Matrix plot discussion - Reloaded (very spoiled)

Cafe Society
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Decided to start another thread since the other one is 8 pages long and takes half a day or more to read.

Zion real vs. another Matrix level:

This idea did pop into my mind while watching Reloaded; however, I discarded it immediately since it would be equivalant to a story with an ending of “And he woke up. It was all a dream.” If Zion is a separate Matrix, then the whole movie series is pointless.

There seem to be to three main events that give evidence for the Zion=Matrix theory; however, they’re pretty easy to debunk.

  1. The Oracle was able to know what Neo’s dreams were.

Pretty simple to explain. While in the Matrix, the mind exists as a computer program. Ergo, a program designed right could read that mind program and access its thoughts and memories. This seems to be the Oracle’s main purpose. In order to understand humans, she needs to be able to search their program.

As part of searching other people’s minds, she also searches for the special code that indicates whether the person is the “One” who can reload the Matrix. She rejected Neo because he didn’t have that code… yet. How he got it after he “died” is beyond me. My guess is that the Matrix waits until someone has “freed their mind” enough to be able to handle it, and then implant it.

Don’t believe that a program can read someone’s mind? Then how was the Architect able to read Neo’s mind as he chose to save Trinity?

  1. Non-agent Smith was able to transfer himself into the real world.

Not so hard to understand. While in the Matrix, one’s mind is completely uploaded, with a pointer (for all us programmers) from mind to body, body to mind, or both. All Smith has to do is change the pointer value to point to his own “mind”, and when it’s download to the body, it’s his.

  1. Neo was able to stop the machines in the real world.

This is the most difficult to explain. I was thinking while watching when Neo is being lauded in Zion that while he’s there, he’s no different from anybody else; it’s only in the Matrix that he’s a god. He can do little more than what others do in the real world and I though that the only way he could save Zion was to gain those powers, which obviously he couldn’t.

Then he did have them, or something similar. How? My theory is it’s Agent Smith’s fault. He told Neo that Neo became part of his program, which is why he has the powers that he does as the virus. Quid pro quo… Smith’s program became part of Neo. In the real world, he was thus able to communicate with machines, making him aware of them when they are close enough and also giving him the power to shut them down.

Ironically, this power, given to him by Agent Smith, is the only real threat to the machines at this point.

  1. The gift of the spoon, which at this point can be interpreted so many different ways that it becomes irrelevant to the arguement.

  2. This reason hasn’t been mentioned: If human beings define their existance through misery and suffering, as Agent Smith believes, then Zion certain is misery and suffering, as Cypher feels.

The problem with this is that the Architect says that human beings need choice, even if it’s at the subconscious level, in order to survive, not misery and suffering.

My main problem with the film is why:

  1. Why are there agents who’s sole purpose seems to be to seek and elimante those who are freed from the Matrix if it is the machine’s requirement that these people do free themselves?

  2. Why do the agents seek the Zion mainframe codes when the machines will destroy Zion whenever it reaches a certain population anyway?

  3. Why is there so much that has to be done in order for Neo to reach the Architect when, again, it is the machine’s desire that he actually do so?

Other thoughts:

  1. Irony abounds as Agent Smith describes humans as viruses, then becomes a computer program himself, and then becomes human.

  2. Agent Smith was wrong (again, why?) when he claimed that in order to survive, humans need pain and suffering. Instead, it is choice, i.e. free will, that they need.

  3. The Oracle doesn’t believe in all that fate crap either. She is simply a (but not a simple) program that is able to take a large amount of complex data into account and provide forcasts on that data. Her success rate indicates that she’s very good at it.

Also, it is she who was able to determine that human beings need choice in order to continue their existance, and not just the illusion of choice. Which is ironic, seeing as how she’s considered an oracle by the humans (but not by the Architect), i.e. having the ability to read fate.

  1. Why didn’t Neo simply fly away from the attack of the Smiths? There’s a clear indication that it requires a little bit of time and mental effort in order to be able to lift off, which the Smiths certainly didn’t give him.
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  1. The agents are just pawns. They clearly do not know about the previous iterations of the matrix. The agents are there so as to give the Zionites the illusion of choice. Its solely to provide the Zionites the passion and strength to go in day after day and pull the right people from the matrix. My guess is that this is going to be a major plot point in the 3rd movie when smith discovers that he has been duped.

  2. See 1. The mainframe codes are a McGuffin. The architect had to provide a plausibe reson for conflict to exist.

  3. It is an inherant limitation of the design. The architect is not omnipotent, the matrix is still a fundamentally flawed system. All he can do is to act in a certain way to minimise the flaw. In a certain sense, he does not have any choice either. There can only ever be one solution to a minimisation problem and that is the one he is forced to take.

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The agents aren’t there to seek out and destroy those freed from the Matrix, they are there to seek out and destroy those same interlopers who project themselves back into the Matrix in an effort to disrupt it. If Morpheus & Co., once freed, stayed in Zion and fought the war strictly in the “real world”, the agents would probably not be necessary. Of course, then it becomes rather more difficult to free more people. As it is, then, the Agents are the machines’ warriors inside the Matrix. That’s my take on it, anyway.

Because the heart of Zion is protected by large doors, guns, and EMP-wielding ships. Get into the mainframe, get the access codes for the doors and other defensive systems, and the machines can waltz in virtually unopposed. Without the codes, destruction is still inevitable…just less efficient. And the machines hate that.

They want The One to reach the Architect, not any Joe Schmoe from within The Matrix. Make the path difficult, and only those who can truly walk it, will.

He did fly away – after he realized there were too many to defeat. One-on-one, Neo thought he could easily take Smith (he had done it before, after all). Add a few more, and Neo probably thought he could still hold his own (he had done it before, after all). Add several dozen, and Neo starts getting knocked around a bit more than he would like, so decides to flee.

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Why has this thread been opened before a mod locks down the other thread? Just to be perversely non-linear?

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All right, I’ll take a stab. Really there are two answers for each question, depending on whether you think Zion is a matrix w/in a Matrix or actually the real world.

I see the agents as unwittingly controlled by the Matrix as well. Humans that are freed are sent to Zion. As the machines need Zion, they have to feed the humans a story so to speak. This way the humans don’t question their life in Zion as anything but the last human city.

Ultimately the agents serve two roles.
A> To allow the humans to believe the machines are struggling to control the Matrix, and are trying to eliminate the humans that are awake. (Which as we know by the end isn’t necessarily true.)

B> To prevent the freed members from waking too many people within the Matrix.

Really this works with either version of whether you believe Zion is a matrix within the Matrix. Because if they are still within a Matrix, the humans have to believe that they’re in danger within the Matrix and outside of it. This is part of what they sensed that caused them reject the Matrix to begin with. The Zion matrix has to give them an answer that won’t send them searching for more. The Agents help perpetuate that belief.

(Wow, now I’m confusing myself. It all makes sense in my head, really)

Again, I think the Agents are mainly pawns here. The machines give the agents a specific job, and they go about doing their job. This way the humans in Zion, are genuinely scared here as the Agents believe their mission to be of upmost importance. Frankly, I don’t know that the machines give a rip one way or nother whether they have the mainframe codes. Keep in mind, Smith appeared to think the job would be completely done once he had the codes. But we know that now not to be true. Zion has to live on for the machines to live on.

Again, it all comes up to keeping up the illusion for the masses. Think of it this way. You create a matrix and implicitely give everybody within it a choice to reject or stay within that matrix. Among those people who reject it, there is ONE that you need to reboot it when Zion gets too big and needs to be repopulated.

Now you’re already dealing with a crowd who rejected the Matrix. And these are people who are going to fight you tooth and nail. So you can’t just go up to those people and say, “Hey, we need Neo… he’s gonna have to wipe you all out.” You create a story so that the people who reject and choose to fight you-- actually end up working for you (Another purpose of the agents, incidentally). You have the ultimate control.

Incidentally:

I don’t think the Oracle rejected Neo as not being the One. She told him what he needed to hear so he would go out and discover it for himself. Because unless he discovered it for himself, he would always doubt it and never fulfill what he was supposed to.

This is my question:
1> The Counselor and the panel. They seemed to have a good understanding of Neo and what he was going through. They even insisted on sending out 2 ships to help Morpheus. Neo mentions how everybody on the council is significantly older than everybody else. Upon sight, they do appear this way. Is it possible that the Counselor was the previous one? Or that the council were the previous 24 “survivors.” That the council knows that for “humanity” to succeed, Morpheus must succeed? And that is why they spend so much effort making sure he does?

I feel I have rambled and didn’t make much sense. It all makes sense in my head. Overall, I believe that the machines are trying to create an illusion of disarray when they really have a lot more control than they want people to think.

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I really think the other thread was doing just fine.

This one should be locked.

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No, I like this thread better. keep it open.

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Also, if people didn’t want to keep it open, they’d simply stop reading it, thus locking it is unnecessary. Anyways, enough of this jibber-jabber and back to the topic at hand.

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I think it would be handy if we could devote individual threads to specific parts of the plot. The Zion = Matrix idea could easily have its own thread.

Agent Smith clearly mentions the first Matrix in the first film. How do you explain that?

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We tried locking this thread once. The humans rejected the programming.

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You must try to realize the truth-- that there is no thread. Then you will realize that it is not the thread that gets locked, it is only yourself.

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If this is the case, then they must know that Zion is another Matrix, no? Which perhaps explains the Councillor’s little discussion with Neo about the interdependence of Machine and Man… maybe he was trying to prepare Neo for what he was about to discover? Recall this little bit of dialogue:

Neo: So we need machines, and machines need us. Is that your point?
Councillor Harmann: No, no point. Old men like me don’t bother in making points. There is no point.
Neo: Is that why there are no young men on the council?
Councillor Harmann: Good point.

Neo seems a bit bemused by the Concillor’s choice of topics here, especially on the eve of a battle where machines are going to try to destroy Zion. If he knows that Zion is definitely going to be destroyed, but that it’s for the greater good, maybe he’s talking as much to himself as to Neo. When Neo starts to press the point, the Councillor realizes that he has to back away from the topic b/c he doesn’t want to spill the beans… but when he says, “There is no point,” perhaps THAT has a double meaning.

Or maybe I’m reading way too much into this.

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The machines don’t have to actually show their motives through the agents. If Zion is part of the Matrix, a succesful story has to be spun.

The citizens of Zion are selected because they make the choice to rebel against the system, to struggle, to beat the machines. And to do so, they need a plausible struggle that will keep their minds occupied and not cause them to consider their (continued) existance in the matrix.

If there were no agents, and they could freely frolick around the Matrix, that would contradict the story of the struggle. The agents and the sentinels have to be there to create something to struggle against - to give them a way to live out their choice.

Assuming the agents are oblivious to this, they also need some sort of motivation. Whether the machines care or not about the codes to zion (which they wouldn’t, I guess, if it was part of the matrix), it still gives the agents a plausible and good motivation.

So, if this hypothesis (zion matrix) proves true, it’s entirely plausible that the motives of the machines are entirely different from the actions they take - and so you can’t just say “well, if the machines wanted X, then why do the agents bother to do Y?” - you have to evaluate it in the context of the struggle necesary to keep the Zionites (is that a word?) occupied.

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I will eat my virtual hat if it turns out that Zion is another Matrix. It was what everyone said that the twist was going to be at the end of Reloaded and since that didn’t happen it’s what they’re saying about Revolutions.

It was a stupid plot twist when Existenz did it, it was just as stupid when The Thirteenth Floor did it and even if for no other reason than that it’s been done in two other films in the past 5 years it’s not gonna be a twist in the Matrix trilogy.

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Yes, its clear that Agent Smith knows about the first matrix but its also clear he thinks that this is the second one and not the seventh. I was referring to the previous 5 non-perfect ones.

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Thoughts i have

1. FWIW, i’m by the matrix-within-a-matrix idea. Don’t know why people think it’s too cliched. Most of the people i talked to didn’t even arrive at that; though i feel it is indeed obvious.

I think that fits in very well with the theme of the movie appropos illusion vs. truth.

**2.**I have a hunch that there will be a un-twist in the Matrix III, i.e. Neo’s stunt pulled off at the end was actually caused by a far off emp; and then re-twist that twist at the end of the movie, showing us matrii within matrii a la countless quantum parallel dimensions, after making us believe that Zion is real.

3. I read a little of the other thread before giving it up entirely - too long- but what amused me was that people took the Architect’s speech as a given. He’s a program (his speech, contrary to being verbose, fits in just nicely with what a computer program is likely to say) whose veracity has not been verified.

Who is to say the Architect isn’t lying? And that Neo isn’t the 6th. Hmm…does it even matter, i wonder.

4. Now i watched the movie 2 wks back, but IIRC, Neo was given 2 choices: to save trinity or let her die and save the world (reboot the matrix).

My question is: why the 2nd option, given that no matter what Zion is going to be wiped out anyway.

See if i can answer these raised by other people…

Contrary to being pointless, this reiterates the main theme of the movie. (See 1.)

Don’t buy that. How’d you explain that the Agents couldn’t force the source codes from Morpheus’ head in the first movie? Obviously if they can read minds then they definately wouldn’t have to chase Neo, Trinity or Morpheus. Think freeway chase.

How’d you know the Architect read Neo’s mind. Can’t he predict the reaction? Or derive the answer from body language?

The Oracle can be explained away be the nested matrii.

I don’t see why humans need choice in order to survive. The illusion of choice suffices. (Besides, see 3.)

  1. To maintain semblence of free will/choice.
  2. To stamp out imperfections, smoothing the matrix. I’d imagine a number of these (assuming the cyclical history of the matrix) actually succeed and keep the program glitch down to 0.01%.
  3. Again, the machine doesn’t want glitches, but recognises the inevitability of them. The architect might want to stamp out all other red-herrings. Imagine, if eveyone who might be the one was ushered to the source, and they were all given the choice, how many times would the matrix have to reboot. Yes, “the one” will get there anyway, but you’d prevent all other useless garbage from tagging along.

nope, they don’t need free will.

what, and lifting off when he was crushed under a hundred Smiths makes sense? The whole scene was just an elaborate special effects scene; it contributes nothing to plot.

Other thoughts:

-i thought the werewolves thing pretty annoying. While i recognise the masterful special effects the ghost twins performed, they didn’t contribute to continuity

-why do some programmes want to be deleted (think agent Smith in matrix I) and others not? (think werewolves)

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I watched the movie again last night and I am more convinced now that the Oracle is NOT the “mother” of the Matrix to which the Architect was referring. I think that will wind up being Persephone, though I am not sure about that.

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Because Persephone is played by the really hot Italian babe?

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Do the Architect or the Oracle ever really predict anything before it happens? Do they have any advance knowledge of events to come? It seems to me that the architect says crap like “I already know what choice you’re going to make”, but he never really says “I already know that you are going to choose Trinity over rebooting the Matrix.” Similarly, the Oracle says stuff like “We’ll talk about your dreams in a minute”, not “I know you’ve been having dreams about Trinity being shot as she falls to her death”.

Hell, the only one that really predicted the future was Neo, because the stuff that he dreamed actually came true.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by 23skidoo *
Do the Architect or the Oracle ever really predict anything before it happens? Do they have any advance knowledge of events to come? It seems to me that the architect says crap like “I already know what choice you’re going to make”, but he never really says “I already know that you are going to choose Trinity over rebooting the Matrix.”

[QUOTE]

Yes, the Architect does predict that Neo will choose Trinity rather than fix the Matrix:

Images of Trinity fighting the agent from Neo’s dream appear on the monitors

Neo - Trinity.

The Architect - Apropos, she entered the matrix to save your life at the cost of her own.

Neo - No!

The Architect - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning, and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to the left leads back to the matrix, to her, and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic, and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple, and obvious truth: she is going to die, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

Neo says, “No!” and from that, somehow, the Architect can tell he’s going to choose Trinity. Even though the Architect reiterate the fact that Trinity dies either way, Neo still chooses the door on the left, flying in the face of all logic and sense, seemingly.

This alone does not prove that the Architect has the power to read Neo’s mind; he might have been making an informed guess. But how do you explain the video monitors in the room, all broadcasting Neo’s thoughts?