These Visual Delights Have Sonic Ends

Abstract

Through the blending of the science fiction and western genres, the HBO series Westworld explores issues of humanity and agency. These themes are not only played out through the series’ sprawling storylines; they are also encoded in the series’ title sequence. In this essay, I expand Leslie A. Hahner’s concept of affective prolepsis in visuals to audiovisual prolepsis in order to illustrate how the paratextual title sequence visually and musically prepares the audience by encoding the series’ central philosophical questions of what it means to be alive and the role of agency in the conception of humanity. I argue the title sequence attunes the audience to these questions through a visual assembly of a body and a musical foreshadowing of a dance of agency and power struggles. Through considering audiovisual prolepsis, scholars are better able to understand how the intentions of media creators translate—successfully or unsuccessfully—to viewer experience and interpretation.