The Architect from the Matrix Reloaded

[neospurin]

Dudes and to Cyanide: I made an essay for you about the matrix and the part which you didn't understood.

The Architect

So God created man in his own image...And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.
--Genesis 1:27;31

The Architect is God as we see him in the creation stories of Genesis (there are two creation stories). This God has some particular characteristics. He created earth in six days, then took a break, then commenced taking leisurely evening walks in the Garden of Eden. And, well, that is about it for God. He is apparently content do this forever and ever, amen. Oh,except for one more thing. He put up a couple of special trees and told the humans not to eat their fruit. They were the forbidden fruits of the Trees of Knowledge and of Life. And so it is with our Architect.

He created the Matrix and now sits back in his comfy chair watching everything unfold on his TV sets. Just like our early Genesis God, the Architect cautioned his charges against too much knowledge. Both Gods say, "Here is a perfect world for you to live in. Just don't start thinking too hard about why you're here, or where the rain comes from, or basically how any of this works."

This is the Creator God, the Father God. Brahma is a good parallel. Brahma creates the world but does not rule it. Brahma essentially just sits on his lotus flower. He is like the cosmic Clock-maker of the Deists who winds up the springs and then only watches things happen. But in addition to this Brahma-like quality, the Genesis God and the Architect both have this forbiddance against knowledge.
And, of course, there is the serpent.

In the Garden of Eden, everything is taken care of. It's a paradise, right? There is no suffering. Recall Agent Smith from the first film, who said, "the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world. Where none suffered. Where everyone would be happy." The Architect confirms this in Reloaded. (There is not a one-to-one correlation between Matrix versions and the Garden -- they are all the Garden from various viewpoints.) The Garden is also timeless, a quality shared by the Matrix. This is a point that has been made extremely well by others, a good example of which appears on the comments page. Just how long has it been 1999 in this version of the Matrix? Maybe hundreds of years. Nothing ever changes; it's perfect already, so it cannot possibly change. It isn't alive, either, because change is necessary for growth and life. And so we introduce the Tree of Knowledge, through Morpheus (a human being). New knowledge is change: the exit from the immortal, perfect, unchanging Garden into the field of time. In the Matrix, this exit appears as the taking of the red pill.

Now back to the topic of the serpent. It's often overlooked that the serpent was created by God and put into the Garden. I mean, who else would have created him? It is a mistake to read Genesis with the assumption that the serpent is evil. He's not any more evil than dish soap is evil for breaking up the grease on your plate. One (I think good) translation of the adjectives applied to the serpent is "crafty." As in, he has knowledge of crafts. This is really Loki, who is also branded as a deceiver or a trickster, and that's part of his nature, but Loki also brings new technology: he is crafty, an innovator. He is the quintessential hacker [1]. At first I always identified Neo with Loki, but in the first movie I think Morpheus fits the bill better, at least in the beginning. (By the end of the first movie it is 100% Neo, as it will be for the rest of the trilogy. This is a good fit, too, because Morpheus was the mentor, the guru, that showed Neo the door to enlightenment. After that, Neo surpasses Morpheus.) Either way, the role is the same: "tempting" people with the forbidden fruit -- the red pill -- so that they may exit the Garden into the real world of suffering and the passage of time.

As a small sidenote about this topic, notice how it is only after Neo is first awakened from the Matrix that he gets any sense of what year it really is.
The essential point of the red pill and the "Loki effect" is that, just like in Genesis, both of these things were designed into the Matrix by the Architect. And that puts the Architect's relationship to Neo in a very interesting light. I used to say the Architect did a touchdown dance when Neo finally broke free of the cycle and chose Trinity. That's still true, but I found that too many people misunderstood what I was saying. The Architect, with the obvious assistance of the Oracle, designed into the Garden a way to exit its borders. I feel that this is really profound. What possible reason was there to put an exit door on the Garden of Eden unless God wants you to disobey. If you don't, if you always do what you're told, you are only a machine.

When they are put in the same room together, I find it interesting that there is a stark visual contrast between Neo and the Architect. The Architect is in all white and Neo, well, he looks just like the devil himself in all black. This is a pretty good interpretation. The Architect's Godliness is established, because he created the world. Neo at this point has fully taken on the Loki/serpent role. We are not talking about good and evil here. The serpent in the Garden isn't a force of evil. It is a force of change, of opening the exit-door from the Garden that God Himself put there. The serpent is a catalyst, inviting us to think rationally about our surroundings. On one hand, the serpent is responsible for putting events in motion that lead to the invention of agriculture, and so the serpent is the inventor god, i.e., Loki. On the other hand, the very idea of a snake is the most rudimentary image of life (life equals change), and so by "following the serpent" we exit the timeless Garden and descend into the field of time. It is only by leaving the Garden that we can awaken to genuine humanity. It's pretty clear that being in the real world is better than being in the Matrix. We somehow get a sense of revulsion when Cypher makes his deal with Smith. Plug me back into the Matrix. It's skin-crawling. The real world might be harder and dirtier, but at least you are conscious. On a very primitive level we know it's better to be free than to be well fed (c.f. the juicy, delicious steak).

And so we have Neo positioned as the serpent, acting to subvert the Architect's creation. Thus, Neo is the devil [2]. The important part while we are analyzing the Architect is that Neo is a devil created by the Architect. On second thought, Neo represents the devil element that was designed into the Matrix by the Architect. (Neo-the-devil may be more a child of the Mother than of the Father.) In other words, God put the devil into the world in order to achieve some greater purpose.

Below are several lines of dialogue from the Architect scene, and I will use them to discover what is really going on with Neo and the Architect. These lines aren't sequential; they're just the ones I want to highlight.

ARCHITECT - You have many questions, and although the process has altered your consciousness, you remain irrevocably human.
I stand by the idea that the Architect does not lie during this conversation. He tells us quite directly that Neo is a human being. This should put to rest all theories that Neo is a computer program. Those were some of the worst, most misguided theories I'd ever heard. It's important that we establish Neo as a human being, because the story is meaningless if he's just doing what he's programmed to do. [Ed: Oh, goodness, that's a very interesting sentence. Remember the part about disobedience? That is, not doing what you are "programmed" to do.]

ARCHITECT - That [response] was quicker than the others.

ARCHITECT - While the others experienced this [attachment] in a very general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-a-vis, love.

The translation here is very plain. There have been "others" -- other Neos -- and this one is different. We have already had this difference demonstrated in the Merovingian scene, but it is confirmed here. Neo is at first treated as "just another incarnation" by the Merovingian. But Neo expresses a level of skill that the Merovingian does not expect. In addition, Persephone, the "love detector" helps us understand that Neo has a special, powerful connection with Trinity. The fact that this incarnation is different also means that the previous five all chose the right-hand door. [Ed: I honestly haven't watched this carefully enough, despite the 10 or 12 times I've seen the movie. I imagine it's the right-hand door, but maybe I'm wrong.]

ARCHITECT - I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the sixth version.

There have been five previous incarnations of Neo. This is similar to the Hindu god Indra being confronted by the fact that there have been countless previous Indras. It means: you are a part of something greater than yourself. There is also a tremendous significance in the fact that the present Neo is the sixth incarnation.

ARCHITECT - [The Mother] stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99.9% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice.

NEO - Choice. The problem is choice.

How many times was the idea of choice and free will raised in Reloaded? Quite a few. It comes down to this moment, and both the Architect and Neo state it clearly. This is about choice. Neo's choice -- between the right-hand door or the left-hand door -- is a magnified, superconcentrated version of the choice given to all humans connected to the Matrix. Will you accept the world you're given, or will you follow the serpent? This choice is why Neo and the Architect are shown as competing opposites -- the God and the devil. They are the embodiment of the two choices. However, by design, there is an exit. There is a way out for the Sixth One, the manifestation of the Sixth Day -- the genuine human being. Neo takes this exit.

My belief is that the Architect is hoping that Neo chooses the left-hand door [3]. (Or whichever door it is. The Exit.) In other words, I am saying (1) that the Architect is hoping for something and (2) the thing he is hoping for is that Neo chooses Trinity. There are several key pieces of evidence for this belief. What tips the scales for me is the "parting shot" from the Architect:

ARCHITECT - Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

Why does the Architect say this? Why does he mention the word "hope"? Why didn't he simply say, "So long, dummy?" I think it is because this is a moment of fulfillment for the Architect. He knows his job is finished, because by choosing the way out, Neo is going to destroy the Matrix. I thought perhaps by ending on "weakness" the Architect was classifying Neo's choice as a bad one. Not so. Weakness is a state of non-perfection. Human beings are defined by their imperfections, their weaknesses. So this is a statement of liberation from perfection. Neo is breaking free. He is exiting the Garden.

But the Architect is also saying something much more profound than that. Look very carefully at the sentence. The Architect is saying that Neo is quintessentially human. That is, Neo has truly transcended his boundaries by choosing Trinity. He has genuinely exercised free will. And that leads to the most incredible part of the relationship between the Architect and Neo.

Neo #6 is the creation of man on the sixth day. The true human being, who disobeys, who leaves the Garden and finds his own way back.

[1] This is not my own idea. It comes from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. When I first wrote this essay I assumed all my readers (I predicted around 25-30 of them; oh, the naivete) would know this book well.
[2] A lot of people get irritated by this assertion. Just to throw gasoline on a fire, how about this: the Devil and the Christ are brothers. They are a yin-yang pair. The Devil is the thing in you that chafes at perfection and desires to get out of the Garden and grow. It is the splinter in your mind.
The Christ is the thing in you that desires to return to the perfection of the Garden, to slay the dragon and unite with the princess (wholeness).

[3] Jesus sits at the right hand of God. Therefore, by offering the right-hand door, the Architect is asking Neo to sit at his right hand. Neo would become the Christ for the Matrix, sacrificing himself for the good of the world. This is what every previous incarnation has done. The fact that he doesn't do it this time indicates he (and by extension the Matrix and humanity) has gone beyond this and is adventuring into something new.
Also another note:

Neo
• Killed by Smith, then resurrected
• On a quest (to the Source)
• Motivated by love
• Has growing supernatural powers
• Has transcended "the system"
• Hacks the Matrix, then hacks reality


Smith
• Killed by Neo, then resurrected
• On a quest (to destroy Neo)
• Motivated by hate
• Has growing supernatural powers
• Has transcended "the system"
• Hacks the Matrix, then hacks reality

[Donatello]

[shadowgrin]

There is no spoon.

[Anthony15]

:|

2nd that

[hipn]

Didn't read/10

[cyanide]

Wow, that's gonna be a good read. I'll give it a read and post my comments later. Thanks

Was this an essay for school or for yourself? It's kind of weird getting a thread that's directed at myself or those who are interested with the Matrix, but thanks for taking the time to do this regardless.

[bullsfan009]

And so we have Neo positioned as the serpent, acting to subvert the Architect's creation. Thus, Neo is the devil [2]

I disagree- imo Neo symbolizes the Christ/Savior, not the devil. He's called "The One," he is resurrected, he's motivated by love, he's human yet more than human, he sacrifices himself to destroy the Matrix, he's in a serious relationship with "Trinity", his last name "Anderson" means "son of man", what Jesus referred to himself as often...this connection is supposed to be obvious, I feel. There's actually a paper on this here: http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/90631.html

The Architect, with the obvious assistance of the Oracle, designed into the Garden a way to exit its borders. I feel that this is really profound. What possible reason was there to put an exit door on the Garden of Eden unless God wants you to disobey. If you don't, if you always do what you're told, you are only a machine.

That's a profound thing what the Architect did, true, but drawing from this that God wanted Adam & Eve to disobey him is, I feel, wrong. God is good, and so he would only punish (which he did severely to Adam & Eve) for wrong behavior. God was really really mad with them- why would he have wanted them to do something he strictly ordered them not to do and punished them for doing?

On second thought, Neo represents the devil element that was designed into the Matrix by the Architect. (Neo-the-devil may be more a child of the Mother than of the Father.) In other words, God put the devil into the world in order to achieve some greater purpose.

Actually the devil didn't start off as the devil, but was the highest of angels, in great favor of God. But he rebelled, for some reason, and by his choice became the devil. And is very happy with that role, too, I believe. C. S. Lewis had a quote: "The doors of hell are locked on the inside."

NEO - Choice. The problem is choice.

How many times was the idea of choice and free will raised in Reloaded? Quite a few. It comes down to this moment, and both the Architect and Neo state it clearly. This is about choice. Neo's choice -- between the right-hand door or the left-hand door -- is a magnified, superconcentrated version of the choice given to all humans connected to the Matrix. Will you accept the world you're given, or will you follow the serpent?

You're right about the great importance of choice in everything. But I believe that the essential question is not as you said, "Will you accept the world you're given, or will you follow the serpent?", but "Who do you love?" "Who do you serve?". It's a misled logic to say that you must either accept this world or follow the serpent. If anything, those two go hand-in-hand: the serpent to a great extent rules this world. The question to ask is will you follow God or the serpent, and God leads to a world of life & love, while the serpent leads to a world of destruction & death.

Neo #6 is the creation of man on the sixth day. The true human being, who disobeys, who leaves the Garden and finds his own way back. --

No way....humans don't and can't "find their way back" to God on their own, but God (has to and wants to and does) paves the way for them to come back by sending Jesus to bulldoze the wall separating them: sin (and death, which is a natural consequence of sin b/c God is holy so nothing sinful can live in His presence. He tells this to Moses: "No one can see my face and live.")

A lot of people get irritated by this assertion. Just to throw gasoline on a fire, how about this: the Devil and the Christ are brothers. They are a yin-yang pair.

Wow I've never heard this before, but I don't think that the devil can stand Christ, I think he loathes him, and I wonder if the feeling is mutual or if Christ wishes that the devil would repent (if that's possible, I have no idea). In a way they are a yin-yang pair in that they are at opposite ends of the same spectrum, but to call them "brothers," well I guess it depends what you really mean by that.


You've got some really thought-provoking assertions, neospurin. I watched the Matrix movies the first time without really being aware of its parallels with Christianity. I want to see them again now with this in mind. But although I know that I don't understand everything & all of the symbolism, I don't think that the parallels are exact. God wanted Jesus to save mankind, and although Jesus was terrified of the suffering and death he knew was imminent, Jesus wanted to do God's will. Neo going against the Architect to save Trinity (who I view as symbolizing mankind) doesn't fly with that. Also, perhaps Agent Smith symbolizes the serpent/devil…

[Patr1ck]

http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_reloaded.html

You sure you wrote that?

[J@3]

So I kinda just walked out of the cinema when the movie ended and didn't really think about it again, but that's just me.

[Donatello]

http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_reloaded.html

You sure you wrote that?

Pwnt. I knew there was something wrong here. Someone who just joined the forum (check the IP, btw) wouldn't go to such lengths.

[Sparks]

L4wlZ.

[neospurin]

To the dudes who replied with all their heart- The movie is still very much ambigiuous in nature and will always transcend conflicting ideas from the viewer. Thanks for your analytical views though

[Gundy]

You plagirised dumb fuck.

[bigh0rt]

You plagirised dumb fuck.

plagiarized (plagiarised is also acceptible), but who's counting?

[neospurin]

aha a smart dude wanna be burnt by his own spoils. Dude chill out its not like your my dean or something and you shell out obscene profanity. You will be backed up because of your higher post count but its just the web dude.

[Ed: I should have said "prepared" rather than "made"]

[Jowe]

You need to get laid. Quick.

[bigh0rt]

aha a smart dude wanna be burnt by his own spoils. Dude chill out its not like your my dean or something and you shell out obscene profanity. You will be backed up because of your higher post count but its just the web dude.

[Ed: I should have said "prepared" rather than "made"]

No, sorry. Post count aside, people who do retarded things are generally called retards. This certainly falls under those guidelines. I do so love that backpedalling "it's just the web dude" after being called out. Classic.

[neospurin]

Jowe dude I prefer my laids long not quicks!

So now its like plagiarizing is somehow related to being retarded? huh? Say that to all the presidents and yes to one of the greatest black dude of all time M.Luther King. Last time I heard he was totally stealing quotes from sources you and I can only dream of, but no; no one called him retarded and yeah the web is supposedly be the source of "information" one can use at anytime. Chill out.

[bigh0rt]

Jowe dude I prefer my laids long not quicks!

So now its like plagiarizing is somehow related to being retarded? huh? Say that to all the presidents and yes to one of the greatest black dude of all time M.Luther King. Last time I heard he was totally stealing quotes from sources you and I can only dream of, but no; no one called him retarded and yeah the web is supposedly be the source of "information" one can use at anytime. Chill out.

You're serious too.