So I guess it's confirmed. Everything about the Westworld Park is engineered. Do we have any idea when in the future this show takes place?
The Man in Black seems to be the only guest who realizes that the ultimate ride exists. There is a maze, said maze was once stenciled underneath the scalp of at least one host. Bernard also gave the maze to Delores, so I'm thinking that he already gave it out once to someone else, or Arnold was the last one to do so.
Bernard is the new Arnold, whoever Arnold was. He lost a child and now seems to be playing both sides because hosts like Delores are surrogate children to him.
Dr. Robert Ford. I can't help that this name isn't a coincidence, a person of the same name killed Jesse James (remember that boring Brad Pitt movie ?), a character from the real wild west. He has a god complex, but he said before that hosts didn't do anything that we didn't tell them to do. Either he doesn't believe that or something much bigger is afoot, because why would a God want to lord over a bunch of non-sentients. Which might mean that this whole brewing crisis is in fact being engineered on purpose.
And what about the figures? Hector tells Maeve that they are "Shades". Which is really interesting to me because that's a word straight out of greek mythology(ghosts from the underworld). Where would the hosts even get that word unless it was programmed into them? Why would the Native American hosts even come up that name, that word would be "native" to their own simulated culture. The vague awareness of these Westworld technicians and calling them Shades must be intentional. So this must all be part of Dr. Ford's meta game.
