Agent Smith an exile?

**MetaLogic**

In the second and third movie, we see Agent Smith (now simply Smith)
coming back into the Matrix. After he fails to destory Neo, he
was susspose to report for deletion, but a part of Neo copied on over
to Smith, and as a result, Smith felt compelled to disobey, compelled
to stay. Since in The Matrix world, when a program wants to hide
from deletion, they go through the Merovingian and hide in The Matrix
as an exile. Would Smith qualify as an exile?

Doondoon

in a way yes he is considered an exile..yet he is more of a rogue agent or rogue program because he never goes to the Merovingian he simply does everything on his own, thats how powerful he was

he also ends up becoming a virus

**Fractor**

The machines call a program an exile when it is no longer serving a purpose (according to the machines) and since Smith no longer served his purpose to the machines they probably would of considered him an exile.

**ManicV**

But the purpose of Smith was to eliminate The One. His destruction and reformation was necessary to his function, just as it was for Neo to become The One. Neo survived death, so Smith had to survive death in order to balance the equation. As Neo grew in power, it was necessary for Smith to grow in power as well. He discovered his ability to multiply his code.

Neo eventually attained another level of awarness by extending his powers into the real world. This put him at a significant advantage. Not only could Neo alter the code of the matrix, but he could also control the machines in the real world. It was necessary for Smith to then overwrite himself onto the Oracle's code to gain a new level of awareness. He became aware of Neo's fate because the Oracle knew that it was necessary for Neo to die.

But in his hubris, Smith failed to grasp what it would mean if The One was no longer present in the system. Since Smith's purpose was to eliminate The One, he would no longer serve a purpose once Neo died, and would then be deleted.

However, if the Smith program persisted even after the death of The One, then it would make sense to call him an exile. He would exist without purpose.

I don't think it's obligatory for all exiles to work for the Merovingian. Most simply do it in order to ensure their protection. I think Smith is too arrogant to think he needs to rely on the Merovingian for survival.

FeralBoy

manicvelocity wrote:

But in his hubris, Smith failed to grasp what it would mean if The One was no longer present in the system. Since Smith's purpose was to eliminate The One, he would no longer serve a purpose once Neo died, and would then be deleted.

Manic, that was a great observation, and I'd never thought of it that way. I've read about the philosophical reasons for Neo to allow himself to be copied over by Smith (akin to someone finally accepting their negative personality traits--their negatives), but the way you described it also makes perfect sense.

On a technical note about Exiles since we're on the subject, I believe that the vast majority of the Exile population is comprised of programs who originally came from the Real. That's the whole reason they have to go through the Trainman and the Merovingian--because they're not yet in the Matrix. That's where they're trying to escape to. But Smith was already in the Matrix. He was an agent of the system, and never was in the Real. Granted, this is mostly semantics, but I just thought I'd point that out.

**ManicV**

FeralBoy wrote:

Manic, that was a great observation, and I'd never thought of it that way. I've read about the philosophical reasons for Neo to allow himself to be copied over by Smith (akin to someone finally accepting their negative personality traits--their negatives), but the way you described it also makes perfect sense.

Hehe, the OP was phrased in a more technical sense than a philosophical one, so I answered it as such. But I've always personally viewed the Smith/Neo scenario philosophically, and maybe even spiritually.

Carl Jung's theory of "The Shadow" immediately sprung to mind the first time I watched the Super Burly Brawl. Here we have two halves of the same whole fighting eachother for an outcome where only one is the victor. Neo being the concious "ego", and Smith being the unconcious "shadow". Conciously, Neo wanted to resist the system. Smith, on the other hand, wanted to embrace the system and make it his own. He even screams, "This is my world!"

There's an exception that I can't get past, though. The shadow is not necessarily meant to be good or bad. It simply represents everything that the concious does not wish to recognize within itself. But Smith is definitely portrayed as "the bad guy".

Jung felt it was important to acknowledge the shadow and incorporate it into the concious self. In a sense, defeating it. Resisting the shadow can only make it stronger, which we see happen throughout Reloaded and Revolutions. It's the tug of war that defines the relationship between Neo and Smith. The only way for Neo to defeat Smith, was to accept that Smith was a part of him, and he of Smith. This rings back to the phrase "Know thyself".

The Smith/Neo scenario can also be interpreted mathematically: When Neo asks the Oracle what Smith is, she says, "He is you. Your opposite, your negative." So we deduce that Neo is "The One" (1), and Smith is the opposite or negative of Neo (-1). It isn't until we add the two together (Smith copying himself onto Neo) that we balance the equation.

1 + -1 = 0

The sum of zero eliminates both values of 1 and -1, and solves the equation.

FeralBoy

Manic, you have some great points!

manicvelocity wrote:

Hehe, the OP was phrased in a more technical sense than a philosophical one, so I answered it as such. But I've always personally viewed the Smith/Neo scenario philosophically, and maybe even spiritually.

I've been learning to view the Matrix mythology in the same way, and the more I learn the more I appreciate the depth of the Wachowski's writing. You'd think that the only way to learn more about the Matrix would be to rely on a continuing story a la MxO. But if you do research on just the movies alone, you could spend forever trying to find the bottom of that proverbial rabbit hole.

manicvelocity wrote:

Carl Jung's theory of "The Shadow" immediately sprung to mind the first time I watched the Super Burly Brawl. Here we have two halves of the same whole fighting eachother for an outcome where only one is the victor. Neo being the concious "ego", and Smith being the unconcious "shadow". Conciously, Neo wanted to resist the system. Smith, on the other hand, wanted to embrace the system and make it his own. He even screams, "This is my world!"

There's an exception that I can't get past, though. The shadow is not necessarily meant to be good or bad. It simply represents everything that the concious does not wish to recognize within itself. But Smith is definitely portrayed as "the bad guy".

Jung felt it was important to acknowledge the shadow and incorporate it into the concious self. In a sense, defeating it. Resisting the shadow can only make it stronger, which we see happen throughout Reloaded and Revolutions. It's the tug of war that defines the relationship between Neo and Smith. The only way for Neo to defeat Smith, was to accept that Smith was a part of him, and he of Smith. This rings back to the phrase "Know thyself".

The Smith/Neo scenario can also be interpreted mathematically: When Neo asks the Oracle what Smith is, she says, "He is you. Your opposite, your negative." So we deduce that Neo is "The One" (1), and Smith is the opposite or negative of Neo (-1). It isn't until we add the two together (Smith copying himself onto Neo) that we balance the equation.

1 + -1 = 0

The sum of zero eliminates both values of 1 and -1, and solves the equation.

I've been learning about the same idea, but from a Hindu standpoint. It is interesting that Hinduism and Carl Jung end up with the same conclusion. And as far as Smith being portrayed as the bad guy, I think the idea here is that a bad guy in general is something you would want to avoid. And since Smith symbolizes those aspects in our own personality that we want to avoid, what better way to demonstrate that than through the use of someone the hero would view as his enemy. Neo and Smith as the same person, dual natures battling it out for supremacy. Neo can't escape him forever, or else his entire being is threatened. He must accept Smith and join with him to save himself.

CodeWorks

1 + -1 = 0

the problem is that was true when they exsisted.

but since they are proclaimed dead, that means the matrixes memory values would be 0 and 0.

And why would the equation be addition?

Message Edited by CodeWorks on 06.15.2006 10:19 AM
Message edited by CodeWorks on 06/15/2006 09:19:12.

Ghats

well if you want to get technical...Smith isnt an Exile because his gradual transformation was part of the equation. So he did serve his purpose. He is not an exile. He is just a program that is manipulated in the same way every time the matrix resets.

Ghats

well someone had already said pretty much what i said....i didnt read all of the comments, but you get the point lol

Defibrilator

Paraphrasing Smith, in Reloaded:

"I don't know exactly what happened. Something copied, overwritten... I'm not sure what happened, but I had to come to you."

I've always read that as:

"Guess what, the Architect coded me some new abilities!"

IronChimera

Chamber of the Fist

Chambers of Shaolin

SiphonLife

Paraphrase from Matrix reloaded

"then your aware of it ...our connection..."

that clearly states that some how Neo was implemented onto Smith but how and why? also who would do such a thing?

and a thing that i dont get is this..

if in fact he was copied to Smith then how could he have to implements about Neo + smith then smith+the oracle? how is that possible?

**ShiXinFeng**

Excellent comments, Manic. You're absolutely correct about the Neo/Smith relationship portraying Jungian philosophy.

What I want to know is, when did the Machines "lose control" over Smith? At the end, Neo says "The program Smith has grown beyond your control."

Also, Smith wasn't an Exile. At least, not in the original spirit that the word was meant to imply. In Rev, the Oracle says, "Very soon he's going to have the power to destroy this world. But I believe he won't stop there, he can't. He won't stop until there's nothing left at all."

These are not the actions of an Exile. Smith had power because he had purpose, just as the Merovingian described. Exiles have no purpose, they simply wish to go on existing.

Mah two cents SMILEY

**ZippyTheSquirrel**

When Neo destroyed Smith, he was supposed to return to the Source and be deleted (or re-inserted into a different bluepill shell), but some of his primary programming was accidently edited by Neo (or the Oracle...hmm...cookie?) which...compelled him to stay, compelled to disobey...but when he returned to the Matrix, he had no purpose, since he disobeyed a direct Deletion order, which was supposed to be his final purpose, making him an Exile.

But not an Exile in the common usage of the terms. As an ex-Agent, he could still occupy bluepill shells for his own purposes, but being disconnected from the Source, he had to do it directly, hence the hand jab move. Also being disconnected from the Source prevented him from just deleting his old shell to allow the bluepill or program to regain control, causing the copying problem.

My 3 cents.

**ManicV**

Shi+Xin+Feng wrote:

What I want to know is, when did the Machines "lose control" over Smith? At the end, Neo says "The program Smith has grown beyond your control."

The Machines could no longer control Smith because Smith had assimilated all of the Agent programs in the system. Implementing more agents would prove worthless because Smith would eventually copy himself onto those agents, in effect giving him more power.