The Character of Maeve
After a long string of watching a few rather underwhelming films (Locked Down, disgusting), we decided to put our trust in the familiar — HBO. While they have had some hit-and-misses in the past (wonder what this is referring to), those were ordinarily not the studio’s fault, but rather the producers and/or creators (again, wonder who we’re talking about). Overall, HBO has proven to be one of, if not the, best television provider: and we decided to finally give Westworld a shot. We’re talking Maeve today.
We tried watching Westworld before. Got a few episodes in and gave up. In hindsight, that is plain stupid — now we understand and appreciate the genius of this show, especially the first season, and can’t believe we didn’t even finish it the first time round. But Westworld is not really suitable for a week-by-week release schedule. The complexity of the series is so vast that the best way to consume it is by sitting down and binging and letting your mind go to work.
One of the characters that stand out in Westworld is that of Maeve played by Thandie Newton. We’ve also chosen to talk about Maeve specifically because she is one of the more straight-forward characters: her arc is somewhat linear and there isn’t really much ‘Maeve explained’ needed here, as there would be for Dolores for example. In this article, we strive to not only analyse the AI aspect of the show, i.e. why do these hosts become sentient, but also who they are after they’ve become sentient. Let’s get into it. Obvious spoilers follow.
Maeve’s Backstory
There is a lot of talk in Westworld about cornerstones. A cornerstone is something deeply engraved in a host’s code, a memory, or a feeling, or a principle, that they act upon no matter what. Deleting or changing a cornerstone would require a complete wipe or rewrite and is virtually impossible.
Maeve’s cornerstone is her daughter — we know this. Now, the main belief is that Maeve becomes sentient around the time when she wakes up next to Felix and Sylvester (the Cats). We are to initially believe this is because Maeve has taught herself to wake up from nightmares, but later on we understand it was actually Ford who directed this because he needed Maeve to free all the hidden hosts for his new narrative.
But that is not important. What’s important is — this is a misconception. Of course, Maeve becomes sentient around that time: she learns about the nature of her reality and who she is from simply asking the Cats questions and receiving answers. However. When Maeve experiences true humanity is a completely different story.
The Man in Black speaks about the first moment he saw hosts as human. He speaks about the beauty of the details and how it is exactly those little things, those awfully human reactions, that make Westworld magic.
The first time William sees this is after he kills Maeve and her child. Maeve runs out of the house, crying, begging for her daughter to be alive and safe. Westworld tells us it is suffering that makes us human. Maeve does become sentient with the Cats, but she experiences humanity much before. She is human, for only a moment, in the suffering when she loses her daughter. If Maeve never had that moment of true humanity, it’s probable she never would have reached sentience, either because Ford would have deemed her unable to, or because she wouldn’t have had a cornerstone so powerful for her development.
Maeve’s Catalyst
But sentience is not free will. That is an important clarification. Bernard is completely sentient from the moment he understands he’s a host, but he is still completely controlled by Ford and used for his narratives. Bernard is not free.
In fact, Westworld is commonly misinterpreted as a show about AI becoming sentient. While that is true, it is not the main theme. The main theme is free will and more specifically, the lack of it.
Maeve first true choice, the first time she truly breaks from her loop, is, as confirmed by the creators of the series, when she gets off the train in the end of season one. Maeve has been programmed to leave Westworld and go live a presumably happy life someplace else. However, she chooses to stay behind — and look for her daughter.
The catalyst for Maeve’s development is her daughter. A memory engraved in her with such power she cannot resist it. In fact, mostly all choices Maeve makes are for the benefit of her daughter. She spends all of season two looking for her, and then all of season three trying to get her back. It’s nature vs. nurture: the nurture is the narrative Ford gives Maeve, but the nature is her child. So Maeve’s daughter is not only her past, but her present and her future, too.
Maeve’s Code
There are a few things that make Maeve special post-sentience. She’s independent, powerful, manipulative, all together really strategic; but the one thing that makes her truly special is her intelligence.
The best choice Maeve ever made was making the Cats bump her intelligence to the max. This provides her a few things. Number one, obvious intelligence superiority in common knowledge matters — Maeve is smarter than the smartest human and can comprehend and improve everything they can. Number two, a complete understanding of her reality and the world around. Dolores knows Westworld is fake, but for a long time doesn’t understand how exactly. Same for many of the other hosts: they know the nature of the reality is untrue, but they break that through their own poetic prisms of justification. Maeve is different: she knows Westworld is a park. The people running it are just people, not Gods, and the outside world is not paradise, just regular old society. Maeve is not only sentient, but also comprehending of everything.
It takes some time to get there, but the biggest advantage Maeve’s intelligence provides her is the ability to rewrite herself and others. This is really, really important.
Every human is sentient and every human is conscious. The ones who really advance are those who choose and manage to self-improve. The same principle applies: many hosts are understanding of their nature, but absolutely none besides Maeve can change it. They can’t rewrite their own code. They could theoretically have someone else rewrite it, but it wouldn’t be the same. Maeve biggest advantage is, in fact, something awfully human — she can self-improve.
It’s worth mentioning that all this knowledge urges Maeve to act incredibly human. She isn’t like Dolores, who’s fighting for ‘their kind’ and running through life with a ‘the ends justify the means’ attitude, no, quite the contrary. Maeve is kind, understanding, and provides everybody with a choice — something she’s been lacking her whole life. In fact, she is the only host who chooses to act human. One could argue Bernard, but that would be false, because he rarely has free will and is always somehow in someone’s narrative. Maeve isn’t. She’s free and chooses to use her freedom for good — most of the time.
One of the best scenes is all of Westworld is that between Anthony Hopkins and Thandie Newton. There is only one in the show. It’s when Ford tells Maeve that she was always his favourite.
Ford is, in all ways, the God of Westworld — not only the theme park, but the HBO show, too. He’s the one running all the stories. And Maeve is his favourite. What does that makes you think?
Maeve is who this show is about. She is the only host who has achieved sentience, free will, and a true understanding of her nature. But more importantly — she is the only host who chooses to act human. Westworld is all about AI becoming human. What’s Maeve about?
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More character analysis pieces here.
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