Normally, we look to the sleuths of Reddit for theories. The fan communities there are wonderful resources for analysis, discussion, and observation. But sometimes a lightning bolt strikes your humble correspondent, and he, like Prometheus, must share the secret with the masses.
Specifically, this theory concerns the maze that the Man in Black hunts for in Westworld.
Inspiration struck while looking at the easter eggs hidden in the Westworld website. We found that the map of headquarters, viewable here, had two interesting features. First, that it was inside the park. That would explain how Jimmi Simpson's character was transported so quickly from staging area to train track. It would also make sense given how often the hosts must be maintained. Second, that the headquarters is circular. The other prominent circular schematic we've seen is the maze map that the Man in Black scalps a host to find.
The maze riddle, for posterity, is "Follow the blood arroyo to where the snake lays its eggs."
That brings us to Arnold, Anthony Hopkins' dead business partner. Arnold is said to have died in the park, in part because he began believing too much in the reality of the hosts. We probably see echoes of this in the fact that Native American hosts carry dolls that seem to look a whole lot like the suits the humans wear to operate on the hosts. That could be another linkage between Arnold and the villain Wyatt, but we digress. If Arnold believed that the hosts were more human than the humans, he might have embedded a mystery that would allow the hosts to escape the park and integrate into human society. Creating those dolls, or inciting the hosts to create them, could be his way of preparing them for meeting their makers.
Our theory is this: The maze is in fact the headquarters compound, and Arnold wanted the hosts to discover it and escape. The blood arroyo, in our reading, could be the shafts used to transport the hosts back to the base to operate. The snake could very well be the train leading into the park, and the eggs the passengers.
So why would there be hosts still in the park that still bear the clues to something that even Ford probably doesn't want to happen? Well, those hosts are probably holdovers from Arnold that have been kept more or less hidden. When the Man in Black sees the woman with the snake tattoo, he comments that he's never seen her before. Remember he's been coming to the park for 30 years. Does it seem possible he would have missed a well-known host? Arnold could well have programmed her to stay out of sight, but still hold the key to moving one step closer to finding the HQ entrance.
Now, we could be very wrong. But we doubt it.