I was planning on discussing the “vat in a vat” theory in this post, the theory that outside the Matrix is still inside a simulation (also sometimes called the inception theory), but after some thinking about my last post, I came up with another viable theory about what is going on. I cannot help but explore this new idea: what if Neo is actually dead?
I really need to add another spoiler warning here. I am definitely going to go into great detail regarding plot points and specifics of the previous films here. This idea just cannot be discussed otherwise. So, again, do not continue to read if you don’t want spoilers.
Most people who are familiar with this story may think I am suggesting Neo is dead, as in at the conclusion of the third film. Unfortunately, this is not what I mean. I am suggesting Neo is dead, as in at the climax of the first film. I am suggesting that Agent Smith was successful in killing Thomas Anderson, and the Neo that we have all been witnessing since that moment is in fact someone, or rather something, else entirely.
Consider all the important exposition and evidence we are given throughout the first film regarding the “rules” of consciousness and mind/body dualism. As Morpheus reminds us, the mind and the body cannot continue without each other, and we see a lot of evidence to suggest this is the case. When Cypher kills his shipmates in the first film, those individuals die in the Matrix, confirming for us that the mind cannot exist without the body. We are also shown the reverse, in the form of Mouse being killed by the police shortly after the glitch in the Matrix; the body cannot live without the mind. The audience is given very, very clear guidance in this regard. Mind/body dualism does NOT exist in the universe of the Matrix storyline.
However, there is a seeming exception, as I noted in my last post: Neo. For some reason Neo can exhibit mind/body dualism. We witness this character’s mind and body each continuing exclusively in many situations. In the first film, Neo’s mind is killed by Agent Smith in the climax, and yet, somehow his body does not perish. Some may want to argue that the body can exist for up to four minutes, giving the opportunity for resuscitation. While this may be true, the situation Neo is in is grim as we still have no explanation for the continuance of his mind.
Based on the evidence we are provided throughout the first film, injuries sustained by individuals in the Matrix translate into real world damage. Get punched in the face in the Matrix, and your nose really gets broken. Your body manifests that damage in the real world. Again, this is demonstrated time and time again throughout the first film. The mind and the body are always linked. When Agent Smith is pummeling Neo inside the Matrix, Neo’s body is jerking about and his mouth is spiting blood in the real world. If this is all truly how it works, then Neo’s body would have manifested bullet wounds in the real world as Agent Smith shot him. Agent Smith unloaded a clip into Neo’s body at his death.
Neo’s mind and body should both have been finished at the climax of the first film. And yet, somehow, miraculously, Neo survives. Trinity commands Neo to stand up and fight back. And in this moment, Neo is transformed. Neo’s sight is revealed. Neo stops bullets. Neo leaps into Agent Smith’s virtual body and seemingly destroys Agent Smith from the inside. But let us take a moment and think about all this. What really happened? And what makes this one individual so special as to be able to break the established rules about mind/body dualism?
What if Neo really did die? If he really did die, then the established rules given to the audience are upheld. There is no conflict. No mind without body or body without mind. What awakens is not Neo. What awakens is not human at all. If we consider the scene from the second film where Bane’s body is taken over by Agent Smith’s mind (what I always considered to be the most important scene in all the films), then perhaps what awoke is a program of Neo.
Here is what I think could have taken place: Thomas Anderson died. Agent Smith killed him successfully. The human mind is extinguished and the human body lay in ruin (with that four minute opportunity for resuscitation). Agent Smith, confident he has accomplished his mission walks away as Trinity utters that it cannot be true that her love is dead. This is where the magic happens. Thomas Anderson was important to the Oracle and to the Architect. They’ve known about him for some time. They’ve been watching him. Thomas Anderson’s interactions with the Matrix, his ability to press against the rules and laws within the main program, have allowed for his “human code” to interact with the machines’ code. Bits of Neo exist within the system, and have been manifesting slowly, perhaps collected by important machines. In some sense, there is a doppelganger of Neo in the Matrix. Or perhaps something like a backup.
After Thomas Anderson dies at the hands of Agent Smith, this doppelganger has now the opportunity to manifest itself within the dead body of Thomas Anderson. The doppelganger is not human remember. It never had a body. It is simply a program within the machine world. Perhaps not even a complete program either. Just some free floating code, sort of like a computer virus. What awoke may simply be this doppelganger, who only knows of itself as Neo.
At this point, our new Neo would certainly have all the abilities we see from this point to the end of the third film. When he sees the Matrix, he doesn’t see what the Matrix program feeds him, he sees the code itself. As a sentient program, he can manipulate the Matrix entirely, stopping bullets and leaping into Agent Smith’s body, destroying it from the inside. As a sentient program, there is nothing that permanently ties him to the body of our former Thomas Anderson. Mind/body dualism CAN now exist within this new entity.
I am not suggesting that this new entity is in any way malicious. As far as it is concerned, it is Neo. It may even consider itself to be Thomas Anderson as well. It gains all the memories and experiences of its blueprint or template, sliding easily into the life of the dead human. It would explain how distant Neo becomes throughout the following films. How disconnected from humanity he is. The talk with Councillor Hamann becomes far more significant now. Far more telling.
For all intents and purposes, this doppelganger is Neo, and the audience doesn’t necessarily need to know any different. Certainly none of the other human characters need to know any different. Perhaps the machine characters don’t need to understand either, though I suspect they actually do. At least a few of them. This would also very much explain the character of the Merovingian.
Consider the Merovingian for a moment. Clearly a sentient program. But also possibly a previous iteration of the One, as is hinted at through the story and is suggested by many fans. Let us, for a moment, assume that is correct: that the Merovingian is a previous iteration of the One, perhaps even the first iteration. How could he still exist after so much time? If he were a human, his body would have decayed long ago. If we assume the information we are provided is in some way correct, and Thomas Anderson was in fact the sixth iteration of the One, then we can estimate that this cycle has been going on for at least 120 years. That is, each new iteration has to be born inside the Matrix, live a bit of a life, and grow up to be old enough to manifest the One. Being conservative here, I will suggest that each iteration takes at least 20 years to manifest (and probably longer than that). Therefore, the difference in age between our Neo and the original, first iteration would have to be in excess of 100 actual years.
However, if the Merovingian is “just” a sentient program, he could exist in perpetuity. There is no suggestion made in the story that the machines “grow old and die.” It is suggested (by the Oracle) that programs are frequently deleted, and can either choose to hide in the Matrix “or return to The Source” (“The machine mainframe”). She suggests that programs are not deleted due to age, but instead for other reasons: “Maybe it breaks down. Maybe a better program is created to replace it.”
This all suggests that the Merovingian is such a program, hiding in the Matrix. If the Merovingian was also another iteration of the One, and if the One is “the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix,” as the Architect suggests, then it suggests that the One is in fact a sentient program, and not actually human.
I hear many of you screaming now: what about the fact that the Architect suggested Neo is “irrevocably human?” There are two possibilities as I see it. One possibility is that the Architect chose his words carefully, as to say “irrevocably” is not to say one is human, but to instead suggest one cannot escape one’s human heritage. If I am correct, and Neo is simply a sentient program, then it cannot escape it’s doppelganger quality of playing a human, even believing that it is, and therefore behaving as or being limited by its human qualities. The other possibility is that the Architect doesn’t know. I’m more inclined to believe the former in this case, as the Architect is both incredibly pompous and intelligent; I think his choice of words is incredibly important, especially in cases where the words he chooses have multiple meanings. For example, the Architect explicitly suggests that Neo’s “5 predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication.”
“By design.”
I believe that the Architect knew what he was doing. I believe that the Architect clearly understood how “the anomaly is systemic – creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations.” The Architect understood that the existence of Thomas Anderson (and those like him) would automatically generate rogue code patterns within the system of the Matrix. What was needed was to create a vessel to manifest the rogue code. An opportunity to purge the code using a human vessel. Thomas Anderson NEEDED to die to make room for the rogue code to occupy his deceased body. Upon doing so, the rogue code allowed for the path of the One to play out: “The function of the One is now to return to the Source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program.” A line that has been debated at length, and yet seems clear as day if my theory is correct.
I could not help but write this post. Even though it only manifested in my own mind over the past couple days, it seems to make a tremendous amount of sense to me. The Neo we all know from the second and third films is not the Thomas Anderson from the first film at all, but a doppelganger that thinks it is human. A possession of a human body by a segment of anomalous code, just like Bane was. Bane was the hint to all of this. As Agent Smith is Neo’s equal and opposite, does it not stand to reason that both had to possess a human body at some point in the story?