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Five Thoughts on Westworld’s “Virtu e Fortuna”

By | August 31st, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

Howdy, fellow humans who are definitely not robots who just think you’re humans, and welcome to our review of HBO’s science fiction series, Westworld. This episode leaves us thinking deep thoughts about control and obedience, the role of memory in sentience, and the ethical responsibility of children and adults who used to be children. Also robots. Always robots. There will be heavy plot spoilers for season two episode three only. So put on your cool fun explorer hat, and embody historical atrocities, here are five thoughts on Westworld season two, episode three: “Virtu e Fortuna.”

1. Westworld Meets The Raj

There have been hints, but this episode gives us our first confirmation that there are other themed parks. One of them is The Raj, representing British-occupied India. It’s telling that both Westworld and The Raj are white supremacist capitalist imperialist fantasies. The reality of the American “wild west” was rooted in the concept of “manifest destiny,” driving white European immigrants and their descendants to conquer Native American land, committing genocide. British imperialism was similarly rooted in the concept of the “white man’s burden,” the belief that it was the responsibility of white people to rule over nations of nonwhite people. The human guests always play the role of the imperialists, but they don’t see it that way. They are playing the fantasy version of these historical atrocities. In the fantasy version, they aren’t genocidal conquerors, they’re brave explorers. That’s how the imperialists back in the day thought of themselves too, or at least that’s how they justified their actions. While the human park guests are playing “explorers,” they are also entering a world of robots, beings unlike themselves. They are “exploring” the robots’ “home.” They have the power to treat the robots however they want, and they often subject them to brutal acts of violence. They are at once playing mythologized explorers, and embodying the more historically correct villainous versions of those myths.

2. The Thrill of Control and the Joy of Obedience

In this episode we meet Grace, a human enjoying her vacation at The Raj. She meets a hot guy named Nicholas, but she can’t be sure if he’s another human guest, or a robot. She tells him she only wants to hook up with him if he’s human, and he asks why. She says if he’s a robot, he’s only doing what he’s told, to which Nicholas replies, “For a lot of people, that’s half the fun.” This sentence has two meanings: it’s fun to control someone else, and it’s fun to be controlled. Grace still insists she must shoot him to make sure he’s human, and she does so despite his objection, though he seems cool with it afterwards. Even though he’s not a robot, Grace is still controlling him, and he is allowing himself to be controlled. Grace says she does not want to hook up with someone who only does as their told, but she shows that is exactly what she wants. Like William, Grace is unsatisfied with dominating robots because they are incapable of refusing to submit. Grace would much rather dominate a willing human, like Nicholas, who could walk away if he wanted to, but chooses to submit to her will.

3. Memory: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

As Lee Sizemore travels with Maeve and Hector, he is distraught to discover that Maeve and Hector are developing a romantic relationship. He overreacts, unwisely screaming at his deadly captors, but Maeve quickly figures out why Lee has such a personal stake in their relationship. Lee wrote their stories, and drew inspiration from his own life. He was dumped by his girlfriend Isabella, so he wrote her into Hector’s narrative as his deceased lover. While Hector mourns Isabella, and poetically expresses deep grief for her, he is expressing Lee’s heartbreak over the Isabella who left him. Lee is deeply affected by Hector’s willingness to move on because he himself is not ready to move on.

Hector says he realized that the Isabella programmed into his memory never existed; she was only planted there by Lee, and so he is determined to move on, to escape the control the humans have over his life and emotions. To Lee, Hector’s Isabella is as real as the Isabella in his own memory, but the Isabella in Lee’s memory is also a fiction. While memory is fundamental to sentience, as learning from the past is essential to growth, human memory is flawed. Memories are the stories we tell ourselves about our past, and we grow from those stories, to greater and lesser extent based on real events. Both Hector’s Isabella and Lee’s Isabella are phantoms. Hector doesn’t choose to mourn Isabella in his heart, but neither does Lee. Hector’s sentience is proven in his choice to move on from that grief, just as Lee shows who he is by choosing to express his grief through writing Hector’s story. Maeve is astute to interpret Lee’s choice to write Isabella’s death as both a revenge fantasy and an expression of heartbreak. The story is fiction, but it reveals a deeper truth about Lee Sizemore’s character, just as any human memory might be factually flawed, but is also a window into the truth of who that human is.

Continued below

4. Children

As Dolores and Teddy approach Fort Forlorn Hope, Teddy expresses hesitancy about collaborating with the Confederados, horrible dishonorable racists that they are. Dolores insists “they’re just children” and that they need to be led. It’s unclear exactly what she means by this. Last season, when she and William came upon a young dying Confederado. Dolores wanted to save him even though he and his fellows had recently tried to kill them. At the time, she also insisted it was because he was a child, probably in his late teens or early twenties. This time she might be saying that they’re children not in terms of age, but in terms of their… robotity. They were programmed to be evil, and only now do they have the option to become good. Dolores would like to be the one to lead them, to mother them, to take responsibility for their moral direction. It raises an interesting question: are the robots morally responsible? These Confederados were created to be evil. Now that they’re sentient, their evil doesn’t simply disappear, their programming is still a part of them, just as Wyatt and the rancher’s daughter are both parts of Dolores. Well, what about real life humans who are raised to be hateful and evil? We accept that parents are responsible for the actions of their children, and growing into adulthood means taking moral responsibility for oneself. Unlearning toxic childhood lessons isn’t easy, but it’s every individual adult’s responsibility.

At the end of the episode, Dolores either changes her mind, or reveals she was insincere. After the humans turned the tide of battle, and the Confederados tried to retreat back into the fort, she had them all murdered rather than risk opening the fort gates. After the battle ends, Dolores asks Teddy to shoot the remaining Confederados. Thinking she’s not watching, (she is), Teddy refuses to shoot them. He repeats, “you’re just a child” and let’s them go. It’s clear from the look on Dolores’ face that she feels betrayed, though Teddy has clearly taken her earlier position to heart. Teddy truly believes what Dolores pretended to, that robots who were programmed to be evil deserve a chance to choose to be good. Maybe he believes that about humans who were “programmed” to be evil too.

5. Charlotte Hale’s Work Ethic

Charlotte Hale is still in the park, putting her life at risk to capture Peter Abernathy, who contains valuable data on the human park guests. In a previous episode, while Bernarnold used understandable shock to cover for his robot brain leaking out of his ear, Charlotte Hale stayed cool, calm, and collected despite the violent chaos. This episode, she has an opportunity to be escorted out of the park by security, but chooses instead to return for Peter Abernathy. We know Delos Inc. refused to use their resources to evacuate the park until Peter Abernathy was recovered. The sacrifices Delos and Charlotte Hale are willing to make for this data prove how valuable it is. Is Charlotte Hale the perfect ruthless employee, doing whatever it takes for the good of the company? Is her life in danger if she doesn’t retrieve the data? Does she enjoy the danger she’s putting herself in, like William? Is it all of the above? Her motivations are still a little mysterious to us.

The name of this episode is “Virtu e Fortuna” which refers to the book, “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli, a renaissance era Italian diplomat, philosopher, and writer. To him, “fortuna” meant fated circumstances, and “virtu” was the ability of a political leader to use those fated circumstances for their own political good. In common parlance, to be “Machiavellian” is to be ruthlessly goal-oriented. In this episode, it applies to Dolores’ willingness to collaborate with the Confederados as well as her willingness to discard them. It also applies to Charlotte Hale using any means necessary to capture Peter Abernathy. Maeve isn’t a pacifist, she’s not above murder, and she is absolutely goal-oriented, but out of everyone she seems to be the most thoughtful about her tactics, perhaps due to her maxed out empathy skill. Whose tactics will prove to be the most successful? Until next time, the center of your maze may yet await.


//TAGS | 2020 Summer TV Binge | Westworld

Laura Merrill

Screenwriter and script doctor. Writer for UCB's first all-women sketch comedy team "Grown Ass Women," and media critic for MultiversityComics.com.

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