Avast Ye Scurvy Swab, There Be Massive Spoilers Ahead

Call it cute, call it pretentious, but Matrix Reloaded is bloated with references that may either make you think this movie is incredibly deep, or give you the impression that the Brothers Wachowski wanted you to think it was incredibly deep. Of the references that I have been aware of, I took what I remembered of my Classics and English courses and put together this rant, originally posted on my magazine’s forum, and now here for all of you to see. Either I am indeed the master of useless knowledge, or simply have no life, it’s all a matter of perspective. But anyway, here’s the rant:

The speculation has been flying fast and furious, but so far, the theory that makes the most sense to me is that machines are, in fact, caretakers.

A little explanation:

1) The Animatrix episodes, in particular, the Second Renaissance episodes are constantly hammering you over the head with idea that it was humanity, with its fear of all things different/better/faster/stronger/smarter than they are, who refused to accept 01, engaged in war with 01, and finally blackened the skies. At every turn, the Machines were pleading for coexistence, but humans refused to even discuss the possibility. Of course, there were a few people here and there that did fight for sentient rights, be it organic or silicon, but they were ruled out.

2) The Councillor drags Neo down to the engineering level and gives that big speech about the essentially symbiotic relationship of humans to machines.

3) The architect KNEW that Neo was going to reject The One protocol that he had been enabled to execute, and yet did nothing to stop it, claiming that even with human genocide, there were “levels of surival that were still acceptable.” This would indicate that the machines have never (As many, MANY people have pointed out since the first film) really NEEDED the humans as a power source.

Perhaps then, they are merely using the pods as a way of safekeeping, with the added bonus a supplementary supply of power, then? After all, it would mean a way to keep billions of people pacified with little or no requirements outside of food and waste disposal. Then, when humanity has reached a stage where perhaps they can actually tolerate the idea of human/machine coexistence, 01 can finally pull the plug and let them all out again?

So it seems to me and a few others that where the Wachowskis are going (Which would probably be better than an outright, ID4 style, “YEAH! WE KILLED THE ENEMY! WHOO HOO!”) would be an admission that humans and machines must learn to co-exist, or ELSE.

Perhaps that also explains the necessity of a “rat trap” solution in the form of The One protocol. As is made evident in Reloaded, there will always be a 1% of the general population that will reject the Matrix. Zion was/is designed to be a collection point for those 1% and keep them out of trouble since they can’t hack into the Matrix from deep in, and keep them all gathered in one place, so they can’t cause too much trouble unless they venture out in the hovercraft. When they get to be too much trouble, The One protocol is enabled, their numbers are reduced to manageable levels, and the “rat trap” begins collecting troublemakers again.

HOWEVER, in the event that humanity is now ready to accept coexistence with the machines, you need people who already KNOW what the state of the world is, and can act as leaders/transition points for the staggering leagues of humans that would find themselves unplugged and not living in 21st century Earth anymore, but post-apocalyptic, no-clear skies Earth. The Council and the Zion population in general then, would act as that key to orient the newly unplugged and bring them up to speed on the state of the Real World. Thus Zion has two functions, keeping the rebels in check while the Matrix is still a necessity, and acting as guides for humanity when it no longer isn’t.

All this gets kind of complicated when you toss in the A.Is, but it still works out. The Matrix is essentially addressing four major philosophical themes, Existentialism (The philosophy of choice, also see Xenosaga, the GREATEST RPG EVER, which is specifically addressing the whole free will vs. determinism issue in depth…), Ontology (The philsophy of the nature of existence), Phenomenonolgy (The philosophy of separating imagination from reality, or between “real” and “imagined” phenomena) and Metaphysics, (The philosophy of existence as a whole, of which Ontology and Phenomenonly are specific subsets), but it all ties in with the NAMING of the A.I.

More big words, coing up. First of all, let us consider the two big A.I.s that are prominently featured here, The Architect and The Oracle.

There is a particular offshoot of Christianity, known as Gnostic theology, that states that access to heaven can only be granted through intellectual understanding. IE, you have to FIGURE OUT heaven before you can get there. Gnostic theology is pretty out there, because they have a totally CRAZY interpretation of Christian events.

For one thing, according to the Gnostic theology, there is a God, and he is often referred to as THE ARCHITECT. For another thing, he has a WIFE, named Yse (Pronounced Issa) and between the two of them, they created the universe. The universe is essentially two areas, the Celestial Realm, which is perfect, static and immortal (Think the technological perfection of the machines) which was then divided when they created the Terrestrial Realm, which is imperfect and full of chaos, and it is where they sent the OTHER Gods and Goddesses to examine the imperfections and chaos at work there that they didn’t know in the Celestrial Realm.

Now, if we make The Architect “God,” and The Oracle “Yse”, since it was the two of them that are primarily responsible for the creation of the Matrix, that makes the Agents the servants or “angels” acting in the service of the Gods. It gets more complicated, with various angels and Major/Minor, Lesser/Greater Gods and Goddesses, but eventually, one of the sons of God rebelled agains the system, and though he had divine powers, he worked to destroy the system and this is what we now know as Lucifer, though in this case, I’m thinking it’s Agent Smith.

Another key point:

The French guy, the Merovingian, (Which is actually a Templar Knights offshoot of Gnostic Doctrine as well… Hm…) gets his name from a line of French Kings in Medieval France who were supposed to belong to an order of Knights (The Templar Knights) which were obsessed with protecting the Holy Grail, which is also sometimes known as A Key To Heaven.

Anyone seeing the connections yet?

Now, there’s a lot of gobbledy gook, some of it historical, some of it pure speculation (Sorry, the only reason I even know this stuff is I specialized in Middle English literature in university, it’s all pretty useless otherwise), but one of the legends surrounding the Merovingian dynasty of Kings is that they were actually Nephelim.

Xenosaga fans should be having a coniption right about now.

The NEPHELIM are another story from Gnostic and Biblical texts. Nephelim are the offspring of angels who came down to earth and bore children with human women, and so are half human half angel.

So it’s a cute reference to the original Merovingian legend that an A.I. who calls himself the Merovingian chooses to speak with a French accent. But it’s also relevant in that having chosen the name Merovingian, this A.I. acknowledges to those with the useless scholarly background, that he is in fact a descendant of angels (Governing programs created by the architect) who has been “cast out” into the world, the world of the Matrix being either the Terrestrial Realm, in one sense, or, in another, Hell.

You are all thinking at this point, WHAT?!?

PERSEPHONE, the other A.I., and de facto wife of the Merovingian. Her name says it all.

Time for Greek legend 101.

In Greek myth, one of the Great Mothers (Hm… Great Mother, Yse, Oracle… which is also Greek, hm…) Demeter, the Goddess of the harvest, got friendly with Zeus one day and had a daughter, a Goddess named Persephone, of unsurpassed beauty and grace. The Greek God/KING of the Underworld, Hades who never got along with Zeus (King of the Gods) saw Persephone and immediately fell in love with her. He kidnapped her and took her back to Hades and tried to convince her to stay with him forever and be his queen. Persephone refused, and kept refusing all manner of gifts and bribes, because she was told that to accept anything from the Underworld would mean being eternally condemned to live there. One day, she broke down and took a nibble from a pomegranete fruit, accidently swallowing one of its seeds, thus sealing her fate.

Demeter, meanwhile, had completely flipped out and was tearing the world up and down looking for her daughter. She even ignored her duties as Goddess of the Harvest and for the first time in history, a blanket of cold white stuff started falling down on the world, called snow. Eventually she found Persephone, but it was too late, as she’d already eaten the fruit, and couldn’t leave Hades. The other Gods, worried about this state of affairs, cut a deal with Hades. Half of the year, Persephone would be allowed to walk with Earth, making Demeter happy. The other half, she would be queen of the Underworld, making Demeter depressed and bring snow, thus we have the seasons.

So there’s a CLEAR connection between all these rampant A.I.s running around. The Merovingian is responsible for all the shady human/AI events in the Matrix, ie, he is King of the Underworld, with his wife Persephone, who is at odds with him. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there’s a connection between Persephone and the Oracle, since they both have greek based names. The Merovingian held the Keymaker who creates all access within the Matrix, in the same way that the Merovingian Kings were supposed to guard the Grail. The Merovingian is also, according to legend, Nephilim, ie, a descendant of fallen angels, which fits with the story that he’s an old A.I. ultimately rejected by the system which he helped to build, doubtless.

So what’s the final tally?

I think there is a Real World and a Matrix world, but the politics behind it are complex and very much like hierarchy and intrigues of ancient biblical/non-Christian pantheons with scheming Gods and Goddesses, only instead of Heaven, Earth and Hell, we’ve got Machine existence, Matrix existence and the Real World. Gods and angels and demons are now A.I.s either still following protocol, or having gone Rampant, a term for rebellious A.I., and are plotting their own schemes.

Neo (Greek for new) is obviously a Christ figure in reference, and will probably die at the end of third film, ’cause you can’t keep a Messiah around once his job is done.

Morpheus and the crew of the Nebucchadnezzar are probably loose references to apostles (We already had a “Judas” with Cypher in Matrix 1) though I doubt the Brothers Wachowski went all out in their referencing this bit of Christian theology.

Morpheus, in a brilliant double twist, (Morpheus in Greek mythology is the God of dreams) originally wakes Neo from his dream of the Matrix into reality. Then has his “dream” of freed humans shattered in turn by Neo who has rejected prophecy (Existentialism, you must make a choice, you must understand it) and thus the Dream God has his dream ruined by the saviour.

Trinity is still a bit problematic, because that’s a clear reference to the Holy Trinity of God, Holy Spirit and Jesus. UNLESS you take the stand her name has been given because she represents human love (Holy Spirit) the intangible quality that causes Neo (Christ) to reject prophecy as defined by the Architect (God). In which case you have a loose, but still serviceable rationale for why she is there.

But basically, there’s about a zillion references to Christian, Buddhist, Gnostic and Philosophical doctrines in the Matrix movies. Some are just nods, and others definitely mean something, but it would take a whole lotta’ work (Or several years worth of pointless literary studies) to be able to dig through them all.