»My theory on the trilogy - spoiler warning«

This is my theory on the trilogy.

I believe that the Wachowski brothers "took" the story of Christ, and than mixed it up with equal parts gnostisism, hinduism and zen buddhism. Than they spiced it up with links to greek, roman, egyptian and north mythology, before they let it all be cooked together with taoism (yin-yang), philosphy, (Heraklit, Plato, Descartes, etc.), and a big cup of nihilism (Nietzsche), social psychology (Erich Fromm), and postmodernism (Baudrillard). This "recipy" is also to be mixed up with links to film, literature, poetry and other parts of high or popular culture.

In the end of The Matrix Revolutions you clearly see that Neo "hangs on the cross", and "dies for the sins of all mankind". But what many people doesen't care about is what this sacrifice really is.

Quote:

Gnosticism is a broad religious and philosophical movement that particularly flourished in the first two centuries AD. Gnosticism took many different forms as it developed in different regions such as Syria, Egypt and Persia. But the various branches of Gnosticism all contained the same common thread of three essential beliefs - first about the God; second about humans; and third about salvation. (Nick Pollard at his damris webpage: damaris.org...)

Gnotics believe that the relationship between God and Satan is reversed. They say that God (the christian/jewish God - Jahve/Jehova) is evil - the demiurge, that has created a prison in which he keeps the divine spirits of mankind. This is also found in zen buddhism, were we live in [/i]MAYA - the "illusion", "the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Inorder to get out of this prison we need the knowledge ([i]"gnosis" - greek) brought to us from the masters of light: (1) The serpent of the garden of eve (Satan - the first matrix, the jewish version of the source), which gave us the fruit of widom (the red pill), (2) Krishna - the hinduist version, (3) Buddha - The buddhist version, (4) Jesus - The christian version, (5) Muhammed - The islamic version, and finally the ultimate saviour, nr. 6: Neo!

Now, that we have found out that these movies (and gnosticism, new age, etc.) tells us that we are gods, than who is Neo saving? He is saving the ignorant men in the matrix (who act like "robots") and the machines (which are creations of mankind).
The Bible says that Jesus is man and God - 100% man, 100% God, but some people says that he is 50% of both. So if you count in that theory, you can say that Neo is 50% god (human) and 50% "human" (machine - remember these movies are allegorical - the machines doesen't need to be actually machines, but images of humans). When Neo has fought down their "joint" enemy - Smith - he is carrid away to be "put in the grave", by the MACHINES! He has now saved everyone, gnostic style! The are no longer ignorant, and can transcend beyond the illusions (the matrix, Zion and 01), and be transcended to the relal world, the world of ideas (as Plato would put it), or maybe Nirvana (as Buddha would put it.)

My zion being a matrix theory can be found here:

Not a bad point.

hmm...this is different...i've never heard of the matrix being related to gnosticism...
but i agree w/ you that the Wachowski brothers combined many different religions into one.

i dont think that Neo is saving the ignorant people of The Matrix though. Because he is also saving the people that have already been unplugged from the matrix (the entire city of Zion, including Morpheus, Trinity, etc.)

Thats a very good point.
The ignorant people of the matrix would also be innocent too, right? I mean, they dont actually know about the matrix and how they are living a lie.

nocturnal_anonymous wrote:

i dont think that Neo is saving the ignorant people of The Matrix though. Because he is also saving the people that have already been unplugged from the matrix (the entire city of Zion, including Morpheus, Trinity, etc.)

there are also ignorant´s in the matrix (think of cmdr. Lock). all the zion-freeborns are normal idiots that didn´t escape from anywhere. no free minds.. actually they all believe their world is real, no one of the zionists gives even one thought about if zion is real or not:

There are none so enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free" (Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, philosopher)

The question wether Zion is "real" or "false" is really not important, i think. I believe that buddhism and hinduism (but mostly buddhism) is the key to understand that.

In buddhism ab hinduism the world is an illusion - "maya" - and they don't say that the world is real or not - simply illusion. Thw world is real - in terms of illusion - but that's not the issue. The issue is that the buddhist "heaven" - nirvana - is not a place, but extinsion/death, and I believe that's what happened with Neo at the end of the struggle - he (in a post modern mixture of buddhism, gnosticism, christianity and yin-yang) dies - and saves all mankind and the machines...

I wrote something on this in my post on Plato:

kringlebotten wrote:

The question wether Zion is "real" or "false" is really not important, i think. I believe that buddhism and hinduism (but mostly buddhism) is the key to understand that. In buddhism ab hinduism the world is an illusion - "maya" - and they don't say that the world is real or not - simply illusion. Thw world is real - in terms of illusion - but that's not the issue....

i know that also our world is some kind of illusion, because it´s just what our sense show us. but IN the movie i think it changes everything if zion is a second fake: the machines do not always need that much resources to build 250000 machines to destroy zion, damn it´s just more economic for the machines letting humans escape into another matrix. also when a human wakes up from the matrix he simply falls in the canalization where a ship can fish him up. it´s like the machines are saying: "here you little freed human minds, here you got another piece of hope. maybe it´s your chosen one? come and take it, please". i find this also quite suspicious.

by the way, there is another thing i noticed: the architect stats: "Already, I can see the chain reaction - the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion..." that´s some sort of lie, isn´t it? neo stands in front of the architect not as a human, but as the digital image of a human. so the architect should se a lot of green code, but not a chemical chainreaction. the chemical stuff happens in the real human body and then has an electric effect (a choice, a thought etc), and as i understood only the electric/data stuff is transferred to the matrix by jacking in. so how should the architect be able to see a chemical chainreaction. it seems like he is speeking about it´s own imagination, so we have to be really careful about the architects statements: maybe all he said were lies just to control neo. but why did the architect want neo to choose the left door? because otherwise no-one would have killed smith. ok, stopping now, i´m getting confused by myself now..

nocturnal_anonymous wrote:

i dont think that Neo is saving the ignorant people of The Matrix though. Because he is also saving the people that have already been unplugged from the matrix (the entire city of Zion, including Morpheus, Trinity, etc.)

Well I must disagree. Does Neos death (I believe he's dead, but maybe he will return...) give "salvation"? I believe not. His death creates peace between man and machine, the maker and the creature has been "reconciled".

"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2Co 5:20)

But his death does not give "salvation", it only creates peace, so those who want to leave - the gnostics (who has discovered the illusion of the matrix) - can do so without being "held back" by the agents of the matrix.

The agent - i believe - is the gnostic image of christians "in high place"; like the people in the inquisition ("nobody expects the spanish inquisition" - Monty Python) and other "bloody" christians. I'm christian myself, but does not like large parts of the story of the church.

Gnostics says that we christians are "sheep, waiting to be slaughtered or enslaved", and that our "evil leaders" does alle the "thinking."

Agent Smith (the "evil, ignorant christian leader..."):
"Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious...I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization which is, of course, what this is all about."

Neo ("the gnostic redeemer"):
"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.