Westworld’s Man In Black isn’t a villain—he’s a video game nerd · For Our Consideration · The A.V. Club

 

 "He has less in common with your average completionist, the obsessively thorough players VanArendonk compares him to, than the speedrunners who use a combination of encyclopedic knowledge, extreme dexterity, and game-breaking glitches to finish their favorite titles as fast as possible, broadcasting their exploits online for the world to see.

Their daredevil methods—which often include exploiting embarrassingly spectacular bugs to finish a game in a fraction of the intended time—often draw the same kind of “You’re playing it wrong” scrutiny that VanArendonk applies to the The Man In Black. But like him, speedrunners have a deeper connection to the games they break than most anyone who’s playing it as the creators “intended.” They’re scientists of these manufactured worlds, digging behind the facade to understand and exploit their inner workings. They’ve spent hundreds of hours inside them and learned the purpose and potential of every pixel. They appreciate aspects of these works that most people never even consider. Like The Man In Black, who confesses to one of the park’s robots that they were way better back when they were less human, speedrunners appreciate the artificiality of these creations and the “million little perfect pieces” it takes for one of them to run. It’s what makes them easy to manipulate.

What’s more, game developers—the people who spend years of their lives crafting things that speedrunners dedicate themselves to disassembling—have largely embraced their practices. Why wouldn’t they? The kind of devotion they display, and that The Man In Black displays, is the stuff of a creator’s dreams. He’s been visiting Westworld for 30 years and seen all there is to see, and yet he’s still digging, far past the vulgar titillation that he and the park’s chief architect, Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Ford, find so frivolous."

more in the analysis by MATT GERARDI

Westworld’s Man In Black isn’t a villain—he’s a video game nerd · For Our Consideration · The A.V. Club: