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Dolores' growth on Westworld is a very unsettling foregrounding of traditional TV character arcs. Since we know her arc inside and out, so we know that she's exploring new ground for her character. Except her character is a robot, not a living person, so in some sense she's like a train that's run off its track. It's still got a lot of momentum, we're just not sure where it's going yet. Of course, there's the additional layer of the fact that Evan Rachel Wood is a human actor, and that all great narrative is essentially removing a person from routine. So we're really just watching a normal TV show, but she's a robot, and everyone knows she's a robot, so it's like we the viewers are personified by Jimmi Simpson's character.
Basically, her arc is the narrative equivalent of the Uncanny Valley, a concept that says as digital renderings of humans become closer to real humans, they inspire feelings of eeriness and revulsion.
Do you get it? We nearly tied ourselves in a pretzel just attempting to explain why it's unsettling.
Anyways, there are some new photos that show how she's changing into something more human. Or maybe more of a trope. Or just deepening her pre-existing trope of the sheltered girl that becomes tough upon exposure to violence and evil.
Additionally, we get three new episode titles.
In order, they are: “Contrapasso," “The Adversary," and “Trompe L’Oeil." Contrapasso is the Dantean concept of punishment for sin introduced in The Inferno. Basically, Contrapasso refers to a person being punished by means related or opposed to their sin. A gossip has his tongue continually ripped out, that sort of thing. This title has obvious echoes in the hell language used in the show. The adversary is obvious and doesn't tell us anything. Trompe l'oeil refers to an optical illusion. We're thinking it will have something to do with a host escaping or somehow passing as a human. That is, unless, the humans have been hosts the whole time.
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