Westworld S2 Finale update #2: William (Patreon)

So I reckon we've got William figured out:

This season, William faces his true nature. He says he has “A stain”, a “darkness” behind his violence and obsession with Westworld. In the real world, he acts like a “good guy” – a “Philanthropist” and “Family man”. But it’s a lie – he can’t hide his true nature, which leads to the suicide of his wife Juliet. This season, he tries to change – to get “a glimpse of the [man he] could've been”. In Episode 4, William saves Lawrence’s family, instead of killing them. But as Lawrence’s daughter says, “One good deed doesn't change” who William is. In Episode 6, William’s daughter Emily offers a chance to heal their relationship, face their past, and escape the park. But William fails to be open and honest with Emily. He abandons her, rejects her, and ends up killing his own daughter. Over and over, William fails to change, and so he questions his free will – does he have a choice, or can he only follow his “code”? William started the Delos “project” – he built the Forge to record guest data, and decode the human mind. He ran the James Delos experiment to make people immortal. But by Season 2, he sees the project as his “greatest mistake”. Cause the project reduces people into code, it takes away the illusion of free will, and shows people for who they really are. And this is William’s worst nightmare – he doesn’t wanna be judged, or reduced to code, or trapped in a loop. So his main goal this season is to destroy the Forge and its data, to avoid being judged, trapped, decoded. He wants to prove “That no system can tell [him] who [he is]. That [he has] a … choice”. But again William fails. We know the real William gets hurt by Dolores, then is rescued by humans on the beach. But at some point, a copy of William is made who repeats William’s quest. He goes down to the Forge and meets a host of Emily – then repeats the loop over and over. Showrunner Lisa Joy says this is in the far future, and this loop is run by “the hosts”, who are “testing for something” that “they have yet to find”. Maybe the hosts are looking for the same thing William was – human free will. Can William ever change? Reconcile with his daughter, and escape? Or are humans doomed to repeat our mistakes forever? That question is the meaning behind William’s arc this season.

The script goes on to speculate about the involvement of Emily in William's hell-loop, and the vagaries of Ford's "door" quest – not sure how much of that we'll include. But the important stuff is in the above (:

Cheers!

ASX