Matrix Revolutions Explained


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Because so many awaited but many didnt understand and walked away dejected, this is the explanation as good as it comes from the guy who explained to matrix fans about reloaded:

THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS EXPLAINED:

It is interesting to compare how I am approaching this essay with how I approached the essay for Reloaded. What compelled me to write for Reloaded was frustration. Everyone seemed to be missing the point. With Revolutions, even though many people are still not getting it, I have seen an astounding, deeply gratifying wealth of insight. It appears that after having digested Reloaded for a while we have got our brains into gear, and we are much better prepared for the messages in Revolutions. And so I come to this essay from a much calmer place. What motivates me is...well, nothing at all. I just choose to do it.

I was gratified at the wu hsing quality of the trilogy. The wu hsing are the five Chinese elements, in constant motion, and these elements generate each other. That's the universe of the Matrix. Humans caused the deification of machines, which cause the deification of humans, which cause the deification of machines. What I especially like about wu hsing is its complexity. Nothing is clear-cut black-and-white. That feels like the philosophy of elders, and I find that very comforting. That is probably what draws me to the Matrix philosophy so strongly.

Before I get to the part where I advance the thesis for Revolutions, I want to clear something up that has been a problem for the Reloaded essay. I said in that essay that Reloaded was the story of Genesis. Unfortunately, some people couldn't get past that. They insisted on trying to make an allegory out of Reloaded, in which characters from the Matrix could be mapped onto characters from the Bible. That is getting way off track. The Matrix story is packed with parallel spiritual metaphors, but it doesn't do any good to try and strictly interpret the Merovingian as The Devil (for example). So when I say Reloaded is the story of Genesis I mean that Genesis has similar symbols and we can use it as a way to understand what is happening in Reloaded. It will be the same for Revolutions.

Now, here we go: Revolutions is the story of the Ascension of Christ. Much more specifically -- and, oddly, much more generally -- Revolutions is about sacrifice. It is the story of the transition from the sixth day of Creation to the seventh.

TOPIC 1: FORWARDS OF MOTIVATIONS:

"You've got the gift, but it looks like you're waiting for something."

-Oracle

It seems easy to talk about "choice" as the main issue in Revolutions. But that was what Reloaded was all about. What constitutes making a choice? Is there anything beyond simple cause-and-effect chains? Do we live in a Skinnerian prison, bounded by our past experiences?

That is where we get some of the most difficult lines in Reloaded: "You've already made the choice. Now you just have to understand why you made it" -- and -- "You can't see past the choices you don't understand." When we get to the ultimate moment of choice, in the Architect's chamber, the Architect himself is surprised at Neo's motivation. Love. As Rama-Kandra explains, this is more than a word. It is a profound connection, for which virtually anything is possible. In Revolutions, we see it work powerfully between Link and Zee. We see Trinity take on a roomful of the Merovingian's henchmen for love.

Neo, however, leads. He fought for love in Reloaded. In Revolutions he transcends even love. In Revolutions he enters the nirvana of emptiness. No purpose. Neither fear, nor desire. Only will. The gift, the sacrifice, made by will alone overcomes everything. There is no higher why.

Smith asks, "Why, Mr. Anderson, why do you persist?" And Neo's reply is,

Because I choose to.

TOPIC 2: Neo's ascension

"And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

- Mark 14:62

This really begins at the Mobil Avenue station, but I am going to save that for last. Instead, I am going to start at the end. The fight between Neo and Smith comes to an apparent standstill. Neo is five-nines to enlightenment. Smith, who cannot understand why Neo is doing what he is doing, makes his speech. He lists every possible motivation he can think of, and of course the answer is none of the above. Instantly after that, Neo lands such a blow to Smith's face it's a little surprising his head didn't fly clean off.

I think if that's what had happened everyone would have cheered. I would have felt like cheering. It's quite close to how I thought the end would be -- Neo acting by will alone, utterly defeating Smith, and then evolving somehow into a new transcendent being. But, you know, when I ruminated on the ending a while, I realized that would have been like Gandhi saying "**** it" and mowing down his opponents with an AK-47.

The mighty cross to Smith's jaw didn't mean Neo was going to beat Smith with kung fu. It was something else. In his hands Neo held godlike power -- he could fight as long as he chose to -- but his choice was to lay down that power voluntarily. That is the gift [1]. Smith, the dark side, cannot lay down the sword. Neo can, and by doing so chooses the path between light and dark; between desire and fear. He is like Jesus going willingly with the Roman guards. The followers of Jesus believed he was The One who would "end the war," and they were extremely confused, like Morpheus, when the prophecy didn't come true. They didn't understand the way he seemed to give up the fight and waste all the momentum he had built up.

This part of Revolutions is one of the two events that so far nearly everyone has interpreted incorrectly. The tendency seems to be toward a "Smith won" kind of explanation. That's not right. It's time to pull out the dialogue. The chronology here is very tight. Smith wonders why Neo continues to fight, and Neo replies "Because I choose to," and after that Smith is a mess. The way Smith delivers this next line indicates he has very little idea what is happening now -- or why. Not only does Smith fail to understand Neo, Smith's understanding of his own choices unravels quickly.

SMITH - Wait... I've seen this. This is it, this is the end. Yes, you were laying right there, just like that, and I... I... I stand here, right here, I'm... I'm supposed to say something. I say... Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo.

The exact words of the Oracle! Also, for the first time, Smith calls his enemy "Neo."

I want to quickly flash back through the entire trilogy. We have been leading up to this the entire time.

[ M1: Neo and Smith are fighting in the subway station. ]

SMITH - Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death. Good-bye, Mr. Anderson.

NEO - My name is Neo.

[ M2: The Burly Brawl; Smiths are piling on. ]

SMITH - It is inevitable.

[ M2: Hall of back doors, on the way to the Architect's chamber. ]

SMITH - If you can't beat us, join us.

[ M2: The Architect's speech. ]

ARCHITECT - Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end.

[ M3: Conversation between Neo and the Oracle. ]

ORACLE - Everything that has a beginning has an end.

[ M3: Neo and Bane fight on the Logos. ]

NEO - It's impossible.

BANE - Not impossible. Inevitable. Good-bye, Mr. Anderson.

[ M3: Final battle between Neo and Smith. ]

SMITH - Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson, closing in on you? Well, I can. I really should thank you for it, after all, it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end.

Hearing Smith speak these words brings understanding to Neo [2]. What is inevitable is that Neo and Smith will merge. What began with a merge will end with a merge. Neo stands up. Smith is completely baffled by his own behavior.

SMITH - What? What did I just say? No... No, this isn't right, this can't be right. Get away from me!

Come again? Why does Smith suddenly want Neo to get away? Just when Smith seems to have Neo on the ropes, Smith starts staggering away from Neo like Neo has the plague. When Smith speaks the word "No" in that line he is fighting off the realization of what is coming, the joining together, and he is afraid of it. At the same time, Neo seems clear-headed and certain. The next lines spoken are like exploding bombs.

NEO - What are you afraid of?

SMITH - It's a trick!

Agent Smith is flailing desperately for an explanation that will allow him to escape. He wants this to be an illusion.

NEO - You were right, Smith. You were always right. It was inevitable.

I can almost see two moments in time colliding as that word is spoken. The beginning and the end coming together. The dark and the light coming together. Without seeming to know why, Smith plunges his hand into Neo and starts absorbing him. While this happens, Neo is calm. In a few seconds another Smith stands where Neo stood. Now if I have not yet shattered all competing theories, the next line that Smith utters should do the job. Remember Smith is almost cowering before this new copy. He speaks this line with a shaky, unsure voice.

SMITH - Is it over?

Smith doesn't know! How could he not know? We have gone from Smith being slightly confused to Smith having absolutely no idea what's going on. If Smith didn't grok Neo standing "by choice" alone, he is impossibly lost at Neo's sacrifice. The new Smith is not part of the "collective Smith" at all. The new Smith does not speak, nor hardly move except to nod his head. This is a recreation of Smith's initial death in the first movie. Neo is absorbed into Smith and shatters him from within. The beginning and the end are one. In the real world, there is a cross of light upon Neo's body, the sign of his sacrifice -- the choosing of the Holy Grail, the way between the pairs of opposites.

The light and the dark are one. The One.

So the question perhaps most asked is: did Neo die? Well, yes. And Smith died as well. They joined (very much against Smith's wishes) into the true One, and in that being Neo is no more and Smith is no more. Or, nearly. The Oracle describes it when she describes her own recreation: "Some bits you lose, some bits you keep."

Now somber, humble machines pull Neo's body, arms out in the shape of a cross, to a temple of light. Streams of energy course out from Neo along mechanical veins, gifting his divinity. And he ascends, he returns home, to the Source.

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POST MORTEM:

I believe there is a personal discussion going on between Neo and God in the final scenes in addition to the superficial deal-cutting. (The pantheon can get a little hard to follow -- I don't mean the Creator-God, the Architect. The floating head is the Infinite God, the Source from which finite Gods like the Architect have sprung.) God asks of Neo, "What do you want?" On the surface it looks like God is negotiating with Neo, and that they are making a deal to call off the squiddies if Neo can defeat Smith. But that means we're interpreting God's line as, "What does your side demand?" That's not what He said. It was,

What do you want?

This is a personal question directed at Neo. (I wonder what would have happened if Neo had said, "I want Trinity back.") Neo's response is, "Peace." If we look at this as an answer to a personal question, then Neo is asking for rest, for balance. He wants to end. At-one-ness. It just so happens that this reflects perfectly in the war between the machines and the humans. The One's personal ascension brings gifts to entire world.

Peace for Neo is the first gift of ascension.

Peace for Zion is the second of the gifts.

The third gift is the rewriting of the Matrix. I will discuss the Fourth Age later.

The fourth gift is mysterious. The machine city noticeably brightens when the One's spirit courses into it. What the machines gain is not revealed, but I believe there are clues laid down at the Mobil Avenue station and echoed in the final conversation between programs.

* * *

[1] The gift described by the Oracle in the first movie is often interpreted this way: The Oracle hints it will come with Neo's next life, and after Neo is shot by Smith and resurrected he is technically "on his next life" and so has become the One. If the original Matrix film had been the only story -- if the second two movies had not been made -- this would be absolutely correct. (It still is correct, but it's like the Oracle saying, "I love candy." The surface meaning is one thing, but the deeper meaning is much more profound.) But Neo does not really get into his next life until he exits the Architect's chamber via the left-hand door. After that he is the Seventh Son. I'll talk more about this later. The gift is the laying down of his power, choosing the middle way between light and dark, in order to become THE ONE. [back]

[2] Some people have explained this very plainly as "The Oracle is speaking from within Smith, letting Neo know he should be absorbed and act against Smith from the inside." That's not a bad theory, yet I don't completely buy it because I don't see Smith as "defeated."

THE YIN AND YANG OF NEO:

Really this story is about Neo. He is the focus of everything, and the events going on around him are amplified echoes of his internal transformation. He is The One, broken into a pair of opposites in the field of time. For the most part, Neo's opposite half is, of course, Smith.

Neo is personally reflected in a couple of other important ways, one of which is that he "switches sides" for a while -- actually, throughout Reloaded. I managed to irritate some people by suggesting Neo was equivalent to the Devil in Reloaded. I managed to irritate them even more by suggesting a connection, a family tie no less, between the Christ and the Devil. Well, that's unfortunate for them. It's a requirement that these symbols aren't clung to as if they were literal. In the first and third films, Neo acts like a Christ. In the second film, Neo acts like the Serpent. This is exactly what I laid down at the end of the Reloaded essay.

At the end of the first movie, we are left with a powerful Messiah. It could have stopped there, and that might have been fine. But we had not been told a story of wholeness. The pairs of opposites remained. Neo had dealt a blow to the machines from within the Matrix, but the machines still ruled the real world. The Bros. W chose to continue this story, and bring it completion, by turning inward on the very nature of the Christ (which is why the second two movies seem so overwhelmingly philosophical). And that story starts with the Serpent.

In the heavenly sphere, there is no time and there is no suffering. It is also quite boring. No growth, no emotion. A human being needs to emerge from the Garden and come into the field of time. This introduces a problem. With time, things pass away. Trinity dies in the field of time. That is pain. With time comes suffering. The Serpent is what leads us out of the Garden into the field of time, where invention, love, growth, and...suffering are possible. Neo in Reloaded was the Serpent. He disobeyed God and took the red pill. The consequence was an assault on Zion.

Now here is the wonderful part. Suffering awakens us to compassion. There is no compassion without suffering. There is no Christ without the Serpent. Compassion is a complex good that can only exist on Earth. There is the Christ, the compassionate savior, on Earth. There is Neo in Revolutions. He is not the military savior; he is not Lock. Lock has no compassion (Lock is willing to march every inhabitant of Zion into the dock; for him, the ends justify the means). The Christ offers the way back to Heaven by countering suffering with compassion, manifest in selfless, willing sacrifice. Smith becomes suffering for all. Neo becomes compassion for all.

The pairs of opposites, the particle and the antiparticle, the yin and the yang of Neo, accelerate toward each other.

THE MEROVINGIAN AND CLUB HELL:

The Merovingian is one of the most mysterious figures in the trilogy. I will try to stick close to the facts here, and not stray too far into wild speculation.

We have to start with the Grail legend (one of them, at least). The term "grail" is used several ways. It is supposed to be the cup in which Jesus' blood was caught after his crucifixion. It is also the hereditary bloodline of Christ, or the "blood of Christ preserved." The meaning either way is the balancing of suffering with compassion. The Holy Grail is the middle ground -- the entrance back into the Garden, guarded by firey angels. In the legend, there is a line of Frankish kings called the Merovingians, in whom the bloodline of Christ is carried. They protect the Grail.

However, there are two kinds of protection. The first kind of protection is protection against evil. What evil? Well, that is the second kind of protection. The second kind seeks to prevent anyone from attaining the Grail. The legend says that there are angels in favor of mankind, and those against mankind. This is the basis of the War in Heaven, the result of which is the casting out of Those Opposed, led by Lucifer.

Here is one of my small indulgences with regard to speculation -- I am going to say that this "casting out" is part of the history of the Matrix universe, and that it means "cast out from the machine city to the Matrix."

We know that "the Merovingian" is a protector of the Grail, and we know that there are two protectors. I'm sure I don't need to spell this out, but I will anyway. The fact that Merv's wife is Persephone makes it absolutely clear that he is Hades, which assuredly equates to Lucifer. In case you have not figured it out, the other protector is the firey angel who calls himself a protector: Seraph. (We see that these two know each other, so I feel like that is evidence for what I'm saying here.)

I am going to take this a little further and say that the Merovingian is opposed to mankind. He is also opposed to God, by which I mean the Architect and the Oracle. And the Merovingian will strike at all of them every time he gets a chance, out of pure hatred, for being cast out. Most especially he is against the Oracle, because this "Age" of the Matrix is very much her idea. (This is why he wants to harm the Oracle, c.f. Enter the Matrix.) The whole "Neo thing" invented by the Oracle is definitely on the Merovingian's **** list.

For Reloaded, we have his motivation for imprisoning the Keymaker. And for Revolutions, we have his motivation for taking advantage of Neo being trapped at the Mobil Avenue station by demanding the eyes of the Oracle. The Merovingian surely had no intention of releasing Neo from Mobil station. Not ever. He would have harmed the Oracle (again) and harmed Neo at the same time. A nice victory for the Merovingian.

Now that we have properly set up the Merovingian as the Devil, it is time to turn our attention to the Club Hel scene. The events at the club are tightly connected to the events at the Mobile Avenue station, and it all gets its start when Neo halted the squiddies at the end of Reloaded and fell into a coma. That coma was compared by many readers to a death, and the question was frequently raised whether Neo would be transformed after he woke up. I suspected as much, and it turns out to be true in a bigger way than I ever anticipated. It is representative of Christ's post-crucifixion and pre-resurrection experience. In the Apostle's Creed, Christ descends into Hell after his death on the cross. The Creed doesn't really say any more than this, but it gets heavy interpretation in the Catholic Church [3], so there are several variations on the whole story. At the moment of his death, Christ's soul and body separated from each other -- his body stayed on Earth and his soul went down into...well, this varies. Sometimes it's Sheol, the place of the dead. Sometimes Hell. And sometimes Limbo.

This fits in extremely nicely with our yin/yang Christ. The yin can descend to Hell, while the yang spends time in Limbo. I will get to yang/Neo's side of this experience in the next section. For now, I will focus on yin/Trinity.

I have all but spelled this out, but in case you weren't paying attention, I believe that Neo and Trinity represent one person. If something happens to Trinity, we can just as well say it happened to Neo. This is mainly true since the end of Reloaded, after Neo resurrects Trinity. After that they are like one. Therefore, Trinity's trip to Club Hel counts as Christ's descent into Hell. I find it fascinating that Trinity is accompanied by Morpheus and Seraph.

A minor sidetracking... When this trio approaches the main doors of Club Hel, the bouncers recognize Seraph immediately and call him "Wingless." Inside the club, the Merovingian calls Seraph "L'ange sans ailes" (Wingless Angel). This reveals a depth and complexity about Seraph that is very intriguing. He has had his wings clipped. Seraph, too, must be some kind of exile from the machine city, and his protection of the Grail may be work of atonement.

Now a few choice bits of dialogue. As Trinity, Morpheus, and Seraph enter the club:

MEROVINGIAN - What in the hell?

Precisely. If there was any doubt, let it be gone. This is hell. Actually, just in case you still aren't certain, the Merovingian repeats himself later: "You have fought through hell." And if you are truly dense, the clothing worn by Persephone and the Merovingian is positively devilish. The Trainman is with the Merovingian, quite likely informing him that Neo is stuck at Mobil Avenue station. Then Morpheus does something strange and tells the Merovingian that they want to make a deal.

MEROVINGIAN - Okay. I have something you want. To make a deal, you must have something I want, yes? And it so happens there is something I want. Something I've wanted ever since I first came here. It is said they cannot be taken, they can only be given.

MORPHEUS - What?

MEROVINGIAN - The eyes of the Oracle.

His seething hatred for the Oracle runs deep. For him, it's not enough that he had her exterminated. The Merovingian wants the Oracle's soul. Apparently, he has wanted this kind of possessive revenge since the moment he entered the Matrix. I'll take this as additional evidence that he was forced out of the machine city and into the Matrix against his wishes, and (from what it looks like) as a result of the Oracle's actions. The creepiest part of it all was that while the Merovingian was asking for the Oracle's eyes he was slowly munching on two eyeball-looking olives.

The subtext in these lines is just as amazing. This is truly a deal with the Devil. The subtext says, "Yes, I will give you what you want, but in exchange you must turn against God." Given what happens later in the movie, I strongly suspect that Neo, even if he had been released, would have been thwarted from achieving the Grail if the Oracle's eyes had been delivered to the Devil. The Oracle played a key part in Neo's transformation, a part that wouldn't have occurred.

I am very unsure about Morpheus here. I think he might have been ready to shake hands and go collect some eyeballs. He is a little ****ed off at the Oracle too. But that's all academic, because Trinity changes the equation by pointing a gun directly at the Merovingian's forehead. And this is the behavior we expect from Christ toward the Devil. Deal-making is really out of the question. And anyway, Hades was never good for letting the dead return to the world of the living. He always had to be coerced somehow.

Precisely at this instant, Neo, at Mobile Avenue station, says, "You got yourself into this. You can get yourself out." And that's exactly what happens.

[3] For all you trying to discern my religious leanings, please stop. You're wrong.

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TOPIC 3: THE MOBIL AVENUE AND THE FAMILY

I know this scene was severely misunderstood. The two most important scenes in Revolutions are Mobil Avenue and the final showdown with Smith, and so that is really all I have dealt with. Mobil Avenue tells us exactly what's going to happen at the end of the movie. In fact, Mobil Avenue is so central to the story that I had to force myself to put it at the end of the essay, and force myself to refrain from writing it until I had explored some of the other areas of the movie first.

Let's first get this out of the way: Mobil is an anagram for Limbo. I think just about everyone caught that, but I'll say it just to be sure. As I explained in the Merovingian section, Christ's body and soul have separated from each other [4] and Christ's soul, like everything else, is a pair of opposites. Yin-Christ is Trinity. Yang-Christ is Neo. The half that is Trinity descended into Hell. The half that is Neo went into Limbo.

The location of Mobil Avenue station (I'll just call it Mobil from now on) can be very confusing, principally because, in the movie, it is described from two different perspectives at the same time. It's the River Styx. Only instead of a river, we have train tracks; instead of a boat, we have a train; and instead of a Boatman we have...well, a Trainman. In Greek mythology, Charon the Boatman works for Hades. Similarly, our Trainman works for the Merovingian.

The other confusing aspect of Mobil is what the program family is actually doing. I'll clear that up before I dig into the heart of this scene. Mobil is a place between the machine city and the Matrix. At first it seems like they are smuggling their daughter out of the Matrix. It's just the opposite. The program family is from the machine city and they are smuggling their daughter into the Matrix, where there are plenty of exiles who have no purpose. As long as an Agent doesn't find her, the daughter will be safe.

Now, as I said before, Mobil is Limbo. The theme of the entire film is described by that name. Limbo, the limbus patrum, is the place where purified souls go to await the ascension of Christ into heaven.

As if that's not enough, we are (subtly) told where the ascension will take place. Because Mobil leads to the machine city, Neo will ascend to heaven in the machine city.

In the Reloaded essay, I did some work in the Architect section on the idea that Neo was the "sixth day" of Creation. In other words, Neo represents genuine human beings (the human being eats the apple and leaves the Garden). I also planted the seeds of suspicion that Neo might be the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, called Parashurama. These are both wholly, completely verified by what transpires at Mobil. Earlier in this essay, I claimed that Neo's coma was a metaphorical death. I think it's possible to assert that the sixth incarnation of Neo didn't make it past the Architect's chamber in Reloaded, but at least something of him survives to Mobil. This will be the end of him. Neo 6.0, who is the Serpent, who is Parashurama, never leaves Mobil Avenue station. The Neo that rides the train out at the end of the sequence is the seventh incarnation. Here is how it unfolds.

SATI - Good morning.

NEO - Who are you?

SATI - My name is Sati. Your name is Neo. My papa says you're not supposed to be here. He says you must be lost. Are you lost, Neo?

The first thing we hear spoken is "Good morning." That means, "Welcome to a new day." You are a new person, Neo. Then we are introduced to the young girl, whose name is Sati. Remember these are the very first events that happen to Neo in Revolutions. We are explaining the direction of the entire movie in the first few minutes. Sati means "self-immolation." More generally, willing self-sacrifice. This points directly at the final moments between Neo and Smith. It is interesting that Sati knows Neo's name already. It isn't that Sati recognizes Neo, but her father surely does.

The part about being lost is important. This is about why Neo is at Mobil. If he was there intentionally, he wouldn't be lost. As we learn from the Oracle later, Parashurama isn't prepared to go to the machine city. He cannot touch the Source and survive. He pops into Limbo entirely by accident. But now the father...

RAMA-KANDRA - I'm sorry, she is still very curious.

NEO - I know you.

Frequently in these films there are lines of dialogue that seem to carry a particular, superficial meaning but in fact are deep wells of symbolism. In Reloaded, when Neo and the Oracle talk in the park, Neo asks the Oracle why she is here. "Same reason as you," she says. "I love candy." (I have picked on this particular line before. It's a perfect example.) What this really means is that the Oracle delights in disobedience -- she loves the eating of the apple. When Neo says "I know you" it's the same thing. Yes, he recognizes him from the restaurant. What it really means, however, is that Neo recognizes Rama-Kandra like a mirror image. Neo is meeting himself. Chalk up another one for the pairs of opposites. The Neo-in-black is Parashurama, the Serpent. Rama-Kandra is, well, Ramachandra, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the Christ. To be more accurate about it, Rama-Kandra is the divinity of Christ.

In the Vishnu stories, Parashurama actually meets Ramachandra and there is a "passing of the torch," so to speak. There is no way this is a coincidence. It gets better. After Parashurama cedes to Rama, Parashurama goes off to live high in the mountains (between Earth and Sky) to await the next age of the world. Welcome to Mobil Avenue station, Parashurama.

Like so many other symbols in this trilogy, we encounter another set of three. The trinity again. Rama formally introduces his family:

RAMA-KANDRA - I am Rama-Kandra. This is my wife Kamala, my daughter Sati. We are most honored to meet you.

In Hindu mythology, Kamala really is the wife of Ramachandra. (Er, maybe not exactly, but close enough. Kamala is an incarnation of Lakshmi just as Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu.) This is a matched pair [5], and like Neo and Trinity we can talk about them as if they were one person. Their daughter is Sati (although it doesn't work out this way in the mythology). Taken on their names alone, I think the meaning here is that from divinity springs perfect sacrifice.

I will have to take a quick break to talk about divinity. This is the divinity of the human soul, not an external creature somewhere far away. It is inextricable from enlightenment, which in turn has everything to do with choice and with why choices are made. The Divine says, "There is nothing that can move me except my will to move." Neither fear nor desire can touch the Divine because the Divine is outside of the field of time, and so, without influence of any kind, the choice made by the enlightened soul is a perfect choice. This is the root of the perfect, willing sacrifice. It is not done for a reason. There is no causal chain. The choice is the beginning and the end. Now when the Divine descends into the field of time, there is suffering, and there is compassion. The way back "up" to the Divine is through the sacrifice. The gift is the door, the Holy Grail, the way between the pairs of opposites.

Returning to Mobil, we see that as Rama speaks he holds Sati directly in front of him, between himself and Neo. The meaning is exactly what I have just said. The essence of the Grail is there, in the space between Parashurama and Ramachandra.

But what else do we know about Ramachandra and Kamala? It's very strange. Rama is in charge of recycling at the "power plant." Oh no. The power plant for the machines? Recycling? Let's bring back what Morpheus said about that in the first movie:

MORPHEUS - Then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living.

Rama-Kandra's job is to oversee feeding the liquefied dead humans to the living humans in the power-generation pods. You would have to be made entirely of stone to not feel revolted by that. Yet... this is life. In a footnote in the Reloaded essay I remarked that some vegetarian and most vegans try to avoid this but cannot. That sparked a handful of angry emails. I still maintain its truth. Life is dirty, and sometimes disgusting. You do not live except by consuming the dead. This is life. Smith is anti-life:

BANE - I admit, it is difficult to think, encased in this rotting piece of meat. The stink of it filling every breath, a suffocating cloud you can't escape. Disgusting!

What we are really saying, then, with Rama in charge of "recycling," is that he encompasses not just the glory of the Divine but also the gritty, earthy Oroboros -- the world-snake eating its own tail, the consumptive animal. This is a lesson. You do not achieve the Grail by eliminating or leaving behind your animal self. It is as much a part of you as the divine. That is why Bane speaks those lines, and that is why Bane is wrong (as we feel he must be). The One is both Earth and Sky, the world below and the world above.

Said another way, the One comes from Limbo to save both worlds.

http://wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html

Edited by OrangeSoul
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Doesn't make the movie suck any less then it did...
true! me and so many others walked out of that cinema (theatre) sooo disappointed. But at the same time we knew we would be.. :(

EDIT: great explanation tho! :D

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Yes, and if you stare long enough at a brown paper bag, you'll find the meaning of life. <sigh> Who gives a crap? Philosophy in and of itself is meaningless. It provides no answers, and only ever leads to more questions. It's *only* meaningful use is to sharpen analytical skills. Otherwise, you're a dog chasing your tail.

Yeah, the philosophy was "deep" but the story( I use that term with reluctance ) was ****e, with exception to the first movie.

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yeah the essay is not about the philosophy only, it is explaining the story of revolutions in terms of understanding its philosophy, thats why most people who read this guys Reloaded and Revolutions explanation consider reloaded/revolutions a better story than matrix which was just too simple

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click HERE and just hear who is screaming when smith is about to blow up both times
poor d/l speed... like 100 kb/s or something... :(

:sleep:

EDIT: ok just seen it, what's your point?? :happy:

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Neo is screaming from inside all smiths blowing them up, he also screams inside himself when smith puts his hand in neo in reloaded before the scream forces smiths hand back

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Neo is screaming from inside all smiths blowing them up, he also screams inside himself when smith puts his hand in neo in reloaded before the scream forces smiths hand back
oh rite, cool... sorry didnt mean to get tetchy! getting a little late here... :happy:
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Interesting set of words, i will leave a challenge; some may have questioned themselves - what is rong with the real? how real is real? why does it feels like sometimes this reality feels less real than a dream?

Ready... Set... Go!

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