Westworld Plot Hole Explained: Why No One Recognized Bernard Was Arnold
HBO's Westworld is one of the most complicated sci-fi dramas of recent years, but what's even more confusing is what seems like a major plot hole - why didn't anyone recognize Bernard was actually a recreation of Arnold? The character of Arnold Weber and his partner Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) were the two main driving forces behind the park and its technology. Early in the show, Arnold is eerily spoken about like he's a park myth, with Ford even insinuating to Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) that, though Arnold's death was ruled an accident, he believes it was a suicide (he's right).
Piece by piece, viewers gain a fuller picture of who Arnold was and why his legacy had such a lingering effect on the park. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and other hosts have his voice in their heads as if he's some sort of God-like figure. But, in reality, it's meticulously-calculated programming that he left within them before his passing. It's also Westworld's innovative programming technology that allows Arnold to be posthumously recreated in both looks and behavior - as Bernard - by Ford.
So, why didn't anyone at Westworld recognize Bernard was Arnold reborn? At face value, this seems like a plot hole in an intricately plotted story. But, in reality, by the time the series picks up in the present, Arnold is simply a forgotten element of the past. It's been decades since his personally-programmed death at Dolores' hands and the massacre in Escalante - the park's first infamous "incident." Even back then, the events were mostly swept under the rug so Westworld could still open (despite Arnold's best efforts). Delos Inc. was able to "scrub" Arnold from its records, leaving his legacy confined to Ford's picture that he gives to Bernard and his imparted voice in the hosts' minds.
Since Arnold died over thirty years prior, Ford is most likely the only employee to have worked with him directly. Also, Arnold was a secretive and mysterious Westworld figure, said to often be lost in his own world - which was greatly occupied by grief and a sense of alienation, as well as an obsession with creating authentic consciousness. The weight of his son's death, which is transferred to Bernard as part of his "backstory," weighed heavily on him. His sense of melancholia must have only worsened when he realized the gravity of what Westworld was set to become, a place where sentient hosts would be repeatedly harmed, used, made to die, and forced to carry the trauma of it all.
In a sense, knowing that an eternally-dark road laid ahead for Dolores (who he had begun to almost see as another child) would have only compounded the grief he already felt about his son. It's no wonder Arnold was so sullen and solitary, but his closed-off nature made him that much easier to erase in the face of an incoming goldmine. For a character who died long before the beginning of the show, Arnold had an impressive impact on the plot. But, oddly, this impact isn't widely-known enough for anyone in Westworld to recognize his Bernard doppelganger.
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