Westworld: Three Episodes In

Three episodes into HBO's awesome series Westworld and of course I've been trying to determine the Dramatica storyform(s) since episode 1. Kind of silly, but I can't help it since Jim Hull was the one who recommended the show to me!

From the beginning I felt like Fixed Attitude (Mind) had to be the Overall Story Domain, mainly because Memories seemed so important -- either the Overall Story Concern, or at least Signpost 1. Now that I'm three episodes in, we're probably into Signpost 2, and it seems like Memories are still important enough that they could be the Overall Story Concern.

However, it's also very possible that the Overall Story Domain is not Fixed Attitude; I might be seeing the Main & Influence Character throughline Concerns of The Past & Memories instead, with some additional memory stuff coming into other characters as reflections of other dramatics, like say Understanding. Or, we might still be on Signpost 1, and it might turn out the Overall Story Concern is something else in Fixed Attitude -- it could be any of the other three!

Still, if I go with the Overall Story Concern of Memories for a minute, that lets me put the Main Character, Dolores, in Manipulation (aka Way of Thinking). This seems to fit really nicely; I think Bernard even mentioned to her that he was "interested in the way you think". Plus, with an OS Concern of Conceptualizing, the Issue quad beneath looks perfect because it includes Sense of Self & State of Being, both of which factor well with Dolores wanting to find out who she really is, which according to her is when she'll be free. Personally, I like State of Being as the MC Issue because it talks about true nature, i.e. finding out who you really are (not just who you think you are or who you were programmed to be) -- and also because of the Problem quad of Knowledge/Thought/Change/Inertia. All of those fit perfectly: the Inertia of her "loop", the discussions about Change (including related quotes from Alice In Wonderland), the forbidden Knowledge of her memories, the strange new Thoughts she is having.

But anyway, I'm just putting this out there after only watching 3 episodes. It is an absolutely terrible idea to try and figure out the storyform before you're finished experiencing the complete story -- the storymind is a holistic thing and many parts of it can only be understood as a whole. In fact, it's usually best to wait a few days after watching a film (or finishing a book or TV series) to try and figure out the storyform.

EDIT: After sleeping on it, I was also wondering if the "way of thinking" (Manipulation) source of  conflict that I was attributing to Dolores's MC Throughline, might have actually been coming from the Relationship Story between Dolores and Bernard. That nice thing about that is that it would put the Overall Story in Activity, which would highlight all the problematic activities going on in the park. And Understanding makes sense as an Overall Story Concern, plus the issues beneath seem very appropriate (Instict for sure, and I like it's problem quad). Then Dolores could be in Fixed Attitude, which makes sense based on her "some people choose to see the ugliness in the world..." attitude, not to mention the possibility of giving her a Steadfast MC Problem of Self-Aware!

Okay, so that's my current stab at the storyform, OS is Activity/Understanding/Instinct/Thought, and MC is Mind/Memories/Evidence/Self-Aware. Again, just a guess for now as this early storyforming is pretty much a terrible idea.

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