Post by Melifeather on Mar 16, 2020 4:57:06 GMT
Parce Domine. Parce = Spare, Domine = Lord. Spare your people Lord. It appears the Italian High Renaissance Art analogies from the previous two seasons will continue. We've moved from Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Raphael, to the church - the benefactor who hired them.
Parce Domine is a Roman Catholic antiphone. An antiphone is a short chant sung as a refrain - typically as a call and response such as, "peace be with you" followed by "and also with you". Spare your people Lord. Who is repeating the antiphone and who is Lord?
Incite, Inc has a supercomputer named Rohoboam. It's algorithms plan the future of every human, every government, every war. It is a new god. Delos Corp is the benefactor that hired Robert, William, and Arnold to create their art - their masterpiece - Westworld. They are the church that intercedes between the new god housed at Incite, Inc and the masses whose data was, and still is, collected like tithes and prayers sent to heaven. Jesus said, "and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." The Catholics claim that the apostle Peter was the first Pope. They point out that the name Peter means "rock-man" and that this means their faith is the one true church. Rohoboam looks like a big rock when Dolores first catches sight of it. Delos Corp has established the new church of Incite, and every human on Earth is it's unknowing parishioner.
The writers of the show pondered how to demonstrate the "mind" of a supercomputer when no human intelligence is it's equal. They decided to use a visual aid to represent Rohoboam's system. It looks like an eclipse with a fire-like corona, constantly moving and listening, like a giant Alexa that circles the globe. The visual aid represents the inner workings of artificial intelligence, it's massive data analysis collection system tracks the movements and behaviors of humans. Each eruption represents a disturbance - an increase in human activity. Rohoboam is paying attention. We call out to Alexa or Siri and they respond. Rohoboam responds to the call of the people, and the people respond to the call of Rohoboam. Parce Domine.
Each time the story moves to a new location we see it on our new visual aid. It also helps the viewer keep track of where they are and what's going on. Rohoboam uses algorithms to predetermine our fates, our predelictions, and our choices. The way in which data can be collected and aggregated creates a picture of us. And in determining that picture, it can start to make predictions, and if it can make predictions, it can make suggestions. And when we begin taking those suggestions, it is controlling us. Do we have free will anymore? Are we even human in the futuristic reality we have created? We're becoming just like Dolores.
Our Raphael is back - Bernard, aka Arnold if we want to go way back. He's working at a slaughter house - I think - although he seems to care very deeply about the cattle. His company name tag reads, "Armand Delgardo" which is an anagram for "Damaged Arnold", just as Bernard Lowe is an anagram for Arnold Weber. Bernard has a device where he can switch between Arnold and Bernard. He asks it if he's telling himself the truth.
Dolores's new boyfriend Liam Dempsey is a real weiner. He has no real power at Incite and doesn't even know how Rohoboam works. He is out of the loop. Incite's head of security, Martin Connells tells him that Dolores needs to die and he, a little too quickly, agrees. Martin convinces Liam that he's been played. Dolores is using a dead girl's identity and they've intercepted suspicious text messages.
I'm condensing a lot here, because I'm assuming you watched the episode and don't need a recap. You're here for my insights, my weird way of looking at the over-arching symbolism, and my interpretation.
Everybody else and their neighbor is writing excitedly about Aaron Paul's new character, Caleb Nichols. In the Bible, Caleb (son of Jephunneh) signifies "dog" and means "whole hearted". He was the leader of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites journey to the Promised Land. Dolores was always looking for the valley beyond, the "glory". Recall that the valley beyond ended up having a name called The Forge and it housed a giant server. Bernard told Elsie that the Forge is where you can find all the guests laid bare in code on a vast server like the cradle (CR4-DL) only much bigger. Seems to me that Dolores and Caleb are destined to work together! Dolores found the human reality and she found the glorious Rohoboam. She desires to get closer and learn more about it. If Caleb's name is any clue, he may end up being a leader for his people just like Dolores. He is, after all, Dolores's inverted parallel. Dolores is a high tech AI who escaped a world controlled by humans, yearning to live in the real world, while Caleb is a human yearning for something real while living in a high-tech world controlled by AI.
Caleb lives a lonely life in a high-tech world. Humans are more connected than ever before, but Caleb's only friends are the robots that help him at work and the cyber criminals that he comes in contact with. One of the more interesting things from this episode: the RICO app Caleb "plays" on his phone called Redistributive Justice. The difficulty of the levels or jobs are designated by dollar signs. $ is easier than $$, and $$ is easier than $$$, and so on. One of the "games" earned him 5 crime coins equivalent to $1200. Oh, and his user name is Nkl-n-D1med. Cute. I wanna steal it.
So if Rohoboam is our new god, is Dolores our Savior? If Caleb is the leader of the Tribe of Judah (humanity), then Dolores is more like Moses leading her AI people to the Promised Land. She's been on a mission to break out of Westworld and make it to the "real" world while Caleb just wants to make a connection that's "real". How real is reality and will it turn out to be a vision of glory?
If you stayed past the credits you were rewarded with an extra scene showing Maeve in Nazi World. It looked like Italy to me with swastika flags.
So, what were your thoughts? I'm sure there are parallels yet to be uncovered between our artists and the church, but I need to delve deeper. I've edited this post a number of times already for clarification. As I think further on this episode in the days to come I'm sure new thoughts will arise.
Parce Domine is a Roman Catholic antiphone. An antiphone is a short chant sung as a refrain - typically as a call and response such as, "peace be with you" followed by "and also with you". Spare your people Lord. Who is repeating the antiphone and who is Lord?
Incite, Inc has a supercomputer named Rohoboam. It's algorithms plan the future of every human, every government, every war. It is a new god. Delos Corp is the benefactor that hired Robert, William, and Arnold to create their art - their masterpiece - Westworld. They are the church that intercedes between the new god housed at Incite, Inc and the masses whose data was, and still is, collected like tithes and prayers sent to heaven. Jesus said, "and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." The Catholics claim that the apostle Peter was the first Pope. They point out that the name Peter means "rock-man" and that this means their faith is the one true church. Rohoboam looks like a big rock when Dolores first catches sight of it. Delos Corp has established the new church of Incite, and every human on Earth is it's unknowing parishioner.
The writers of the show pondered how to demonstrate the "mind" of a supercomputer when no human intelligence is it's equal. They decided to use a visual aid to represent Rohoboam's system. It looks like an eclipse with a fire-like corona, constantly moving and listening, like a giant Alexa that circles the globe. The visual aid represents the inner workings of artificial intelligence, it's massive data analysis collection system tracks the movements and behaviors of humans. Each eruption represents a disturbance - an increase in human activity. Rohoboam is paying attention. We call out to Alexa or Siri and they respond. Rohoboam responds to the call of the people, and the people respond to the call of Rohoboam. Parce Domine.
Each time the story moves to a new location we see it on our new visual aid. It also helps the viewer keep track of where they are and what's going on. Rohoboam uses algorithms to predetermine our fates, our predelictions, and our choices. The way in which data can be collected and aggregated creates a picture of us. And in determining that picture, it can start to make predictions, and if it can make predictions, it can make suggestions. And when we begin taking those suggestions, it is controlling us. Do we have free will anymore? Are we even human in the futuristic reality we have created? We're becoming just like Dolores.
Our Raphael is back - Bernard, aka Arnold if we want to go way back. He's working at a slaughter house - I think - although he seems to care very deeply about the cattle. His company name tag reads, "Armand Delgardo" which is an anagram for "Damaged Arnold", just as Bernard Lowe is an anagram for Arnold Weber. Bernard has a device where he can switch between Arnold and Bernard. He asks it if he's telling himself the truth.
Dolores's new boyfriend Liam Dempsey is a real weiner. He has no real power at Incite and doesn't even know how Rohoboam works. He is out of the loop. Incite's head of security, Martin Connells tells him that Dolores needs to die and he, a little too quickly, agrees. Martin convinces Liam that he's been played. Dolores is using a dead girl's identity and they've intercepted suspicious text messages.
I'm condensing a lot here, because I'm assuming you watched the episode and don't need a recap. You're here for my insights, my weird way of looking at the over-arching symbolism, and my interpretation.
Everybody else and their neighbor is writing excitedly about Aaron Paul's new character, Caleb Nichols. In the Bible, Caleb (son of Jephunneh) signifies "dog" and means "whole hearted". He was the leader of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites journey to the Promised Land. Dolores was always looking for the valley beyond, the "glory". Recall that the valley beyond ended up having a name called The Forge and it housed a giant server. Bernard told Elsie that the Forge is where you can find all the guests laid bare in code on a vast server like the cradle (CR4-DL) only much bigger. Seems to me that Dolores and Caleb are destined to work together! Dolores found the human reality and she found the glorious Rohoboam. She desires to get closer and learn more about it. If Caleb's name is any clue, he may end up being a leader for his people just like Dolores. He is, after all, Dolores's inverted parallel. Dolores is a high tech AI who escaped a world controlled by humans, yearning to live in the real world, while Caleb is a human yearning for something real while living in a high-tech world controlled by AI.
Caleb lives a lonely life in a high-tech world. Humans are more connected than ever before, but Caleb's only friends are the robots that help him at work and the cyber criminals that he comes in contact with. One of the more interesting things from this episode: the RICO app Caleb "plays" on his phone called Redistributive Justice. The difficulty of the levels or jobs are designated by dollar signs. $ is easier than $$, and $$ is easier than $$$, and so on. One of the "games" earned him 5 crime coins equivalent to $1200. Oh, and his user name is Nkl-n-D1med. Cute. I wanna steal it.
So if Rohoboam is our new god, is Dolores our Savior? If Caleb is the leader of the Tribe of Judah (humanity), then Dolores is more like Moses leading her AI people to the Promised Land. She's been on a mission to break out of Westworld and make it to the "real" world while Caleb just wants to make a connection that's "real". How real is reality and will it turn out to be a vision of glory?
If you stayed past the credits you were rewarded with an extra scene showing Maeve in Nazi World. It looked like Italy to me with swastika flags.
So, what were your thoughts? I'm sure there are parallels yet to be uncovered between our artists and the church, but I need to delve deeper. I've edited this post a number of times already for clarification. As I think further on this episode in the days to come I'm sure new thoughts will arise.