The Opposites

**ZippyTheSquirrel**

If the Architect and Oracle are supposed to be so completely opposite from each other (i.e. white hair, black hair, white skin, black skin, male, female, etc.), how come the Oracle isn't a doddering idiot that screws everything up at first sight?

See, I bring this up mostly because of Teffnut's thread, but partially because

If the Oracle was an idiot, then techincally Zion (and the One and Morpheus) have been using an idiot as their major spiritual guidance model person thing.

If she isn't, then she and Archy are not complete opposites. Something must be done.

I know that The Merovingian could be used as an excuse and place-holder between the two, but somehow he doesn't really fit into the Generic Opposite equation, either.

I guess my question is,

"Is the Oracle as smart as everyone thinks she is? Or is she Pinky to The Architect's Brain?"

**Tefnut**

I don't think they were complete opposites. They just had different methods of thinking and perceiving the world they live in. She was an intuitive program, given the ability to think "outside the box" while he is given the restriction of seeing everything in black & white, yes or no, 0 or 1. She can make and create choices and he cannot understand the concept of a choice beyond 0 or 1.

*shrugs*

Gattsuru

I believe it's that the Architect that eventually ends up screwing up
everything, given that every system he's made keeps forcing massive
errors. I mean, sure, a lot of people use your system, but that
doesn't make your more intelligent than someone that can make a stable
one.

The Architect and Oracle are probably best considered as two
idealogical differences at the core, and the Brothers used physical
appearance and "powers" as a way to show exactly how different they
are. But I'm doubtful either of them are truely more foolish than the
other.

The Architect seems intelligent - he knows everything that there is to
know, can spout words that some dictionaries don't bother keeping,
watches everything. He sits on a throne, far above the petty squabbles of mankind, with an unbreachable wall between them and he.

But you get closer and then you discover that, while he knows
everything, he understands nothing. Much of his word choice is "off".
His television screens, watching thousands of possibilties, are
overwhelmingly incorrect - for every correct prediction there are
dozens of wrong ones. And, as the Brothers are sure to point out,
Choice eludes him - as a perfect machine, he has only purpose, and is
unable to even comprehend ignoring that purpose, of any result that
isn't a simple equation of different measurable desires and chemicals.

The Architect embodies knowledge, but his is a world where only the
most basic assumptions, those were are reactionary rather than
though-out, can be learned. Knowledge like a textbook, or a
calculator, or an encyclopedia. Words without meaning. Knowledge
without learning. Knowing what can be done, but not what should

First perceptions of the Oracle are likewise misleading. Every
prediction she gives makes little sense when first provided, and her
results, as we see in the movies, are as wrong as they are correct.
Only a vaguely off-kilter viewpoint could ever see the Prophecy as being something she knew
would happen. In fact, she says herself she never could predict it.
She smokes - a truely foolish action, or at least it's considered as
such in our day and age (I'll leave the tirade against that for another
day). She is a homemaker : a trait unfortunately given a very negative
outlook in our current society. When she bakes cookies, she actively
focuses on them.

An entity claiming to know the future can't predict when cookies will be done?

But while her predictions aren't correct, they aren't wrong, either.
And while she has the same ability to measure the present as the
Architect can measure the future, she is functional despite that
handicap. She doesn't mind cigarette smoke. She understands most choices.

She represents understanding, the importance of choice. While she knows nothing, she can tell what should happen.

Think in terms of cookies. The Oracle could never know when cookies
were going to be done. But she could know when someone would be by to
see them or to eat them. The Architect could predict exactly what
would make them best, the most efficient way to make them, and exactly
when they'd be done... but he can never know when he should.

Message Edited by Gattsuru on 05.30.2006 11:46 PM
Message edited by Gattsuru on 05/30/2006 22:46:19.

**Tefnut**

... or simply put.. she works in variables (an unknown quantity that has the potential to change) and he works in absolutes (totality of all things).

YAY!

FeralBoy

I believe there are many things the Oracle does know...

Oracle: Candy?

Neo: Do you already know if I'm going to take it?

Oracle: Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't.

...and it's this knowing that she claims makes her the Oracle. But there are also things she doesn't know. As stated earlier, she doesn't know the end of the Path of the One. She's as trapped inside the cycles as everyone else. But she wants an end to them. And even though she doesn't know how to end them, she believes that the One is the key. Five times before the One has failed. But as she's watched the progression of the sixth One, she begins to have some hope.

Oracle: But for what it's worth, you've made a believer out of me.

And it's because of this belief in Neo that she is willing to make a choice that she can't see past because she doesn't understand why she's making it...

Oracle: I told you before, no one can see beyond a choice they don't understand. And I mean no one.

Neo: What choice?

Oracle: It doesn't matter. It's my choice. I have mine to make, same as you have yours.

...but it pays off in the end because the Oracle choosing to allow Smith to overtake her is necessary for the message to be sent to Neo at the right moment that he must not fight his opposite but become one with him. Only through accepting his negative can true enlightenment come and light shine forth.

Seraph: Did you always know?

Oracle: Oh, no. No, I didn't. But I believed. I believed.

Gattsuru

Tefnutt wrote:

... or simply put.. she works in variables (an unknown quantity that has the potential to change) and he works in absolutes (totality of all things).

YAY!

I'm not sure that's accurate.

The Oracle works in absolutes at many times - she states that Neo will feel better by the time he's done with his cookie, that Neo must go to X location to reach the next step on the Path of the One. The Architect works in variables by his nature - the wall of television sets and the constant allusions to mathematical constructs suggest that. The converse is true : the Architect states clear values and absolute 'facts' ("she will die and there is nothing you can do about it"), while the Oracle gives variables ("either you or he will die tonight").

**ZippyTheSquirrel**

The absolutes of the Oracle are really just when she's reached a point at which there is no other variable.

"You'll either find The Keymaker with the Merovingian, or living with that smelly hobo that turned into Smith you fought a while ago."

**phi**

The fact that they both exist in the Matrix gives them some common ground, preventing the Architect (the first) and the Oracle(the last) (Alpha and Omega? - beginning and end of the greek alphabet) from being perfectly opposite. Think of them more as complimentary. They aren't completely opposite, instead one does what the other can not. Their purpose is united (the continuation of the matrix in a stable fashion) but their methods are opposing. The Architect creates order from nothing. The Oracle does not create chaos... instead her task is to understand it - creating order from chaos. They start at opposites but their purpose makes them converge.