Dollhouse/WMG: Difference between revisions

In ''Epitaph One'' we see that the modern light-and-sound imprint chair came by Topher's improvements. The original was a bunch of pads and wires, like ''Alpha's'' imprinting chair. He knows less than Topher about efficient imprinting, and Topher didn't know enough to do a remote wipe. ''Epitaph One'' tells us that at some point people figured out how to do remote wipes and imprints using almost any audio or visual signal. I think we still haven't seen the person who invented that.

* It's possible that Alpha could do a remote ''wipe'', but the mass imprint required the chair. Granted, Alpha's own mass imprint was done without wires, but there were some nasty side effects (like the personalities fighting for control) that Alpha hoped to invert with <s>Echo</s>Omega, which required the chair for a procedure that even Topher wouldn't perform.

* Topher had been approached by Adelle prior about creating a remote wipe, other house techs probably were as well. The LA house is much more ethical in the treatment of dolls than other houses as shown by the contrasting D.C. house. Another house could have developed the tech through much less ethical testing and alpha could have hacked in and stolen it or he could have figured out how to do it alone. Bennett could be capable. When Alpha 'ascended' he made the reference to hell implying that he now had full perspective on all the things that he saw as a doll. Also Victor states in "Needs" that he's always awake while in doll state, but that he can't get out, implying that his mind is fully active but suppressed by active arcitecture. Alpha could have studied Topher's imprinting techniques while suppressed. Alpha's chair probably uses wire input because of the availability and price of the instruments as he is living under the radar. Alpha's chair also transfers multiple imprints via wire about as fast as topher's epifluorescent chair implying much better implementation.

 

 

== Victor will become the new head of security after Boyd gets killed by Alpha. ==

* Doubtful, since it probably goes along the lines of why they wouldn't make handlers out of Actives. See the WMG below.

* {{spoiler|Jossed in Epitaph Two}}

== General Whiskey Imprint Speculation ==

'''1. Saunders is an active named "Whiskey"'''

* This explains:

** ...Dom yelling it out during the interrogation and Adelle's quick response, clearly hiding something. It also partially explains Alpha's secondary focus on her.

* {{spoiler|She was imprinted with most of her original personality}}, like in "Echoes," and it's {{spoiler|Dr Saunder}} in name only.

'''2. Topher knew Whiskey's original personality'''

** Going along with this, the personality Topher {{spoiler|imprinted on Sierra for his birthday}} is Whiskey's original personality.

*** Maybe Whiskey is the remains of the first time he tested the imprinting process, and the original was corrupted. Proto!Whiskey was his girlfriend, cause he talked her into trying out the new chair when no one else would.

* Just because her being a doll is too obvious.

* Possible chain of events:

### After finishing, she took a position as the Dollhouse physician.

* [[Jossed]] in "Omega". {{spoiler|She didn't get around to serving the full contract. "Dr. Saunders" is an imprint. They kept her on a permanent assignment that would keep her within the Dollhouse to protect her from Alpha.}}

** ...why Echo was spared, and why Alpha would have access to Caroline's stuff.

** ...why Alpha's so hellbent on bringing down the Dollhouse, especially since {{spoiler|Echo as Memory-Wiped Caroline contacted Ballard just like Alpha, only with less subtlety.}}

* This is hinted at by the Susans' conversation about Sleeping Beauty and the Prince.

* '''Jossed'''. Oh well. It would have been one creepy ass [[Enemy Without]].

== [[Dollhouse]] is set in the same universe as [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]], and Echo is Faith. ==

Sometime in the near future, Faith was captured and brainwashed into becoming one of the Dolls. Her awareness of self stems in part from her Slayer dreams.

* As a corollary, Dr. Saunders is Illyria, presumably trying to infiltrate the Dollhouse to bring back Faith's memory.

* Apparently, Faith wanted to go to college, and so Willow hacked a bunch of databases and set her up with a fake identity as "Caroline".

** This would certainly explain the total lack of background Bennett's been able to pull up for "Caroline".

* As for the unfortunate lack of blood, demon hordes, and twisted otherworldly architecture in Los Angeles: the Dollhouse is kept static and safe because it is run by Wolfram & Hart.

* Alternatively, since everything has a cost, Dollhouse was the price of the end of the {{Spoiler| Reality Rewrite}} at the end of Angel: After The Fall. W&H set it up so that Faith and Fred/Illyria are stuck in the Dollhouse. To keep Angel far away and unable, even by accident, to interfer with their newest plans, they set him up as an FBI Agent in DC. The other characters are still MIA, but will likely show up.

* Okay, so here's what happened. The "spark" that turns a Potential Slayer into a Slayer is the same "spark" that keeps Caroline from being fully imprinted. At some point, Faith nearly died, and was actually clinically dead for a few minutes. When she woke up, she had amnesia, and named herself Caroline - maybe off of a gravestone nearby where she died. She went off and did Caroline things, eventually ending up in the Dollhouse. But the important bit is when she died, her spark, for some reason, activated two different Potentials - Victor and Sierra (or Anthony and Priya, if you prefer). Since her spark was split between two people, it wasn't enough to keep them from being imprinted. But it was enough to keep them from forgetting each other. In fact, the fact that they share a spark is what links the two against all odds.

** This...actually makes a whole lot of sense than the one right below this.

 

== The Actives are cheaper than real experts. ==

* The first episode talks about, not only imprinting other peoples' personalities onto an Active, but also mixing and matching to mold someone. It's not perfect - you can't just select "this trait, that trait, and this background aspect" the way one might create an RP character - but it's certainly a higher degree of selectivity than sticking with 100% natural personalities. This does raise the question of how the Dollhouse gets so many different natural personalities to work with while remaining so secretive that the FBI believes it a fairy tale at best....

* Also, the best hostage negotiator in the world may not be around anymore. Remember that the obvious main part of her personality in that episode was based on a woman who had committed suicide.

 

== ''Dollhouse'' takes place in the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' universe. ==

 

== Agent Ballard is Alpha ==

It would explain his fixation with the Dollhouse; he may not be able to recall where it is anymore but, suffering from a kind of PTSD, he sends himself these "clues" to lead himself-as-Ballard back to the Dollhouse. He may also be, in some way, attracted to or obsessed with Echo in his Alpha persona.

* Alpha is the most well known Active among Dollhouse. They know who he was, what personalities he had been given and, most importantly, what he looks like. If Ballard is a persona of Alpha, the Alpha would have to be the recipient of plastic surgery after the still unknown events which occurred. General workers in Dollhouse seem to have been told Alpha was killed. If he is alive, one would think the upper-echelon of management would want him dead as quickly as possible. Saying 'no' to a hit on an FBI agent who ''MIGHT'' be Alpha would seem silly, even for a company intent on privacy.

** In the original pilot, Echo (or one of her personalities) and Ballard met; this is undoubtedly the clip you're referring to. Alpha would probably be unable to or unwilling to hold down a job, let alone send himself mail.

** The argument seems iffy at best because it takes its cues from Ballard. Ballard received a picture of Echo (likely from before she became an active); this would explain Ballard's recognizing Echo. A real clue into this would be Echo recognizing Ballard during the clip, but there is no hint there that she does. His apprehension happens because Echo ''does not seem to recognize him.'' Though, it should be pointed out that the video holds scenes which are slightly out of order and cross at least 3 episodes.

* [[You're Insane!|You're out of your mind.]]

* At least some of the hatemongering on the web is being planted by Joss ''et al,'' to garner an incensed response from the fans of this FRICKING AWESOME show.

* Confirmed: Not only did Dollhouse make it to the end of season 1 (despite the 13th episode only appearing on the DVD), it's been renewed for a second 13-episode season. Now there's a twist no one here on [[TV Tropes]] saw coming.

** And now they're saying it's about to be renewed for a third.

*** Jossed. It's been canceled, and FOX hasn't renewed it for a third season.

 

== The Dollhouse is the centuries-prior predecessor to the Academy. ==

[[Firefly|The Academy]] makes use of powerful mental control and subliminal messaging to control its agents. This could easily be a refined version of the basic imprinted personalities used on the Actives. Over five centuries, they improved the technology to its present state in the ''[[Firefly]]'' Verse, though it seems they can't quite get the tech to develop psychic powers to produce perfectly mentally stable agents....

** But wait, wasn't that [[Universal]]?

*** If it is Universal, then the odds of an Active going berserk over a granola bar [[Product Placement]] approach certainty.

** Really? It's not simply that {{spoiler|Saunders is so afraid of Alpha that she won't leave the Dollhouse}}?

*** Really. {{spoiler|Alpha asks if she's always wanted to be a doctor, then calls her a liar when she says "yes." More significantly, Dominic calls out "Whiskey" when he's in the chair in Victor's body. It's casually dismissed by everyone in the room as a request for a drink, but it's also a letter of the NATO alphabet -- while it could be a red herring, the line suggests strongly that someone in the room is a doll. And given what happened earlier in the episode, who's a better candidate than Doctor Saunders?}}

**** It's worth noting that Saunders herself appeared to be the quickest to dismiss it. It seemed like DeWitt was echoing Saunders, not ''vice versa.''

* {{spoiler|Jossed}} in 2x10: {{spoiler|Boyd is threatened with being put in the Attic or being murdered, but not with being turned into a Doll.}}

Topher inputted the subversive subroutine at the behest of Adelle so that Paul Ballard would back down for the time being -- she knew he wouldn't back down entirely, but at least this gave them some time to come up with another [[Xanatos Gambit]] to keep him from finding the Dollhouse. (And as Echo said, "You have to let the Dollhouse win.")

 

* Considering how much of a [[Chessmaster]] DeWitt appears to be, this is entirely possible. {{spoiler|Though it's Jossed now...}}

 

 

== The Dollhouse orchestrates the 'volunteering'. ==

No-one seems to have been looking for Caroline; and in the yearbook video she was pretty offensive about all her friends, which suggests she managed to separate herself from them.

 

The only other serious candidates are Adelle (which would make no sense) or Topher and/or Claire (and neither of them could be an effective antagonist). Furthermore, this leads us into...

* There's also Dominic. It looks like he was the only character not mentioned on this page. What, too [[Obviously Evil|obvious]]? {{spoiler|Turns out, sometimes the obvious choice is the right one.}}

 

== Next season, Agent Ballard will become Echo's new handler. ==

# All of the world's governments are apparently in on Dollhouse, and surely not all of them are keeping silent because they want to partake in a fantasy every once in a while. Some other, more pressing, concern must be keeping the officials protecting the Dollhouse.

# The Dolls are named after military call signs.

** Alternatively, the Dollhouse is working with [[Fringe|Z.F.T. to prepare soldiers for the coming war against a parallel universe.]]

* {{Spoiler| Pretty much Jossed}}

* Lawrence Dominic is Professor Fuyutsuki: the right hand man.

* Ballard is Kaji: sort of... Kaji did a bit of investigating, didn't he?

 

Wrong, Neon Genesis Evangelion is Echo's Attic dream and Echo is all 3 pilots. Caroline is Asuka, the id. Did I fall asleep-season 1 Echo is Rei, the super-ego, and Omega-Echo is Shinji, the ego.

* Sierra and Victor are Toji and Hikari.

* Boyd is Gendo, the father-figure who is ultimately a corrupt chessmaster and wants to bring about Instrumentality.

* Topher is Ritsuko.

* Adelle is Misato.

* Wait a minute - did you just say [[Battlestar Galactica|"Resurrection"]]?

* This doesn't really work though. The original person (Their 'soul', I guess) stays dead, the dollhouse just creates a copy. It's like with vampires in Joss' other work- they may look like you, act like you, have your memories, they may even think they are you... but the original you is still dead. Of course, strictly speaking this means that all the dolls' original personalities are also technically dead. Perhaps you could skirt around this a bit by taking Ballard's suggestion that you can't erase someone's soul, so putting a mind back in its original body means it's really them, but... this is all getting rather philosophical now.

*** Or unless you hold the belief that the soul, as created by God(s), is smart enough to "stick" to the mind no matter what happens to that mind.

* {{spoiler|1=Seemingly confirmed by 1x13, "Epitaph One". At least, this seems to be the Rossum Corporation's big motivation - DeWitt et al seem none too happy at the idea.}}

 

== Adelle is a Terminator. ==

* Clearly, so that they can turn captured Resistance members into Skynet sleeper agents.

 

== Echo is somehow responsible for making Alpha ==

{{quote|"It's okay to be rescued by someone else if you're young, or small, or can't do it yourself."

"The prince shows up at the last minute, takes all the credit."

 

== The Dollhouse is an ally of Torchwood ==

 

== Adelle is a Timelord ==

 

== November/Madeleine's five year term was over. ==

* Also, this is why Adelle doesn't see any need to tell Madeleine, "By the way, we're letting you out of your contract early, so don't be surprised when you walk out the door and discover that it's 2009 instead of 201X." She isn't.

* {{spoiler|Jossed: turns out she was let out years early as revealed in the episode "Instinct"}}

* This editor read into things, especially Omega, that the Dollhouse has really vague understanding of what composite event really is. They think it's when an Active is imprinted with many personalities resulting in a psychotic. But it's really when an Active in their Tabula Rasa state develop self-awareness and personality that is, in part, based off the original personality that was there (the strongest parts); to greater and lesser degrees, this also means that the Active has to respond to their sudden knowledge and either accept or reject it. All that the imprinting of the other personalities does is give them experience and skills of many lifetimes. It's like suddenly you wake up one morning to realize that you can literally do everything Batman can. What you do with that though. This editor notes this because...

** Alpha and Omega clearly demonstrate a very focused sense of purpose and self. Alpha was psychotic because the original personality already was and that was the strongest trait to carry over. Alpha as an Active developed the attraction and superiority kick all on his own. Same for Omega - her devotion towards promises and helping people. If a composite event were really just a mishmash of personalities, Omega would have responded in the way Alpha probably expected it to happen. Likewise, Alpha probably wouldn't have been able to focus so much on such a specific goal - there's no reason why 48 different personalities would even agree on such thing unless it's not really personalities.

** Whiskey's mini-composite event - the side story involving Whiskey has many echoes with the larger one involving Alpha and Omega. However, with only one personality imprinted and the more gradual self-discover instead of the harsh method used by Alpha and Omega, the event is rather benign. Note how Whiskey acts to Victor in their scenes together. Initially, Whiskey acts exactly how a self-aware doll would - despondent and dejected, telling Victor as much. However, after re-discovering what happened, confronting her past selves, Whiskey reconciles everything. Subsequently, Whiskey's gesture towards Victor, the first time that gesture was shown despite being part of one of the original personalities, is a symbol of Whiskey's acceptance, free will, and acknowledgment of one of the original personalities. Moreover, it's a happy sign to both Victor and Whiskey - a turn around from the previous negative exchange.

** Victor and Sierra both demonstrate a vague memory of each other and Echo. This is a throwaway line in a previous episode noted by Topher about flocking. However, in their blank original states, they both seem to recall each other and have an attachment to each other, if vaguely. This shouldn't happen if it were completely their original personalities - it's really their blank slate memories manifesting on their own.

== Dollhouse is actually a branch of the [[Hellsing]] Organization ==

* There's only one explanation for Adelle DeWitt's stoic demeanor, the British accent, her aristocratic personality and role as head of a secret organization: she's clearly Sir Integra Hellsing, who's dyed her blonde hair, assumed a fake name and has come to the United States to oversee the Dollhouse, which is one of the Hellsing Organization's more specialized and esotoric projects. And Echo? Well, the chilling truth is that Caroline was just one more memory implant and Echo is really... Alucard, in his "Girlycard" form. The long dark hair, the piercing eyes, the intuitive ability to, when push comes to shove, ruthlessly tear through her enemies? It's all Alucard's homicidal nature slipping through the imprints and tabula rasa state, which in reality are very high-level, experimental versions of the Control Art Restriction System. That's the true purpose of Dollhouse: Hellsing was starting to lose control of Alucard, and the Dollhouse is an elaborate experiment to try to improve the CARS, by testing it on both him and on ordinary people who are being used as a control group. As for Alpha? That whole storyline's just an elaborate [[Mind Screw]] meant to keep Echo from realizing the truth: what really happened was that she reverted completely back to Alucard and sadistically laid waste to Dollhouse before they could reapply the seal and force him back into his Girlycard, "Echo" persona. This also explains why Echo is drawn to Sierra: in reality, Sierra is Seras Victoria with her hair grown out, similarly mind-wiped by Hellsing to preempt any threat her loyalty to Alucard might pose to the project. Of course, as her sire, Echo instinctively recognizes her anyway.

 

== Ballard is a Doll ==

 

== Every major character in the LA Dollhouse is working against the Rossum Corporation. ==

 

More specifically: DeWitt has a Gambit to rise through the ranks of Rossum and take them down from the inside, Boyd is a mole for someone, Ballard is still working for the FBI, Topher feels guilty and is sabotaging the imprint process causing the compound events. Dominic likely was a mole for the NSA, but was simply bad at it and so he was caught. All of the others went along with Attic-ing him, because they couldn't let any of the others know that they were betraying Rossum.

 

== What Topher and Ivy took from Ballard was his thing for Echo/Caroline ==

* Or his thing for November.

* Or - my personal favourite guess - his ability to have "man-reactions" altogether. That would be [[LO Larious]].

Because s/he's just going to be implanted into a different body anyway. There are at least 6 named characters running around with active architecture in their heads who could end up as Clyde 2.0. My money's on "You don't want to end up like November."

* Well, maybe. Don't forget that we are going back to an earlier version of the technology. We take it for granted that the 'point' of the technology is and always has been to constantly change imprints but that's because the Dollhouse needs to use it this way for its business. Therefore, the technology has been developed to enable constant loading and wiping of (modified) brains. But consider how much trauma wiping and imprinting must cause -- the architecture was presumably developed to help minimize this. However, in the early days, dealing with unmodified brains, there would have been a definite limit on what would have been possible -- maybe just one wipe and one imprint per brain (if you were lucky). So Clyde 2.0 may have remained in the same body since 1993, because re-imprinting him was for a long time too risky.

** Maybe Bennett is Clyde 2.0. Or, Ivy.

*** Can't be Bennett. She isn't a Doll.

== Epitaph One is not the literal future - it's a symbolic one representing two competing groupminds. ==

Rossum is making an army as shown in Stop Loss/The Attic. This is the killer imprints. The sanctuary that Alpha created is not a literal one... it's another groupmind, abit one where everyone retains their individuality (more or less) and the journey there is like trying to escape The Attic. Note the use of climbing a ladder into a light in both episodes and other motifs (a place of fear, adrenaline). Thus, in the future, -everyone- is an Active.

**** Not crude as in uncomfortable/unimpressive, crude as in simplistic and limited in applicatation (i.e. easily overcome in the space of one filler episode).

***** {{spoiler|No, it's really true.}}

We've already seen they can mess with memories in the one where Gun and Lindsey were tortured. The reason this one is so complex is because someone pointed how easy it is to break a simple prison. With this one by the time Angel and company even figured out what was happening to Faith they'd be just as confused as the viewers are.

 

* Possible, but unlikely, given that Adelle is ''at most'' 15 years older than Echo. Still, that'd be one more reason for their relationship it to be a secret, if this guess is true.

** Fifteen is certainly old enough to have a child. It's also certainly a likely age at which to have a child and give her up for adoption, which would explain why Caroline doesn't seem to know Adelle -- at least not that way.

 

== The reason Echo and company ultimately failed to stop the end of the world is because cutting the head off of a snake doesn't work ==

* It seems to this troper that this WMG is true in another way. Judging by "Epitaph One", the first sign of the coming end was seen when Harding and Ambrouse decided to provide a service of immortality. "Epitaph Two" shows us the Neuropolis, where the remains of Rossum survived by means of imprinting people. They don't seem fully responsible for the mess. When Eco and company decapitated Rossum, they destroyed the handheld imprinting device, but the idea remained. Inevitably, at some point a technician in some obscure house figured it out and built a new system tied into the communication networks. But there was no visionary leader now. Instead of world domination and enslavement which would have resulted from {{spoiler|Boyd___}}'s plan, came chaos brought about by reckless use of the tech. Lose-lose.

 

 

== [[Total Recall]] takes place [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|in the future]] of [[Dollhouse]] [[After the End|after Epitaph Two: The Return.]] ==