Westworld Women versus Wild West women. Westworld has some of the most bad ass, psychologically complex female characters in television. If they were real, how would Dolores, Maeve and Armistice stack up against the women of the Wild West?
Like the real women of the Wild West, the majority of the Westworld women would go relatively unnoticed by historians. I’m so glad the tides are changing and women are beginning to get the recognition they deserve. There are a few accounts of adventurous, rebellious women who lived during the days of the Wild West. How do they stack up to the women of Westworld? Let’s take a look!
Dolores
This rancher’s daughter is full of innocence and enjoys painting. Dolores reminds me of Augusta Metcalfe. Metcalfe drew and painted everything she saw around her family’s Oklahoma ranching homestead. Now, we all know Dolores’ innocence evolves as she begins to question her world. This change is best seen in the season 1, episode ‘Contrapasso’. It’s in this episode she efficiently lays waste to some soldiers in an alley and renounces her damsel-in-distress persona.
Here is where I liken her to Belle Starr. Belle hung out with members of Jesse Jame’s crew, the James-Younger Gang. After her horse thief husband was shot to death, she met and married another gang leader by the name of Samuel Starr. His gang, the Starr Clan, quickly recognized Belle’s talent for strategy and she became the mastermind behind the gang.
Dolores is set to be the mastermind who will harnessing the power of the chaos she herself created when she shot Ford in the head. Speaking of guns and shooting people, another thing Dolores and Belle have in common is a high level of dexterity when using a gun.
Maeve
I just can’t get enough of Maeve! She’s a clever, cunning and curious brothel madam who goes through a hell of an evolution. We discover her softer side when it’s revealed she’s a mother. She reminds me of Ellen Elliot Jack. After the deaths of her husband and children she moved, by herself, from New York to Colorado to search it’s mines for treasure.
After becoming wealthy off her discovery of the Black Queen silver mine, men tarted throwing themselves at her. She brushed them all off until a con man charmed his way into her heart. Like Maeve, Ellen knew men and so he was unsuccessful at stealing away her fortune.
Now we can’t dismiss the madam aspect of Maeve’s story so allow me to introduce you to Fannie Porter. A madam by the age of 20, she ran an incredibly tight ship and insisted that both her “boarding house” and her girls were clean and fashionable. In short, hers was a high-end brothel.
Details about her customers were never revealed regardless of whether they were outlaws or lawmen. Among her most notable and notorious clients was Butch Cassidy and his gang, the Wild Bunch.
Armistice
You can probably guess who I’m going to mention as a possible source of inspiration for Armistice. Phoebe Ann Moses a.k.a. Annie Oakley was skilled as a sharp shooter from an early age. After her father’s death her family was left destitute. Her mother, no longer able to care for her, sent Phoebe to work with a family who abused her both physically and mentally. Not being able to withstand such treatment, she returned to her mother and sisters and put her hunting skills to use by selling fresh game meat to pay off her mother’s mortgage.
There’s a little Belle Starr in Armistice too. Belle dressed in men’s clothing and led a gang of outlaws. But Armistice’s spirit animal could be Sally Scull. Sally was known for being an ambidextrous sharp shooter and a rough fighter. She openly killing a man at a fair – in self-defense of course. She preferred men’s clothing and buckskins over dresses, and carried both a whip and two six shooters on her belt. What I’d do to see Armistice crack a whip on some guy!
Westworld has a deep appreciation for character development, so I’d like to think these bad asses were a source of inspiration for the main writers of the show, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan. At the very least I hope this inspires you to look up this rare breed of women who dared to stray outside the allowed and into their own version of the town of Pariah.
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