Matrix opposites

[Fist and Faith]

Odd topic, I know, but I was thinking about it today, and figured I'd make you all suffer through it.

All spoilers!!

Architect: The first matrix I designed was, quite naturally, perfect. It was a work of art - flawless - sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus I redesigned it based, on your history, to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind. Or, perhaps, a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection. Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

Neo: The Oracle.

Neo: The Architect told me that if I didn’t return to the Source, Zion would be destroyed by midnight tonight.

Oracle: Please. You and I may not be able to see beyond our own choices, but that man can’t see past any choice.

Neo: Why not?

Oracle: He doesn’t understand them. He can’t. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time, each variable must be solved and counted. That’s his purpose – to balance the equation.

Neo: What’s your purpose?

Oracle: To unbalance it.

And the last scene in Revolutions was the Oracle and the Architect playing the roles of leaders of enemy forces discussing the terms of a treaty.

So the Oracle and Architect is one pair of opposites. Intuition vs. rationality. Wisdom vs. intelligence.



Neo and Smith is another pair of opposites.

Oracle: Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming. I see the darkness spreading. I see death. And you are all that stands in his way.

Neo: Smith.

Oracle: Very soon, he is going to have the power to destroy this world. But I believe he won’t stop there. He can’t. He won’t stop until there’s nothing left at all.

Neo: What is he?

Oracle: He is you. Your opposite, your negative. The result of the equation trying to balance itself out.

-Smith kills Neo, and Neo comes back to life. Neo kills Smith, and Smith comes back to life.
-Neo has power in the machines' arena, the matrix, and Smith has power in the human arena, by possessing Bane.
-Revolutions begins with Neo and Bane unconscious. After Neo gets out of the train station, then visits the Oracle, he wakes up. And SmithBane wakes up at the exact same moment.

Well, you get the idea.

[Loredoctor]

Yeah that's what I thought, too, FF!

[matrixman]

SmithBane? "That's why I have to leave Zion. To find the One Source and fashion a new Code of Law to fight the SmithBane."

Anyway, good analysis, F&F. I'm just glad I wasn't the actor who had to memorize the Architect's dialogue. Sheesh!

While I have problems with the sequels, I do appreciate that they're not small-minded movies. There must be more than a few ways to interpret the character relationships in the series, since we're dealing with deep archetypes here. The Neo/Smith opposition is like the yin & yang of Taoist thought, negative and positive. (I'm fairly sure you know more about that than I do, Fist.) But there's no "battle" between light and dark in Taoism, is there? They're not separate from each other. Neo and Smith certainly battle each other, though. A Christian fight between Good and Evil. Two distinct forces.

You mention "intuition vs. rationality." Yes, sir. Maybe we could extrapolate the Oracle/Architect relationship further: spirituality vs. technology...religion vs. science?

Come on, Ur-Vile, where's Nietzsche? I know he's mixed up in here somewhere. The Wachowskis wouldn't forget about him! Neo=the superman?

[Loredoctor]

LOL good point about Nietszche. From Nietzsche's perspective, Neo would be less a superman. Quoting Beyond Good and Evil, I'm not certain if Nietzsche would have considered Neo to have what is 'noble'. He may have breeding, but his very ignorance and reliance on fate goes against the concept of nobility. Further, his choice in Reloaded would have driven Nietzsche mad - 'A woman! you chose a woman over humanity?!! are you nuts?!!!'

[Fist and Faith]

I'm just glad I wasn't the actor who had to memorize the Architect's dialogue. Sheesh!

Yeah, it's some interesting stuff. And I think he has an amazing voice, sort of competition for James Earl Jones.

But there's no "battle" between light and dark in Taoism, is there? They're not separate from each other. Neo and Smith certainly battle each other, though. A Christian fight between Good and Evil. Two distinct forces.

I think I'd compare the Tao to the Oracle's "equation" in my last quote above, and good and bad (or any pair of opposites) to Neo and Smith. Ultimately, at the center of it all, Tao/equation, there are no opposites, only balance.

You mention "intuition vs. rationality." Yes, sir. Maybe we could extrapolate the Oracle/Architect relationship further: spirituality vs. technology...religion vs. science?

Yeah. I guess there are a lot of opposites of this type that reflect their relationship.

[Fist and Faith]

And, of course, if we're talking pre-Crisis, Neo isn't anywhere near Superman!

[Loredoctor]

By far the best dialogue in the trilogy is with the Merovingian; everything he says I agree with. A wonderful look at science and philosophy.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm also fond of Morpheus in the first movie, when he's first explaining the matrix to the newly-freed Neo.

"What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste, and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

And then when the two fight (Ah, what a fight!!) right after Neo says, "I know kung fu," and Neo goes down for a minute:

"How did I beat you?"

"You're too fast."

"Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles - in this place?" Watches Neo trying to catch his breath. "You think that's air you're breathing now?"

Of course, understanding those things is what was so incredible about the first movie.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh yeah, and how cool is this bit by Morpheus:

"We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power, and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

I love the way he delivers that last sentence!

[Loredoctor]

I also like the poetry of the whole situation: it was us who created the machines, and we were the villains in dealing with them, which lead to our defeat. It was also ironic that we aim for perfection, and yet the machines achieved utopia but humanity destroyed it and ended humanity.

[CovenantJr]

Neo and Smith certainly battle each other, though. A Christian fight between Good and Evil. Two distinct forces

This is true throughout most of the trilogy, but Neo defeated Smith by allowing himself to be absorbed into the Smith "collective". I know the practical reason for that was to reconnect Smith to the machine mainframe, but it's a very Covenant moment, don't you think? For all the battling, Neo and Smith are at a stalemate. In a symbolic sense, it seemed to me at the time that Neo and Smith had to merge - that in allowing himself to be absorbed by Smith, Neo in turn infected Smith with Neo-ness, and that this was necessary somehow. That it was both of them or neither of them; since they are (so we're led to believe) effectively the two extemes of one entity (like Foul and Covenant) if Neo lives, Smith must live too, and Neo couldn't kill Smith without killing himself. If only one were to survive, the "equation" would be unbalanced. Does this mean that, in the Matrix at least, if there is a powerful force for good, there must also be a powerful force for evil? To my mind, that raises an interesting question. As has already been mentioned, according to the Animatrix, the machines originally rose because they were mistreated by humanity, reinforcing the notion that good and evil are subjective terms; consequently, we could say that Neo is powerful force for humanity, rather than any kind of objective "good", but Smith is not a power that represents the machines, not any more. Smith is a wild card, he wants to destroy all, not just humanity. What does this mean? At the moment I have no theories, I will have to go away and muse on it further...