»Stuff to think about... Architect, Smith, Mero«

3 things...

1. On the site, it says...
"Interesting:
The Architect states that Neo's question "Why am I here?" is the "most irrelevant" question. The Architect probably wants to point out that this question doesn't matter, because everything is somehow guided anyway. It is interesting, that the Merovingian plays a counter-part to the Architect: The Architect says it is "irrelevant" while the Merovingian indicates that it's a very important question with an important answer, without which he won't let the Keymaker go:"
However in the movie, the dialog is
Architect: "Hello Neo."
Neo: "Who are you?"
Architect: "I am the Architect. I created the Matrix.... Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant."
Neo: "Why am I here?"
...
The Architect doesn't exactly say that the "Why am I here" question is the most irrelevant - he says the first question is, and he could be referring to when Neo asked, "Who are you?" The Architect seems to play with words a lot. Just a small thing, but thought i'd mention...

2. This may have been said before, but I wonder if Agent Smith may still be part of the system (under control). If it wasn't for him, the building leading Neo to the Architect would have been blown up (he delayed time for Trinity to shut off the security). The machines probably knew what Smithw as going to do. Just because he can copy himself (and has uber powers)might not mean the situation is totally out of control - if the One was always under their control (who is just as powerful), why couldnt Smith be?

3. Has anyone else found it odd how the Merovingian studies Neo? He knows he is the one, yet he orders his men to fire guns at him(he should know better). Also, he gets all his men killed as he expects them to kill Neo. I can only see two explainations for this - either Neo is more powerful than his predecessors, or he was just buying time for the twins. I found it strange how he watches the whole fight, as if he was judging how powerful Neo is (like Seraph). It made him seem like he could be a previous "One," but it still makes me wonder when Trinity holds a gun to his head - if he had the "One's" powers, he shouldn't feel threatened.

Any input would b cool.

Oh yeah, and another thing I left out...
You notice that after Neo fights Seraph, Link, Morpheus and Trinity were watching him because he says "Where did they go...?" when Neo and Seraph go through the 'backdoor.' Also, you notice the three watching Neo when Smith enters the scene (just after the Oracle leaves). So we can assume that they were watching the whole Oracle speech, can we not? They should have heard about Neo's dream - Trinity falling, etc. Yet they all act like they do not - for example, when Neo asks Trinity to stay out of the Matrix, she asks "Why?"

Just a thought

c0rd wrote:

The Architect doesn't exactly say that the "Why am I here" question is the most irrelevant - he says the first question is

Hey, cool! Have added it!

c0rd wrote:

might not mean the situation is totally out of control

Yep, could be. The Keymaker is shot by Smith and says:
Keymaker: "It's meant to be"

c0rd wrote:

as if he was judging how powerful Neo is

Maybe he tests his programs on him? Cool have added it.

Anonymous wrote:

they were watching the whole Oracle speech

....but not hearing.

I agree with our site admin. All along the movies, we've known that they can read the code outside of The Matrix, but they cannot hear what people inside The Matrix are saying. One example of this is when Neo goes to see The Oracle. Morpheus tells Neo:

Morpheus: What was said was for you and for you alone.

If Tank would have been able to hear what they were talking about, it wouldn't have been just for hir ears. Tank would've known he wasn't "The One"

Just to split hairs .... but the quote, "Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant." doesn't necessarily mean the question IS irrelevent, just that of the questions Neo is likely to ask, it is the most irrelevent i.e. the least important.

Dunno whether that has any bearing on the nature of the speech, but it's probably worth keeping in mind.

c0rd wrote:

Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant." Neo: "Why am I here?"

Like all things, this is my viewpoint and not extracted from any creidble source

It's good that you mention the Merrovingian, because his statement kind of helps. The Mero really splits hairs about symantics (like Guest above), he dissasembes Neo's phrase literally rather than dealing with what neo meant.

Neos first question (to the Architect) is (the most) irrelevant because it deals with the journey to that point. In Mero terms He is there because "he was told to be there".

A more relevant question would have been;

"What am I here to do?"

Quote:

I wonder if Agent Smith may still be part of the system (under control)....

When I read this I thought back to an earlier discussion about how the rusty bolt "accident" caused Trinity to re-enter the Matrix. It also included how Morpheus stated "there are no accidents" during a closeup of this "accident waiting to happen".

I hadn't realised it before (your post), but this is the other part to that same little riddle.

It seems like multiple "coincidental" events resulted in everything ending up where they were supposed to be. Amost as if Fate was involved. And right at the start we were told that Neo doesn't beleive in "this fate crap". Nothing in these films is ever that simple.

There's been a lot of discussion about why the agents try to kill him "if the Architect wants him to get to the source".

This then got me thinking about Cypher's attempt to disprove Neo was the one by killing him. "'Cos he can't be the one, If he's dead".

If Agent smith HAD killed him in the corridor, it would have proved Cypher's theory, that he was not the one. Yes even at that late stage.
He can only get to the source if he is the one.

Quote:

yet he orders his men to fire guns at him(he should know better).

But As we've seen Neo isn't like the previous Ones
We have no way of knowing what "his predecessors" were or weren't capable of.

Well that's what I think anyway.

Anonymous wrote:

just that of the questions Neo is likely to ask, it is the most irrelevent i.e. the least important.

Cool, have added it.

Smith can not be under the control of the system unless he and Neo are opposite sides of the same coin. In the preview to Revolutions, Neo is seen talking to a big head, clearly some sort of machine responsible for controlling or governing the Matrix. He says "The program Smith has grown beyond your control". So, already we have Smith, once under the control of the system, no beyond the control. May I remind you all that on the website, in the Hidden Meanings of the Matrix section, our site administrator explains the reference of Smith's license plate to the following Biblical passage (I chose the shortest version):
I create the blacksmith
who fires up his forge
and makes a weapon designed to kill.
I also create the destroyer--
This means two things:
1. Smith is the destroyer. He was created as a destroyer (and was created to be a destroyer, therefore as long as he destroys, he serves his purpose?)
2. The big head is god. This could, I suppose, mean that he is the machine version of the Architect, seen in the real world, or that it is some other character.
So, now we have Smith, beyond the control of the system, but still fulfilling his purpose (as a destroyer). That leaves Neo, the One, who has a purpose in the system (to control the 1% of the population who refuse the program and to reseed Zion after every destruction). But he seems to have chosen the door that the Architect didn't want him to (speculation, except we know that Neo's connection to the human race is different from his predecessors; whether it was designed to be so or not, I don't know). So Neo, too, may have grown beyond the control of the system (like Smith).

This may very well be a redundant post, but I at least wanted to clarify these theories about the connection between Smith and Neo. It seems to me that they are the only two characters operating outside the system, and they seem to be doing so because of each other. This could mean that they are the same.

Of course, it could mean that the system created Smith as the ultimate weapon against the One, should the One ever grow beyond control.

I have to admit this thread is one of the better ones I've read lately. Now I totally beleive:
Who are you? - Who is the architect?
IS the most irrelevant question (at that Time, for that coversation), Neo understands this and moves onto a better question... WHY am I here?

"Why is what separates us from them, you from me. Why is the only source of power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without `why,' without power. Another link in the chain. But fear not, since I have seen how good you are at following orders, I will tell you what to do next. Run back, and give the fortune teller this message: Her time is almost up."

This actually enforces causality, I love it. (not as much as wiping my arse with silk though)

Word

Smith and Neo
While Smith and Neo may appear to operate outside of the system, even Smith admits he is LIKE Neo APPARENTLY FREE. There's no denying purpose, they're not meant to be FREE. You could also interpret this in a different way, but it's viable ruote to take, but not the only one.

We're here because we appear to be free, but we're not.

Smith and Neo aren't free. Free from what? The machines? The Matrix? Neo is not free from machines and Smith is not free from humans? Until they imprint onto each other? At any rate, we know that in Revolutions Neo will be travelling to the Machine City to save BOTH worlds, human and machine, and Smith will be there to stop him. Smith IS the destroyer. But that is the loophole through which he operates out of the system. He was created to destroy, and so he will destroy everything, including that which created him. Therefore we have a loophole for Neo. Smith must be stopped, and Neo is the only one who can do it, and so he will be allowed to go further than his predecessors. If they don't operate outside the system, then they operate outside the rules that govern their actions en route to their purposes. Every system is governed by rules that can be bent or broken. All we are seeing is another level of that theme.

Quote:

Smith and Neo aren't free. Free from what? The machines? The Matrix? Neo is not free from machines and Smith is not free from humans? Until they imprint onto each other?

I think that they are not "free" from fate. It seems like their every moves are predictable by the machines, and in a sense they are not free from fate because they don't have any choices - they are already made (Reminds me of the Berserk anime/comic, if anyone has seen it). As for when Neo says "The program Smith has grown beyond your control..." I think he still is technically under control, because they were expecting Neo to intervene (as suggested before... if there was no Agent Smith, the sentinals would have NO chance if Neo intervened and was able to pwn them at will).

The Mero
I agree with the fact that the whole Mero speech about "Why" is true. The Architect says the "Who are you?" question is irrelevant, while the "Why am I here?" question takes him quite a bit of time to answer (he even gives a fake answer to throw him off, as he did with his predeccesors). I agree with the One being more powerful every time, just as the architect says "...we have become exceedingly efficient at it." Possibly the One's powers increase more and more (no direct relationship I know, just speculating)?

Hearing the Matrix?
I don't know why, but I've always just assumed that people outside the Matrix can hear what is going on inside. It never occured to me that this may not be true - even in the Animatrix episode Program, the girl shouts,
"Operator, please get me out right now! Operator I need an exit!" (WITHOUT a cell phone)
...and Duo responds with,
"It's no use, I told you, I blocked your signal."
I thought sounds come out in code, which is strange, but if they can decipher images, maybe sound as well? I also thought that Morpheus told Tank not to listen up on Neo's conversation, or something (Tank trusts Morpheus, I think he would do that for him). However there is a LOT of evidence against this, so I am doubtful of it. Also, these stories weren't written by the W. bros, which is why I was skeptical about the Animatrix - They are being sort of loose with the Matrix.

That episode of the Animatrix was just a training program, like Morpheus when he yells "Tank, load the jump program." Cypher "There's too much information to decode the Matrix"

On the note about Smith I've posted this before but here we go again:
It is possible Smith is still controlled by machines, he is not free. Every choice Neo has made has been forseen (artificially) by the machines, that choice exists only because the machines allow it to exist (like zion) however the CHOICE is flawed because IF the Machines forced trinity into the MAtrix, then Smith served to DELAY Neo so Trinity could shut down the emergency system. There's no choice in reality.
It is also possible IF AND ONLY IF Zion is not real, that the war on machines is fake, when everyone in Zion is killed and only a couple of survivors are left, we might be left with 16 females and 7 males...

It is also possible all the previous ones died WITHOUT realizing they were still under the control of machines, which is ONE explanation to why the previous ones didn't speak of the Source or the Architect, because they died thinking they had freed mankind from the matrix.
There are many conterarguments, but it is from a machines point of view... possible, we can only expect another measure of control if one fails, that is what the problem of choice is all about, there's another way, always another way. anyways I'm ramblin' on

peace

c0rd wrote:

"Operator, please get me out right now! Operator I need an exit!" (WITHOUT a cell phone) ...and Duo responds with, "It's no use, I told you, I blocked your signal."

The system probably react to the word "operator" and Duo has blocked this.

In Reloaded, Smith thanks Neo for freeing him and says that something happened to him when Neo entered him and "killed" him at the end of The Matrix.

I think that in the same way that Neo has rebelled against the system of control that governs the Matrix so has Smith. He has become in effect the "Evil One" thus becoming a greater threat than Neo because he threatens the existence of machines and humans. Neo then becomes the ultimate saviour in that he saves not just humans but also machines. Many have mistakenly taken Neo's "resurrection" in The Matrix to be same as Christ's death and resurrection but I think Revolutions will be the ultimate parallel. Laurence Fishburne said in a interview recently that "the first film was about Birth, the second about Life, and Revolutions is Death"

It seems that there are 3 types of existences in the Matrix:
A: Programs written by the machines
B: Exiled programs - The "programs hacking programs" described by the Oracle
C: Those that are "plugged in" - Those in Zion (or the "unplugged" ones as it may be)

We know the obvious ones, but for those such as the Mero (he writes programs or "hacks" the Matrix per se) would this mean that he is actually an exiled program that was set for deletion? I know he says that he fought the 5 previous "Ones", but it's not to say that he isn't an exile.
Persephone - I do believe she could be the "Mother" of the matrix. She seems to be the one more involved with choice (the role of the mother described by the architect), opposed to the Oracle who "guides" more than she does give choice.
The Architect himself - if to exist in the Matrix is to exist in code, then the architect would either be a program of the machines or "plugged in" at the machine end (and to say that where Neo meets him is somewhere other than the Matrix, Neo is still dressed the same as when he is in the Matrix).

The circle/cycle of the matrix (this has been touched on in another post, but makes pretty much sense) - the keymaker describes the timeframe being 314 seconds for the One to enter the door to the architect. The architect says to Neo:
Architect: Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix
Pi=3.14 (an unbalanced equation based on a circle) and the cycle of the matrix keeps repeating, at least until Revolutions (& I guess Reloaded in a sense since Neo chose the other door compared to the 5 previous "Ones").

Feel free to blow any of this apart, just wanted to share a view with you.

The oracle tells Neo flat out that he is not the one. Everyone assumes that since Morpheous tells Neo that the oracle only told him what he needed to hear, that Neo will be the one.

The oracle also told Morpheous that he will find the one. She also told Neo that we would be lost w/o Morpheous and that Neo will have to choose between one of their lives, one of them will die. Something close to that happened, but someting exactly like that never happened.

What if Morpheous is the one, at some point he finds it within himself and so he finds the one. Neo realizes this at some point also and must give his life to protect the one. Maybe the oracle could not tell Morpheous at the time that he was the one because he was not ready to accept it, she never tells him that he is NOT the one (like Neo).

One thing that does not make sence is that Trinity is supposed to fall in love w/ the one, she is apparently not in love w/ Morpheous.

oh well