The 10 Wildest Westworld fan Theories 

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We update the best Westworld fan theories every week.

HBO has only aired two episodes of its new sci-fi series Westworld, but it\'s proved the biggest water-cooler subject since it debuted that

series everyone talks about back in 2011. Westworld presents us with a much deeper rabbit hole than Game of Thrones, though, and audiences have come to some pretty far out conclusions as to what the heck’s going on at its bottom. Here’s a selection of some of the best, plucked from the internet hive mind and our own brains. We\'ll update this list each week as Westworld continues to present new mysteries.

For now, major spoilers for the first two episodes of Westworld ahead.

This explosive theory originated on Reddit: Earnest newcomer Billy (Jimmi Simpson) and the nefarious Man in Black (Ed Harris) are the same person, and exist in episode 2 in two entirely different timelines. There are several times when their behaviour is mirrored, while many are pointing to an older-looking Westworld logo appearing in Billy’s timeline than the one in ‘modern day’ scenes. Could The Man in Black be Billy’s final form, grizzled, desensitized, determined to crack Westworld’s meta game?

The \'Critical Failure of 30 Years Ago Was...the Whole Westworld Movie

This theory is a no-brainer. Bernard claims the last park ‘failure’ was 30 years ago: could he be talking about the ‘infection’ that spread through the hosts in the 1973 Westworld movie, causing them to go against their programming at a devastating cost?

The Church Steeple is Where the Original Westworld Park Was Situated

Another Reddit theory, this one claims that the church steeple that Ford keeps coming back to is the site of the old park, where the disaster occurred 30 years ago. Ford wants to keep this ‘old’ Westworld a secret as it reveals the truth of the hosts’ purpose, and one redditor believes that Lawrence\'s daughter\'s clue to the maze - "follow the Blood Arroyo (red river) to the place where the snake lays its eggs” - is actually at the church steeple. After all, we see a snake by Ford’s feet as he gazes down at it.

Vulture theorizes that the hosts are modelled on former guests, based on a plot-twist from Futureworld, the Westworld movie sequel. In Futureworld, the leads figure out that Delos is modelling its hosts in this way - could the same thing be happening here? Is Ford’s end-game to usher in immortality by transporting human consciousness into his androids? Which brings us to…

Everyone seems to have come to the conclusion that the little boy Ford talks to at the end of episode 2 is a younger version of himself. The kid - whose odd turns-of-phrase betrays his non-human self - could quite easily be a younger Anthony Hopkins, built as Ford’s confidant.

It’s fairly safe to predict that some of the Westworld workers we’ve met already may not necessarily be human: episode 1 already pulled off a bait and switch with James Marsden’s character Teddy. The most common theory after two episodes is that the driven head engineer Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) is not who he seems - after all, would Ford trust a human as the right-hand man of his empire?

Everyone knows that Bernard is up to something. His off-the-books interactions with Dolores (Evan Rachel-Wood) sees him weasling into the host-psyche, while he mentions his struggles with treating them as mere ‘robots’. Considering his emotional ties, it’s not crazy to suggest he would purposefully try to open the hosts up to their true selves - perhaps it was Bernard who planted the photo on Father 1’s farm, which is slowly but surely kickstarting a series of individual host epiphanies.

Because Teddy’s bullets couldn’t kill The Man in Black, it’s safe to assume he’s human. But what if he wasn’t? This theory claims that he’s actually a host-gone-rogue who has figured out how to manipulate his own programming.

“What if I told you, I’m here to set you free?” says The Man in Black in the Westworld trailer. This line has lead many to theorize that instead of a villain, The Man in Black is actually a Gandalf-like mentor, who wants to usher the hosts into sentience. This is a harder theory to swallow, but many are arguing that when he dragged Delores into the barn it was not to sexually assault her, but enlighten her.

This reddit theory attempts to answer the question: why is the Man in Black allowed to commit such atrocities without management being alerted? Because someone is allowing him his freedom. In episode 2 Ford expressed bemusement at the park’s hedonistic, violent direction - it’s not impossible to picture him as the master manipulator of the Man in Black, with the maze at the end of his grand narrative, allowing sentience for all hosts and the implosion of the park as it currently stands.

What are your favourite Westworld theories? Add them in the comments below!

Lucy O\'Brien is an editor at IGN’s Sydney office. Follow her ramblings on Twitter.

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