Thinkin bout the Matrix
Mar. 15th, 2003 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleOther than pissing me off, the Model did have one effect on me: it made me really want to watch the Matrix again. Millari and Syd were both amenable, though as it worked out they both dozed off and I effectively watched it alone. Anyway, I had a bit of a revelation while watching it concerning the motivations and history of Cipher, the traitor.
We know a few things that now make more sense to me:
1) he's been out of the Matrix for nine years
2) Trinity, who is younger, has been out longer. Cipher doesn't remember her ever bringing him dinner.
3) Morpheus tells Neo that they have a rule--never free a mind once it's past a certain age because it has trouble adjusting to the new reality.
4) Morpheus broke that rule in Neo's case because he felt he had to, because Neo was the one.
5) There is some room for doubt, some reason to question, Morpheus's assertion of Neo's One-hood.
So, basically, I think I better understand why Cipher betrays them all. I think he was freed (perhaps by Morpheus, perhaps by someone else) past that mandated age because that someone thought Cipher was the one. Thus, Cipher is bitter because has pulled out of the comfortable life that he knew and put into a dark, grubby, hunted existence (with rotten food) because they wanted him to save them all. And he couldn't do it. And the hot chick that he's met won't sleep with him. And this obnoxious guy keeps bossing him around. And the agents that they hoped he could defeat are beyond him, too, and so he has to run like mad and skulk around in fear, just as they do.
Let this bitter disillusionment and disappointment simmer for nine years, and then stir in a cute but slightly clueless looking new kid...who turns out to be just what everyone else was looking for in you. And this kid hasn't done anything to earn it--he just IS whatever it is. And the hot chick is clearly falling for him.
So, treachery has a number of advantages: revenge on the guy who lured you out of the Matrix with false hopes, bitterness at the girl who doesn't love you and has fallen for the cute new guy, and a desire to prove that his (Cipher's) failures--the reason he doesn't measure up--is because their expectations are pipe-dreams, and not because he, Cipher, just isn't cool enough. He hasn't failed, they have, has been his constant consolation. Now, Neo threatens all of that. Hence, a deal with the devils....
We know a few things that now make more sense to me:
1) he's been out of the Matrix for nine years
2) Trinity, who is younger, has been out longer. Cipher doesn't remember her ever bringing him dinner.
3) Morpheus tells Neo that they have a rule--never free a mind once it's past a certain age because it has trouble adjusting to the new reality.
4) Morpheus broke that rule in Neo's case because he felt he had to, because Neo was the one.
5) There is some room for doubt, some reason to question, Morpheus's assertion of Neo's One-hood.
So, basically, I think I better understand why Cipher betrays them all. I think he was freed (perhaps by Morpheus, perhaps by someone else) past that mandated age because that someone thought Cipher was the one. Thus, Cipher is bitter because has pulled out of the comfortable life that he knew and put into a dark, grubby, hunted existence (with rotten food) because they wanted him to save them all. And he couldn't do it. And the hot chick that he's met won't sleep with him. And this obnoxious guy keeps bossing him around. And the agents that they hoped he could defeat are beyond him, too, and so he has to run like mad and skulk around in fear, just as they do.
Let this bitter disillusionment and disappointment simmer for nine years, and then stir in a cute but slightly clueless looking new kid...who turns out to be just what everyone else was looking for in you. And this kid hasn't done anything to earn it--he just IS whatever it is. And the hot chick is clearly falling for him.
So, treachery has a number of advantages: revenge on the guy who lured you out of the Matrix with false hopes, bitterness at the girl who doesn't love you and has fallen for the cute new guy, and a desire to prove that his (Cipher's) failures--the reason he doesn't measure up--is because their expectations are pipe-dreams, and not because he, Cipher, just isn't cool enough. He hasn't failed, they have, has been his constant consolation. Now, Neo threatens all of that. Hence, a deal with the devils....
