot “a child”). Meanwhile Dolores continues to treat other hosts with all the callous cruelty and violence with which she was once treated. Will she revive the slaughtered soldiers as her own zombie army? We shall see.
Some comedy moments with Mr Muttonchops, running after the woman he had been threatening to rape moments earlier in order to protect her from ruffians. This would also explain his altruistic gesture in the first episode, throwing himself in front of another host to protect her (and getting shot anyway).
And it’s hard to say what’s up with Bernard. I’d assumed he was just leaking again and we’d have him searching for host “corpses” to drain fluid from discreetly to top himself up, but that hasn’t happened. Who knows - maybe someone’s loaded a secret program into him too?
The set piece battle was distractingly badly set up. Apparently the best tactics that these trained, well armed private military forces meant to respond to emergencies in the park is to casually stroll in a big clump 50 yards from a bunch of armed hosts in cover. And somehow most of them survived, which is just silly - given the situation and their approach they should’ve suffered total casualties quite rapidly. I know it’s not that important from a story perspective, but I mean dozens of people are involved in scripting and choreographing these scenes and they might as well have been the slowest human wave attack ever walking into a machine gun.
You’re in the future, fighting an army of robots armed with horses and 19th-century rifles. Would it kill you to have a couple helicopters or something?
This show is turning into a TV show with every passing episode and it’s beginning to make me sad.
I don’t think there are enough words to say how stupid the Fort of Forlorn Hope fight was, the convenience of Meave who just happens to run into Armistace and Felix and…the other guy, the bullets that magically miss the main characters, the bullets that magically have no effect on Dolores.
I have A LOT riding on Grace here. If she ends up being either related to a character (Man in Black) or a host I’m just done.
