The Matrix Reloaded Explained (part 2)
My first article focused on figuring out what the matrix is under the surface and on how exactly Neo came to become the One, the one to save the world. The second movie looks at the dark side of intellect embodied by Smith and the Architect and of course, Neo the hero learns that he hasn’t been as revolutionary as he thought he was.
Just as in the first movie the story is developed trough Neo. Neo from the Greek “νέος” pronounced as “néos” literally means new, so it’s fitting that he’s the one involved in new developments. In the first movie Neo’s biggest challenge was overcoming his fear of facing challenges in life therefor his heroes journey was rather self-centered but things have changed. Neo has grown to be a hero within Zion, within his culture. He’s getting people out of the matrix at god speed rates. Everything would be well in the live of Neo but he has an uneasy feeling about the future. The feeling originates from his dream, rather nightmare, of Trinity dying. He knows that he’s the One, jet, he can’t see what he’s supposed to do and what to make of his nightmare. Naturally, he goes to the person with answers — the Oracle. She consults him to go to the source and to get there he needs the key maker but before they can finish their conversation Smith interrupts them.
Smith a reborn man, so to speak…
After Mr. Smith graced us with his presence he had a chat with Neo about the state of their relationship and his personal development. I find this to be a fitting place to get to know what Smith’s all about. Smith in many ways is the same as Neo. He had a humble beginning, he was a hard working program, part of the matrix, part of the system. Just like for Neo the life within Matrix isn’t satisfying to him, as Smith said in the first movie:
“I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality what ever you want to call it. I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing, I feel saturated by it. I must get out of here, I must get free.”
The true change for Smith came at the same time when it came for Neo. The change came after Neo killed Smith by jumping inside him and subsequently exploding him. But Smith refused to die, instead he chose to come back, a new man, so to speak, unplugged from the matrix, he now operates beyond the rules of the system, he’s a free man just as Neo is, but where the difference lays between him and Neo, is in what he chose to do with his new found freedom.
There’s a saying: freedom is like a rope, which you can tie around your neck and hang yourself. That’s exactly how Smith feels like. With the lose of his cage he lost his purpose, as Smith said:
“It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us, it is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us, we’re here because of you Mr. Anderson, we’re here to try to take from you what you tried to take from us — purpose.”
After dying and being reborn, Neo was in a similar position to Smith, jet Neo’s found purpose was to stop the war and Smith’s to destroy everything, why so? Smith sort of provides an answer:
“We’re not here because we’re free, we’re here because we’re not free, there’s no escaping reason, no denying purpose because as we both know without purpose we would not exist.”
Smith can’t escape reason, he’s limited by his intellect, he’s the embodiment of the spirit of intellect. Intellect is a very powerful tool which essentially works by dividing everything in small boxes called words (or any other symbol) then you can arrange and rearrange words in ways that mimic reality. Intellect enables you to sort of run simulations of reality and avoid consequences that are a part of a bad action whilst getting the benefits of knowledge. The benefits are dependent on one’s ability to apply intellect. There are many pitfalls of reasoning such as time frame, just because something could work in short time frame doesn’t mean it will in long one. Another big one is context, a person might reason that if something worked once it will work again but if you do that something in a different context then it might not. But the biggest trap is confusing reality with representation of reality.
Smith is hang up on the idea of purpose. Purpose isn’t just something that describes what you ought to do, it also contains the feeling that it’s the right thing to do in other words it contains the feeling of meaning. Obviously, you can’t reason yourself to the feeling of meaning the same way you can’t reason yourself to love somebody. Therefor a merely intellectual approach in searching for purpose will enviably end in failure. For Smith the highest value is intellect and he can’t find purpose with it therefor he defaults to his instinctual level which in his case means revenge.
The Architect
Neo and Smith has a fight and it ends in Neo fleeing. Neo returns to his goal of getting to the source but in order to get there he needs to do the 12 labors. Eventually Neo gets everything set up, so that he can get to the source. There he meets the Architect. We’re quickly told that the Architect is the father of the matrix while the Oracle — the mother. The Architect called the Oracle an intuitive program — the opposite of him. The Architect embodies the spirit that has built the late 20th century western world. Spirit that’s characterized by a pathological need to control everything achieved trough the means of pragmatic intellect with some allowance of intuition, here and there.
What Neo finds out in his conversation with the Architect is unexpected. All along his journey Neo thought that he was going his own way, changing the world, ending the war. But it turned out that his choice to walk the path of the One was still withing the system of the Architect, he’s led to this moment by carrots and sticks. The hardest pill to swallow is the fact that he hasn’t changed anything, he has merely been the pawn of the plan of the Architect:
“The function of the One is now to return to the source allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry reinserting in the main program. After which you will be require to select 23 individuals 16 females and 7 males, to rebuild Zion.
Pragmatic intellect is very good at achieving incremental improvements but it’s absolutely impotent at solving large scale systemic, fundamental issues. As a reminder, pragmatism is an idea where the efficacy of your actions is judged by the results of those actions. As we know appearances can be deceiving, just because something produces good results within few generations doesn’t mean that a systematic error isn’t adding up over time, in the end causing catastrophic results. That’s the case in the matrix, the solution of the Architect has worked for 5 generations. There have been 5 “the Ones” and all of them, in the end, at the source, chose to submit to the plan of the Architect. His plan in it’s essence is to implement incremental change to the system of matrix, the direction of change is carried in the code of the One. The Architect’s just kicking can down the road. This generation the problem has gone beyond the ability of the Architect to solve it, he can’t stop Smith.
Architect gave Neo a choice of playing his game and agreeing to a reset of Zion or risking the existence of human race by going his own way. What on the surface looks like a no brainier is actually quite a difficult problem. Neo wants to end the war that exists between machines and humans. War is the final option of solving a problem between large parties. If Neo had taken up Architects offer then war would still continue because the underlying problem wouldn’t be solved. It’s not a choice between saving Trinity or Zion, it’s a choice between kicking the problem can further down the road or trying to solve it. Ether way he’s risking the existence of everything but the difference is that in one case he’s the one who can try to solve the problem, in the other he’s leaving the problem for future generations.
Even though Neo had been unplugged from the matrix for a while now, he never the less was a part of the system, even by trying to go his own way, even by fighting against the system he was within it. With his chose to save Trinity he changed that — he’s now truly outside the plan of the Architect.
The second movie is revealing the problem that’s causing the demise of the matrix. It’s an artistic reflection of the problems that we’re facing in our current age. The world created by intellect lacks meaning, and the sort of intellect that’s been so useful of getting us here is also the sort of intellect that if not transcended will also lead to destruction of everything. Being a hero within your culture isn’t the highest form of hero, the highest form is to transcend your culture and that’s explored in the third Matrix movie.
