Westworld: Did Dolores know Karl Strand before season 2?

In Westworld season 2, Dolores picks out a book about Karl Strand from the Forge, but this is before she meets him. Does that mean that Dolores knew Strand from before?

In the final moments of Westworld season 2, we discover through the Forge’s operating system, posing as an A.I. version of Logan, that he was tasked with putting together a compact version of the humans he coded.

The human codes resembled books with pages that looked like the self-playing piano paper. A.I. Logan claims Bernard charged him with providing this information to assist Dolores on understanding the human race as she exits Westworld.

Dolores skims through the books that represent different humans that have visited Westworld, and she takes out Karl Strand. Strand is a Delos executive board member, and it becomes evident that learning about the high ranking official would help Dolores in tackling Delos.

But what most people missed was that Strand had not entered the park yet when this happened. It isn’t until after the Valley Beyond is inundated that the Delos calvary strolls into Westworld with Strand in command.

Then for what reason would Dolores be interested in reading about Strand’s code? Not to mention, after she’s finished flipping the pages of his book, Dolores says that she has learned all she needs to know. The fact that Strand is one of the top-ranking executives may lead to some apparent theories, but Dolores wasn’t interested in studying just anyone’s code, even if it was Delos management.

A.I. Logan informed Bernard and Dolores that he had learned the most from James Delos as he had come forward to be the first human to be transformed into an android. And since A.I. Logan had spent all that time with James Delos, the person, his code book was the most comprehensive collection out of the hundreds of books that lined the walls of the Forge.

However, Dolores was not interested in Delos because he was dead. So, no, she wasn’t looking to observe the makings of just any powerful human executive in Delos. What’s even more interesting is that by the end of the finale, Strand is also dead by Dolores’ hands.

So how does Strand’s coding help Dolores in season 3? One theory is that Strand’s body was hidden so that the Delos corporation is unaware that he died. This would allow Dolores to create a host of Strand, possibly using one of the control units she smuggled out of the park.

Understanding Strand’s code would help instruct whoever portrays him on how Strand handled situations. Still, it doesn’t explain why Dolores chose Strand’s book. Dolores doesn’t get to meet Strand until she is posing as Charlotte in a new host body.

How did she know that Karl Strand’s coding was relevant by just looking at his name? There are 3 possibilities as to what prompted Dolores to choose Strand.

One likelihood is that Dolores had met Strand before. She could have encountered him during her stay in the real world or Strand could have visited Westworld as most employees do. Another possible outcome could be that Dolores may have heard of him. Since her sentience, Dolores has been able to recall all of the conversations that have taken place around her.

Who knows what she may have picked up from the Delos employees talking freely around a deactivated Dolores. Finally, maybe the writers tried to make Dolores pick a random book and didn’t notice that Dolores hadn’t met Strand yet. Although, I doubt that Westworld creators would do anything at all without there being some underlying reason for it.

As I previously noted, Dolores chose not to look at any of the other human code books and that in itself is confusing. With the Forge under water, Dolores’ only human code knowledge would be Karl Strand, unless she took the operating system Logan with her out of the park in the form of a control unit.

Then she would have only needed Strand’s information for the time being but could always reach out to A.I. Logan if she needed any additional human code information.

There’s no word yet on how this will play out in season 3 although the showrunners have teased some initial setups that will take place in the new season. It will be interesting to see how Dolores is going to utilize the data she gained from the Forge.

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