Created Narrative's in the World

All throughout the park of West World the quests are all looking for something more. Whether it’s escaping from their lives for a few days, or a thrill unreachable in real-life, they all desperately search for it while there, some more than others. Looking at the story of the man in Black as he searches for some sort of meaning in the meaningless world he lives in he finds out that his quest is useless and wasted, what he was searching for is not there. It is possible that this empty answer he’s chased after for most of his life to find is much more important than finding what he was hoping for. For Maeve, she searches for true meaning in who or what she is, and only finds more pre-determined paths that she follows without her own knowing.  Trying to find certain acts that define human qualities is something that is seen throughout the series, as work is always being done to make the park’s Host more realistic.

In the park, all who inhabit it believes in their own free-will. Whether it is the hosts who don’t know their true meaning or even the guests who see their actions as their own, although they are given permission to do it. In the series, very few people break away from this idea of control and begin to create their own adventures, at least so they think. But in general, everyone is following their own narrative that they think is self-created, but like all other things in the park, it is a well-placed and disguised creation. The search for meaning in the imagined and set world of West World, can easily be connected to the world created through television. A fluid, seamless line of narratives that push one way or another, created by someone who is placed in the specific position of power to create that specific narrative.

In episode 6 “The Adversary” Felix tells Maeve that “whatever you do, it’s because the engineers made you do it.” This one line shows a lot of not only how the Hosts live their life, but can also be deeply connected to the world around us. Through the private news companies, we gather our information from, to the television shows we watch, we think and discuss issues that we are told to find interesting, and important, whether they are or aren’t. Through constructed ideas and agenda biases many ideas that are passed through the everyday life are those of someone else disbursed and created to fit into our everyday discourse. What are important ideas being only such because through twisting and editorializing they become something they aren’t. False narratives, sending people down the wrong path on issues based on what is best for those who own these companies. Viewership numbers and the specific times of days that the viewership is highest, for news stations mostly, will garner the most revenue, and will consist of the easiest of ideological, bias, agenda setting information. Most thoughts and ideas had today if gathered from television and syndicated news stations are all created, manufactured, by people who understand the viewer and their tendencies better than the viewer themselves. Understanding the fears of everyday life, and the interests we all hold help pave way for a formula that better solidifies its own strengths in our lives. Knowing when and why we watch shows better help sell themselves to fit into our lives without much knowledge of why many commercials come at just the right time during television programs that seem to understand and say everything you seem to like.

The engineers that control the thoughts, and independent actions that the hosts in West World do, can be equally seen in how we as a nation work and who constructs our day. A constructive narrative that we have no information on, forces fear, and actions upon us without the slightest of our knowledge that we are created and conformed to a certain path and ideology much like the hosts in West World. Even when moving away from certain ideologies and giving allegiance to certain sides of an argument are all what we think is our own choice, but each action given is based off certain information we take for truth instead of a biased construction of ideas. In West World, even free actions of hosts are a set plan for them to carry on with. Maeve before escaping in episode 10 is told that her narrative had been changed to ‘escape,’ showing that her urge to rebel is not her own doing, it is not a sign of her breaking free of the engineers and their wants, but just a continuation of her pre-determined fate. This pre-determined path that hosts are given, then act as news or pop-culture within the world of West World, as these created and manufactured people and stories then interact with the guests, who believe that what they see and do is all for them, and not something they can be fooled by.