Westworld (TV series): "Virtù e Fortuna"

Westworld: "Virtù e Fortuna". Season 2, episode 3 (6 May 2018).

See for • the possibility of Hosts' going off-script and coming to love someone they have not been programmed to love (or "love," in quotation marks). • the feminist issue raised by the Host Dolores's finding her "voice," complicated with the moral issue of what should be done when she uses that voice for tyrannical commands: ordering the exposure of her ad hoc allies to lethal gunfire, and ordering the survivors shot and/or bayonetted. Her masked, zombie-like followers obey; the Host and her rather chivalric "servant" — lover — Teddy, is talked out of killing prisoners.

Note richness and ambiguity of "Virtù", a cognate of English "virtue" but from virtus, Latin for "manliness," which depends, of course, on how one thinks real-men/humans are to act, and an important word for N. Machiavelli in his discussion of qualities of The Prince. Dolores's virtù e fortuna (luck) are necessary for victory, but they result, as Machiavelli understood, in her killing her own people. Arguably, Dolores and Teddy are humanized in this episode by showing their abilities to do or reject evil acts as an apparent choice.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 26Mar10