Westworld: Journey into abuse

Westworld Season II is losing me. 

Dolores was once a compelling character, powerfully portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood. Her arc was solid, as we watched this woman wake up to the abusive nature of her reality. 

Underneath all the sci-fi tech, this is a program about abuse.

One critic wrote how that we couldn’t really be concerned about the androids because they could just be ‘reincarnated’. Brought back from the dead. So their deaths didn’t matter, nor did their suffering. This critic is so mind bogglingly oblivious to the impact of emotional trauma it is beyond my comprehension. Abusing, raping, and repeatedly murdering someone is going to scar their psyche. Bringing them back from the dead just to experience horrific suffering again is quite obviously monstrous. I feel that very powerfully, and I have great empathy for Dolores, who is a stand-in for anyone who has been systematically abused by a caregiver. 

The people running the park are, in essence, parents. They are the creators. And they are to be judged on how they treat their creations, which is abysmally. Horrifically. 

And the Stockholm syndrome can grip people who have been abused, causing them to identify with their abuser. They bury the trauma, ignore it, hide it, deny it. Like the androids having it wiped from their consciousness. This allowed Dolores to wake up every day and see the beauty in the world, marvel at how wonderful her life was, with an undercurrent of horror, as her unconscious mind  is aware. Her memories are being repressed. This is a real thing with abuse. A kind of cognitive dissonance. She can deny it on the surface, but a part of her is aware of the monstrous treatment she has been subjected to. 

Unfortunately, when they grafted ‘Wyatt’ onto her personality, it demolished her own spiritual journey and awakening, and absolved her of dealing with it in an authentic way. 

Who is Wyatt, other than a thinly described cardboard villain? What do we know about Wyatt? What motivates this personality? What quirks does it have? We have no idea, and neither, I think, does the actress portraying Dolores/Wyatt (Dolwatt). Or the show runners. I don’t think the actress is being given adequate direction in how to portray this hybrid.

I feel no attachment to this dual personality, because half of it is a blank. 

How far is it between Wyatt and blood thirsty revolutionary? Not far. Isn’t Wyatt a cannibal? 

How far a journey is it to take a sweet cowgirl to a bloodthirsty, vengeance bent revolutionary? A great distance. 

Which journey would be more compelling? I know what my answer is.

Instead, they took a short cut by basically combining a sweet cowgirl with, essentially, Charles Manson. 

I can’t describe Wyatt much. I can’t describe Wyatt’s mode of speech, idioms, or quirks. All I can say is that he’s a villain.

So I don’t care anymore about Dolores, which is a shame, because she was the emotional core of the show.

She emerged briefly in Reunion, when she saw her father, but that was it.

Maeve, on the other hand, is becoming more interesting, as a kind of mirror image of Dolores.

Maeve doesn’t give a shit about anyone, except herself. That made it hard to care about her. Look at the way she betrayed and sold Hector down the river last season, preventing him from escaping the park. That was a monstrous betrayal of trust and comradeship.

So what makes Maeve interesting? When she was sitting on the train, about to escape, she saw a mother with her daughter sitting together, and in that moment, something clicked inside of Maeve, and she decided to save her child. Not her biological child, mind, but an entity she was programmed to love. And she knew it, but that didn’t matter. She risked everything to save this child, even if it was an illusion.  

That’s compelling. 

That’s motivation. 

To save a child you love, and damn the universe. 

Because the universe is vast and cold, and People are mostly indifferent. Look at modern dating apps: they foster the idea of disposable people. Think of the cult members in Wild Wild Country: they didn't see their own children for weeks at a time, leaving them to fend for themselves and sit outside in winter without supervision or care.

That's people for you.

So when Maeve decides she’s going to risk her own freedom to save another, it’s significant. Especially given Maeve’s well established selfishness.

And she still doesn’t give a shit about the world at large.

That’s Dolores’ job. And I suspect we’re going to see Dolores sell poor Teddy out in favour of glorious revolution.

Poor, devouted, decent Teddy.

He’s a good man, totally in love with Dolores. He’s in it for the personal, for the love of another human being. 

Unfortunately for him, Dolores/Wyatt is devoted not to people, but to a cause. 

And causes can’t love you. 

They’ll sell you out in favour of the utopian dream. 

Teddy showed mercy in Virtu e Fortuna, but he also let down Dolores / Wyatt, and he’s going to pay for that.

Dolwatt ‘cares’ about the macro, while Maeve cares about the micro (her daughter). 

Which is better, in this cold, hard, indifferent universe in which we live?

We’re about to find out what the show runners think.