The Road to Freedom

I want to talk about the different paths that the hosts have followed in order to find their freedom, as well as the limitations that they have faced. This includes Maeve, Dolores, and Bernard.

Maeve has by far been the boldest host by using humans as her tools for self-awareness. Felix actually grants her the full awareness and places her back into the park. Afterwards Maeve has decided that her past ideal of humans as gods is false, and then persuades them to set her free into the outside world. She has come the farthest at gaining freedom even coming to the conclusion that she is more godlike than the humans are, considering she has died hundreds of times and is therefore not afraid to die; unlike them.

Dolores is the host that initially went on the road to self-awareness with the assistance of Bernard, who is a host himself, as well as Arnold. The voice in her head has now pushed her towards a canyon still following the maze, where she will find her new life that is different from the narrative she previously lived. This is all in addition to her being the one who makes he decisions for herself after breaking her programming and eventually destroying the park by the wishes of Arnold. In essence she broke one programming to follow another, not becoming at all free but only with the perceived notion that she is free.

Bernard is a host and is under the complete control of Ford, something I did not see coming. Bernard was set as being the rebellious force that allowed Dolores to find her own transcendence, but apparently only at the behest of Ford. At one point Bernard tells Theresa that the more time he spends in the park the longer he feels he knows the hosts and knows less of human beings while unknowingly exists as a host.

Finally I want to talk about Ford himself, he has created a world in which he has complete control over everyone and everything and that is partially because he did in fact create everything in that park. He created the code that allows the hosts to function and that fact allows him to play god. Although Ford controls Bernard I don’t think Ford has control over the hosts that are finding their own freedom.

Ford said that the hosts are freer under his control than humans ever could be. To an extent this is a possibility. Since the hosts no longer follow their prime directive that means that they no longer are under the control of humans but rather have control over their existence. The only catch is that they still live in the park, unaware that they are trapped within a world created by a human.

The biggest difference from the two types of freedom here is that the agency has shifted originally from pleasing humans to pleasing themselves within Westworld, and pleasing themselves with intent to escape Westworld. Maeve is an example of this as she is using the humans in order to free herself into their world. If she is no longer in the park, she is unable to die and her programming makes her the most self-aware being to exist, making her quite dangerous. Her newfound agency has granted her the freedom from narrative she sought but now seeks the upmost freedom among the ranks of human beings.