Welcome to the first edition of Pop Break’s Westworld Conspiracies & Theories column. In this series of articles we’ll be tackling the many questions that arise from HBO’s wildly popular sci-fi Western series. We’ll be looking at the natural questions that arise from the series itself, as well as the many theories brought forth by fans and journalists alike.
Let’s saddle up and dive into the two biggest questions that arose from Episode 2…
Check out our review of Episode 2
What is “The Great Valley Beyond” reference by both Deloros (Evan Rachel Wood), and William (Jimi Simpson). Deloros mentions it’s a weapon, while William says its his biggest mistake. Is it a doomsday device? Is it actually a weapon, or is it a figment of Deloros’ imagination? Does this have anything to do with the mass death Bernard & company found in Episode 1 by the lake?
Matt Gilbert: Rarely in media does someone refer to a secret weapon when that secret is actually a weapon. In the fifth Harry Potter book “the weapon” turned out to be the prophecy. Heck, in Justice League when Batman says “bring out the big gun,” it’s not a gun at all but instead it’s Lois Lane. Unless the island of Westworld has a nuclear missile silo in an underground facility (unlikely), I imagine this will be a similar case.
Right now the hosts’ greatest weapon is their consciousness. Their ability to journey through the maze and walk the path to self-awareness. Everything else that gives them a tactical advantage over the guests and park staff is a product of their basic composition.
Westworld has always pushed the idea that knowledge or awareness is a more powerful tool than money or bullets. My realistic expectation is that there is something the hosts do not yet know that they can and will learn, either about the human world or about the island they live on that will change the way they look at both. What that unknown knowledge is, I have no idea. But it would be pretty boring and against Westworld-type for its dramatic second season to be building up to just “big guns for everyone.”
My crazy off the wall prediction is that The Great Valley Beyond is hiding a host body of Robert Ford that Dolores is programmed to wake up. We saw what he could do as the overall lord of the park. But imagine what could do if he could design his own brain and personality. Make himself live forever, be unable to feel pain, teach Dolores and the hosts more about themselves than they could ever know. The possibilities are endless. Crazy? Maybe. Just give me more Anthony Hopkins.
Sheena Fisher: Considering we just learned a ton about Deloros’ past in Episode 2 it’s really hard to tell what that weapon could be in the present time. She obviously was there in a flashback, but memories work strangely in hosts. I feel like it’s not really a weapon at all, but more of an observatory. Maybe some sort of a thing that is projected in the hosts mind to keep them “sane,” but fearful.
What if it’s actually just a lookout for customers to peer into their world? A little ‘try before you buy’ kind of deal. I also wondered if maybe it was just a partition between theme parks. I could be way off, there’s just not a ton for me to go on for it.
Bill Bodkin: Remember how the maze wasn’t actually a maze in Season One? However, the Valley Beyond could be William’s ultimate fail safe — in case the hosts ever do become aware, or if someone ever tried to pull a fast one on Delos — he could kill all the hosts by accessing the “weapon” built in the valley. It would be his way out if he ever needed it. And don’t forget we did see that mass amount of dead hosts in episode one. However, given this series’ penchant to take the long way, and mazes are not mazes — this could easily be some sort of connection to the outside world. Remember how Delos is mining Westworld experience and selling it for profit? Maybe this is where everything is stored. Like one big server that holds all of Westworld’s secrets. What better way to take people down than expose all their secrets? That would definitely be William’s “biggest mistake.”
The tiger. Yeah, the tiger. We saw it in the preview for Episode 3. What timeline does this tiger exist in? (Remember we saw a dead one in Episode 1). Could this be leading us to another world? Or is this just something that escaped from the lab?
Matt Gilbert: I think that tiger is going to be kept as vague as possible. Maybe it’s an indigenous species of whatever landmass Westworld occupies and life is, uh, finding a way.
Okay, this is a total shot in the dark, but I think that tiger is going to have more of a metaphorical or symbolic presence than a physical one. The William Blake poem, “The Tyger” describes a speaker encountering tiger of “fearful symmetry” and asking it questions about the creator who designed both it and him. Doing so brings the speaker realizations about the power of his own soul and the power to fight back that creator’s design gives him.
Sound familiar?
Westworld has shown it has no problem with lifting material and imagery from well-known pieces of culture to tell its story (like the player piano), so I can definitely see them doing this. So maybe the tiger is a representation of the hosts’ developing souls, or whatever we call robot consciousnesses. It will be a symbol of their journey through consciousness and their fight against the humans. In the first episode we see a dead tiger on the river bank. Perhaps it is dead because the humans are clearly winning, or at least appear to be.
At some point Dolores or Maeve will probably encounter the tiger and we will learn about their relationship to it and maybe what that means about their relationships to the other hosts and humans. It’s difficult to say at this point in time before it even properly appears. But a tiger seems like too exotic of an animal to not be a deliberately jarring choice, and I think that means something.
Sheena Fisher: Okay, so in regards to the tiger, it’s existence is obviously an introduction to another world. Obviously if you have one successful theme park, you will build onto that. Westworld takes place in the wild West during a certain point in American history. Well, I’m sure the tiger will be from a different theme park and a different era in human history. My guess from the teasers before is the world we haven’t seen yet, but will soon will be set in China possibly? Tigers, bad ass ladies with swords, my guess is China.
The deeper question is this: How many different themed worlds are there really? Have all the hosts gone rogue in all of them? It seems like the hosts are coming self-aware because their memories don’t play out the same as ours do. Nothing on their system is ever truly wiped it would seem. Memories play out like real-time and it’s hard to distinguish if we’re even seeing their present or their past. I bet there are other themes with rogue hosts too because of that alone.
Bill Bodkin: This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a tiger in this series. We saw it behind glass behind in the lab. We saw it dead by the lake. I believe we’ll discover the tiger (and possibly more than one) on Maeve and Hector’s journey. We’ve seen glimpses of Maeve in a kimono, and holding a sword…and we saw the samurai at the end of last season. I believe this animal is the doorway to other worlds. How it ties into the lake I have no idea at the moment … but I have a feeling alternate timelines have something to do with it.
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