»Neo's Purpose«

In Revolutions there was a lot of mention concerning purpose. Namely, that purpose is vital for existence in the machine world and programs along with machines need be created to serve a purpose. Carrying this idea through the trilogy I realized how it pervaded almost everything in each movie. In fact, each character seemed to have a very straightforward purpose. From the Keymaker to Morpheus it seemed that the role of every character with the exception of Neo had a trivial feel, culminating in the leading of Neo to his purpose. Neo's purpose seemed obviously clear in the first movie and most of the second; Neo saves the world. However that quite suddenly changed to, Neo collects chaos factors (elements of human unpredictability that the machine AI has trouble predicting and regulating) from his life experiences and delivers them into the source (machine mainframe) for the Architect to evaluate to create a more efficient matrix. But that is at best Neo's designed purpose (formulated by the Architect). But of course we are dealing with a different Neo this time around. Different because the Oracle seems to have a passion for humans and has slowly and slyly shed her influence throughout the iterations of the matrix to create something else for Neo. So what is Neo's purpose? After three movies and due to the genius of the Wachowski brothers, I still don't think that's so very clear. But here is what I think,

For every character excluding Neo to have a straightforward purpose is a crucial observation. For as long as a person is confined to a purpose he is nearly indistinguishable from a machine operating under code. You never see a character stray from his purpose in the films; Morpheus always believes in Neo; Trinity always loves Neo; The keymaker delivers Neo to the door of the source, etc. They are all beings of a deterministic world. And as far as we know, Neo is too. Neo is the One. Neo will save the world. Neo will defeat Smith. But therein lies the entire meaning of the ending for me. All of a sudden, in a moment of epiphany, Neo submits himself. He denies his role. He CHOOSES to deny his role as savior. When Smith overtakes Neo we are witnessing the first manmade choice of mankind's history, for every choice prior was certainty in disguise. This includes the door Neo chooses in the Architect's room. For that choice was simply as the Architect described: chain reactions of fully understood physical phenomena leading Neo to a fact, and not to a choice.

So where does this lead us? Neo has made a genuine choice. Backtracking five minutes into the film, what was Smith doing just before overtaking Neo? Smith seemed to be overanalyzing his visions the Oracle gave him. He was reminding himself of the construct he was in. "I should be standing right here and saying such and such" etc. Smith is obviously still within a structure. One that, as a program, he is unable to avoid. No matter how strong Smith is, he can only bend the rules of his world. It is only Neo capable of breaking them (sound like something Morpheus says in M1?). Neo realizes that all of his strength can be matched, but he alone has the ability to destroy the structure of it all. Only Neo can deny his purpose. And when he does away with structure it is he overtaking Smith and not the other way around.

"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?"
Up till then, I don't believe Neo ever knew. He didn't know, because it wasn't a choice of his but a reality of his construction. And then all was clear.
"Because I choose to."
It is the choice to deny purpose that is the anomaly of the matrix. It is the anomaly that is revealed as both beginning and end.

And now, the One is to deliver his code back to the source. But this is a code different from any other. It is a code which contains the ingredients for choice. The world of determinism will be no more. Thanks to the Oracle and her love for mankind, we will all be capable of exercising our free will.