Arnold Weber

Arnold Weber
Information
Also known as	The General (in Teddy's memories of Wyatt)
Status	Deceased
Species	Human
Actor	Jeffrey Wright
Appearances
First Seen	"Chestnut"
Last seen	"The Bicameral Mind"
History
Occupation	Co-Creator of Westworld
Cause of death	Killed with a handgun fired by Dolores Abernathy
Narrative & Backstory
Family	Charlie (as revealed in "The Stray"), his son
Physical Attributes
Age	Late 40s
Gender	Male

“	He died, here in the park. His personal life was marked by tragedy. He put all his hopes into his work...his search for consciousness consumed him totally: barely spoke to anyone, except to the hosts. In his alienation he saw something in them. He saw something that wasn't there. We called it an accident, but I knew Arnold and he was very, very careful.	”
–Dr. Robert Ford (on Arnold)

Arnold Weber is a character in the TV series Westworld. He and Dr. Robert Ford designed and created the hosts. After Weber's death, Ford created Bernard in Arnold's image. Ford made Bernard's name an anagram of Arnold's full name.

Arnold was killed approximately 34 years before Dr. Ford interviewed Dolores in "Contrapasso" ("Right before the park opened".)

Arnold and the hosts were said to have "a special connection".

Biography

Dr. Ford reveals to Bernard that he had a creative partner during the development of the park, and that his partner's name was Arnold. According to Ford, Arnold had grander ambitions for the hosts than being pseudo-humans in a theme park. "He wasn't interested in the appearance of intellect or wit," Ford said. "He wanted the real thing. He wanted to create consciousness." Ford illustrates how Arnold intended to do this by drawing a pyramid with "memory on the bottom, then improvisation, and then self-interest." Ford leaves the top of the pyramid empty, and claims that Arnold never decided what to put there.

When Bernard asks about what happened to Arnold, Ford says that Arnold withdrew, speaking only with the hosts and consumed by his desire to create consciousness, until his death in the park. Arnold's death was declared an accident, but Ford thinks otherwise.

Chestnut

Arnold is shown with Dolores in the Remote Diagnostic Facility located beneath Escalante. He doesn't wear neckties like Bernard does, and he is always seen wearing something that looks like a black lab coat [Maeve wears something similar in The Bicameral Mind]. Arnold asks her how many encounters she's had since they last spoke, and whether anyone has altered or updated her "core heuristics" [a heuristic is a technique designed for solving a problem more quickly when classic methods are too slow]. Arnold asks her to keep their talks a secret. Dolores asks him whether he has done something "wrong". Arnold decides to have the conversation deleted from her memory, and tells her to get back to the park.

The Stray

Arnold is again shown with Dolores in the Remote Diagnostic Facility located beneath Escalante. This time Arnold brings her a gift; a copy of 'Alice in Wonderland'. A book, Arnold says, that he used to read to his son. Dolores reads a passage and realizes it's about change, which is a common theme among the other books they have read. Dolores unexpectedly asks Arnold about his son, and he wants to know why she asked him this. Dolores reveals that she did it to ingratiate herself with Arnold, and she hasn't asked him a personal question yet during this conversation, so she thought it was the right time for it. Arnold tells her to read on. Dolores reads another passage and ends with, "Who in the world am I?".

Another meeting between Arnold and Dolores in the Remote Diagnostic Facility underneath Escalante is shown. Arnold is much more tense than before and is worried about what he should do with Dolores. He says he has made, "a mistake".

Dissonance Theory

Arnold is again shown with Dolores in the Remote Diagnostic Facility underneath Escalante.

Contrapasso

During diagnostic session, Dr. Ford asks Dolores if she has spoken to Arnold since the day he died. Dolores says, "no". After Ford leaves, she speaks aloud to someone. This indicates that she is still 'speaking to Arnold'.

The Adversary

Bernard and Elsie discover that there are several first generation hosts that are not on the current data/GPS system, but are instead on the legacy data/GPS system. Five of these hosts are ones that Arnold built as a present to Dr. Ford. In this episode, the young Robert host reveals to Ford that he heard Arnold's voice tell him to kill the greyhound, Jock.

The Well-Tempered Clavier

In the Escalante RDF Ford angrily chastises Arnold. Ford says that Arnold's behavior is unacceptable, and that something Arnold has done is "mere showmanship" (he's referring to scientific showmanship or spectacle). Ford tells Arnold that he's "not seeing with clear eyes". Arnold Weber's full name is visible on the door to his office in this Remote Diagnostic Facility. (Dolores is seen walking near this door in a memory.)

In this episode, Arnold is visible in a framed photograph that Ford hands to Bernard after creating Bernard and awakening him (during a repressed memory of Bernard's). When Bernard was later shown this photograph in Ford's office, he only saw a blank space where Arnold was standing, and could not see Arnold. Bernard assumed that the host copy of Ford's father in the photograph was Arnold because he couldn't 'see' Arnold. Bernard was prevented from being able to see what Arnold looked like because that knowledge would have made him realize that he was a host and not a human.

Dolores sees Arnold enter a diagnostic room in the Escalante RDF complex (at the time of Dr. Ford's final narrative). She sits in one of the chairs and hallucinates an interaction with Arnold. (This is really Dolores having an internal dialogue with herself.) He arrives, and is happy to see her. He says, "You came back. It's very good to see you, Dolores". Dolores asks for him to help her, but Arnold says that he can't help her. He tries to comfort her when she becomes upset, and tells her to remember why he can't help her. She does, saying that it is, "because you're dead" and "because I killed you."

Personality

more to come

Relationships

Dolores Abernathy

Arnold appears to have a special connection with Dolores. He has private conversations with her in a Remote Diagnostic Facility, and even tells her to follow the Maze so that she can find joy. He appears to care about her and her feelings, as when she becomes upset after he tells her he can't help her, he tries to comfort her by touching her cheek. Dolores does seem to take comfort from it, as she holds his hand to her face and closes her eyes. (We later learn that this is Dolores hallucinating an inner dialogue with herself.)

Notes/Trivia

• Although Ford claims that the Bicameral Mind method of 'bootstrapping' consciousness was abandoned, he also says that the voice commands used to control the hosts are a vestige of the bicameral control system. In this system, hosts heard their programming as an inner dialogue. This was accomplished by Arnold broadcasting to the hosts (via transmitters and receivers). Dolores Abernathy is shown many times reacting to a voice that only she hears — a voice that seems to be speaking to her from inside her own head.
  • It is revealed later in the season, that Ford^{[citation needed]} has also been using the bicameral control system to broadcast to several of the older hosts (Dolores, Peter Abernathy, Walter, etc.)
• The Man in Black believes Arnold is the creator of The Maze.
• As Ford says: "For three years we lived here in the park, refining the hosts before a single guest set foot inside," Ford explained. "Myself, a team of engineers, and my partner."
• In the scenes between Dolores and Arnold in episodes 2, 3 & 4 actor Jeffrey Wright portrays Arnold, and the voice over in the beginning of episode one the voice interviewing Dolores is that of Arnold. Since viewers didn't know what Arnold looked like, it was assumed by most that these were scenes between Bernard and Dolores. It is not revealed to Bernard until episode 9 that he is a host replica of Arnold. The scenes with Jeffrey Wright in the Remote Diagnostic Facility were really Dolores' memories from over 34 years ago (when Arnold was still alive).
  • Astute viewers, like Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson, noticed differences in the scenes with 'Bernard' interviewing Dolores. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/westworld-season-1-episode-5-recap-contrapasso-timeline-theory-lawrence-bernard-is-arnold-clone-robot Namely that Dolores was clothed (Bernard didn't conduct interviews with clothed hosts, but Arnold did), the location was not in the usual Behavior Diagnostic labs (and instead in a different location), most of the voices that Dolores hears in her head telling her things like "find me" and "remember" are Jeffrey Wright's voice, Arnold did not wear neckties, and wore a black lab coat that we never see Bernard wearing in the Mesa Hub, and 'Bernard' was acted differently with Dolores than he did in other scenes with other hosts (Wright knew that he was playing Arnold in those scenes). Many viewers, including Robinson, had thought from the very beginning of season one that Bernard might be a host. In the first episode we are told that people not longer die of diseases, and yet Charlie died of cancer. Bernard had not aged at all since his son's death. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/10/westworld-season-1-episode-3-recap-the-stray-bernard-android
• Arnold's surname: J.S. Bach published two collections of pieces called The Well Tempered Clavier. However, twenty years later the composer, Bernhard C. Weber, wrote a collection of preludes and fugues, and this composition is also called, The Well-Tempered Clavier. In the Westworld episode of the same name, it is revealed that Arnold's surname is also Weber. (The surname of Weber was confirmed when Dolores walked past Arnold's office door.) https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/comments/5ekrwe/is_the_title_of_the_next_episode_confirming_a_fan/

Arnold's Pyramid Theory of Creating Consciousness

“	He wanted to create consciousness. He imagined it as a pyramid. See? Memory, improvisation, self-interest. (Bernard: ‘And, at the top?’) Never got there. But, he had a notion of what it might be. He based it on a theory of consciousness called the bicameral mind. The idea that primitive man believed his thoughts to be the voice of the gods. (Bernard: ‘I thought it was debunked.’) As a theory for understanding the human mind, perhaps, but not as a blueprint for building an artificial one. See, Arnold built a version of that cognition in which the hosts heard their programming as an inner monologue, with the hopes that in time, their own voice would take over. It was a way bootstrap consciousness.	”
–Dr. Robert Ford on Arnold

Quotes

“	You ever heard of a man named, Arnold? You could say he was the original settler of these parts. He created a world where you could do anything you want, except one thing: you can't die. Which means no matter how real this world seems, it's still just a game. But, then Arnold went and broke his own rule. He died right here in the park. Except I believe he still had one story left to tell. A story with real stakes; real violence. You could say, I'm here to honor his legacy.	”
–Man in Black

“	Remember. I can't help you. Why is that Dolores?	”
– Arnold (to Dolores)

Appearances

• Season One
  • "Chestnut"
  • "The Stray"
  • "Dissonance Theory"
  • "The Well-Tempered Clavier"
  • "The Bicameral Mind"

Gallery