How does neo defeat smith

This is the crux of their conflict: The Architect, by nature of his existence as the creator of the Matrix, believes in the inevitability and the rigorous structure of choice.

The Oracle, on the other hand, understands the nuance of human behavior as a result of being so close to them, and urges Neo to choose his own path, advice that becomes integral in Neo's success at the end of The Matrix Revolutions. The inclusion of Sati in The Matrix Revolutions was one that confounded a lot of people upon the movie's release, with the film offering little in the way of straightforward answers regarding her importance.

However, there's a lot of key dialogue and interactions with other people throughout the franchise that contextualizes who she is, as well her importance.

After meeting the little girl, she introduces Neo to Rama Kandra and Kamala, Sati's parents as well as two programs trying to smuggle her into the Matrix through a deal with The Merovingian.

Since Sati is a program without a purpose, she's marked for deletion. When Neo asks the two parents why they want to save her so desperately, they respond by telling Neo that they love her, or rather that they feel a strong connection to her that they define as love.

They successfully get her to The Oracle, which takes her in due to the belief that she will be an extremely important component of the future for both humans and machines alike. She and The Oracle are both assimilated by Smith halfway through the film, but after the Matrix is rebooted at the end, the two of them are seen resurrected and sitting on a bench together.

In keeping with the Buddhist symbolism in the movie, Sati's Matrix replacement name translates to "mindfulness" in Pali. Buddhist practices are primarily used to gain wisdom and awareness of the world, something that, according to Buddhist teachings, alleviates suffering - the ultimate goal of Buddhism.

Sati in The Matrix Revolutions, therefore , represents the profound effect that Neo's presence has on the rest of the system. Since Neo is the first incarnation of The One to experience an intimate love for a singular human being, this emotion begins to ripple outwards and change the very nature of the programs within the Matrix. Sati's unique blend of emotion and programming, therefore, provides an indication that we may see more creations like her in the future of the Matrix borne from Neo's transcendent sacrifice.

While the setting after The Matrix Revolutions ends with a tentative peace established between the humans and the machines, there's evidence to suggest that this may not always be the case. During their meeting at the end of the movie, when asked by The Architect whether or not she believes the peace that Neo died for will last, The Oracle responds with "for as long as it can," indicating that she herself is uncertain whether or not the new status quo can be maintained.

That may certainly be the case, as not everyone in Zion believed in the prophecy of The One, so Neo's sacrifice might not do much to sway those who are already committed to a hatred of the machines.

While the peace between humanity and the machines does initially last, several militant and extremist organizations sprout up in the aftermath of Neo's sacrifice. Some of them, such as the E Pluribus Neo faction, demand that all humans be released from the Matrix into the real world, sometimes forcibly. Even though Smith has the eyes of the Oracle, he can't understand Neo's choice to die and therefore he can't see his own destruction past Neo's choice.

Agent Smith and Neo are polar opposites of each other. Smith represents inevitability, uniformity, destiny. Neo represents free will, individuality, choice. The simple answer is: they cancel each other out. In Reloaded, Smith monologues about his resurrection, telling Neo that he knew he was supposed to die, but felt compelled not to.

Smith: Our connection. I don't fully understand how it happened. Perhaps some part of you imprinted onto me, something overwritten or copied. That is at this point irrelevant, what matters is that whatever happened, happened for a reason.

Smith: I killed you, Mister Anderson, I watched you die With a certain satisfaction, I might add, and then something happened. Something that I knew was impossible, but it happened anyway. You destroyed me, Mister Anderson. I was compelled to stay, compelled to disobey. And now here I stand because of you, Mister Anderson, because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed - I'm unplugged - a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free.

He glosses over the details, but the conclusion is the same. Smith now only exists for one reason: to defeat Neo. Literally, and ideologically. Smith: Thank you. But as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here.

We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free. Smith: We're here because of you, Mister Anderson, we're here to take from you what you tried to take from us. Smith: Can you feel it Mr. I'm closing in on you. Oh, I can. I really should thank you for it After all it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life.

The purpose of life is to end. At the same time, he assimilates all the inhabitants of the Matrix, adding their viewpoints and abilities to himself. He absorbs the Oracle, allowing him to foresee the future. He absorbs and overwrites Bane, allowing him to walk in the real world.

But Smith isn't really a living person. He's a virus. His ideology is to destroy, to enact the inevitable. It is literally impossible for him to understand the ideas of hope, or choice, or free will; everything The One embodies.

Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? 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? Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception, temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Only a human mind can invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now.

You can't win, it is pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why you persist? When Neo allows Smith to assimilate him, the two contrasting ideologies can't coexist in one entity. The Smith virus breaks down, and is purged from the Matrix.

Neo offered the leader of Machine City to fight Smith for him. After a extended fight Neo finally comes to the right conclusion that he cannot defeat Smith. If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. For anyone scratching their head trying to remember what happened at the end of Revolutions , and how those events might offer a clue to what happened leading up to The Matrix Resurrections , now seems like a pivotal time to reconsider a look back.

While en route to the city, Neo and Trinity are ambushed by Bane, a human resistance fighter assimilated by Agent Smith during the events of The Matrix Reloaded. Neo fights Bane, and in the process is blinded by an exposed power cable during the scuffle. The Logos manages to make it into the city, but Trinity is fatally wounded upon arrival, leaving Neo on his own. Neo meets with the machine leader, proposing a truce between the humans and the machines on the condition of defeating their mutual enemy, Agent Smith, who poses an immediate threat to both the Matrix and the Real World.

Now that we've got some years of distance between us and this massively influential series, let's construct the movies' meaning, and break down the conclusion of the Matrix movies. Here's the ending of the Matrix trilogy explained. One major theme that came to the fore as the series reached its conclusion had to do with the similarities between humans and machines. In the original, they couldn't seem more different, but by Revolutions , programs in the Matrix are portrayed as being almost more human than human — loving and happy individuals, as worthy of existence as any person.

Further, characters from the first film who were firmly human or machine are portrayed in the sequels as having a little bit of both. The similarities go in both directions. Neo, a human, reached the Source to discover that being the One was his destiny because it was programmed into him. Agent Smith, a program, copied his consciousness onto a human form, entering the real world through the vessel of resistance fighter Bane.

The humanizing of the Machines and the complimentary mechanization of Neo made for a storytelling turn that audiences weren't really ready for. People who saw The Matrix couldn't be faulted for expecting an ending that saw Neo winning by doing his Superman thing, fatally punching the machines to the kickass strains of Rob Zombie's " Dragula. He also beat a guy to death with a pipe, but it was kind of secondary to the heady stuff, man.

One widespread but inaccurate theory about the sequels is that the real world is actually a second Matrix. While the reasons why this isn't true are explained in the movies, they're also relatively easy to misunderstand.

The real world isn't another level of the Matrix — but it is involved in another system of control. As the Architect explains at the ending of The Matrix Reloaded , each version of the Matrix is propped up in the real world by a controlled rebellion.

With each new iteration of the Matrix, a select portion of the population is freed, allowed to live in Zion. There, they help to liberate people still inside the Matrix, searching for the One. Finding the One, the human rebels rally behind them, supporting them until they reach the Source. There, the One discovers that they are not meant to destroy the Matrix, but rather restart it.

At this point in the cycle, the Machines attack Zion and destroy it, killing the rebellion. The One, having reached the Source, is made to choose between either reloading the Matrix and selecting a handful of survivors to build a new Zion, or walking away, supposedly causing a system crash, leaving the humans inside and outside of the Matrix all dead.

Up until Neo, every One made the choice to restart, perpetuating the system of control. Because Neo loves Trinity, he chooses to sacrifice everything to be with her. This is the choice that makes him special. Proponents of the second Matrix theory support it by pointing to the powers Neo is able to manifest in the sequels' real world, being able to see without eyes and exert control over approaching Sentinels.

For a lot of viewers, this breaking of the rules almost felt like a betrayal, with the audience having been made to believe that Neo could only manifest his "superpowers" in the Matrix.

But Neo isn't able to destroy Sentinels because he's the One — it's because he reached the Source. Prior to the arrival of the Sentinels at the ending of The Matrix Reloaded , Neo explained that he could "feel them" before he remotely destroyed them with his mind. That feeling isn't metaphorical — it's literally true.

Neo, having reached the Source of the Matrix, has established a connection with everything else connected to the Source — like the Machines themselves. He has, essentially, joined their wireless network. Among other things, it's why he's able to move through the Trainman's purgatory world at the beginning of Revolutions without being jacked in. After reaching the Source, he's connected to the Machines, able to see and sense them even after being blinded, seeing them in yellow via a sort of sixth sense.