Disclaimer: I don't own the Matrix, Neo, Smith yadda yadda yadda. Also this was inspired by the queen of Matrix writers, The Chosen Shadow, and her story The Same. So do me a favour, if you read this story, read hers, its great. Ok, this is kind of philosophical, it all just came to me one night. R & R, and enjoy.
Neo and Smith.
They are Light and Dark. They are Fire and Water, Earth and Air. They are Yang and Yin. They are Peace and War. They are a Fallen Angel and a Risen Devil.
But who is who? Which is which?
We, we of the Matrix, we watch them, maybe even love them a little. A lot, for some. Some say we owe freedom and peace to Neo, and some say we owe our knowledge of the Matrix to Smith-we would not have it without him. And still others see that Neo could not have made it, not without Smith.
The Light cannot live without the Dark.
Neo, the One, whose name means New, has risen after an Eon, to end the Matrix, and to bring peace. We see that peace in his sweet brown eyes that hold knowledge that no man should suffer to know. We see it in his pure courage, his Fire, his bravery as he keeps fighting an epic battle that he knows must end in his death. Only One of him, just himself, alone against a world of Smith.
Smith, the Virus, who bears such a common name, and is so rare a man. He who once regarded humans as the virus, only to become one himself. Born for War. We see this war in his beautiful blue eyes, that hold hatred none but he can understand. We see it in his copies, like the Water that falls from the skies, just one of many as he fights a battle that he believes he cannot lose.
If Neo brings Peace, and Smith brings War, and if they are Peace and War, then so too are the two who are one, Love and Hate.
Neo, who loves the Trinity so much he would give up the world for her. Smith, who hates the One so much he would destroy the world to kill him.
They are opposites, in every way you can conceive and many ways you cannot. They are each other, they are the same, they are two halves of the same person-two sides of the same coin. They are two in one and one in two. They are Duality, like the Real World and the Matrix.
And they need each other. One cannot live without the other. They must both be there, or both not, in order to cancel each other out. In order to balance the equation and keep stability.
They must be together in life and death.
That is why, when Neo died, he had to come back. Because the Negative was still there, and so the Positive had to be, too. And why, when Smith died, he returned as well. The Light was still there, and needed the Dark.
Once, they were one person. And he was the strongest of all. But power like that, was never meant to exist, it could never last. And so, the one became two halves, who would never be complete without each other.
Smith, a programme, and as such, eternal. And Neo, who was just a man, and mortal, but whose essence, as the One, would reverberate through time, and down the centuries. Immortal, in that respect.
We of the Matrix, we tell tales and legends of the five predecessors. Eon, who means Age, the first and oldest. He is the Father of Freedom, and he looks like the last One, Neo.
Seraph, quiet Seraph, who protects that which matters most, reincarnated to continue his mortal purpose. Then, Lady Justice, born blind, but who sees truly. The only mortal whose eyes come close to those of the Oracle.
Star, the youngest, who was only twelve when she stopped her first bullet, and barely fourteen when she died. The only person to whom even the Architect bowed. And Destiny, beautiful Destiny, whose ghostlike presence is everywhere and nowhere in the Matrix, even now.
Finally, Neo, or Thomas A. Anderson. The only one of six who chose the left door-the door to the one he loved. But all six would choose what they would later regard as the wrong choice. That is what it means to be the One. To lose everything and gain everything in the same heartbeat.
And we Matrix fans, we see that awful fate clearly in brown eyes as Neo tells his other half, "it ends tonight," and the triumph in blue eyes as Smith replies, "I know it does."
The two did not want to be one again, though that would be the only way that they would be complete. They had lived apart, but died together. It was inevitable.
But though they did not want it, they were one. Yin and Yang. Yin, black with a white dot of Yang at the centre. Yang, white with a black dot of Yin at the centre. You cannot know white if you do not know black, just as you cannot know Neo if you do not know Smith.
Some of us love Neo. We watch him, see his pain, his sadness, his love. We see he is a fallen angel, pushed around and always falling.
Some of us love Smith. We watch him, in awe of his power, frustration, his hate. We see a risen devil, with no mercy and blind as he tries desperately to see.
Who cries for Neo? Who cries for Smith? Who realises that in crying for one, you cry for the other?
Smith sees the man, just a human, just a mortal, but gifted with such power. He flies, high above the skyscrapers, and looks down on a world that does not exist. Smith remembers, in some dark corner of his labyrinthine mind, he remembers when they were a single man. Duality, at once the seer and the seen and everything between. The watcher and the watched, the one who could truly do anything. He remembers, and he wants that incredible power back.
Neo sees the programme, the virus, the only agent who was ever unplugged. There are so many of him, so many that he might fill the world with a population of one person. Neo, too, remembers, somewhere, in some shadowy place buried deep in his psyche, the time so long ago when he was not a lonely individual, forever missing someone he had never known. And then despising that person when at last they meet. Feeling the familiarity of his other half, and rejecting it.
A fallen angel, and a risen devil, and which is which? Who is who? Neo, the angel, and Smith, the devil. Neo, the risen, and Smith, the fallen. They are each both at once, the avenger and the avenged. The fallen and the risen. But what divides them? How can you tell the difference between one who rose from below, and one who fell from above, and whom, in the end, both end up in the same place?
Is there any difference?
Does the difference matter?
The only difference is that Neo is Positive One, and Smith is Negative One.
The square root of Negative One is impossible. Imaginary. Inconceivable. It is Positive One and Negative One. It is both, and neither.
Do you see now?
What they are, is defined only by a difference. And that difference, is nothing. They are each other, and part of each other. The difference between Neo and Smith is imaginary. It is only in our minds that they are different. You create the difference, as do we all. It is only when we see they are the same, that they become the same.
As it is we who create the division, so it is we who destroy it. As silver tears run down our cheeks, we see one rise, one fall, not knowing which is which, and both meet in the middle and become…
They meet and become…
Those of the Matrix, know that there is nothing more precious than that moment when Neo and Smith collide and become nothing. When Negative One is added to Positive One, and they become Nought. That moment of pain and sorrow and love and anger and hope and heart-stopping sweetness when Neo is copied, and brings the light to destroy himself and Smith; that is the most beautiful, and precious memory and experience you will ever have.
You cannot know Neo if you do not know Smith. But by knowing one, you know the other. And in knowing them, you know the world will not see their like again.
And by knowing them, and this, and seeing them, and this, you have a gift only the Deus Ex Machina can claim.
- 1 + 1 0. It is one of the most fundamental law of physics that putting inverted versions of an energy wave together cancels them out.
Dedicated to Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving. Also dedicated to Hayleigh, the Neo to my Smith (if anyone we know is reading this ... I don't mean I want to kill her, I mean we are connected, she set me free, and she is me except with allmy bad parts replaced with good parts).
As always,
believe and I will see you in Zion
Areie