Successive reveals

[jack]

Often a plot has a structure like:

1. A hero triumphs over adversity with the virtue of some aspect of humanity, in contrast to the villain. Eg. love, free will, hope, etc, etc.

2. The villain reveals that actually he's been manipulating the hero all along, and actually the human virtue was a comfortable illusion.

3. The hero says, "actually, by SHEER FORCE OF WILL", I will ACTUALLY triumph using the virtue you despise, and does so.

Obviously many stories only do 1, and many stories only do 1 and 2. And sometimes it's not actually a virtue, it's just the hero thinks she knows what's going on, or that so-and-so is her friend, etc, and then the villain reveals that was all a plot, and then the hero suddenly puts all the red herrings together and figures out what's REALLY going on, or the spy decides they really DO want to be on the hero's side after pretending to be for 300 pages, or whatever.

It's possible to do this story very well, and represent an epic clash of philosophies in an action or detective story. For instance, (imho) Total Recall or Anthony Price both have reveals that go "this is what's going on, no wait THIS is what's going on", but both make more sense, both more sense as a coherent narrative, and more sense as a one-up triumph of the story's philosophical position.

However, many stories, even quite good stories, fuck it up. I think the pervasive problem is that for this to work, 1 has to be plausible, 2 has to make MORE sense, and 3 has to make EVEN MORE sense, either coherently, or thematically. However, audiences are trained by bad stories to gloss over inconsistencies, so when you reveal that #1 is incorrect, they may go "whu? I was supposed to spot that? I was too busy glossing it over, I thought I was supposed to".

I think the fundamental problem with the Matrix sequels is not that they outright suck, but they attempt to subvert the first film's comparatively straightforward "kung-fu good, virtual reality indistinguishable from reality, being enslaved even unknowingly bad" message with a lot of rambling nonsense based directly on the first film's weakest points (namely, why are we in the matrix in the first place). Investigating unresolved questions is good if you can make them clearer, but bad if you just draw attention to something everyone was happily suspending disbelief about. The rambling nonsense is not inherently a BAD theme, it's just that the films are much, much better setting up the message of the first film than that of the later ones, so it comes across not as clever, but as stupid.

I think this is why, after the second film, we still held out hope, because it raised interesting questions, but hated the third film, because it just confirmed everything we thought was stupid.

Comments

[rysmiel]

I do not quite think it's doing that; I think what passes for 3 in the Matrix trilogy is actually something closer to an extension of 2, except for confusion as to precisely who the villain actually is.

I should just link to my posts on the whole trilogy, I think:

http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/147596.html
http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/147876.html
http://rysmiel.livejournal.com/149826.html

[jack]

Thank you. I skimmed the first one, that you linked to from liv's post, before writing this. I think you make some very good points, but don't agree with all of it.

I think what passes for 3 in the Matrix trilogy is actually something closer to an extension of 2, except for confusion as to precisely who the villain actually is.

I'm don't know if I follow. Maybe I should have included more examples in my original post for people to pick apart. What I'm thinking of is the confrontation with the architect. This seems to basically go:

Neo: I am so awesome, we're finally winning this war.
Architect: No, actually, I just made you think that. OK, now you know the true set-up, your only two options are...
Neo: Screw that. I stand by my awesomeness, I can reject you, and STILL save BOTH Trinity AND everyone else, even if you THINK you made up my awesomeness.

[rysmiel]

My argument would be that, in doing your 3 above, Neo still ends up doing exactly what the Architect and the Oracle together are playing him to do; their objective is to persuade the Deus Ex Machina to give the humans a chance at more interesting co-existence, for which they set up viral-Smith as the threat, in the later two films, and Neo both as the means to turn a regular agent into a viral threat, in the first film, and ultimately the means to overcome him in the third.

I may well be wrong, but I find the whole series as a skillful and well-depicted exercise in careful memetic manipulation of a not particularly bright Everyman quite a bit more satisfying than it being the hamfisted Hero's Journey retread it appears on the surface.

[jack]

Ah, I see. I agree if you can read the Oracle that way, then we're just talking about 1 and 2 (although I still think "make the second one better, not worse" applies to the revelation from 1 to 2).

I just didn't believe that stuff; I thought your version was possibly more interesting, but probably never intended by the creators. However, I should actually go back and watch the oracle scenes again and make sure.

[(Anonymous)]

That's my interpretation of the plot of the trilogy. I think the viral-Smith was more the Oracle's creation than the Architect because at the end of the third film there's a bit where the Architect tells the Oracle that she "played a dangerous game", which I took to refer to the Smith-virus.