Jesse Pinkman wrote:
Bumping for Cam. Would love to hear his thoughts on who in Mormonism he feels is the Agent Smith character. Anyone else may also venture a thought on this.
Well, if we're gearing the Matrix to be representative of the Mormon church and its culture we have to bear in mind the characters themselves are symbolic of other things.
First thing first, we have to remember that the people in the Matrix, the Blue Pillers (regular Mormons) as it were, are people whose minds are enslaved by their overlords (The COB headed up by the 15) and even though they have this nagging notion that everything isn't well in
Zion they go along with it.
But that's not good enough, because the system itself isn't perfected to the point to keep everyone enslaved. It's flawed. It's not real. It's a lie. It uses its slaves for resources. And the human mind can't accept that on some level.
That's why the overlords created Agent Smith(s) (The SCMC). The Agents ferret out, like the Stasi, those who are 'problematic', often times before they themselves are even aware of red pill reality, and disposes of them. Agent Smith infects others after being threatened by Neo (in this case Neo represents the Red Pill of knowledge, or the Apple as it were <-That's why the pill is the color is red.) through the use of
correlation. The SCMC is clearly out of control, but because it's been created and correlation has become a virus it's relentless even to the detriment of the system itself.
So basically Neo, knowledge, and Agent Smith, correlation, are duking it out for control over the matrix. It's inevitable that knowledge will win because Knowledge is The One. Smith can't win. It's an impossibility. That's why despite its best efforts to control the Blue Pilled Mormons through Agent Smith (who will fail), the overlords themselves, eventually have to strike a deal with Knowledge and reach a new dawn of cooperation. The cycle then repeats as a new iteration of the Matrix is created, the Blue Pillers are still under control, a new Neo arises, another set of Agents are created, and then eventually a new compromise is created.
You saw this in early Mormonism, then in 19th Utah Mormonism, then a few iterations in 20th century Mormonism, and again now as we observe the SCMC duke it out with Knowledge (the Internet this time) which will result in a new Mormonism. It's cyclical.
And at the end of the day the overlords still exist, the Matrix still exists, and people are still enslaved. Because it's our nature to control, capitulate, resist, and reset.
They only way to 'win' is to unplug and opt out. But even then do you really win? It's a hard life to unplug yourself from the system. Sure, you're 'free', but are you really ever free? You just swap one system for another. You will always play your part whether or not you're plugged in.
- Doc