This has been a very good thread and an interesting read.
I belive Smith was an exile only by definition. In realityt I think he was somethign different from either an Agent or Exile and served noone. He was a Virus. He did not act as the system wanted him to and was takeing up resources nearly crashing the system.
I have seen the debate on weather the oracle knew smith to be the balance of the equation and that proved he was a construct of the architet. I disagree for 2 reasons
1) I do not believe the architect would or even could create somethingn as chaotic as the Virus Smith. The architect is Order. The Oracle deals in chaos and choice and I know the ORacle didnt create Smith.
2) The Oracle may have been looking at the situation at the time and interpretating Smith to be the balance. She was later take over by this virus. This event was much bigger than anything previous.
As far as the equation is concerned. if neo was 1 then smith was -x. 1+ -x= is an unknown. I've seen some good arguments stateing for the idea smith was made by the arcitect. I just have a gut feling he wasnt. Even if my gut feeling is wrong and smith was made by the arcitect then he was flawed i his programming.
Even if he was initially made by the arcitect he did not end up serveing the system. I have trouble believing he could build smith so shoddy. Instead I believe that smith never really died but simply pulled himself together. the experience altered his programming in such a way that he became the virus he was.
My position is that the Smith Virus, had grown from Agent Smith as a result of the one hacking into his RSI. The problem I have with saying that Smith was "reborn" is in saying he is "dead". You easily see the agents taking over bluepill hosts in the films and even before they come to get you in this game, which is why I always go back to the (auto-recon) analogy. When you get killed in the game, are you "dead"? That being said, you also learn in Revolutions that to some degree the first film is just one layer of the truth. So yes, in terms of making a complete story Arc, Smith "dies" at the end of the Matrix. Once the movie gets the green light for the triliogy he is no longer "dead". Normally, something like this would *CENSORED* me off, however, the introduction of the Architect and the information he provides changed my perspective on the 'rules' completely. The Oracle itself was created from the machine logic, that is powered by radical methods of fusion... I think it is unfair to assume that the Architect is not creative with his mathematics because he himself is organized. Stripping the descriptions & it is Postive vs Negative all day here, neo is over-charged with love then Smith with hate. Just for the record, I do not suggest that the Smith virus was injected into the Matrix by the Arc, but rather the Program Smith was simply NOT deleted making him by definition an exile, and NOT deleted for a very specific purpose. Where previously, he would have been deleted after having been broken by bearing witness to those things that made no sense. The other agents replaced by 'upgrades' because they had not been hacked into by Neo, they ran like little girls. The Oracle /whispers to Trinity, Trinity Kisses Neo, Neo puts his RSI inside of Smith, Smith is denied the Source, Neo touches the Source, Smith takes the Oracles eyes, Neo sees the light that uses him as a trojan hoarse to hack into the virus and cancel them out. Now that's one helluva DEV Esploit ...
ouch my head hurts !
lemme think about this
In revoultions Smith says to sati: "So you must be the last Exile?" Wouldn't that mean he may not be a exile or he don't know if he is?
Sati entered the matrix after smiths rebirth so mith would be correct to assume that she is the last
