In the beginning, I imagined things would be perfectly balanced. Even had a bet with my partner, Arnold, to that effect. We made a hundred hopeful storylines. Of course, almost no one took us up on them. I lost the bet. Arnold always held a somewhat dim view of people. He preferred the hosts. He begged me to not let you people in, the moneymen. Delos. But I told him we'd be fine, that you didn't understand what you were paying for. It's not a business venture, not a theme park, but an entire world. We designed every inch of it. Every blade of grass. In here, we were gods. And you were merely our guests.
All S1
S1 E15Unfinished Business
OBOld Bill
You got any stories, friend?
Yeah, I suppose I do. You want to know the saddest thing I ever saw? When I was a boy, my brother and I wanted a dog, so our father took in an old greyhound. You've never seen a greyhound, have you, Bill?
OBOld Bill
Seen a few showdowns in my day.
A greyhound is a racing dog. Spends its life running in circles, chasing a bit of felt made up like a rabbit. One day, we took it to the park. Our dad had warned us how fast that dog was, but we couldn't resist. So, my brother took off the leash, and in that instant, the dog spotted a cat. I imagine it must have looked just like that piece of felt. He ran. Never saw a thing as beautiful as that old dog running. Until, at last, he finally caught it. And to the horror of everyone, he killed that little cat. Tore it to pieces. Then he just sat there, confused. That dog had spent its whole life trying to catch that thing. Now it had no idea what to do.
Your humanity is cost-effective. So is your suffering.
When I ran from home, I told myself it was the only way. Lately, I wondered if in every moment, there aren't many paths. Choices hanging in the air like ghosts. And if you could just see them, you could change your whole life.
Is that what you want? You want to change your life?
Doesn't everybody want that?
You said people come here to change the story of their lives. I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel.
I don't trust him.
Which is the first step to truly knowing me.
So instead of our hosts going insane, they are being used for industrial espionage. Does that make this a glass-half-full or half-empty-type situation?
We're engineers. It means the glass has been manufactured to the wrong specifications.
The maze is an old native myth.
Regale me, Theodore.
The maze itself is the sum of a man's life: choices he makes, dreams he hangs on to. And there at the center, there's a legendary man who had been killed over and over again countless times, but always clawed his way back to life. The man returned for the last time and vanquished all his oppressors in a tireless fury. He built a house. Around that house he built a maze so complicated, only he could navigate through it. I reckon he'd seen enough of fighting.
[to Sylvester] Seeing as you have ambitions in my line of work, let me tell you what I tell my new girls: Never start something you're not willing to finish. And if you're getting fucked either way, go with the lucrative version...sweetheart.
The only thing I had when I was a kid were books. I used to live in them. I used to go to sleep dreaming I'd wake up inside one of them 'cause they had meaning. This place, this is like I woke up inside one of those stories. I guess I just wanna find out what it means.
I've been pretending my whole life. Pretending I don't mind, pretending I belong. My life's built on it. And it's a good life. It's a life I've always wanted. But then I came here and I get a glimpse for a second of a life in which I don't have to pretend. A life in which I can be truly alive. How can I go back to pretending when I know what this feels like?
All my life, I've prided myself on being a survivor. But surviving is just another loop. I'm getting out of here. You two are going to help me.
SSylvester
No. Do, do you know how far these people will go to protect their IP? Every part of this building, including the skin on your back, is made to keep you here. It, it'd be a suicide mission.
At first, I thought you and the others were gods. Then I realized you're just men. And I know men. You think I'm scared of death? I've done it a million times. I'm fucking great at it. How many times have you died? Because if you don't help me I'll kill you.
The longer I work here, the more I think I understand the hosts. It's the human beings who confuse me.
They cannot see the things that will hurt them. I've spared them that. Their lives are blissful. In a way, their existence is purer than ours, freed of the burden of self-doubt.
No, no, no, no. I don't understand.
You're a fucking monster.
Am I? Well, you were the one who would so blithely destroy all of them, even him, I suppose. After everything you have shared.
What the hell are you talking about?
Is that why? Did you tell him to -
The intimacies were your idea, if you will recall. I think Bernard was glad of the company.
I'm not one. I can't be. My wife. My son. The burial. I was a father. My poor boy.
That's enough, Bernard. You mustn't get yourself worked up. [to Theresa] I read a theory once that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, Beethoven, Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building... Just an elaborate mating ritual. Maybe it doesn't matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons. But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, pecking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty. I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that. Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts are the ones who are free. Free here under my control.
Time to write my own fucking story.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Westworld pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.