| “ | Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the Beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose. I know things will work out the way they’re meant to | ” |
–Dolores to Ashley Stubbs, in The Original | ||
Dolores Abernathy is the main female character in the first season of Westworld. She is played by Evan Rachel Wood.
Summary
Dolores is the oldest host in the park. She is the quintessential farm girl of the frontier West. She is about to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.
Biography
Background
Dolores Abernathy is the oldest host in the park and has been repaired numerous times over the years. In the theme park, Dolores has been visited by the Man in Black, who claims to have regularly returned for at least thirty years.[1] As the Man in Black meets her again, he notes that she has "a little more pluck." He calls him her "very old friend," and comments about "all they've been through."
Season One
In her storyline, Dolores wakes up to a beautiful day. She walks out to her porch, and has a conversation with her father, Peter Abernathy. Peter is protective of her, and Dolores chides him for it before riding into town.
In Sweetwater, Dolores is surprised by Teddy Flood in Sweetwater, exclaiming "You came back!" They enjoy a playful flirtation before Dolores goes racing off on her horse, challenging Teddy to chase her. They have tender moments in the wilderness, watching the flock run by Dolores and her father. Dolores says she knew Teddy would come back, and Teddy says that he knows her Daddy will be just as unhappy to see him. As they ride back to their ranch in the evening, Dolores notes that the cattle are out, and that her father wouldn't let them roam this close to dark. They hear gunshots, and Teddy implores her to wait, as he rides to the house and confronts two villains, Rebus and Walter that have killed Dolores' parents. Teddy shoots them both. Dolores rides up and runs to her fallen father, outside the front door, where she is met by the Man in Black. The Man seems surprised that Dolores does not recognize him after "all they've been though" over 30 years. He shows no compunction to hitting Dolores. After a confrontation with Teddy, where the Man in Black taunts Teddy with his impotence and role as a loser so that newcomers can win by getting with his girl, the Man in Black shoots Teddy in front of Dolores, killing him. He drags Dolores off with the implication of raping her.
During this scene, we hear a voiceover of Dolores talking with programmer Bernard Lowe, as Lowe asks her if she ever questions the nature of her reality, and slowly reveals her purpose, like the other hosts, is to serve the newcomers, however they wish. When asked if the fact that the newcomers can do anything they want would change her opinion of the newcomers, she replies "We all love the newcomers. Every new person I meet reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive, and how beautiful this world can be," as we see the visual of her being dragged into the barn by the Man in Black, screaming.
After their storylines reboot, Dolores is shown unharmed in town. Teddy is alive, but does not meet Dolores in town again, as he is interrupted by a newcomer that had met him before, and who draws Teddy away to be their guide. Instead, Dolores sees the Man in Black, not remembering the prior events. The Man in Black calls her sweet, and says he has other plans, and walks off.
In the wilderness, Dolores is seen painting some horses alongside the river as she is found by a family of newcomers. She invites the young boy of the family to approach the horses. He asks if she is "one of them...not real". She looks confused, and then rides off with it nearly sunset, and warns the family of bandits. When she returns home, she finds her father on the porch, staring confused at a photograph he found in the field of a girl in the real world. She dismisses it repeatedly, saying "Doesn't look like anything to me."
She finds Peter outside again the next morning, interrupting her cheerful storyline when he doesn't respond to her at first. He's been outside all night looking at the photo. Peter appears to be malfunctioning, worrying Dolores, who thinks he is sick. He asks if she would like to know "the question" he has been pondering, that gave him an answer he shouldn't know. He whispers something inaudible into her ear. Dolores, scared, rides into Sweetwater.
In town, she is unable to find the doctor, but does run into Teddy. They share rushed pleasantries about him coming back, but implores him to go back to the ranch with him. Before they can leave, they hide as Hector Escaton and his gang run into to town, and begin shooting people apparently at random. She attempts to escape as the shooting continues, but Teddy stops her, and is shot as he tries to save her. He dies in the street, with a crying Dolores trying to comfort him.
After the events of the shootout, Dolores is still with Teddy's body, imploring a stranger to help her, because her father is sick but she can't leave Teddy there. The stranger is programmer Elsie Hughes, who takes her offline by saying that things will soon seem like a dream, after "a deep and dreamless slumber". Elsie calls for the two of them to be recalled by her staff.
In the Delos examination rooms, Dolores is offline and brought back online by Ashley Stubbs, doing a review of her. He asks very similar questions to what she was asked by Bernard to start the episode. He asks about the picture her father showed her, and she once again dismisses it with the scripted response about it not looking like anything to her. She is asked what Peter said to her, and she responds "These violent delights have violent ends." She is asked if she has ever lied to them, to which she says no. She is also asked if she would ever hurt a living thing, to which she answers "Of course not." The questions satisfy Stubbs that she is not malfunctioning, and she is returned to the park.
As they finish the review, Stubbs calls her "Good old Dolores." She says that she's had so many parts replaced that she is practically brand new, but that Dolores is the oldest host in the park.
The storylines reset, and Dolores wakes up at the ranch once more. As she steps outside, she greets her father again, but Peter is now being played by a different host. Their responses to each other, however, are normal. As Dolores looks out over the ranch, a fly lands on her. She slaps at it, killing it, contradicting her earlier answers.
- "Chestnut"
Dolores wakes up in the middle of the night, and goes outside her ranch. Near the barn, she stops. A man's voice asks in voiceover, "Do you remember?"
During the day in town, Dolores is walking around as normal in her storyline. She becomes distracted, and hears an unknown man say "Remember." She turns to hallucinate the street filled with dead bodies, a coyote walking through the street. Her hallucination is interrupted by Maeve Millay, mocking her for not being representative of her girls. Dolores quietly tells her "These violent delights have violent ends", and walks off looking satisfied, as Maeve looks momentarily distressed.
Later, Dolores is about to get upon her horse, when she pauses to look at her reflection in a dark window. As we look, she cuts away to a meeting with Bernard, though it does not appear to be in the regular Delos offices. Bernard asks if she remembers their previous meetings, and makes sure she hasn't told anyone about them. Bernard has her go in and out of "Analysis", during which she is taken out of character to review non-storyline items. Bernard notes there is something different about her and how she thinks. He finds it fascinating but is afraid others may not see her the same way he does. Bernard abruptly leaves, telling her she should be getting back before she is missed, though she does not move right away.
At some point later, Dolores once again wakes up in the middle of the night. She walks out to the same part of the ranch, and asks "Here?" even though she is alone. She walks ahead two more steps, and digs in the ground. Buried shallowly in the dirt is a gun, which she picks up and examines.
Dolores opens this episode with another meeting with Bernard in the room they met before. She was waiting for him, offline, as he walks in. Bernard brings her a gift, a copy of Alice in Wonderland. She reads a passage from it, which Bernard attempts to get her opinion on. She notes that change is a common theme in books they read. She asks about Bernard's son, and he quickly puts her in Analysis to discover why she asked that. She called it a persona question that was an "ingratiating scheme".
In a future morning, as Dolores wakes up, she finds the gun she found in a previous night wrapped in a towel in one of her cupboards. She looks at it, then quickly hides it. As she looks in the mirror, she remembers the Man in Black pulling her into the barn. He pulls out a large knife, and smiles, his eyes almost hidden from the shadow of the brim of his hat. but an evil grin. He says "Let's reacquaint ourselves, Dolores. Let's start at the beginning." Her memory ends, and she looks in the cupboard drawer again. The gun and towel are not there anymore. She looks momentarily confused, but then goes about her day.
She meets with Teddy, who has been escorting a guest named Marti on bounty hunting adventures. They ride off into the countryside, and Dolores asks where he's been as she has before. She asks a new question, "What if I don't want to stay here?" and talks about feeling called to the rest of the world. Teddy avoids the subject of leaving with her, because his work isn't finished. Their storyline takes them back to the ranch at night, and once again they hear gunshots. The scene cuts to black, with a woman's scream, implying their story continued to its previous end.
Another day, Dolores comes across Rebus and a new Walter that have guests, suggesting that she could take them on a hayride, with a tone that implied something worse. Teddy shows up and intimidates the guest, causing the group to move on. Out in the countryside, Teddy tries to teach Dolores to shoot a gun. She finds herself unable to pull the trigger, and Teddy figures its for the best. They are interrupted by the Sheriff and Marti, with word of a new bounty on a man named Wyatt, a character in Teddy's new backstory, and Teddy goes off with them.
Later, Bernard meets with Dolores again. Bernard, coming off of discussions with Dr. Ford and his ex-wife, seems disturbed. He asked Dolores for help, and calls his discussions with her a mistake. He says he think he should "restore [her] to the way [she was] before." He changes her responses from scripted to improvisation, and tries to explain by saying to imagine are two versions of her: One who asks questions and is curious, and one who is safe, and asks which she'd rather be. She says she doesn't understand, and says there's only one version of herself. Once she discovers who that is, she'll be free, she says. In Analysis, Bernard asks her what prompted that response, and she says she doesn't know. Bernard tells the story of his son learning to swim, and how he was just as afraid of letting go as his son was. Dolores asks if he still wants to change her, and he says no, they'll see where this path leads. He says she should be getting back, and he opens the door for her. Unlike past conversations, she gets up and leaves.
At night in town, Dolores looks disturbed and contemplating. She meets the Sheriff's deputy coming back from the bounty hunt with Teddy, and tells her they were left up in the hills. Dolores returns home at night, and says "Father wouldn't let them roam this close..." before trailing off, as if realizing that she was alone rather than saying the line she usually said to Teddy. She hears a gunshot at the house, and rides off. She finds her father, the new host, dead on the ground. Without Teddy around to kill the villains, Rebus grabs her. As she looks down at her father's body, she sees the face of the original host Peter Abernathy laying there. As she is entranced by the vision, the guests turn down to have fun with her and offer her to Rebus. Rebus enthusiastically drags her to the barn. As she's thrown on the hay, she reveals that she's stolen his gun. She points it at him, and as Rebus glowers at her, she has visions of the Man in Black in the same spot from her memories. A man's voice says "Kill him", and she shoots Rebus. She runs back to the farm house, and sees her mother shot through the doorway. A guest sees her, and stops her, shooting her in the stomach. As she looks down at her bloodied dress, the host suddenly repeats himself, and she finds herself not shot. She quickly gets on a horse and rides off in tears.
She comes across William and Logan, who are around a campfire as they are on their bounty hunting adventure. Dolores, exhausted, gets off her horse and struggles into camp, collapsing into William's arms as Logan watches.
Personality
to be added
Relationships
- Peter Abernathy: Peter Abernathy is Dolores's father. The two share a deeply caring and loving bond. Peter believes that Dolores being his daughter has defined his existence, and as a result he is extremely protective of her. Likewise, Dolores shows great concern for her father when he appears to be unwell, going as far as abandoning her daily loop to fetch him help.
- Teddy Flood: Teddy is Dolores's lover. It is unclear how they came to meet, how long they've been acquainted, and what their current relationship status is, though it seems that they are not yet engaged. Teddy believes that he is not worthy of Dolores, and that he must atone for his past before he can start a life with her. Doing so is his primary drive. Teddy's courting of Dolores is rather chaste, never going beyond flirtation or the occasional kiss.
- Bernard Lowe: Bernard is Westworld's head of programming. He clandestinely pulls Dolores aside an unspecified number of times to speak with her privately. Bernard's motivation for this has not yet been explicitly stated, though it seems to be partially to examine the hosts' consciousness (or lack thereof), and partially to cope with the death of his own son. Bernard has added subtle modifications to Dolores's code, though his purpose for doing so, as well as the exact consequences of the changes, are as of yet unexplained. Bernard comes to see Dolores as a sort of surrogate daughter, likening his actions towards her to his past attempts to teach his real son to swim. Given that these conversations all occur within Dolores's "dreams", it is unclear how much of Bernard she remembers during her waking hours, or indeed whether she remembers him at all.
- Man in Black: The Man in Black's relationship with Dolores is mysterious. He claims to have known her for decades, and seems to remember her well enough to notice small changes in her personality build. This acquaintance does not hold him back from treating her violently and cruelly however, mocking her father as he lies dead in front of her, killing her lover and striking her. The first episode seems to imply that he goes as far as sexually assaulting her, though her recently recovered fragmented memories of the event suggest that he had a different goal in mind, possibly related to his search for the Maze.
Appearances
Notes
- The quote "These violent delights have violent ends" that Dolores says she was told by her original father host is taken from Shakespeare. The original host that played Father Abernathy is described later to have previously been programmed as "The Professor", an evil cannibal cult leader with an affinity for quoting Shakespeare, among others.
The full context, spoken by Friar Lawrence in Act 2 Scene 6, is
"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."
In modern text, the line has been changed to "These sudden joys have sudden endings." [2]
- In an interview, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy said that some of the inspirations about Dolores' character and her look come from Alice in Wonderland, and the Andrew Wyeth painting Christina's World.[3]