Westworld: What Does "Trace Decay" Mean?

Episode 8 of Westworld provided a clue to its big twist in a pretty obvious place: its [...]

Episode 8 of Westworld provided a clue to its big twist in a pretty obvious place: its title.

"Trompe L'oeil" refers to a style of visual illusion in art, a trick to make a two dimensional object appear in 3D. In Westworld's case, the trompe l'oeil referred to Bernard, a host hiding as a human within the park's staff. Thanks to Ford's mechanations, no one suspected that Bernard was actually a deep plant meant to spy upon Westworld's staff for its mad creator.

So what could "Trace Decay", the title of this week's episode of Westworld, hint to readers?

Trace decay is part of a one of two theories in psychology meant to explain how people remember and forget memories. When people experience an event, their brains create "traces", an actual chemical or physical change within their brain. Like any chemical or organic substance, those traces decay over time, meaning that people's recollection of an event will fade over time.

However, trace decay is an imperfect theory and doesn't explain how people forget some memories while still recalling other memories perfectly. Most psychologists now believe that trace decay theory is either outdated or only explains a portion of why people forget certain things.

trace decay westworld

So what does "Trace Decay" have to do with Westworld? Well, the obvious answer is that Ford probably wants Bernard to forget that he's a host. As we've seen with Maeve and to a lesser extent, Dolores, a host's subservience and effectiveness decreases dramatically once a host realizes they question their own reality. If Ford wants to keep his mole on staff (albeit one that was recently fired by the board of directors), he can't have Bernard knowing that he's not really human.

The other possibility is that "Trace Decay" refers to the reveries, a programming quirk that uses subconscious memories to make hosts act more humans. While the reveries don't give a host direct access to their past lives/memories, they do seem to trigger almost involuntary reactions from some of the hosts. Could the trace decay refer to how some hosts are reacting to memories they can't access.

We only have a few more days to find out what "Trace Decay" refers to. Do you think the episode title could be a clue into one of Westworld's many mysteries? Let us know in the comments below!

MORE WESTWORLD: Mythology Of The Maze Revealed / What We Know About Dolores So Far / Angela Sarafyan On Host Evolution / The Man In Black Is Going To Free The Hosts / Who Is Arnold / The Man In Black's Backstory Revealed / What Planet Is Westworld On / Logos May Reveal Two Seperate Timelines

Westworld airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

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