Warning: Spoilers follow for the season two premiere of Westworld. Take a walk elsewhere in the park if you’re not caught up.
Chaos seems to rule in Westworld‘s second season. The return of the HBO series was marked with blood, weird host bodily fluids, and more blood. Some sort of massacre has happened beyond the season one finale gala slaughter. Humans are dying, yes, but so are hosts—hosts who look like people and hosts that look like animals. Karl Strand, head of operations for Delos, and Bernard came across one particularly interesting corpse within Westworld’s borders: a Bengal tiger.
A Bengal tiger doesn’t belong in the western setting, and Stubbs says the creature has made its way into Westworld from Park 6, which is an unknown quantity right now. The Delos Destination website lists Westworld as Park 1 and Shogun World as Park 2, with no information for parks three through six. So, what kind of world is the Bengal tiger from?
In the timeline that has Bernard with Karl, it’s been about two weeks since the gala. If everything is in chaos across the parks, that’s plenty of time for the borders of the different areas to bleed, even though it’s never happened before (and thanks to the premiere, we know Delos either has one massive island for all six parks or a different island for each destination). In our world, the Bengal tiger is found mostly in India, but also in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. Delos is committed to an element of reality, so it’s unlikely they’d place a tiger in an environment it doesn’t belong in. And since the worlds we’ve been to so far are based on the past, the Bengal tiger is likely from a world inspired by Indian history.
I want to believe humans don’t just travel to Delos’ parks to live out twisted fantasies. What if they created a world for people who want to witness progress and play-act within such a period? Maybe they go way back to an era like the Gupta Empire from Indian’s classical period, a time of peace when advancements happened in STEM fields and in the arts. I could see the appeal of visiting that timeline, especially for creatives. But of course, there are plenty of other more volatile periods to choose from in India’s past and Westworld is a place of violent delights.
One redditor theorizes about an Indian world called RajWorld. They cite that Utah, one location where the show films, has areas that could make a convincing replica of landscapes in India–specifically Rajasthan–and that domains similar to all the ones registered for Shogun World are also registered for RajWorld:
What kind of park do you think the tiger is from? Share your theories about Park 6 in the comments.
Images: HBO
Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. Follow her on Twitter.
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