# What if Neo took the blue pill
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 3, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694 "2017-04-03T23:56:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/1 "2017-04-03T23:56:17Z")
Morpheus says:
> [@](#):
>
> This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.
But is this really true? The red pill is a trace program that allows Morphius’ team to pull Neo from the Matrix. That probably can’t be undone (despite what Smith promises Cypher). But I assume the blue pill is nothing more that sugar pill, a sleeping pill at most.
So Neo wakes back up in the Matrix. He is still The One. His destiny is still preordained is it not? And he will still be trying to scratch that itch. And if another believer wants to offer him the same deal, that is still an option.
So would taking the blue pill really have been his “last chance”?
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/2 "2017-04-04T00:02:33Z")
I gather if Neo took the blue pill, he wouldn’t be The One by definition. Morpheus’s group would have moved on, disappointed, to other prospects. The spoon-bending kid, possibly, or that high-school kid who self-actualized.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/3 "2017-04-04T00:06:29Z")
The agents were already onto him and had implanted their bug, so they were hoping he’d lead them to somebody (don’t remember if they were hoping for Morpheus, or just somebody with an exit strategy). If he didn’t join the rebels, he was still pretty screwed.
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### Author:  [@TYphoonSignal8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TYphoonSignal8)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/4 "2017-04-04T01:46:15Z")
Something Morpheus didn’t really explain in offering the choice!
“Take the red pill or… look, just take the red pill, ok?”
The agent’s bug might have just stayed in him, providing the agents with no data as Neo would thereafter have no contact to anyone outside the Matrix. The net consequences might have been that Neo might just have suffered from mild indigestion every now and again.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/5 "2017-04-04T02:49:42Z")
Nope, Trinity took the bug out before she took him to see Neo. Kind of a giveaway that he’d made contact.
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### Author:  [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/6 "2017-04-04T04:40:32Z")
The film would’ve lasted more than four hours
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/7 "2017-04-04T04:59:31Z")
Mens’ rights activists would use a different name to whine under.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/8 "2017-04-04T07:32:21Z")
He never becomes the One until he dies, and, having been trained, realizes that he doesn’t have to actually die. Without their help, he never learns he can do this, and he just dies when the Agents kill him.
(I assume they kill him after interrogating him again and finding out that he’s no longer wanted.)
Also, while the other two movies weren’t designed yet (and the ending suggests they hadn’t even considered them), I’m sure the whole “Choice” theme was already in mind. So, to become the One, he has to make a choice.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/9 "2017-04-04T14:25:44Z")
That’s actually a good point. I’ve been poking around a bit since this question occurred to me and it seems the idea of choice turned out to be a major plot point. If they hadn’t yet wrote the Architect scene how lucky they filmed the red pill/blue pill scene as they did.
I guess another way to think of the question is: did choosing the red pill make Mr. Anderson The One? Morphius seems to think not. He seems to think Neo was born into the program as a design issue. If this is true, Neo’s choice of the blue pill should have been irrelevant.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/10 "2017-04-04T15:03:06Z")
> [@White SIFL](#):
>
> I guess another way to think of the question is: did choosing the red pill make Mr. Anderson The One? Morphius seems to think not. He seems to think Neo was born into the program as a design issue. If this is true, Neo’s choice of the blue pill should have been irrelevant.
You start going down that rabbit hole, and you end up in Predestination. No one would have any choices, especially Neo. He’s just running his path, over and over. There’s no one “alive” anywhere in that movie.
Naturally, I skipped the third movie, and forgot I saw the second. It’s much better that way. (My version of the blue pill, perhaps?)
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/11 "2017-04-04T15:26:55Z")
Look around you. Those who took the blue pill are all the rest you commute with.
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### Author:  [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/12 "2017-04-04T15:36:00Z")
A bunch of security guards from that building Neo shoots up would have gone home to their families that night. Also, I think that a good chunk of NYC disappears to become agent Smith clones in the last movie?
Lots of people living their lives contentedly. Trinity still alive to enjoy the nightly Zion raves. Not really a lot of downsides.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/13 "2017-04-04T16:06:52Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#):
>
> Lots of people living their lives contentedly.
Do batteries sing spirituals?
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### Author:  [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/14 "2017-04-04T20:38:26Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#):
>
> A bunch of security guards from that building Neo shoots up would have gone home to their families that night. Also, I think that a good chunk of NYC disappears to become agent Smith clones in the last movie?
>
> Lots of people living their lives contentedly. Trinity still alive to enjoy the nightly Zion raves. Not really a lot of downsides.
I don’t think the city is ever meant to be NYC or one particular place. The street scenes were shot in Sydney, Australia, but they used Chicago location names (Wabash and Lake, Franklin and Erie.)
Wouldn’t Zion have been destroyed if Neo took the blue pill? Agent Smith seemed pretty determined to see the job through.
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### Author:  [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/15 "2017-04-04T21:04:32Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#):
>
> I don’t think the city is ever meant to be NYC or one particular place. The street scenes were shot in Sydney, Australia, but they used Chicago location names (Wabash and Lake, Franklin and Erie.)
>
> Wouldn’t Zion have been destroyed if Neo took the blue pill? Agent Smith seemed pretty determined to see the job through.
Without contact with Neo, Agent Smith doesn’t discover his newly found powers.
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### Author:  [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/16 "2017-04-04T21:35:27Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#):
>
> Without contact with Neo, Agent Smith doesn’t discover his newly found powers.
His mission is to destroy Zion, which is why he is after Morpheus and company. His new powers seemed to distract him from that goal, although I imagine he would have got around to it.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/17 "2017-04-04T22:01:21Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#):
>
> His mission is to destroy Zion, which is why he is after Morpheus and company. His new powers seemed to distract him from that goal, although I imagine he would have got around to it.
Come to think of it, everything the resurrected Smith does seems in service to his personal mission of revenge on Neo (why he wants revenge is unclear) and is, if anything, getting in the way of the machines’ goal to exterminate humanity or at least “reset” it back to a minimal Zion to start the cycle over again. He’s even assimilating other agents.
I like Hugo Weaving, but contriving a way to bring him back for the sequels turned an already-haywire premise into a full-on clusterfuck.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/18 "2017-04-04T22:57:36Z")
What if he took…_ **both** _…pills?
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/19 "2017-04-04T23:56:02Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> What if he took…_ **both** _…pills?
This post has been purpled by the purpler!
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### Author:  [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2017, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-neo-took-the-blue-pill/783694/20 "2017-04-05T05:34:06Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#):
>
> His mission is to destroy Zion, which is why he is after Morpheus and company. His new powers seemed to distract him from that goal, although I imagine he would have got around to it.
Since he couldn’t “leave” the Matrix until Neo, his only possible involvement was capturing them on the occasions they plugged in.
Zion seemed to have been perfectly fine as a hiding spot for years. It may have taken decades until the machines got hold of them. And maybe the next time they would elect a rational leader who is thinking more in the lines of “_if our enemy is a big computer, there should be a way of unplugging it, or get a virus in or whatever_” than a weirdo obsessed with some mythological savior.
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