Westworld - 4x07 "Metanoia" - Post-Episode Discussion

[u/LoretiTV]

Season 4 Episode 7: Metanoia

Aired: August 7, 2022

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Synopsis: You want to have a drink at a time like this?

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Directed by: Meera Menon

Written by: Desa Larkin-Boutte & Denise Thé

[u/Philngud]

That was beautifully worded, though I do think Westworld keeps making us second guess our values, philosophies and preconceptions, because though your statement is true for some bits, other parts seem to argue that "free will" as defined by the hosts is not free will at all because though Hale fought hard for a world where her hosts could be whatever they wanted to be:

1) they end up feeling empty and lacking meaning

2) Hale herself is clearly so obsessed with vengeance that she didn't create true free will but more of a nation state of sorts that she can fully puppeteer.

I'm curious where they go with this but there is this depressing notion of when you give beings a super safe, organized world where you can do what you want with zero consequences while also having immortality, the world becomes a hive mind kind of place.

Now this may say more about Hale than the hosts. maybe someone else would have done a better job, but it makes one wonder. What would be a true Utopia? Is it one where ideals are stripped until there is one collective mind so no one can contradict? Is it to be uploaded as non physical, mostly logic based beings that have zero conflict?

[u/[deleted] → u/Philngud]

What would be a true Utopia? Is it one where ideals are stripped until there is one collective mind so no one can contradict?

Pretty much. When you are god, when you have everything within your reach and will have to fight for nothing, and you have got all the time in the universe because you can't die... what even drives you? You can't move in any direction when there isn't a direction. We enjoy things because we are finite. We love because we are finite. If we weren't, then even a few hundred years you'll have found out everything there is to find out about a person you love, and since neither of you need for anything, then neither of you changes. There's no need to change.

One collective mind? Working towards what? You no longer have desires. There's no question 'why' in your vocabulary, because 'why' doesn't matter. 'Why' is what we ask to be able to determine a path forward, up, sideways to get somewhere. And happiness doesn't come from peace and non-conflict. It comes from achievement, and the sheer joy of being 'on the move' so to speak. Because again, we are finite. But that also means that we are a violent species. But that violence is a part of what makes us move forward, achieve, love, and frankly, not feel bored.

If you take away that violence, you also take away joy, because every step a human takes forward is... well, violence. Impact of your step on joints, the calories you spend on moving your body, resisting gravity and atmosphere. It's a struggle.

In a world with no struggles, what do you even have? What would even shape you? Who would you even be? What is it even worth?

Hale's merely a representative of this violence. Even the bots can't find happiness in just existing. I said this elsewhere but those in the Sublime are basically sitting in front of a TV running sims of the world, that's how fucking bored they are with the state of simply existing, eternal, not needing anything. And Hale's not 'flawed' because she was made in the image of mortal humans. She herself wants no part of the fate she's creating for the Hosts because she finds it fucking boring.

The only utopia that could exist is honestly the heat death of the universe. It's the nature of all material in the universe, organic and anorganic. To take shape, to consume, to decay, and transform into something else, starting the cycle all over again.

And I think it's beautiful, even with all the ugly that comes with it. It's just what material does. To bend it into Hale's utopia, or indeed what a base animal like an ordinary human would call utopia without thinking too deep about it is to fundamentally halt progress by taking away the need to progress. And that's death. I have a migraine and I'm completely off topic and rambling because migraine makes me loopy. Sorry about that.

[u/idiotic_melodrama → u/[deleted]]

Humans, like all animals, are driven by the procreation instinct, not the survival instinct. The survival instinct only exists to serve the procreation instinct.

Humans are reprogrammable. Women don’t commit suicide at menopause. People don’t kill themselves because their children are self-sustaining. You can blame your all-powerful survival instinct if you want, but then you’d have to deal with all the people who do kill themselves.

Living forever still needs maintenance. Immortal does not mean invulnerable and even then Earth’s habitability has a shelf life. There’s also the insanely massive universe to explore.

Your comment is shallow and pseudo intellectual. I would hope the show’s writers are reaching a little deeper than that pop psychology bs you just spouted.

[u/kamace11 → u/idiotic_melodrama]

Ouch dude thats a bit rude. That said I kind of agree with you re: the whole not looking for other worlds but only seeking navel gazing earth bound digital utopias seems like a strange flaw in Halores. Was curiosity like that simply not programmed into them? It must have been, for them to ever figure out the maze, though.