---
title: 'Westworld And The Trouble With Ensembles'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=SxjKnMFv8dw'
video_id: 'SxjKnMFv8dw'
date: 2026-09-20
duration_sec: 753
channel: 'Just Write'
---

# Westworld And The Trouble With Ensembles

> Source: [Westworld And The Trouble With Ensembles](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SxjKnMFv8dw)

## Summary

This video analyzes the narrative structure of HBO's Westworld, arguing that despite its complexity, the show suffers from being too simple as an ensemble drama. The creator critiques the show's reliance on a small set of protagonists whose conflicts are repeatedly interrupted, leading to plot-blocking and wheel-spinning, and suggests lessons from Game of Thrones on structuring macro and micro conflicts.

### Key Points

- **Westworld's Potential and Frustration** [00:00] — The creator likes Westworld for its acting and themes but finds it frustrating. The video aims to critique and suggest improvements, especially after the season 2 finale opens the door for reinvention.
- **The Show is Too Simple, Not Too Complex** [01:00] — While critics often say Westworld is too complicated, the creator argues it's actually too simple as an ensemble, relying on a limited set of protagonists, which limits emotional engagement.
- **Truby's Ensemble Guidelines** [01:21] — Citing John Truby's 'The Anatomy of Story', the creator notes that multiple protagonists decrease narrative drive. Truby suggests connecting characters via a single theme, funneling them together, and making heroes opponents in other storylines.
- **Westworld's Conflict Structure** [02:27] — Westworld follows Truby's guideline with a chain of oppositions (Dolores vs. Man in Black, etc.), creating a 'structure of conflict'. However, the intensity—most protagonists want to kill each other—creates problems.
- **Plot-Blocking: The Interruption Problem** [02:55] — Key confrontations (Maeve vs. Man in Black, Dolores vs. Charlotte) are repeatedly interrupted by random characters, preventing catharsis. This is called 'plot-blocking', coined by Andrew Matthews, where writers artificially delay events to extend the story.
- **Film vs. TV Storytelling** [05:29] — Matthews attributes plot-blocking to the difference between film and TV storytelling. Westworld and Stranger Things are TV reimaginings of film-like stories, described as 'stretching a twin sheet onto a king mattress'.
- **Game of Thrones' Macro and Micro Conflicts** [06:03] — Game of Thrones separates macro-level conflicts (between enemies) from micro-level conflicts (between allies with differing opinions). This allows for deep drama and the ability to drop plotlines without losing the story.
- **Westworld's Lack of Micro-Conflict** [07:46] — Westworld relies almost entirely on four characters and lacks the micro-level conflict depth of Game of Thrones. Scenes often involve two characters walking and squabbling, leading to repetition and wheel-spinning.
- **Repetitive Scene Patterns** [08:30] — The creator highlights repetitive patterns: Bernard's computer-to-computer quests, the Man in Black's murder sprees, Dolores' monologues on free will, and Maeve's long walks. This repetition gets old quickly.
- **Wheel Spinning and Character Development** [09:35] — Wheel spinning occurs when writers find things for characters to do before the main story. Westworld doesn't develop characters outside the main four or five, so they wander separately until the finale, missing opportunities for ally-based drama.
- **Hope for Improvement** [10:04] — The creator hopes Westworld will keep macro conflicts separate but subtly influencing each other, and add more gradations of conflict to micro plotlines, reducing reliance on obscurantist narrative tricks.

### Conclusion

Westworld has the potential to be the best show on television, but it needs to learn from Game of Thrones by structuring conflicts on multiple levels and developing a richer ensemble, rather than relying on plot-blocking and wheel-spinning.

## Transcript

Did you recommend anything from Westworld? Okay, so let me just say up front that I like Westworld. It's got some of the best acting on television right now, and I'm very interested in the themes it wants to explore.
I just want to like it more. Because it can be a frustrating show to watch for a lot of reasons, but with this video, I don't want to just snipe at the show's faults. I also want to look at ways the show can improve.
And I think it's a good time to do so considering the fact that the season 2 finale basically leaves the door open for the showrunners to completely reinvent the story they're telling. That's your spoiler warning.
But first, here's what this video is not about. It's not about the show's challenging narrative structure or its use of multiple timelines or its love affair with plot twists. Those definitely matter and are a little overdone this season, I think, but they're also sort of woven into the basic appeal of the show.
They make the story difficult to engage with emotionally, but compelling as a puzzle that the viewer has to solve. Basically, that criticism of the show is that it's too complicated. My criticism is that the show is actually too simple, because Westworld is, at least in season two, very limited as an ensemble.
So, an ensemble is any story that has multiple protagonists. I've often cited John Truby's The Anatomy of Story on this channel
because it's a book with a ton of great advice for how to put together a screenplay. But it's written primarily as a way to write film screenplays, and not all of those lessons are transferable to television. Or at least they need some refinement.
He's got a few words to say about ensembles, warning us that introducing more than one protagonist decreases narrative drive, the pace of the story. So he's done a few suggestions on how to have several protagonists,
while also writing a story that feels like it's moving quickly, including connecting the characters by making them all examples of a single subject or theme, funneling the characters from many locations into one location,
and making the hero of one storyline the opponent in another storyline. And that's the one I want to talk about because Westworld does follow that guideline. Dolores is opposed to the Man in Black, who is opposed to Maeve, who is opposed to Charlotte,
who is opposed to Bernard, who is opposed to Dolores, who is opposed to Akichita, and both of them are opposed to Charlotte. I'd like to call this the structure of the conflict. Each line of conflict here is a place where the show can mine dramatic situations out of.
And we've got a lot of conflict here, which is a good thing. But it's the intensity of this conflict, the fact that most of these protagonists want to kill the other protagonists, that causes two problems for the show.
Backpedaling and wheel spinning. So Maid and the Man of Black are about to face off once and for all Nearly two seasons of set have prepared us for this inevitable moment One of them is going to kill the other Even when Lawrence intervenes it still a question of which one will die
She reminds Lawrence of how the man in black has treated him, and suddenly we have three character arcs hitting a crescendo at once. This is great stuff. And then... Some random guys show up and stop the scene from happening.
The same exact thing happens later with Dolores and Charlotte. They're the two generals of their respective sides, and everything in the scene points to Dolores killing Charlotte. She's about to act, and then...
Some random guys show up and stop the scene from happening. She's even about to do it a second time when there's another interruption from her father, which is at least more character-motivated than the first interruption,
but at that point, the constant interruptions have become comical. There's a word for this. It's called plot-blocking. Coined by Andrew Matthews in his essay on Stranger Things, it's a phenomenon where the writers find an artificial excuse to stop something from happening
so that the story can be longer since, you know, TV has a lot of airtime to fill up and you can't play your big cards too quickly. The scene in Stranger Things Matthews points to is this one. When Jonathan finally finds proof that his mother isn't crazy,
he rushes home to have that emotional reunion we've been waiting for. But his dad stops him. Don't bother her right now. She's been through a lot. Jonathan doesn't grow or change to overcome this obstacle. He literally tells her later.
What purpose can that serve other than to make us wait for what we want to see? Dolores is prevented from killing Charlotte and then just does so later. She actually has undergone a character change by that point,
but there's nothing in the first scene that implies how she needs to change in order to successfully kill Charlotte. She's just not interrupted this time. Maeve and the Man in Black are separated, but we can presume that there will eventually be a round two.
This particular scene would have been better had it not followed Truby's suggestion. Had it been some other character that Maeve was traumatized by, someone not so vital for the rest of the plot, we could have had the catharsis of her defeating him here.
instead of an unsatisfying stalemate. Matthews attributes this to the difference between film storytelling and TV storytelling. Both Westworld and Stranger Things are TV reimaginings of stories that began as films,
although not directly in the case of Stranger Things. That's a task Matthews calls trying to stretch a twin sheet onto a king mattress. So, how can we avoid this pitfall? Well, since the show was designed to be the next flagship show for HBO after Game of Thrones,
let's take a look at how that story structures its conflict. And I think it a fair comparison since Game of Thrones is also about various factions fighting over control of a region In Game of Thrones there is a clear divide between what we can call the macro conflict of war between the various royal families and the
micro-level conflict of the individual plotlines. The Starks want to overthrow the Lannisters is a macro-level conflict. The Starks are in conflict with the Karstarks over how to defeat the Lannisters
is a micro-level conflict. Or more broadly, macro-level conflicts are usually conflicts between enemies, and micro-level stories are between presumed allies with differences of
opinion. The macro-level conflict provides the motivation for a lot of the story, but the characters that want to kill each other are kept far away from one another. They're practically on different planets. Martin is funneling the characters together like Truby suggests, but he's
only doing that at the end of the series, not at the end of every installment, which helps him avoid a lot of the problems outlined here. And because he's had so much conflict to work with on both the macro and micro levels,
he can drop a whole plotline by killing off a main character and still keep the story going. Westworld, on the other hand, relies almost entirely on these four characters. It nearly writes out three of them this season, but all are revived in some way.
The Man in Black miraculously survives a gajillion bullet wounds, Dolores is brought back in a new body, and hints are given that Maeve will come back too. Unlike Game of Thrones, Westworld doesn't know which parts of its story on the macro level it can lop off and still keep going.
The other lesson I wish the show would take from Game of Thrones is in how much conflict there is in the micro-level stories. Every protagonist is surrounded by allies, advisors, and opponents that provide a deep well of drama to draw from.
Westworld usually follows the squabbles of two characters while they are walking somewhere. This is the second and more important problem with how the show has structured its conflict because it leads to...
A lot of Westworld scenes feel like scenes we've already seen before on Westworld. And while that may be a meta-commentary on the robot living life on a loop, repetition gets old quick in a story.
Bernard will learn something on a computer, realize he needs to go to a different computer to learn the next part of the story, and then he goes to that computer, realizes he needs to go to a different computer to learn the next part of the story, and then he goes to that computer.
Scenes with the Man in Black involve him sitting around for a few minutes and then murdering everyone else in the scene. Dolores likes to get real up and close with people while monologuing about free will. And then there's Maeve's storyline, which...
Yikes. She is the show's best character, but she spends half of the season doing nothing but walking as more and more superfluous characters join her group. and then for three episodes she's lying on an operation table. The only conflict in that plotline is between Maeve and Sizemore, which is...
okay? Like, it is a conflict with growth and character change, but it's also pretty slight. Like, the he was a coward and then he did something brave storyline shouldn take 10 episodes to tell I mean what about all of these other characters Why not tell a story that involves them as more than just background noise Or maybe have her find her daughter earlier on and have her deal with the interesting philosophical dilemma of
needing her own replacement. Wheel spinning happens in a story when writers have to find something for a character to do before actually arriving at the main story. And there's a lot of wheel spinning in Westworld because the show doesn't have much interest in developing any of
characters outside of the main four or five, but it also can't put them in a scene together lest they kill each other, so they all just wander around separately until the finale. Keeping them apart is fine, that's what I'm arguing for earlier, but the show needs more
character-centric drama between the characters who are allies to fill up that time. So I hope that when Westworld returns that it can keep the macro-level conflict separate from each other in a way where they still influence one another in subtle ways instead
of colliding in unsatisfying standoffs, and that it can add more gradations of conflict to each of the micro-level plotlines. And I think if it did so, it wouldn't have to rely so heavily on obscurantist narrative
tricks and could put more focus on telling stories that are compelling in their own right. Westworld isn't yet the best show on television, but it absolutely can be. My hope for every episode of the show is that when it ends, the only thing I can say is...
Have you ever seen anything so full of thunder? One of the most fascinating qualities of Westworld is how it manages to make the robot characters more sympathetic than the human characters.
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