Dissonance Theory Dissonance Theory  doubles down on the confusion in many respects, offering some tantalizing hints about Ford’s plans without actually explaining them, showing Dolores [...]

Dissonance Theory Dissonance Theory  doubles down on the confusion in many respects, offering some tantalizing hints about Ford’s plans without actually explaining them, showing Dolores slipping a little further down the rabbit hole, and catching up with the Man in Black as he hunts down his mysterious maze. The maze also turns up in Dolores’s memory, and in the drawing of a little girl on the street, so even if we don’t have any immediate answers on it, at least there’s a sense of things getting tied together. It is, according to the Man in Black, the last mystery of the park, the one which introduces stakes that actually matter. So that should be interesting.  Pony Express – Mail bag WORKING AS INTENDED: WESTWORLD IS A SANDBOX MMORPG ON YOUR TV Westworld has emerged this fall as the geek obsession TV show, a gunslinger’s LOST about which people can’t stop talking and theorizing and debating. Don’t worry; Massively OP is not suddenly becoming an entertainment website, but I hope you’ll indulge me for a round of Westworld in this edition of Working As Intended because in every episode of the show, I see the MMORPG genre: our players, our proclivities, and our many, many problems. By Design And that’s by design. The show’s premise is that in some sci-fi near-future, wealthy people are able to pay their way into an elaborate, real-world theme park, where corporate game masters and engineers and designers control high-functioning human-like robots (“hosts”) in an Old West setting to create whatever role-playing or entertainment environment the guests are seeking. The players can interact with the robots in extremely realistic ways, from playing cards and having sex to going on scripted quest adventures — and even murder. PvP PvP vs. Pve, Upgrades, Choose your storyline, Choose your path good vs evil.  completest? TMiB finishing the story.  Never ending quests to get to the next storyline. Pay to win storyline (TMiB paid big $$ to get to the maze which is seemingly the end game) Guts & Glory Inside the episode it’s too soon to say Ford has now been revealed as a villain, but he certainly is more sinister than he first appeared. And we’ll see just how dangerous that can be for other characters. If Ford really knows everything then we’ll learn what he thinks about Bernard telling Dolores that she should find the Maze as well. In the meantime, Dolores’ new mission is an exciting turn of events that also has a seemingly inevitable result – Dolores and the Man in Black confronting each other, as both are now seeking to carry out the same goal. Be Free Bernard telling Dolores if she can find the center of the maze “maybe you can be free” is very intriguing. Does he mean she’ll have full knowledge of who she is? Or does he mean she literally, physically, will be free of Westworld?   Easter Egg This episode leaned heavily into the video game aspect of Westworld in a big, fun way. Logan, as an experienced player, is much more aware of what’s happening than William. There is a lot of pointing out a lot of the game-like aspects.  They realize they’d stumbled upon an “Easter egg” when their prisoner named his boss, sending them on a new path (though this diversion seems detailed enough to be better identified as a side mission or hidden level, no?) Theory: William is the Man in Black This is a good time to note that yes, I’ve seen the “William is the Man in Black as a young man!” fan theory going around in the past couple of weeks.  It suggests we’re not seeing events happening at the same time, even though it seems they are. I’m sure those who like that theory will say Logan telling William to go “black hat” with him here is all the set up to William’s transformation, though I don’t really buy into this idea – especially since it means 30 years ago Dolores was set on a path that could have helped her and it utterly failed, pretty much removing any feeling of hope for her.