Love, Rebellion, and "The Matrix"

This article was first published in Mars’ Hill, volume 26, issue 6. You can read the full issue here.

The nature of control presented in Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s The Matrix film franchise seems quite insidious. The Matrix, the computer software used to control humanity, is not like most forms of control presented in other works of dystopian fiction: the Machines have everything planned for. They are not content to just control events within the Matrix, but they have become so powerful that humanity’s promised saviour, the One, is a part of their design. If humanity will always find a way to rebel against the Machines, then that rebellion must be a part of the equation. If they design the program right, the Machines can guide the collective human will to their Machine-given purpose, that is, if they make the right choices. But they always do. It is inevitable.

There is a moment in the recently released The Matrix Resurrections (2021) where a group of characters sit around a board table and discuss what they think the Matrix trilogy, here depicted as a video game series, means. The characters either reduce The Matrix to its most basic action elements or over-aggrandize about the philosophy using increasingly large words, all while ignoring what seems to be the beating heart of the series. The scene is played for laughs as it seems to poke fun of its own existence, but they are rooted in the real-life discussions about The Matrix (1999) and its sequels that have spawned since the original’s release. 

There are obvious technical achievements and distinctive Asian-influenced action sequences. There are the interpretations of the series that centre around its philosophy, statements about capitalism, or the compelling reading of the films as thematically linked to transgender existence and identity. But Resurrections, always aware of its legacy, suggests a much simpler reading of the series. To director Lana Wachowski, The Matrix, beneath all of its philosophy and politics, is a love story.

The series makes its defining statement about love at the end of its second installment, The Matrix Reloaded (2003). Unbeknownst to him, Neo, the destined saviour of humankind, has made the wrong choice and misled the Machines' careful plan. Neo has fallen in love. Now, he is given an ultimatum: either he saves the woman he loves from certain peril and doom his species, or sacrifice Trinity and reset the Matrix. It’s a game of manipulation, a play to force Neo’s hand.

Towards the end of the film, Neo comes to the source, the origin of the Matrix and the place where his path ends. He finds himself in a white room surrounded by computer screens with a man in a clean three-piece suit, the Architect, waiting for him. The Architect, the Matrix’s “father,” explains it all—every action Neo has taken has been predetermined by the Machines, and the One is a necessary part of the functioning of the Matrix. Neo’s true purpose, then, is to resent the computer and bring the human population back to square one. That is when Neo notices one critical flaw in the Architect's plan.

“The problem,” Neo observes, “is choice.”

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix Resurrections.

The Matrix is built on a binary, a math equation that always has the same result. The Matrix and the Machines must succeed because the system is built that way. All of the series’ major antagonists follow these fatalistic mindsets. The Architect sees it as design. He has successfully used the generic feelings of human loyalty of Neo’s predecessors to guide them into rebooting the Matrix, so why should it not work with Neo? The Merovingian sees it as causality, that our fates are predetermined by what has come before us. Agent Smith sees it as an inevitability because the powerful will always come out on top. The act of rebellion that upsets all three of these characters is Neo and Trinity’s choice to love.

“Why, Mr. Anderson, why?” Agent Smith asks Neo in the finale of The Matrix Revolutions (2003). “Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom or truth, perhaps peace—could it be for love?” Neo and Trinity choose to love each other in a way that moves them beyond the control of fate and the system’s all-powerful equation. While their impersonal feelings of love towards the human colony of Zion might be moved by the system, their choice to love is too specific, too intentional, too personal to be controlled. It gives them a reason to keep fighting beyond the confines of the war. Confounded, Smith finally asks, “Why do you persist?”

“Because I choose to,” says Neo, getting up once again.

Resurrections, then, refocuses the narrative on Neo and Trinity’s romance. The Machines are smarter now and more nefarious. The newly reconstructed Matrix carefully and specifically exploits the memories of Neo and Trinity to keep Neo stuck between two worlds, never sure whether what he knows is a memory or his failing mind. It is an endless feedback loop of self-imprisonment in an idealistic world of digital trickery. The machines rationalize that if they can keep Neo trapped within his memories of love carefully reflected back to him, they can use him forever. Resurrections asserts that Neo and Trinity’s memories and feelings are still theirs, and the same goes for anyone stuck in a digital feedback machine. It is their lives, their choices, their love.

Love is the greatest act of rebellion. It is selfless and fierce. It defies all others for its own sake. To quote Resurrections’ on-screen dedication, “Love is the genesis of everything.” Neo’s story, whatever it may be symbolic of, is impossible without love. The story of the One was always about the Two.