The Two "Westworlds" - TV show vs. Amusement Park

In AJ’s recent post, he calls attention to the show’s message and its ability to give audiences “our first real sense of how this show acts in relation to our sense of reality.” By discussing class and social status, AJ makes a point about the view of people of status “being distanced from reality enough to find pleasure in the things that we find repulsive.” I think his blog post is an interesting one, and is one that describes the potential audience relationship with Westworld (the TV show). I would like to use his post as a jumping point to discuss how the characters within Westworld (the amusement park) seem to be forming their own conclusions about their own personal reality at the same time as the audience does itself.

Episode 4 is appropriately titled “Dissonance Theory”, which suggests that it can be related to cognitive dissonance theory, a theory is used to describe a person’s level of discomfort associated with acting against his or her values, beliefs, and opinions. The characters within Westworld, specifically the hosts, are beginning to show signs of this discomfort, and that says a lot about what they are learning about their reality. There are two specific instances that can be describes in the context of this episode.

The first occurs when Dolores says “I used to think there was a path for everyone. Now I think I never asked where the path was taking me.” She says this in her conversation with William, and she also states that she can sense something calling her. Dolores is acting as she is programmed to act, yet she is also experiencing some sense of inner conflict about herself that she can’t quite seem to understand. She wants to be free, she says this to Ford, yet she also feels as though she is destined to some path that has been set for her. The fact that she is just now questioning this shows that exact sense of dissonance. In addition to this, a similar experience also occurs when Logan and William are arguing in the park; Logan has just killed a host and claims that it does not matter, since the man he killed is just a robot; as is Dolores, he states, and as are other hosts around them. Dolores is visibly upset by this, and she questions William about the truth and meaning behind Logan’s claims. This is an even that will obviously affect Dolores and the ways in which she thinks about her existence and her troubling view of reality.

These two events occur to show how the characters within Westworld are beginning to question their realities; Maeve also has an important plotline in this episode as her visions and memories of being shot and repair become more and more aware to her. Their realizations about their reality can be viewed in tandem with the audiences’ realizations about their own reality and society – which AJ discusses in his post. It is interesting to look at these two things as they are occurring simultaneously as the series progresses.