»Seriously, I wanna ask two questions...«

And I'm too lazy to see if anyone else has addressed either of these specifically. Two questions, one contributing to the MwM and one not necessarily. If these have been asked and answered before, help me out real quick please.

1) In Reloaded, the very first Neo follower that is encountered as Neo and Trinity step off the elevator in Zion looks and sounds A HELL OF A LOT like Persephone as an older woman. Does anyone know if it's the same actress dressed up and if that was intentional?

2) So, I know that people have said, "well how come Trinity got mangled in the crash in Revelations and Neo didn't?" So yeah, I agree, good question... BUT if you slow down the movie and pause it, the way she gets mangled is what's suspicious to me. The tentacles that lift up Neo at the end, the intelligent ones that plug him in? They look exactly like the the ones that go straight through Trinity. This doesn't necessarily contribute to the MwM theory but could mean the machines killed her purposefully. Any comment on that one?

Thanks in advance.

Question 1 - Honestly never noticed, but wifey at work tonight (she hates the M-Movies) will have a look.

Question 2 - I always considered it exactly the same as why people survive car accidents and why others don't. He was just lucky and unfortunatly she wasn't.

Thanks Rod, I kinda figured that no one would answer these but thanks for taking a look.

Well it is 99.9% not Monica Bellucci, and listening a few times I don't think it is her voice either, there is a twang of OZ in it.

RodBell wrote:

Well it is 99.9% not Monica Bellucci, and listening a few times I don't think it is her voice either, there is a twang of OZ in it.

You know, I looked and looked everywhere and the lady that's listed as playing this person has no history, or any pictures anywhere on the internet. No other movies to her credit (which is odd considering she plays a pretty prominent extra in a big movie).

I think it's possible that Liliana Bogatko (the woman listed) is not a real person and is actually Monica in an old lady outfit. The spend a solid few seconds of camera time on her. Maybe I've just come to feel that almost every small tidbit is meaningful in some way and I haven't found any meaning in this one little moment, so I'm stretching. Maybe it's a stretch, but it's possible.

She says her son's name is Jacob. In Judeo-christian fable Jacob is he who struggled with God. Merv perhaps? I don't know. I have just always had a gifted ear and everytime I hear that woman's voice it strikes me as sounding EXACTLY like Monica's and it looks like her in the face as well to me. Doesn't even look like a real old woman. Figured they dressed her up maybe and did some Sfx work on her.

Wikipedia, speaking of Jacob wrote:

Jacob, together with Esau, was born to Isaac and Rebekah after 20 years of marriage, at which time his father was 60 (Genesis 25:26), and Abraham was 160 years old. He and his twin brother Esau were markedly different in appearance and behavior. Esau was a ruddy hunter, while Jacob was a gentle man who "dwelled in tents," interpreted by many biblical commentators as a mark of his studiousness and reserved personality. During Rebekah's pregnancy, "the children struggled together within her" (Genesis 25:22). According to Rashi, whenever Rebeccah passed a house of study, Jacob would struggle to get out; whenever she passed a temple of idolatry, Esau would struggle to get out. Fearful of the excessive movement, Rebeccah questioned God about the tumult and learned that she was to give birth to two children, who would become the respective founders of two very different nations. They would always be in competition, and eventually, the elder would serve the younger. She did not tell her husband Isaac about this prophecy, but kept it in mind. Esau was the firstborn. His brother Jacob was born immediately afterwards, and was grasping Esau's heel. His name, Ya'akov (יעקב), derives from the Hebrew root "עקב," "heel." Commentators explain that Jacob was trying to hold Esau back from being the firstborn, and in that way claim the Abrahamic legacy for his own self. According to the text, Jacob was favoured by his mother, while Esau was favoured by his father.

Esau = Merv?
Jacob = Architect?

Man that's a stretch... there's something in there though... I can smell it.

pendaco wrote:

So I made a few caps;

Nice, thanks.

pendaco wrote:

Personally I think its a bit far fetched and about the Jacob story;

Definitely right. As I admitted. Maybe I should focus less on the Persephone part and figure out the other part that's there. I don't know. It might be a wild goose chase. It was worth asking though.

pendaco wrote:

There is enough 'evidence' to see the Merovingian as a resemblance of Satan/Hades/Erebus.

Definitely... deinitely. I just wondered if I wasn't missing another layer in there. You're right. Jacob + Satan would be problematic. Possible but highly problematic.

Thanks dude.

P.S. You wanna do caps of the tentacles sticking through Trin as well?

Here you go;
Hehehe and look at the face of Neo at the first screen

Haahahahaha.... his face rocks. Thanks again dude.

pendaco wrote:

I also think it was just coincidence and probably done because trinity didnt have any purpose in the machine city (story wise). Would be a bit odd if trinity stood next to neo when he was jacked in to fight smith, maybe she could have a little chat with Deus ex

Oh... noo way, that's DEFINITELY the tentacles and ONLY the tentacles. They killed her on purpose. Has to have been. You don't see that in that screen cap?


Blinding him was the perfect thing for the machines to do then, so he wouldn't realize they killed her. If he did, he might not have offerred them peace. He might have gone with the "blow up 01, screw the matrix and let's start over with just Zion" plan instead.

She doesn't have a single other injury other than the tentacles from anything else. Perfect. Thanks again dude.

Even if she were alive she would have ended up dead..I mean she would have entered the Matrix and eventually meat her destiny..
So,according to me,it was purposefully done by the W brother(not machines ),so that they could include the parting scene of Neo and Trin.

14515 wrote:

Even if she were alive she would have ended up dead..I mean she would have entered the Matrix and eventually meat her destiny.. So,according to me,it was purposefully done by the W brother(not machines ),so that they could include the parting scene of Neo and Trin.

Agreed.

Maybe there is a spiritual/godlike dimension in the real world too, which has a purpose and a time of death for everyone.

Don't forget that the Matrix/Machine World is a created spiritual/godlike dimension. Maybe the 'real God' is still active too?

Mobil_Ave_Neo wrote:

Maybe there is a spiritual/godlike dimension in the real world too, which has a purpose and a time of death for everyone. Don't forget that the Matrix/Machine World is a created spiritual/godlike dimension. Maybe the 'real God' is still active too?

Agreed. Maybe.

intell wrote:

So,according to me,it was purposefully done by the W brother(not machines ),so that they could include the parting scene of Neo and Trin.

...

The W's could have written that the machines did it? Does it have to be one or the other?

Mobil_Ave_Neo wrote:

Maybe there is a spiritual/godlike dimension in the real world too, which has a purpose and a time of death for everyone. Don't forget that the Matrix/Machine World is a created spiritual/godlike dimension. Maybe the 'real God' is still active too?

Maybe? Sure, entirely possible.

I didn't write that, 14515 did. But I agree. It's a plot piece, not an action of the characters. You might call it providence. The Architect was right about it anyway.

Well,if you want my openion story wise,I think it was an accident..it wasn't purposeful.If it were,they wouldn't have tried to stop him in the 1st place and those sentinals wouldn't have tried to kill them..
That's what I think...

14515 wrote:

Well,if you want my openion story wise,I think it was an accident..it wasn't purposeful.If it were,they wouldn't have tried to stop him in the 1st place and those sentinals wouldn't have tried to kill them.. That's what I think...

Don't forget the meisure of control: the illusion.

Zion was a fake scenario too. The machines already had the power to squash Zion in the very beginning. But Zion was meant to survive, so that they could guide the One to the Source. So maybe the attacks are to maintain the illusion.

But on the other hand, the machines didn't anticipate this move of the One; so the meisure of control was rendered useless. Even Deus Ex Machina seemed a little 'afraid' of Neo, not sure of what 'he' could expect from him.

The only one who believed what could happen was the Oracle. She believed, not knew!

So maybe you are right, it's either just luck that Neo survived the crash or 'the-real-world-god' helped out abit.

It seems to me there are three forces at work in the Matrix world that the writers try to emphasize.

Choice, Fate (control), and Luck.

When the police are chasing a suspect they try to herd the suspect into taking, or not taking, a certain direction. The situation is controllable and predictable as long as the suspect follows his "path" (pun fully intended ) But what if the suspect decides to take his car off thru a schoolyard? At that point all bets are off. Neo's decision to confront the machines face to face, rather than solely through the Matrix is such a moment. At that point anything is possible, and sheer luck comes into the equation.

In the first movie Neo is indeed being led, but there were many points along the way that he could have met with disaster. He could have chosen to not follow the white rabbit. He could have chosen to get out of the car at Adams street bridge. He could have chosen the blue pill. Morpheus and Trinity were simply fortunate that he did not. So they were "lucky".

Neo was personally lucky in that the agents didn't find him first...

Quote:

Morpheus: If they knew what I knew, you would already be dead.

...Or that taking the red pill didn't kill him...

Quote:

Morpheus: We never free a mind once it's passed a certain age. It's dangerous. The mind has trouble letting go.

...or that Cypher was not successful in killing him as he intended to. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened at the end of M1 had Neo not been able to get out of the Matrix in time. What would the sentinels have done? I have one possible answer. Assuming that the Architect had his heart set on Neo as being "The One" then the sentinels most likely would have done what they did at the end of Revolutions------stand down. While someone like Locke would have considered it inexplicable, Morpheus would have immediately boasted of this as proof of Neo's divinity as The One.

The machines were lucky that Smith derailed the humans plans for counter-attack. While it's doubtful humanity would have ultimately survived at any rate, the movie 300 and the story of the Spartans is proof that there are no certainties in war against a prepared enemy. This incarnation of Zion was the most prepared ever.

There is no luck inside the Matrix (not any that we can count on.) Only choice and fate. Luck exists outside the Matrix only. Neo being able to save Trinity from death inside the Matrix is not remarkable because after all "there is no spoon" or Matrix. The real world is another matter. It was luck that saved Neo from Cypher and the sentinels....and it was also luck that killed Apoc, Dozer and the crew. BAD luck. Trinity was lucky that she had made it that far with Neo. Once at the machine city, her number was up. It was also only luck that Neo survived the impact.

The W. Bros were trying to make the point that life is not just a system of people pulling your strings (fate/control) or making the right choice at the right time. It is also sometimes just a matter of simply being in the right place at the right time. Or not.

All good points. I will make a few brief points:

1) It does look like the same tentacles and that's all that are sticking in her. I think that's a little too "lucky."

2) Neo doesn't get hurt and no other part of the ship is smashed into anything else.

3) We have not established how far off script Neo was.

4) The machines knew he was coming the entire time and there's not reason to think they couldn't have "improvised" to kill her.

5) The machines knew that if Trinity was still alive, he might have a reason to choose something other than "death" a la Smith in the Matrix.

All things considered, it's a push on this arguement IMHO. Thanks for all the good feedback though everyone.

Aether wrote:

4) The machines knew he was coming the entire time and there's not reason to think they couldn't have "improvised" to kill her. 5) The machines knew that if Trinity was still alive, he might have a reason to choose something other than "death" a la Smith in the Matrix.

As tempting as it is to see Neo's survival of the crash as being facilitated by machines, I actually think it was luck - in fact, luck even more extreme than what has been discussed in this thread so far. If anything, machines wanted to kill Neo more than Trinity. Machines had no idea why he was coming to Machine City and tried their darndest to kill him while he was on his way. The Source tried to delete Neo when he stopped the sentinels:

Surprised wrote:

Neo was nothing more than an exile at that point, and the Matrix "system" (if 01 can be considered part of that system) would have liked nothing more than to kill (delete) Neo, even moreso than Trinity.

False. Totally and uterlly, without a shadow of a doubt, incorrect. If they wanted to kill him so bad then why didn't the sentinels just rip him to shreds? He walked up to Deus and lived even after telling Deus to kill him.

How can you come to that conclusion at all?

Aether wrote:

Surprised wrote: Neo was nothing more than an exile at that point, and the Matrix "system" (if 01 can be considered part of that system) would have liked nothing more than to kill (delete) Neo, even moreso than Trinity. False. Totally and uterlly, without a shadow of a doubt, incorrect. If they wanted to kill him so bad then why didn't the sentinels just rip him to shreds? He walked up to Deus and lived even after telling Deus to kill him. How can you come to that conclusion at all?

Machines had no way to know that the purpose of the Logos was simply to try to bargain a deal with machines - machines thought at first the Logos was attacking, thus the ridiculously aggressive defensive moves to overwhelm the Logos. But once Neo got into Machine City, he walked around for a while and just stood at a lookout point. Being that machines aren't total and utter unthinking idiots, it was clear to machines at that point that Neo had not come to fight, so naturally they'd want to know why the heck he'd want to put himself into Machine CIty. They figure out that Neo must be there for a purpose other than planting a bomb.

Your theory doesn't give any credit to machines' ability to logically reason through why Neo would want to just walk around in Machine City. I'm sorry, but I just can't envision the scenario of Deus looking at Neo and saying, "Looks like Neo came to admire the architecture of Machine City. I better kill him now." This is a conclusion that I would never be able to come to. Of course they would want to know why the heck he came there before killing him, especially when he is unarmed and not using his powers against machines at that point. He only asks to speak, and that's not something difficult to accomodate, especially when this move of traveling to Machine City is the last thing in the world the machines expected.

If you don't think Neo was an exile at that point, then this would totally contradict the whole reason Neo was placed inside Mobil Avenue, a place where every exile first finds themselves under the control of the Merovingian. And when do exiles go to Mobil Avenue? It is after the system tries to delete them. Neo's AI didn't just accidentally stumble into Mobil Avenue - the Source placed him there.

I am very sure of myself when I post, but I try not to call others utterly wrong (even when I am thinking it is so) because I never know when someone might say something that will make me reconsider something, which I have done countless times in taking 19 months to construct the matrixResolutions.com website.

- Surprised

Surprised wrote:

Of course they would want to know why the heck he came there before killing him, especially when he is unarmed and not using his powers against machines at that point.

So let me get this straight, they're gunning for Neo but not Trinity? So they let Neo just fall on in and suddenly have a change of heart when he lands? And Trinity just dies out of dumb luck but they let Neo live to hear what he has to say? This all seems pretty rediculous. They're either trying to kill Neo or they're not. They didn't suddenly change their minds when he landed....

Surprised wrote:

Neo's AI didn't just accidentally stumble into Mobil Avenue - the Source placed him there.

There is no evidence to support that theory whatsoever. The Source does not place Exiles anywhere at any time. Exiles can choose to come to the Matrix through the Train Man or the Source deletes them.

Surprised wrote:

I am very sure of myself when I post, but I try not to call others utterly wrong (even when I am thinking it is so) because I never know when someone might say something that will make me reconsider something, which I have done countless times in taking 19 months to construct the matrixResolutions.com website.

Was it the adjectives that bothered you? Cause posting in this dead thread was you calling me wrong too.

Aether wrote:

So let me get this straight, they're gunning for Neo but not Trinity?

No, I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Machines were ALWAYS trying to kill Neo and all other Zionists/redpills (with exception to when Neo is asking to speak to machines - they allow him to live enough to say why he is there). But machines didn't exactly have a defense set up in what could have been their machine lubricating/repair facility or who knows what the building was. The argument that machines could spontaneously aim a bunch of conveniently-placed gigantic spare cables at Trinity just as the Logos crashes seems far sillier to me than just assuming that what appears on the surface is actually true: that Neo was lucky to survive the crash.

Aether wrote:

So they let Neo just fall on in and suddenly have a change of heart when he lands?

If you were a ruling dictator of some country fighting a war with another country, and one of your enemies showed up and told one of the guards of your palace, "I have walked all the way here from my country because I really need to speak with someone in charge," you would have to be really careless and stupid to have that person killed before finding out why the person is there. Such a move is far too out of the ordinary - it was almost certainly the first time any human had seen Machine City for almost a millenium. How about when Jack Ryan goes (with his tape recorder) to make a deal with the Columbian drug lord in Clear and Present Danger? That is the same thing! Do you think the Columbian drug lord should have just shot him at the front door? What an idiot he would have been to do that. You act as if it's ridiculous for machines to do this with Neo once he lands, when in fact it would be ridiculous for machines NOT to do this.

Aether wrote:

And Trinity just dies out of dumb luck

Why does luck have to be "dumb luck" when you don't agree with it, but just "luck" if you do? It was just luck. I don't believe the machines altered their building in order to ensure Trinity would die and Neo would live. This is part of the dangerous game the Oracle played - she didn't know Neo would survive the crash just as she didn't know a lot of things.

Aether wrote:

They didn't suddenly change their minds when he landed....

They didn't need to change their minds - in fact, they didn't. Rather, their curiosity for why Neo wasn't going around trying to damage Machine City merely needed to exceed their desire to kill him at that moment.

Aether wrote:

Surprised wrote: Neo's AI didn't just accidentally stumble into Mobil Avenue - the Source placed him there. There is no evidence to support that theory whatsoever. The Source does not place Exiles anywhere at any time. Exiles can choose to come to the Matrix through the Train Man or the Source deletes them.

You're right that I can't prove this theory, but neither can you prove any other theory. All we're left to do is wonder how Neo's AI unintentionally found itself in Mobil Avenue when all it was really doing was connecting to the sentinels through the Source (so Neo's AI had no reason to go looking for Mobil Avenue), and after reading through thousands of posts over the past few years here, I have yet to see a theory that doesn't just go off of 100% pure indulgent speculation. At least my speculation gives a satisfying (rather than a desperate) reason for why Neo found himself in Mobil Avenue.

Like my website says on the main homepage, its purpose is only to find the most likely explanations using anything from facts to theory to mere "most likely speculation". I would put my Mobil Avenue theory into the latter category.

Aether wrote:

Was it the adjectives that bothered you? Cause posting in this dead thread was you calling me wrong too.

I was just making the point that when I called you wrong, I did so only indirectly (not directly) by simply laying down my argument and letting it speak for itself. All of the most convincing debates I've ever heard are the ones where people leave out their own judgement of the debate itself and simply stick to the issues at hand.

- Surprised

Surprised wrote:

But machines didn't exactly have a defense set up in what could have been their machine lubricating/repair facility or who knows what the building was.

You don't need any defense, there were sentinels everywhere. Just fly one in and down the tunnel and gut him.

Surprised wrote:

The argument that machines could spontaneously aim a bunch of conveniently-placed gigantic spare cables at Trinity just as the Logos crashes seems far sillier to me than just assuming that what appears on the surface is actually true: that Neo was lucky to survive the crash.

Right and the fact that those same cables were everywhere in the facility and the same ones that lifted Neo up to jack him in in the end? Were those cables conveniently placed? Did you miss that part of what I said earlier?

Besides, you can see that those cables are everywhere else AROUND Neo and not in him.

You have this thing with surface apperances. To me, that's not what appears on the surface at all. It's far sillier to me to think that her death would be that senseless and random and that if it was that random they wouldn't just smash her head into a panel or kill her with some shrapnel instead of arms that look EXACTLY like the ones you see two minutes later.

Surprised wrote:

How about when Jack Ryan goes (with his tape recorder) to make a deal with the Columbian drug lord in Clear and Present Danger? That is the same thing! Do you think the Columbian drug lord should have just shot him at the front door? What an idiot he would have been to do that. You act as if it's ridiculous for machines to do this with Neo once he lands, when in fact it would be ridiculous for machines NOT to do this.

Dude, the drug lord's brain wasn't networked into all of his lackies and the lackies weren't shooting at him right up until he got to the front door. You musta missed MY point.

Surprised wrote:

They didn't need to change their minds - in fact, they didn't. Rather, their curiosity for why Neo wasn't going around trying to damage Machine City merely needed to exceed their desire to kill him at that moment.

So instead, they tried to kill him right up until he got into the heart of the machine city, with an EMP no less, and then just let him hang out while Trinity died.

Surprised wrote:

You're right that I can't prove this theory, but neither can you prove any other theory.

You're right we can't ultimately "prove" any theory in the history of the universe. I can't prove I'm not just a monkey at a keyboard or that you're not just a horse with a translator.

Surprised wrote:

All we're left to do is wonder how Neo's AI unintentionally found itself in Mobil Avenue when all it was really doing was connecting to the sentinels through the Source (so Neo's AI had no reason to go looking for Mobil Avenue), and after reading through thousands of posts over the past few years here, I have yet to see a theory that doesn't just go off of 100% pure indulgent speculation. At least my speculation gives a satisfying (rather than a desperate) reason for why Neo found himself in Mobil Avenue.

I don't find that theory satisfying at all. As I stated, at no other time in the movie does a program end up in Mobil Ave because the Source placed it there nor are we ever lead to believe that this is the case. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.

If you take this thinking out to its logical conclusion and see that Merv, who controls that, is seen opposing The Source at every turn then there is no reason to believe The Source would send Neo back to the Matrix at all LET ALONE using Merv's secret getaway. I'm not saying I have a better solution but I don't think yours fits the bill on any level.