Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Westworld and Humanity

In the beginning of Episode 1 of  Westworld  the characteristics that separated the hosts and the guests were quite profound and it was quite easy to tell the two apart. However, lately lines have become blurred. The hosts now have dreams and motivations just like those of the guests. Some of the hosts even have more understanding of what is going on around them and what is happening to them, then they are supposed to have. For instance in Episode 4, Mauve remembers being shot and that she was on a table being fixed. Mauve also have enough understanding that she is able to find the bullet when she gets a male host to make an incision right at the area where she was shot. However, after hearing the man in black's words to Teddy I am convinced that this is no accident. The man in black's exact words are, "You used to be beautiful. When this place started I opened one of you up once, million little perfect pieces and then they changed you, made you this sad real mess, flesh and bone just like us. They said it would improve the park experience, but you know why they really did it? It was cheap. Your humanity is cost effective so is your suffering." This quote could imply that to suffer is to be human. However, not even suffering is a characteristic that humans alone possess. Sure, humans feel suffering, but so do animals. The purpose of the show making the hosts become more human may actually be to show us that we are not that different at all. I believe that the reason why Bernard treats Dolores better than the more of the guests treat the hosts is because Bernard recognizes Dolores's human characteristics, whereas the most of the guests overlook these characteristics and only take the hosts at face value. We need to care for all animals and things because when we dig deep they are more like us than we may realize when we only look at them at face value. 

1 comment:

  1. Interesting comments Christy. It's kind of fascinating that the Man in Black seems to prefer the older, more cybernetic models of hosts than the newer, more biological models. So perhaps does Ford. When Bernard confronts Ford about his host family hidden away in the park, Ford opens up the boy Robert and comments: "See, what our newer designs gained in efficiency, they lost in grace." And everyone seems to be drawn to the oldest hosts in the park. So there's this interesting conflict between the newer models being more "lifelike" but having lost grace.

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