Daily Dialogue — December 30, 2014

TRINITY: Hello, Neo.
NEO: How do you know that name?
TRINITY: I know a lot about you.
NEO: Who are you?
TRINITY: My name is Trinity.
NEO: Trinity? The Trinity? That cracked the I.R.S. D-Base?
TRINITY: That was a long time ago.
NEO: Gee-zus.
TRINITY: What?
NEO: I just thought… you were a guy.
TRINITY: Most guys do.
NEO: That was you on my computer. How did you do that?
TRINITY: Right now, all I can tell you is that you are in danger. I brought you here to warn you.
NEO: What?
TRINITY: They’re watching you, Neo.
NEO: Who is?
TRINITY: Please, just listen. I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and night after night you sit at your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because once I was looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him, I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
NEO: What is the Matrix?
TRINITY: The answer is out there, Neo. It’s looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to.

— The Matrix (1999), written by Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Party. Today’s suggestion by Will King.

Trivia: In the first 45 minutes of the film, Neo (Keanu Reeves) has 80 lines. 44 of these lines are questions, just over half of his total dialogue, averaging at roughly one question per minute.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “It was the party scene in The Matrix that was the inciting incident that sends Neo on his hero’s journey.

Indeed and Trinity’s lines here fit the very idea that it is the inner Need of the Protagonist that drives their Want: “It’s the question that drives us. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did… The answer is out there, Neo. It’s looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to.”

Neo doesn’t have a mere character flaw, rather he exists in a profound state of Disunity… between the inauthentic life he’s been living and the potential to become who he is at some foundational level, as yet unrealized. Hence the Universe intersects him with Trinity and she provides the Call To Adventure here at the party.

This scene represents the first major Plotline point in Neo’s journey. And like all good Calls, he has a choice. Indeed, Neo has several choices in the movie including the red pill or the blue pill. They all speak to inevitable pull of his metamorphosis… to become The One.