»Purpose of the Merovingian«

If there's one thing that disappointed me more than anything else in "Revolutions", it was the complete lack of development with of the Merovingian, who I think (despite his being French) is one of the most interesting characters in the trilogy. I was looking forward to a "Neo/Merovingian" confrontation which didn't happen. The inclusion of the whole Merovingian mythology in the story brought an interesting thread into the whole religious allegory. His underworld setting and his company of werewolves, vampires, and ghosts threw a nice contrast of magic vs. technology. He brings up one of the most interesting topics in the trilogy with his causality spiel and his criticism Neo about why he is still following orders when he has achieved his freedom. And then. . .then. . .they completely downplay his role in Revolutions to a worthless gunfight at the beginning of the movie that could easily have been left out of the entire story!

My question is, why bother to develop the Merovingian character and subplot only to hack it to pieces? Can anyone find a greater significance to that fight scene? Does anyone else want to gripe about this? Does anyone think that there must be some kind of continuation to the series planned out because of the complete utter lack of development of this idea? Please share your ideas and comisery in this thread.

I too am very dissapointed with the Club Hell scene, and feel that Mero went from some powerfull enigma to full of wind and bit of a joke really. He's one of the oldest in the Matrix and yet it looks like Trainman could kick his ass. The only reason i can see to work the scene like that is to show that Trin is taking no crap and she wont jump through hoops to get her bloke back....other than that it's a waste.

Also he is one of the oldest programs and has survived Neo's predecessors and Trin comes in, gesticulates with her weapon and he says: "I wet my trousers"

Gosh, just another program

Is he a program? I never got Reloaded. They just compressed everything into one hella long speech by the Architect that had my bum go dead. I didn't understand half of what Merovingian was saying (Him being French and all) I found him to be quite a useless character. In Reloaded when Neo was stopping bullets - He was just standing there and later ran away. He has absolutely no power in both Reloaded or Revolutions. He was a poor character to begin with.

To be honest i think we all have placed to much importance on Mero when all he is is some plot device. Oracle-"The keymaker is being held by one of the oldest of us....he's called the(place really cool sounding name right here)" He could have been called Gerald for all the difference he made in Revolutions.


p.s No offence to Geralds of the world

knnknn wrote:

...he is one of the oldest programs and has survived Neo's predecessors and Trin comes in, gesticulates with her weapon and he says: "I wet my trousers"

when he says he survived Neo's predecessors, i don't think that meant that he survived direct physical conrontation. notice how he runs off after his men are beaten (M2)? i don't think he would face the One directly.

The problem is that he has power over others so that would imply he is powerfull to amass the vampire/wearwolf/rogue programs he has under his control. It goes against everything he should be in the film when he just 'runs' off or backs down when he has a gun pointed at him. He was built up in Reloaded to be someone you dont mess with and yet both times the crap hit the fan he does a runner....weak writing by the Wacho's if you ask me!

IN my opinion, Merovigian is the "first machine that killed the first human"... showed in Animatrix... the machine that rebel against the humans... and caused the war with humans...

Merovigian gives order to Oracle: "Your time is ending".

Merovigian have everthing in matrix....Example:

-Keymaker
-Persephone
-Body guard, twins
-Merovigian can modify the matrix... in M2 merovigian simulated a orgasm in that woman...
-Merovigian can see the code of matrix... in M2 show this...
-Merovigian defeated the others 5 Neos(flaws) in Matrix...
-Merovigian can dispatch or rescue programs to "train Station"... where the programs will be deleted...
-Merogivian is the best.... hehehehe

you mean that the Merovingian is BI-66ER?

ah...that machine was destroyed.

Yeah...but if anyone waves a pointy stick at the guy he pee's his pants and run off....real lame considering he's amassed all this 'wealth'

It is possible that The Merovingian is somehow a reference to Satan. In the Bible, we can read the story of Lucifer, who was one of the most beautiful angels. He wanted to be better that God, and for that he was thrown out of heaven, along with 1/3 of the angels. Now take a look at this quote from The Matrix Reloaded:

Quote:

Persephone: A long time ago, when we first came here, it was so different. He was so different. He was like you. (To Neo)

This might mean that he was a previous "One", like many of us thought after watching Reloaded, but it could also mean two other things. First, that The Merovingian used to be in love, or was a passionate lover like Neo. Or that he once used his power for good, instead than for evil. A good analogy of this would be what happened to Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars (sorry about the comparison, but the analogy works here).

Another quote that seems to support this theory is this one:

Quote:

Cain and Abel: Yes, Mistress. Persephone: They come from a much older version of the Matrix, but like so many back then, they caused more problems than they solved. My husband saved them because they're notoriously difficult to terminate.

Again, this could mean different things. It could mean that he was a previous "One", and that Cain and Abel were among the 23 that he chose to save. Or maybe he was someone very close to The Architect (a figure of God in The Matrix) but wanted to be like him, or wanted more power, and was thrown out, along with a bunch of programs.

And then of course, there is the Hel Club, with its obvious reference to hell, and all the freaks inside that resemble dark angels in some way.

I'm not trying to make any points here, just laying out the facts. Because I feel this is one of the many things we may never know for sure.

Grendelvs wrote:

you mean that the Merovingian is BI-66ER? ah...that machine was destroyed.

Yeah... but merovian I think that only a program inherited this knoledment...

like Neo was a human... but in the future, neo might be reproduced by the matrix like a program... oracle says in the end of M3: "Sati might meet neo in future"

seraph was a human... but in m2, m3, seraph is only a program reproduced by matrix... because the matrix understand the flaws seraph and now can reproduce him...

REmeber that merovigian is similar the Oracle, because:

Merovigian says: "Cause, efect" "action, reaction"

merovigian can see that a "cause" in the future will be "effect" and a "action in the future will be "reaction"...

and the Oracle says: "purpose, choise".... it's conected with cause and effect...

I'm certain of the Merovingian being the devil. There are many references to it like his being married to Persephone which alludes to him being Hades "the God of the Underworld." He also hangs around with all those demon programs. Here's a really obscure reference: In "the Chateau" in Reloaded which is supposed to model the Chateau-la-Renn in real life (the ancestral home of the Merovingian kings), there are two statues of Christ and Satan holding swords like they about to fight with each other. You can see these statues at the bottom of the staircase where the big fight scene is. Anyway, I'm sure that these represent Neo fighting the Merovingian, hence the Merovingian is Satan. I liked that comment about Lucifer being cast out with his army of fallen angels. It is very similar to the casting out of the exile programs. It just makes me sadder that they didn't pursue this plot thread more. . .*sigh*

...it is Satan, not God, who has created the world in order to imprison humanity. It is also the Architect who is unleashing the Sentinels to destroy Zion; that is, beginning the Battle of Armageddon.

the merovingian improsons the keymaker in an attempt to stop the anamoly from resetting the matrix. however, the program does not do this for humanity. it is an attempt to hold on to the power it has currently amassed.

the merovingian is a daemon - in both senses of the word:

the words daemon and daimon are distinctive, older spellings of demon. this spelling is used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Greek mythology, "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes", from the Judeo-Christian usage demon, "a malignant spirit that can possess humans".

daemons ("replete with knowledge", "divine power", "fate" or "god") were not necessarily evil. the Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: eudaemons and cacodaemons, respectively. eudaemons somewhat resembled the modern idea of the guardian angel. they watched over ordinary mortals to help keep them out of trouble.

in computer science, a daemon (sometimes called a phantom) is a particular class of computer program which runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually instantiated as processes.

systems often "launch" daemons at start-up time: they often serve the function of responding to network requests, hardware activity, or other programs by performing some task. daemons can also configure hardware (like devfsd on some Linux systems), run scheduled tasks (like crond), and perform a variety of other tasks.

- drumcode -

One thing that was suggested was that the meravingion was in fact Adam. Since Adam was the first perfect man and Christ is the later perfect man. The meravingion as a result existed as both a program and a body just as Neo does, but presumably now he is solely a program.

Merovingian and Persephone are the Adam and Eve created by the machines to understand love. I've discussed it in this thread

of the merovingian and persephone program as templates in mapping out the human construct of love in the context of the first and second failed matricies.

however, their purpose woul have been fullfilled after the failure of the third matrix had this been their only purpose.

using your theory, we can now extrapolate how the machines could simulate the emotion of love.

since a machine could not solve directly for a human emotion, it would solve it be revealing the variables surrounding it - or the inforamtion traded between two templates (this would inlcude body language and chemistry). analysis would be performed by the persephone program as demonstrated by her abilities in EtM.

using your argument of evolving programs, the merovingian and persephone evolved from programs designed to create simulation subroutines that encompassed love into porgrams that facilitate language and analsyis of language in order to efficiently and effectivly control the matrix populace.

- drumcode -

The Merovingian as Adam is an interesting idea. There is a way to actually figure out if the W. Brothers might have had this in mind. The fact that there were 6 other "Ones" must have some theological significance. In Gnosticism, Adam, Seth (son of Adam after Cain and Abel), Noah, Moses, and Jesus are all considered "Perfect Humans" which you could equate with a "one". In addition, there is another prophet exclusive to Gnosticism named Mani. That's already six, but some of these guys might not actually count as Matrix anomalies. Particularly Moses and Mani. Adam seems to fit the mold of a "one" from a Matrix perspective because he was the original Man. Seth would be the first Man after expulsion from Eden (The first matrix is speculated to have been Eden from Smith's and the Architect's description). Noah is VERY VERY "one-like", being that he was actually reinserted into the world to rebuild it. And Jesus would obviously be a "one" being a messiah and all. But I can't see Moses as a "one" unless it's because he was "most beloved of God." I don't know anything about Mani. But anyway, that leaves Adam, Seth, Noah, Jesus, and, of course, Neo as definite "ones". You could throw other candidates into the loop like the Buddha and Muhammhed to be politically correct, but this movie is about Gnosticism and Gnosticism is a by-product of Christianity, so I'll stick with my candidates. Anyway, that's only five ones. . .this leaves room for another "one" whether it be Moses, Mani, Lucifer, Merovingian, et al. Does anyone have any comments or speculations on this?

You missed out Elijah but you can exclude him for the same reasons as Moses I guess. I don't think you need to count the meravingion as a "one" since he was from the first matrix before the "one" anomaly became a problem. I'd say he could be something different, yet similar.

I can't help but feel that there must be a more obvious reason for the number 6.

If The Merovingian is in fact a representation of the devil, or Satan, or whatever you like to call it, then he doesn't have a specific purpose. I mean, not a purpose that has been given to him, like the purpose Neo has.

He developed a purpose of his own, which he gave to himself, that is to avoid peace between humans and machines. If you pay attention to his role, this is what he does throughout the movies. First, he didn't want to hand over the Keymaker. Then he takes Neo prisoner.

[/quote]You missed out Elijah but you can exclude him for the same reasons as Moses I guess. I don't think you need to count the meravingion as a "one" since he was from the first matrix before the "one" anomaly became a problem. I'd say he could be something different, yet similar.[quote]

Funny you should mention it, but I didn't miss Elijah. Elijah, like John the Baptist, is supposed to herald the coming of the messiah. So according to the scriptures and all the analogies, Elijah is not a "one". He's Morpheus! Have I put way too much thought into this?

About the Merovingian having no purpose but his own chosen purpose, I think that's another one of the beautiful but infulfilled aspects of his character. The Merovingian has a complete disdain for order and blind "causality". He is very representative of Free Will. In fact, I don't think his purpose is to prevent peace between humans and machines, I think his purpose is to do he deems best for himself. This has some very strange undertones because this implies that free will is evil if you associate the Merovingian with the devil. But then again, that's how Lucifer is portrayed in "Paradise Lost." Lucifer isn't that bad, he just refuses to submit to the will of God. Damn! They have to make another Matrix movie, there's so much left to explore!

Sorry about that last post, I reversed the quotes by accident

Don't worry about it. Doesn't matter. The informant is real.

Damn nice post! Well said!

I believe that in the bible 6 is a symbol for man.

How does that work then? Any examples? The nearest thing to that I've heard of is that 666 refers to the devil....

Also there's that pixies song "monkey gone to heaven"
"If man is 5
then the devil is 6
and if the devil is 6 then God is 7
this monkey's gone to heaven"