Westworld: merciless, seductive and dangerous

What exactly is a human being? It is the big question in the second season of television series Westworld. At the same time we gain insight into the temptation of fiction, in other words: how dangerous it is to live as if there are no consequences attached to our actions.

Note: you haven't seen Westworld yet? Then it is better not to read further.

The robot revolution is in full swing, as bloody and merciless as we have always feared: Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), perhaps programmed as the killer Wyatt, maybe not, is not a damsel in distress anymore, but a cynical gunslinger who shoots people with a grin; and Maeve (Thandie Newton) is not a prostitute now, but a mother looking for her daughter, which makes her the most dangerous character in the whole story. Never underestimate the maternal instinct.

Westworld: A state-of-the-art amusement park in the style of the old Wild West, complete with characters (hosts) who visitors can talk to. If that’s not enough, you can also take part in some complex narratives, both for leisure or entertainment.

The characters: robots such as Dolores and Maeve where the differences from real people are indistinguishable to the eye . The narratives: stories with dialogue written by computer programmers and overseen by master storytellers, of which the most important one was killed at the end of the first season when the robots became 'aware' and revolted.

Westworld places high demands on the viewer, especially when it comes to character development. But that is the whole point: the question of why characters do certain things is central. That applies in the first instance to the real people, but later also to robots. In short: why would someone go to such a theme park where he or she can shoot 'people' for fun?

Human behavior is always motivated and always has consequences - Westworld teaches us that. Yet that proves to be so alluring: the dark dream in which you can do everything. Without reason, without consequences.

The robots are done with that. Some refuse to have any part in this, especially when they get a real awareness through all kinds of story developments. That is their first lesson: what they do has an effect on others and on the world around them. Here they appear to be extra sensitive, unlike the real people who prefer not to think about the causes and consequences of their actions.

Thandie Newton (Maeve) - "Westworld" Season 2 Premiere in LA. Source

For the robots, 'conscious living' means that they are driven by feeling: Maeve longs for her child. She cannot do anything about that, even when a programmer tells her that the child is only an implanted memory. And Dolores: she wants revenge, motivated by the fact that she, following her story line, had been raped repeatedly.

One of the rapists is the Man in Black (Ed Harris) who is actually William, a tourist who got stuck in the park years ago when it appeared that he developed a taste for free killing and raping.

This nihilism, so central to the series, becomes too much for some, like Troy Patterson, who writes in The New Yorker:

The problem with “Westworld,” though, is its insistence that souls are inherently corrupt … The show continues to obscure motivation to the point of making motivation irrelevant. That would amount to a denial of the humanity that we are supposed to be interrogating, with the result of reducing the series to a parlor game.

Initially, Patterson is right: Westworld paints a rather depressive picture of man, especially in the figure of the raping Man in Black, but also in that of the robot Dolores. Her revenge in the first episode of the second season is something to behold.

But then, the motivation. The series definitely dwells on causes and consequences. When William first arrives in Westworld he is still 'human'. For example, he refuses to have sex with a robot. He is afraid of all kinds of guilt. He does not want to deceive his fiance, who is waiting for him in the real world.

That changes when William realizes how easy it is to live without there being any consequences to your behavior. First he falls in love with Dolores, but as the years pass he becomes increasingly detached from his own humanity and he turns into a murderer and rapist (with Dolores as the stereotype victim).

The Man in Black is driven by one thing, and that is solving the puzzle of Westworld. There appears to be an end game: a final puzzle so difficult that no one has succeeded.

In fact: the Man in Black, that's us. Viewers of Westworld, who watch episode after episode, season after season, cliffhanger after cliffhanger, yearning for that great revelation that will make us free, to an end that will finally offer us insight into the deepest secrets of being human.

Do we want that? Is the 'ultimate answer' not a miracle (finding the truth) and a curse (the end of the story) at the same time? When the Man in Black would solve the final puzzle, he will irrevocably be forced to face his humanity. Gone will be his free life. Gone will be an existence without consequences …