Bernard is Not a Host!

ChiefPizza

Alright - I'm listening to the podcast for this episode right now and
they're bringing up the theory of Bernard being a host and Ford uses his
dead son as a trigger word to get Bernard to stop talking and/or leave.
The HUGE problem I have with this is the fact that Bernard has memories
of his son and wife that we've seen. Some are arguing that this is just
Bernard's backstory - but how would he be having these physical
memories?

The hosts have backstories, but they do NOT have physical
memories (with the obvious exception of Dolores and Maeve - but they are
clearly anomalies). In order for him to have these physical memories as
Dolores has, these events would actually have had to happen. For example, we know Maeve actually lived through her "memories", because there is film footage of it in the Westworld promo.

If someone
created Bernard as a host, what would be the point of having him "live
through" his robot son dying and chatting with his robot wife? It makes
absolutely no sense. There's no way Bernie is a bot.

voodoorat

well...  even if that's not just a fake implanted memory that's shown to us as if it happened, it could have been a scene of the "real" bernard (or arnold) in conversation 34 years ago or whenever.  arnold's son could have died, and if bernard is a sim-arnold he might have been implanted with that as his backstory.  it'd be deceptive editing but i'm beginning to suspect there's a lot of that going on, or else they are getting very lucky with some coincidental editing decisions to accidentally not puncture any of these theory balloons.

ChiefPizza

voodoorat said:

well...  even if that's not just a fake implanted memory that's shown to us as if it happened, it could have been a scene of the "real" bernard (or arnold) in conversation 34 years ago or whenever.  arnold's son could have died, and if bernard is a sim-arnold he might have been implanted with that as his backstory.  it'd be deceptive editing but i'm beginning to suspect there's a lot of that going on, or else they are getting very lucky with some coincidental editing decisions to accidentally not puncture any of these theory balloons.

The issue that I have with this is that we've never seen another host to have visual memories like this before. Sometimes they'll mention things from their past (backstory), but they are never shown to actually visualize them. Bernard would be the first and only to have flashback memories like this.

And now that I think about it, he's the only character outside of Ford that we've seen have a flashback memory at all.

TimK

Isn't Teddy having visual "flashbacks" of his encounter with Wyatt (which is just part of Ford's new narrative and never really happened)?

ChiefPizza

TimK said:

Isn't Teddy having visual "flashbacks" of his encounter with Wyatt (which is just part of Ford's new narrative and never really happened)?

Damn, I completely forgot about that. I guess the only argument I still have with this is the scene where Bernard talks to his wife. One could say that it's a backstory flashback, but the way it was portrayed to us is that this was happening in the present day. They didn't show him thinking back and remembering talking to her, it was something he was actually doing right now.

webswinger

People keep talking about Bernard talking with his wife means that he's not a bot, but I point to that as part of the 3 TP (time periods). That conversation was between Arnold and his wife in the earliest TP. Also when we think that Bernard is talking with a clothed Delores that is actually Arnold talking to her. They talk in a concrete basement looking to place.
Rewatch the conversation in The Stray that starts around 47 mins. But this time watch it thinking not that the actor is playing Bernard, but Arnold and what we know about him.I think It fits perfectly.

ChiefPizza

That's possible, I'm just still not convinced he's a bot. It just doesn't seem quite right.

redlancer

I'm also on the Bernard-is-not-a-host train.

In fact I would be surprised if any of the people we think are human turn out to be robots. The hosts in the show are presented in a way that we the audience might have a hard time telling if they're real or not, and the guests to the park might not be able to tell, but we've been shown that the Westworld staff doesn't have any problem at all telling who's a host or not. 

Imagine driving a kit car up to a Lamborghini dealer. Driving through traffic most people are going to think you have a supercar, but at the dealership the salesman would know from 3 blocks away that it was a fake.

The only way Bernard is a host is if *everybody* is a robot, and that just wouldn't be very interesting from a story standpoint beyond the initial reveal. Though I did like the joke from the podcast that everybody is a robot except for Lee. That would make Westworld some kind of bizarre Truman show where we watch this guy go insane  

Garrison66

The only way Benard is a host is if "everybody" is also a robot? Your theory is too absolute. Where have we been shown that employees of the park can "always" tell a host just by looking at them?

To my mind they know these robots because they interact with them every day. Hosts have their own designated loops in designated narratives. I would think there are park employees whose job it is to monitor those hosts who perform in those narratives thereby becoming very familiar with those hosts and their faces. If Bernard is an unregistered super secret robot design and created by Ford, I doubt if anyone who works there could tell just by walking by him in the hall. Unless he malfunctions and goes all wobbly.

Murderbear

If Bernard is not a host then Ford is a total asshole for constantly bringing up his dead son. Who does that?

The picture Ford showed Bernard when he was asking about Arnold is too fishy. I'm not fully on board with Bernard being a clone of Arnold but I've got one foot on the step and my left hand on the rail ready to pull myself in. The picture is ripe for the moment that Bernard realizes he is a host/clone and goes back to that office to find the picture we've seen and suddenly he is I'm fact in there and there are three men in that picture, not just two.

Also, this is obviously set well into the future but how old is Ford? Why does his family act and dress like they are in the early 1900's? Shouldn't they be closer to our time?

bizmarkiefader

@Murderbear They have to dress that way cause people in the park can still run into them, they've seen the kid multiple times.

Murderbear

Duuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh. You're right.

redlancer

The year is 2311, Ford is 379 years old  

As far as the staff that work on and program the hosts I think there's plenty of evidence for showing that they can tell right away a robot is a robot. The first time we meet Elsie is when Bernard is showing her the new reveries that have been programmed in. Bernard doesn't even say anything and she immediately catches that Clementine is doing something different.

I agree that yes, if there are just a few hundred or so hosts most of the staff would know all of them. And yes, Bernard or anybody could turn out to be the super-robot built by Arnold/Ford/other. I just don't think this show is trying to go down that rabbit hole when there are so many other interesting social and moral questions to play around with.

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DharmaBot

I think Bernard is a bot. But wouldn't they have to turnover the rest of the staff to hide the fact that he's looked the same for 30 years?

EDIT Not 30 yrs obviously but he's been there "forever."

voodoorat

DharmaBot said:

I think Bernard is a bot. But wouldn't they have to turnover the rest of the staff to hide the fact that he's looked the same for 30 years?

EDIT Not 30 yrs obviously but he's been there "forever."

yeah...  i'd think they'd have to, especially if an arnold-bot, but we do know that personnel "rotate" in and out.

Murderbear

Unless there are other robots on staff and it's not really a weird thing to them.

ChiefPizza

I'm curious if they would build any hosts without giving them a loop. If Bernard does happen to be a bot, then he doesn't seem to be on one. His routine changes from day to day. Some days he's sleeping with Theresa, and the fact that he is has gone rogue a few times last week and did things completely out of the ordinary for any employee - going into the basement and to that nearly abandoned sector of the park where Ford's family is. I'm not sure if this is evidence that he's not a bot quite yet, but I don't think that we've seen a host without a loop and I'm wondering if Ford would program one without, even if it is his right hand man.

telephoneofmadness

Murderbear said:

Unless there are other robots on staff and it's not really a weird thing to them.

That seems like the only way the theory could be possible, but it seems unbelievable that nobody would even mention that Bernard was an android. It also seems impractical and dangerous to have androids roaming free in the command center, and programming other androids.

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webswinger

redlancer said:

agree that yes, if there are just a few hundred or so hosts most of the staff would know all of them.

This may poke a hole in my Bernard is a bot theory, but there are at least 15,000 active hosts. They said there is 1,500 guest at any one time and there are 10 host per guest. I think that a 10 to 1 ratio is way low though, 50-1 seems more likely.

As far as people being suspicious that Bernard doesn't age, why would they we know that people rotate out and it doesn't seem that they come back. Also Ford has questioned Bernard at least two times about the parks past and both times Bernard has said that was before his time. I think this is Ford checking to see if Bernard is turning into Arnold.

If Bernard is a bot I think he is on a loop. His loop is his job and the affair with Teressa is like a guest altering the loop.

telephoneofmadness

akritenbrink said:

telephoneofmadness said:

Murderbear said:

Unless there are other robots on staff and it's not really a weird thing to them.

That seems like the only way the theory could be possible, but it seems unbelievable that nobody would even mention that Bernard was an android. It also seems impractical and dangerous to have androids roaming free in the command center, and programming other androids.

Unless the show is holding this information back from us for a narrative reason, namely they want to surprise us with it later.

I hope there aren't too many surprises like that. There is already one show that does things like ending scenes with people we can't see knocking on doors, in order to surprise us.

voodoorat

or smushing heads.  i don't like cheap narrative tricks.  don't do it, westworld.

DharmaBot

Maybe Lee Sizemore is writing Walking Dead. Rick's been repeating his loop for 6 years.

Doctor_Nick

I think there's little chance that a Nolan production playing coy with time is going to turn out to be straightforward after all. The fact that the MiB thinks Ford knows nothing about the Maze and its purpose and we have an interview of Bernard casually sending a becoming sentient Dolores to look for the Maze should have all kinds of alarm bells ringing as to the narrative structure of the story.  The Bernard we mostly see is someone who is in the dark and is finding out how the park operates and stumbling on secrets, some with Elsie.  Yet he knows all about the Maze.  Does not compute, if we're supposedly watching the same time period.  Now if we've in fact been shown Arnold and Bernard, it makes a lot of sense.

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Doctor_Nick

Yes, he's definitely covering for some of it. He definitely covers for Ford with Elsie. He dfeinitely cuts off her research into subjects. He may have known about Theresa and the espionage if he's good at play acting. However, the knowledge of robot sentience he shows with Dolores does not go along with his confusion about the reveries and the robots going off loop and rogue. If he knows Dolores was special, the robots malfunctioning with the reveries shouldn't have been a surprise at all.

webswinger

akritenbrink said:

Doctor_Nick said:

  The Bernard we mostly see is someone who is in the dark and is finding out how the park operates and stumbling on secrets, some with Elsie.  

I'm not sure if Bernard is stumbling on secrets with Elsie, or if Elsie is stumbling on secrets that Bernard already knows about, but can't admit to Elsie. It's like if you have confidential information and you sometimes find yourself having a conversation with someone else where you have secret knowledge you can't let on to. You sometimes have to keep the conversation going and ask questions to find out answers you already know, or even build on what you already know. That's the vibe I get with Bernard when Elsie is revealing what she's found out. 

This made me think of GoT season 5 nonspoiler podcasts. Can you say interesting

Cory

Doctor_Nick said:

He may have known about Theresa and the espionage if he's good at play acting.

I don't think he knows about that, based on the way he acted when he found out, and it was just him and Theresa in the room.

DharmaBot

I wonder if Elsie's "oh shit" moment was discovering that Bernard is a Decepticon.

Blazino

I'm pretty convinced that Bernard is a host.
After the latest episode I'm also starting to think he is Arnold in some form. We've seen him doing exactly what Ford said Arnold was doing (trying to get Dolores to question her existence). Then we see Bernard discovering Ford's family of bots, later in the episode one of these bots heard a voice (Arnold) telling him to kill his dog.