10) The Truth About The Maze
After weeks of wondering – and years of searching for the Man in Black – we finally learned exactly what the mysterious maze was all about this week. Old William had always believed it was a deeper level to the game of Westworld that he could participate in. Unfortunately for him though, it’s not meant for the guests – only the hosts.
In actual fact, it only exists on a mental level, as it’s Arnold’s final test to prove the host’s sentience. Inspired by Pigs in Clover, a game where the player rolls a marble into the centre of a maze that his son Charlie used to play, Arnold developed the idea that consciousness was not a pyramid as he had previously thought but a labyrinth. Each host had to blindly find their way to the centre – true sentience – or lose themselves and go mad along the way.
For such a cerebral reveal, the moment it finally comes out makes for an interesting visual – as Dolores digs up a grave marked with her own name to find the original toy game.