List of minor characters in the Matrix series

Many of the characters listed here have names reflecting certain aspects of them, such as their status, personality or role.

Apoc

Apoc (played by Julian Arahanga) is a crew member of the Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix.

Apoc drives Neo to his meeting with Morpheus, and assists Tank in locating Neo inside the Power Plant. He and Switch are portrayed as front-line soldiers while inside the Matrix, acting as "point" and "rear guard" in their escape from the Agents and police and laying down covering fire as they make their way into the sewers. Cypher murders Apoc by pulling his jack out of his head while Apoc is connected to the Matrix. In The Matrix Reloaded, Arahanga can be seen in one of the first establishing shots of Zion, as a machine operator who flashes quickly by the camera.

Captain Ballard

Captain Ballard (played by Roy Jones Jr.), was the captain of the Zion hovercraft Caduceus in the film The Matrix Reloaded and the video game Enter the Matrix. During the Captain's meeting in Reloaded, Ballard volunteers to stay behind during the massive recall of all hovercrafts to Zion in order to await a message from The Oracle. As Ballard stayed behind, he was eventually contacted and challenged to a fight by Seraph. Shortly after the fight, Ballard met with the Oracle to retrieve her message. The crew of the Caduceus eventually made it back to Zion and gave the message to Neo.

Ballard, being unaware of Bane's strange behavior, was at one point urged by Bane to volunteer the crew for the mission to look for the Nebuchadnezzar, only to tell Bane to shut up. Ballard was among the hovercraft crews assigned to defend Zion and was killed by Bane.

Bane/Smith

Bane

Bane (played by Ian Bliss) was a crew member of the Zion hovercraft Caduceus in the films The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Bliss was cast by the Wachowskis because they saw him do an impersonation of Hugo Weaving, the actor who plays Agent Smith and because Bliss partly resembles Weaving.

While waiting to leave the Matrix with a message from The Oracle, Bane was attacked by Smith, now a dangerous, viral rogue program that was bent on destroying both humans and the machines using his cloning ability.

Agent Smith posing as Bane

Bane's mind was overwritten by Smith; when the Caduceus operator called to take Bane out of the Matrix, Smith came instead. Now present in the real world, Smith walked among the citizens of Zion. During his time in Zion, Bane/Smith is shown cutting himself with a knife (thereby experiencing human pain for the first time) and later approaching Neo in an attempt to stab him before he can board the Nebuchadnezzar and leave Zion. This murder attempt is aborted as Neo's attention was drawn in his direction by the approach of Kid, who came to see Neo.

After he was unsuccessful in convincing Ballard, captain of the Caduceus to join in the Zion Council's search for the hovercraft Nebuchadnezzar, Bane/Smith later sabotaged the Zion counterattack against the burrowing Machine forces by prematurely triggering the EMP on the Caduceus. This disabled many of the other hovercraft in the counterstrike, just before the Machines hit their front line. Bane survived the attack and was later discovered unconscious by the Hammer.

In The Matrix Revolutions, when asked about the failure of the counterattack and his self-inflicted wounds, Bane/Smith claimed that he could not remember what happened. Before Neo and Trinity left for the Machine City, Bane/Smith murdered Maggie, a medical crew member of the Hammer, and stowed away on the Logos with Neo and Trinity.

Bane/Smith attacked Trinity and Neo before they could start the Logos moving. During his fight with Neo, Bane/Smith used a power conduit to cauterize Neo's eyes, blinding him, whereupon Neo discovered that he could "see" golden auras of anything connected to the Source. This new ability allowed Neo to see Bane/Smith while he hid in the corner of an equipment room on the ship, awaiting Neo with a steel pipe. Neo disarmed Bane/Smith and killed him by striking Bane in the head with the pipe, which was viewed in Neo's "Source vision" as Smith being beheaded, and afterwards, disintegrating. However, this would not be the end of Smith because he was also still in The Matrix.

Beautiful Woman at Le Vrai

The Beautiful Woman at Le Vrai, played by Tory Mussett, appears in The Matrix Reloaded in the scene where Neo, Trinity and Morpheus meet the Merovingian in his restaurant, Le Vrai. The Merovingian tells them about cause and effect and demonstrates his point by sending a slice of chocolate cake to the woman. The cake is actually a program that causes her to have an intense and embarrassing orgasm. Afterward, she leaves and is not seen again. The Merovingian meets her later in the restroom for a tryst; although it is not initially clear that he leaves for this purpose, Persephone is aware of his intentions and subsequently leads Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity to the Keymaker.

Captain Mifune

Captain Mifune (Nathaniel Lees) is the head of Zion's Armored Personnel Unit. He is seen in The Matrix Reloaded and in The Matrix Revolutions. In Revolutions before he leads his APU into battle with the Sentinels he boosts the morale of his troops by saying, "If it's our time to die, it's our time. All I ask is, if we have to give these bastards our lives, we give 'em hell before we do!"

Mifune is one of the last of the APUs left standing during the battle; he fights bravely and takes down many Sentinels. When he calls for more ammunition, Kid is the one called to reload him. One of the cases gets stuck and the outlook is bleak. Kid climbs atop the APU's back and forces the case into its slot. Mifune fires a fresh barrage of rounds into the attacking Sentinels, but they knock him to the ground and slice into his body.

Subsequently, a horribly mutilated Mifune tells Kid that he needs to open the gate to allow the "Hammer" to enter. When Kid tells Mifune he might not be able to carry out his request because he never finished the training exercise, Mifune reassures him by saying that he did not either, then dies. Kid climbs into Mifune's APU and shoots out the mechanism holding the gate closed, allowing the "Hammer" to crash-land and disable all the Sentinels in the dock.

Mifune is also the original family name in Speed Racer, also a film by the Wachowskis. Both names are likely a homage to legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune.

Cas

Cas (played by Gina Torres) is the widow of the Nebuchadnezzar's former pilot Dozer. She lives in Zion with their two young children. She also spends time with her sister-in-law Zee, and maintains friendly rapport with Zee's husband Link.

Gina Torres is married to Laurence Fishburne, who plays Morpheus.

Choi and Dujour

Choi (played by Marc Gray) is assumedly a bluepill who appears in the first movie buying illegal software from Neo, for which Choi pays $2,000 in cash. Choi, his latex-clad girlfriend Dujour (played by Ada Nicodemou), and several unnamed and unspeaking friends arrive at Neo's door after he had been mysteriously told to "follow the white rabbit". When Neo notices that Dujour has a tattoo of a white rabbit on the back of her left shoulder, he accepts their offer to go with them to a goth club, where he is approached by Trinity. Going to the club and subsequently waking up late for work the following day set the stage for the rest of the film, though Choi, Dujour, and their friends are never seen or alluded to again.

Much of Choi's dialogue foreshadows the rest of the film: "I know. This never happened. You don't exist", "You need to unplug", and "Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ" (a tribute to Depeche Mode).

These names would appear to be inspired by French language; "Choi" and "Dujour" resembles the French phrase "Choix du jour," meaning "Choice of the day".^[1]

Choi, originally described as a Chinese man in the shooting draft of The Matrix screenplay,^[2] could also possibly refer to the choi matrix from Man-Duen Choi's theorem on completely positive maps in mathematics.

Councilor Hamann

Councilor Hamann (played by Anthony Zerbe) is a character in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Councilor Hamann, by his own account to Neo, was freed at age eleven and serves as a Councilor for Zion. Hamann holds a disdain for Commander Lock's strictly militia-minded policies and secretly supports Morpheus' belief that Neo is the One. Although he does not directly voice these beliefs, Hamann allows the Nebuchadnezzar to leave Zion to contact the Oracle - Hamann explains this to Lock with the statement that he "believes their survival depends on more than how many ships (they) have", openly demonstrating his disagreement with Lock's reliance on brute force. He enjoys visiting Zion's engineering level, where all of their machines keep their water, oxygen, electricity and heat going. He and Neo visit the engineering level and discuss what the real meaning of control is. Hamann reveals to Neo his confidence in him and that he fears for the people still trapped in the Matrix.

Cypher/Mr. Reagan

Mr. Reagan (a.k.a. Cypher), played by Joe Pantoliano is a character in The Matrix. His real last name is a reference to Ronald Reagan's Alzheimers disease, and Cypher's desires to be an actor, and to "remember nothin!"

In the first film of the trilogy, Cypher is one of the rebels from Morpheus' hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar. Cypher has grown tired of the Man/Machine war within the real world. Harshly disillusioned with the grim existence of living on a hovercraft and tired of following Morpheus and his blind faith in the Prophecy, he has begun to wish that he had never learned the truth and left the Matrix in the first place. This prompts him to strike a deal with the Agents. At the beginning of the movie, he nearly has Trinity killed by allowing Agent Smith to trace one of their phone calls, proving to the Agents that he, "the informant", was legitimate.

Cypher secretly meets with Agent Smith once more, agreeing to turn Morpheus over to them if the Agents will return Cypher, rich and famous, to the Matrix power plant with no recollection of the Matrix's true nature. While escorting Neo to meet with The Oracle, Cypher activates his cell phone and drops it into a trash can in order to alert the Agents to the group's location. His actions lead to Mouse being killed by the police within the Matrix. Cypher subsequently tricks Tank into providing him with an exit so that he can strike at the crew. Cypher shoots Tank, then kills Dozer, Apoc, and Switch, and is about to kill Neo and Trinity before Tank, only wounded, regains consciousness and kills him with Cypher's discarded weapon.

Although Cypher admits that he believed he was in love with Trinity, he still attempts to kill her and Neo to go forth with the plan he concocted with Smith. It is then revealed that Agent Smith had no intention of returning Cypher to the Matrix, as he tells his fellow agents that they will continue as planned and proceed to deploy sentinels to destroy the Nebuchadnezzar, and thus betraying the deal between them and going to kill him instead.

One of Cypher's most famous quotes from the movie is "Ignorance is bliss", which he says while speaking with Agent Smith, referring to the state of people inside the Matrix. He is the only member of Morpheus' crew who wears sunglasses with oblong lenses, similar to those used by Agents, rather than rounded ones while connected to the Matrix.

Cypher's Legacy: The Cypherites

Although Cypher was killed in the first movie, the Cypherites, an organization depicted in the The Matrix Online, carries his belief that the Truth is an unnecessary nightmare. The Cypherites' primary goal was to be reinserted into the Matrix power plant (as Cypher desired). After Agent Gray admits that reinsertion is not possible, the Cypherites' goal is to work as hard as possible to keep the bluepills asleep and to defeat the Zionites and E Pluribus Neo operatives that oppose their goals.

Dozer

Dozer (played by Anthony Ray Parker) is the pilot of the Nebuchadnezzar, the only hovercraft that appears in the first movie of the Matrix series.

In the movie, both Dozer and his younger brother Tank are said to have been born in the real world, in Zion, and are therefore unable to enter The Matrix. He acts as the pilot and co-ordinator of the Nebuchadnezzar and makes moonshine in his spare time. Dozer is slain when Cypher kills him with a lightning gun and betrays the crew.

Dozer was married to Cas and had two young children in Zion. Also living in Zion was his sister Zee. After his death, Zee's husband Link took the job of operator of the Nebuchadnezzar in respect of Dozer's wishes.

Ghost

Ghost (played by Anthony Wong) is the guns specialist of the Logos ship in the video game Enter the Matrix and the feature films The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Ghost is described by the Wachowskis as an "ascetic Buddhist killer".^[3] A student of philosophy, he quotes and/or refers to Hume, William James, Nietzsche and especially Kierkegaard. Ghost's name may be a reference to the phrase "ghost in the machine", which describes the concept of mind-body dualism.

As seen in Enter The Matrix, Ghost and Trinity refer to each other as brother and sister, as they were unplugged from the Matrix on the same day. Ghost's romantic feelings for Trinity are unrequited, since she is in love with Neo, and is content with this path because he subscribes to Nietzsche's doctrine of amor fati.

Ghost is known to be the best gunner in the fleet; he displays this skill of accuracy in Revolutions aboard the Hammer. He and Niobe share some of the same parts in Enter The Matrix, though they mostly have different sides to the story. It is also mentioned in the video game that Ghost is the most capable hand-to-hand combatant (excluding Neo, before his apparent death in Revolutions) currently participating in the war.

Ghost's latest appearance was in the MMORPG The Matrix Online. Due to copyright issues with Anthony Wong, Ghost is bald and has been completely shaven of all facial hair. Ghost, along with "the Twins", are the only recurring characters up-to-date to lack voice actors for The Matrix Online. Ghost was the first to encounter "Trinity" inside the Matrix after her death, although it was not made clear whether this Trinity was 'real' or a simulation.^[4]

Jue

Jue (voiced by Pamela Segall) appears in the Animatrix film "Final Flight of the Osiris".

She was a crew member of the Osiris, and shared an intimate sexual bond with her superior, Captain Thadeus. She was to send the warning to Zion of the approaching Sentinel Army, but died seconds after completing this mission when the Osiris was destroyed.

Kid

Michael Karl Popper (a.k.a. The Kid), played by Clayton Watson, is a Zion-dwelling self-substantiated exile, from The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Animatrix short, "Kid's Story".

In The Animatrix, the Kid is an individual connected to the Matrix who is aided in his escape from the Matrix by Neo. At the beginning of his story, part of an online conversation he has with Neo is shown, and it appears to foreshadow the risk he takes at the end of the short:

Kid: Somebody tell me. Why it feels more real when I dream than when I am awake. How can I know if my senses are lying?
Neo: There is some fiction in your truth, and some truth in your fiction. To know the truth, you must risk everything.
Kid: Who are you? Am I alone?
Neo: You are not alone.

The circumstances of his liberation from the Matrix are unusual; after purposely allowing himself to fall from the top of his school building, he seems to detach himself from the Matrix before he hits the ground. This is not fully addressed (or actually seen) within the scope of the film short, but is possibly implied by imagery of birds flying as he fell, as well as subsequent comments by Neo and Trinity after they had retrieved Kid from the real-world power plant:

Trinity: It's unbelievable. I didn't think self-substantiation was possible.
Neo: Apparently it is.

Before letting himself fall, Kid spoke under his breath, "Neo, I believe. I know it wasn't a dream". It is implied that his conviction was in regard to Neo's assertion that he must "risk everything" to know the truth.

Though Neo repeatedly tells Kid (at the end of the short and in Matrix Reloaded), "I didn't save you, you saved yourself", Kid appears to associate the conviction which apparently gave him the strength to self-substantiate with Neo's guidance. This association leads to his hero worship of Neo (almost to the point of overeager lackeyism), and probably influenced his stated ambition to serve as a crew member aboard the Nebuchadnezzar.

Following the events of The Animatrix, Kid makes his first live appearance in The Matrix Reloaded. He greets the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar when they return to Zion and tells them that he wants to serve aboard the ship when he reaches the required age. Neo is put off by Kid's ardor, but accepts a gift of a battered metal spoon that Kid gives him on behalf of the city's orphans. In The Matrix Revolutions, Kid volunteers to join the city's infantry as an ammunition reloader for the APU corps; he is only 16, two years too young to join, but he persuades Captain Mifune to let him serve. After Mifune is killed during the battle against the Machine army in the Dock, Kid pilots his APU and, with the help of Zee, shoots out the chain holding one of the entrance gates closed. The hovercraft Mjolnir (also known as the Hammer) enters the Dock through the now-open gate, crash-lands, and sets off its electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon, disabling the attacking Machine forces within the Dock. Later, Kid prepares to fight during the last stand in the Temple, but the battle never takes place due to Neo's actions in the Machine city and he instead announces to all of Zion that the war is over.

The Kid also makes an appearance in The Matrix Comics, vol. 2, released in December 2004 by Burlyman Entertainment (the Wachowskis' comic publishing company), in the story entitled "I Kant" (a reference to the philosopher and astronomer Immanuel Kant). The story essentially revolves around Morpheus's (also in his first appearance since the events of The Matrix Revolutions) efforts to see the Kid through the jump program, as he did for Neo in The Matrix. This comic story, though still considered part of the Matrix canon by some, was not written by the Wachowskis. The art and story are by Kaare Andrews, 3D modeling by Ron Turner, and color by Dave McCaig.

The Kid is also involved in the MMORPG The Matrix Online, released in the US in January 2005. He is first seen in a cutscene dressed in attire nearly identical to that of Neo. He has since formed the group E Pluribus Neo ("From many, Neo"; a play on the United States' official motto E Pluribus Unum), a splinter group of Zion who are dedicated to Neo's memory, a continuation of his hero worship of Neo. They are deeply opposed to the Cypherite organization and fight against them to ensure that all humans have a right to be free of the Matrix, though their ultimate goals are still a mystery. All members tend to dress similarly to Neo or Trinity, depending on gender. Clayton Watson reprises his role for Popper's speaking parts in the game.

The Kid's real name, Michael Karl Popper, alludes to philosopher Karl Popper, whose concept of Popperian cosmology is in fact a definition of the Matrix: where World 1 does not exist, the fundamental bases of World 2 (The Mind) and World 3 (Human Works) become invalid within an insubstantial subset of another World 2 within another World 1 (the Matrix).

Link

Link (played by Harold Perrineau) serves as the ship's pilot and operator for the crew of the Zion hovercraft Nebuchadnezzar in the movies The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Link is Zion-born and married to Zee. After his brother-in-law Dozer is killed by the traitor Cypher, Link takes over the functions as operator and pilot of the Nebuchadnezzar out of respect for a promise he made to Dozer. Zee, after "losing two brothers to that ship" (Tank died before the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded due to his injuries in The Matrix), feels strongly that Link should find another ship to serve. She repeatedly tells Link that his captain Morpheus is crazy and that because the Nebuchadnezzar spends more time out of Zion than the rest of the fleet, she and Link spend too little time together.

Link does not share Zee's religious beliefs (the specific religion is never discussed); but when the Nebuchadnezzar leaves Zion to meet the Oracle, Link chooses to wear a prayer chain given to him by Zee for luck. When he later returns to Zion, he tells her that he will never remove it.

Link guides crewmates Neo, Trinity and the ship's captain Morpheus while they are inside the Matrix. Link sits in front of a series of screens that provide the crew with weapons, maps, system and ship status, and he relays his views of the Matrix code to the crew.

Link is very competent and skilled as an Operator, but can be very cautious and uneasy. This behavior annoys Morpheus, prompting him to ask Link to instill more trust in what Morpheus asks of him. Part of Link's character development through Reloaded and Revolutions shifts him from initially uneasy to a firm belief not only in Morpheus' leadership abilities but also in the unspecified religion to which Zee is devoted.

When the Nebuchadnezzar is destroyed at the end of The Matrix Reloaded, Link becomes a ship's hand on the hovercraft Mjolnir, (referred to by most characters as the "Hammer"). After the hovercraft Logos, piloted by Trinity and Neo, leaves for the Machine City, Logos' captain Niobe pilots the Hammer through the narrowest, normally unnavigable tunnels of the underground sewers of the ancient world in an attempt to return home to Zion. Zee aids the Kid in destroying the counterweights of the access doors on the Zion dock, allowing the Hammer to crash land. At that point, Link triggers the EMP weapon on the ship, disabling the first wave of Sentinels and drilling machines that were attacking the city. The crew of the Hammer receive a hero's welcome, and Link is reunited with his wife to await the end of the Man/Machine war.

In The Matrix Online, Link now trains all the newly awakened redpills (players) in various programs before they are allowed to enter the Matrix.

Lock

Commander Jason Lock (played by Harry J. Lennix) is the supreme commander of all military defense forces of the human city Zion. His character appears in The Matrix Reloaded, Enter the Matrix, and The Matrix Revolutions.

Lock was a naturally born Zion citizen. This differs from redpill inhabitants, particularly his hovercraft crews and their commanders, most of whom are Matrix inhabitants. His unfamiliarity with the Matrix grounds his views to the unadulterated realities of using any and all resources he can command to evade Machine forces and keep Zion's whereabouts a secret. He is one of the few characters in the films who has a given first and last name. He was at odds with not only the Zion Council when managing the defenses, but with some errant ship captains, especially Captain Morpheus of the hovercraft Nebuchadnezzar. He appears to be bureaucratic, taciturn, unimaginative, and uncharismatic; as a result, he is not highly respected by either his subordinates or by the Council.

As of the beginning of Reloaded, Lock was romantically involved with Captain Niobe of the hovercraft Logos, but loses her to Morpheus (who had been her captain and her lover for some years) during Revolutions. The history of Niobe's relation with Morpheus increased tensions between Morpheus and Lock when discussing defense strategy. Morpheus' and the Council's desire to aid the One frustrated Lock, who felt that the limited resources of Zion's defenses would be better used elsewhere.

Even Niobe became intolerant of his autocratic views after Lock convinced the Zion Council to exclude the Logos from the defensive task force, claiming that that ship's size and EMP systems are "too weak to make a difference". After the Council asked for two captains to search for the Nebuchadnezzar, only one captain, Soren of the Vigilant, initially volunteered. When Lock stated to the Council that he found it hard to believe "any man" would volunteer for such a daring mission, Niobe volunteered as a reprisal for being patronized.

As the Machines tunneled toward Zion, Lock devised a strategy where the hovercrafts would be scattered in an attempt to use the ship EMP devices in a combined attack to disable most, if not all, of the digging machines and Sentinels all at once. However, Smith/Bane prematurely set off one of the ship's EMPs, disabling many of the ships. The Machines decimated the helpless ships. This left only the ground forces of Zion to withstand the eventual assault.

By the end of the first wave of the Machine attack, Zion would have fallen were it not for the arrival of the hovercraft The Hammer, piloted by Captain Niobe. The Hammer activated their EMP, disabling all Machine forces. Although the Machines' progress was momentarily halted, Lock was displeased that the Hammer's EMP had also knocked out most of Zion's defenses, saying that they had just handed the dock to the machines "on a silver platter".

When the Council asked his advice as the Machines commenced their attack, the only course of action was continuing with his original back-up plan; gathering Zion's citizens in the Temple and making a last stand at the Temple gates. Neo, who successfully arrived in the Machine City, had negotiated with the Machines: he would defeat Agent Smith if the Machines withdrew from Zion.

His name could be a reference to the empiricist philosopher John Locke, though the derogatory nickname given to him by the captains and crews under his command, "Deadbolt", refers to physical locks.

In The Matrix Online, Lock plays an important role for new redpills as they gain reputation for Zion. Among the important things, Lock promotes the redpills to Captain so that they can have their own crew. Other than that, Lock praises the Zion-affiliated redpills a job-well done in pre-recorded messages held by Niobe and Ghost as NPCs.

During renewed warfare with the Machines after the collapse of Neo's Truce in The Matrix Online, the human citizens of Zion were relocated to a safer location deeper within the earth, referred to as New Zion. Lock stayed in Old Zion with a skeleton crew of Zion military personnel after the rest of the city was evacuated. Cypherite spies compromised the security of Old Zion before it was completely abandoned, allowing Sentinels to overrun the city. Lock was not among those rescued from the Sentinels’ attack, and remained missing. Given the devastating nature of the attack on Old Zion, chances seemed slim that Lock could have survived. Captain Roland was promoted to succeed Lock as the Commander of Zion's military.

Lock was eventually found alive by E Pluribus Neo operatives when they were salvaging equipment in Zion and was nursed to health in their care. Some months later, Lock was slated for transfer to New Zion aboard Steelle's hovercraft The Hand of God with an escort consisting of three other E Pluribus Neo hovercraft. Data concerning the time and route of his transfer were discovered by Cypherites and they arrived on scene to disrupt the transfer along with Machinists and the special "unibody" hovercraft of a mysterious outsider known as Halborn, who had been tricked into attacking Lock. E Pluribus Neo in turn contacted Zion, who immediately dispatched four hovercraft as reinforcements while interloping Merovingian operatives entered the battle in search of profit. Zion and E Pluribus Neo managed to win the battle, disabling all Cypherite and Machinist hovercraft and negotiating a cease-fire with the Merovingian operatives, thus ensuring Lock's transfer from Steelle's hovercraft to RedBindi's The Titan for transport to New Zion.

Lock currently holds the position of civilian advisor in New Zion, as the Zion council have expressed doubts about his capability and stability following his near-death experience.

Maggie

Maggie (played by Essie Davis) is a crew member on the Mjolnir (nicknamed Hammer). She appears to be the ship's medical officer. She first appears at the end of Reloaded, tending to the unconscious Neo and Bane. While attempting to inject Bane/Smith with something to "help him remember" (possibly sodium pentothal), Bane stabs her with a scalpel, killing her, and then escapes to the Logos.

Her character is not explained or expounded upon at all, appearing only briefly at the end of Reloaded and the beginning of Revolutions. Given her name, she may be one of the few rebels other than Lock to have a real name as opposed to an alias or handle.

Merovingian

The Merovingian (also known as The Frenchman) is a supporting antagonist of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. He is portrayed by Lambert Wilson in both films and voiced by Robin Atkin Downes in The Matrix: Path of Neo. He also played a prominent role in The Matrix Online role-playing game. The Merovingian provides a safe haven for exiled or obsolete programs in the Matrix, as an alternative to deletion. Being an exile himself, the Merovingian's services are not condoned by either the Redpills or the Machines, but they are overlooked unless in direct conflict with either of their goals.

In The Matrix Reloaded, the Oracle tells Neo that he must find a program known as the Keymaker in order to reach the Source, the Machine mainframe. However, the Keymaker is being held captive by the Merovingian, who will not let him go willingly. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity visit the Merovingian at an upscale restaurant, Le Vrai (which is actually French for "The Truth"), where he is holding court with his wife Persephone. He ridicules the three for not knowing the reason they want the Keymaker and sends them away, but Persephone betrays him and takes them to his mountain chalet, where the Keymaker is being held. As Morpheus and Trinity flee with the Keymaker, several of the Merovingian's henchmen attack Neo, who quickly kills or incapacitates all of them. The Merovingian witnesses the end of the fight and then escapes before Neo can follow, leaving him temporarily stranded at the chalet, although not before hinting that there were more instances of the One besides Neo.^[5]

In The Matrix Revolutions, Morpheus and Trinity learn from the Oracle that the Merovingian has put a price on their heads for taking the Keymaker from him. Accompanied by Seraph, they enter the decadent Club Hel to bargain with him for the release of Neo, who has become trapped in a gateway between the Matrix and the Machine world. The Merovingian offers to free him in exchange for the Oracle's eyes; an irritated Trinity responds by initiating a Mexican standoff, putting a gun to his head and threatening to kill him unless he releases Neo—a deal which the Merovingian accepts.

The Merovingian is named after the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish royalty. His wife Persephone is named after Persephone, the Greek goddess of renewal and companion of Hades, Greek god of the Underworld. The Merovingian has the role as the guardian of the virtual afterlife where exiled programs can seek refuge from deletion. He owns a nightclub named Club Hel, as a reference to the Nordic guardian of the afterlife, Hel.

Mouse

Mouse (played by Matt Doran) is a crew member of the Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix.

In the film, Mouse is the youngest crew member of the Nebuchadnezzar and the programmer of the virtual reality training simulation program. One of his stand-out scenes occurs when he is discussing to Neo whether the Nebuchadnezzar’s food tastes like “Tastee Wheat” (a brand of cereal, posters of which can be briefly seen in the train stations shown in The Matrix Revolutions), and adds to the theme of subjective reality by suggesting that the flavor associated with both is not the ‘true’ flavor, but the Machines’ error. He is the creator of the program Woman in the Red Dress, which is used as a distraction part of Neo’s training. He is a very eager young man, excited to see the possibility that Neo could be the one to end the war. He also appears to be something of a hedonist, as he offers the Woman in the Red Dress to Neo and later says, “To deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human”.

Mouse is the first victim of Cypher’s attempt to betray the crew in order to return his body to the Matrix power plant. As Agent-led SWAT team members storm the building used by Neo and the others as an entry/exit point, Mouse attempts to stop their initial approach wielding dual automatic shotguns (custom made for the film^[6]), but is killed by the police.

Rhineheart

Mr. Rhineheart (played by David Aston) is Thomas Anderson's boss at the software company Metacortex. He appears only in The Matrix.

Early in the film, in the morning after going to a night club with Choi and Dujour (following the white rabbit), Neo arrives late at work and has to face his boss. Rhineheart, in a single monologue, foreshadows many of the film's yet unrevealed aspects.

You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken. This company is one of the top software companies in the world because every single employee understands that they are part of a whole. Thus, if an employee has a problem, the company has a problem. The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time, from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job. Do I make myself clear?

Roland

Roland (played by David Roberts) is the captain of the hovercraft Mjolnir. He appears in the feature films Reloaded, Revolutions and the video games Enter The Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo. He has a tendency to say "Goddamn" in many of his sentences.

Roland is the captain of the biggest hovercraft of the Zion fleet, the Mjolnir (nicknamed the Hammer). His first appearance is in Reloaded, during the captains' meeting initiated by Niobe in a sewersystem inside the Matrix.

In order to surprise the Sentinel-army in a pre-emptive strike, commander Jason Lock ordered six ships to create a frontline to ambush the machines. Because of the immense size and weight of the Mjolnir, captain Roland and his team arrive 'too late' at the frontline. They discovered that an EMP was triggered before they could get into position, deactivating all other ships, leaving them and their crews to be destroyed by Sentinels. When the Hammer's crew searched for survivors, they found only Bane, a crewmember of the Caduceus, who was unconscious but alive.

When their sensors picked up another explosion in the vicinity, the Hammer went to investigate and found a destroyed Nebuchadnezzar, its crew on foot, and also an unconscious Neo. There, Roland learned that the Vigilant had been destroyed, but the fate of the Logos was unsure. He ordered a massive search for them in both the Matrix and the real world. On their way back to Zion they picked up a distress signal from the Logos and then turned back to aid the ship and its crew. Roland found Niobe, Ghost and Sparks unharmed, and the Logos in need of a battery-powered jump start in order to fly again. After this Roland and Niobe created a small faction, wherein the Hammer and the Logos shared crews and resources and traveled both back to Zion.

Roland was very cynical and unwilling, after having seen the carnage wreaked on the other ships, to assist Neo in his request to take one of the ships to the Machine City until Niobe offered Neo the use of the Logos. Roland is furious, but Niobe throws his own words back in his face about what he said about not letting them use his ship.

After Bane killed Maggie, Roland understands that it was Bane who triggered the EMP too early. A wide search of his ship showed him that Bane is no longer aboard the Hammer, which was already in flight and bound for Zion. Roland gave Niobe the helm and they rushed through a small mechanical line straight down to Zion. Roland mans the guns during the flight and is extremely impressed with Niobe's flying as he didn't think his ship capable of the maneuvers she did.

At that time the first wave of the Sentinel army reached the docks of Zion, whereupon the Hammer deactivated all the Sentinels by means of an electromagnetic pulse. Roland and the rest of his crew were then considered heroes and the saviors of Zion until Commander Lock accused him of "handing over the docks on a silver platter" on grounds that the EMP also destroyed Zion's last defenses and the few remaining APUs who were also defending the docks of Zion.

Roland's final appearance in the films is at the 'bottleneck', the entrance to the Zion Temple. Together with Lock, Morpheus, and Niobe he watches in disbelief as the sentinel army withdraws from Zion.

In the MMORPG The Matrix Online, Roland only recently re-entered the storyline after being appointed to Commander of Zion's fleets. This promotion comes after the Machines destroyed the city of Zion while Cypherite spies detonated explosives in the Zion command center. In the aftermath, Commander Lock was listed as Missing In Action.

In his absence, Roland's first mate, Colt, has been promoted to captain of the Mjolnir.

Sati

Sati is a sentient program, listed for erasure in the Machine World because she serves no purpose within it. Her parents, two other programs who exist in the Machine World, make a deal with the Merovingian to relocate Sati to the Matrix, where the Oracle and Seraph look after her. It is revealed at the end of "Revolutions" that Sati has the ability to make aesthetic changes within the Matrix; after Neo's defeat of Smith and presumed death, she creates a beautiful sunrise in his honor.

Shimada

Shimada is Kid's second-in-command of the organization E Pluribus Neo in the MMORPG game The Matrix Online. Not much is revealed about her, but it is stated in an in-game biography that the two are close friends since Kid's awakening. Shimada has a penchant for using flowery metaphors to reflect the depth of her dedication to Neo's ideals of self-awareness, freedom, and peace. It is assumed that she acts as a controller for the EPN operatives.

As of Chapter 11.3, Shimada has been killed by Veil via the removal of the cranial jack while she was jacked inside the Matrix.

Shimada is named after Shimoda, Shizuoka, Japan, hence her Japanese appearance.

Shimada is voiced by Kit Harris.

Sparks

Sparks (played by Lachy Hulme) is the operator and general-purpose crewmember of the Logos in the film The Matrix Revolutions and the video game Enter the Matrix. As seen in Enter the Matrix, Sparks serves as the Operator on the Logos alongside his captain and the ship's pilot, Niobe, and weapons expert and first mate Ghost. His sarcastic and irreverent demeanor serve to alleviate the sometimes tense situations aboard the Logos.

Sparks does care about the other two members of the Logos and he is frequently exasperated at their actions. At one point, he melodramatically states to Niobe and Ghost (about Morpheus just calling); "He said he needs your help. Can you imagine what that means? 'Our help!' He's got Neo, why does he need you?! (Pause) I know you're both listening to me as much as you're listening to this...pole, here, so I'll just tell you what I think; I think you just spent eight of your nine lives getting out of there. And if you go right back in, I don't think you're just pushing your luck, I don't think you're crazy, I think you have a death wish! A major, full-on Bronson! And since your lives obviously mean nothing to you, I ask you to try to think of something that does have meaning; namely, my life." To which Ghost quickly and calmly replies "Sparks, shut up." Fed up, Sparks quietly retorts "Yeah, sure, why not..." and walks away.

He also seems to want a quiet life, as indicated when he cries "Oh when...When will it end?!"

Spoon Boy and the other potentials

“Spoon Boy” (played by Rowan Witt) is one of the children that is present when Neo meets the Oracle. Spoon Boy later appears in the Matrix comic “Artistic Freedom”. He has a clean-shaven head and is dressed in the traditional garb of a Buddhist monk and he speaks with an Australian accent. The children are all bluepills who will someday become redpills and appear only in The Matrix, although it is presumed that he was freed eventually as he requests the Kid to give a real spoon to Neo in Zion in The Matrix Reloaded.

Spoon Boy is the only one of the “potentials” with a speaking role.

In The Matrix, when Neo is taken for the first time into the Matrix after having been unplugged, he goes with Morpheus to meet the Oracle. In her apartment Neo is left waiting in a room where some children are manipulating inanimate objects with their minds; they are introduced to him as “the other potentials”. One boy is reading a Chinese book, a girl is playing chess and another girl is working on her computer. Two girls are floating toy blocks. One of the kids is bending spoons; he imparts some philosophical statements to Neo:

Spoon Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon; that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon Boy: Then you will see, it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Neo then takes one of the boy’s spoons, and is able to telekinetically bend it himself.

In The Matrix Reloaded, before Neo boards the Nebuchadnezzar, Kid hands a package to him, saying: “One of the orphans made me promise to give it to you, he said you’d understand”. Neo unwraps it, to find that it is a crudely made, battered metal spoon, presumably sent by Spoon Boy.

Switch

Switch (played by Belinda McClory) was a member of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar in the first film of the Matrix series.

Unlike the mental projections of other crews, who usually wear dark clothes and sunglasses, Switch wore white clothes and yellow, translucent sunglasses.

Switch and Apoc are portrayed as front-line soldiers while inside the Matrix, acting as "point" and "rear guard" in their escape from the Agents and police and providing covering fire as they make their way into the sewers. Switch's weapon of choice is a Browning Hi-Power pistol. Switch also pokes fun at Mouse, calling him "the digital pimp". Switch was killed when her mind was forcibly pulled from the Matrix by Cypher, who betrayed the crew in an attempt to return to the Matrix as a permanent resident himself. Cypher also killed Apoc and Dozer before being killed by Tank, the ship's Operator.

The character was supposedly originally meant to be a feminine character in the Matrix and a man in the real world, and they decided to change that because they thought it would confuse the audience.

Tank

Tank (played by Marcus Chong) appears in the first film of The Matrix series.

Tank watched over not only the jacked-in crewmembers, but also the ship itself in case the Sentinels, killing machines, detected the ship. Like all Operators, Tank was a skilled programmer who could provide jacked-in crewmembers almost anything they needed and guided them to and from dangerous events within the Matrix. One of his more famous lines, is when Tank meets Neo and tells him of the significance that Morpheus found Neo, "It's a VERY exciting time."

Unlike his crewmates Apoc, Switch, Mouse, Cypher, Trinity, Captain Morpheus, and Neo, neither Tank nor his older brother Dozer were grown artificially in the Machine's human harvest fields for insertion in the Matrix powerplant, but born in the real world, in Zion, the last human city. As a result, Tank and Dozer don't have the various jacks and connectors in their bodies as the other humans who once lived within the Matrix.

Tank was tending to the remaining crewmembers when Agents and police attacked them after their return from The Oracle. Tank was able to retrieve Cypher, but as he tried to retrieve the remaining crew, Cypher shot and severely injured Tank with an electric ray gun and killed Dozer. Cypher was able to kill Apoc and Switch by removing their jacks from their bodies, forcibly disconnecting their minds from the Matrix. However, before Cypher could kill Neo and Trinity, Tank regained consciousness and killed Cypher with the same weapon that Cypher had used on him and Dozer.

Tank was able to resume his duties to aid Trinity and Neo in rescuing Morpheus from a military-secured building, and to witness Neo's transformation into The One.

Tank died after the events in The Matrix but before the events in the sequel, The Matrix Reloaded. The character's duties as ship's Operator was handed over to Link, who is married to Tank and Dozer's sister, Zee.

The demise of the character was reportedly due to actor Marcus Chong's salary demands and conflicts with the Wachowskis, the writers and creators of the Matrix series, leading to his removal.^[7]

Thadeus

Thadeus (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) is the captain of the hovercraft Osiris, the subject of The Animatrix short film Final Flight of the Osiris. He is involved in an intimate relationship with Jue, an officer aboard the Osiris. He and Jue are dueling erotically in a training program when the Osiris receives an incoming sentinel alert. They exit the training program and hesitantly bring the ship up to the planet's surface, where they witness a Machine army massing. The ship is quickly spotted and attacked. In the final minutes before the ship is destroyed, Thadeus plugs Jue into the Matrix to deliver a message to Zion about the massing Machine army, which is recovered by Niobe and Ghost in Enter the Matrix. He and the rest of the ship's crew are killed when the sentinels destroy the ship.

He is the only captain of a hovercraft that does not wear a red sweater.

Trainman

The Trainman (played by Bruce Spence) appears in The Matrix Revolutions. He is a program in the employ of the Merovingian, tasked with transporting programs from the machine world to the Matrix when they seek exile. His appearance is that of a raggedly dressed homeless man with long stringy hair, and he is armed with a snub-nosed revolver and wears several watches on his left wrist. He operates a "construct" (waiting area), styled as a subway station platform, where programs await the arrival of his train.

Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph enter the subway system in search of the Trainman, having learned from the Oracle that they need to find the Trainman before he finds Neo. However, he eludes them on foot and shoots at them to buy enough time for his escape. Neo, trapped in the construct, tries to board the Trainman's subway when it pulls in; the Trainman denies him entry and knocks him back hard enough to smash a hole in the wall. The Trainman is impervious to Neo's threats and attempts at persuasion ("Down here, I'm God," he boasts), telling him that he will stay in the construct until the Merovingian says otherwise. He is seen briefly during the armed standoff in Club Hel, after which he gives Morpheus and Trinity a ride into the construct so they can rescue Neo.

Tyndall

Tyndall appears only in The Matrix Online, in which she is voiced by Kit Harris.

Tyndall was awakened and removed from the Matrix at a young age and spent her formative adolescent years in Zion. She took to the philosophy offered by Morpheus, but she saw the struggle against the Machines as a quest larger than any one person, and so could not accept the prophecy of The One as fact. She much preferred the more pragmatic approach of Jason Lock, relying on the resources and abilities of the people of Zion to save themselves, without waiting for a Savior.

When she came of age, Tyndall eagerly became a Zion operative in the Matrix. She served capably during the War, working her way up to a senior position, but retired from field duty in the aftermath of an accident that rendered her unable to jack into the Matrix safely any longer. An Agent dropped a 220kV power line on her as she was jacking out, causing feedback that damaged her neural jacks in the real world. She was almost killed.

Today she is only able to jack into controlled environments such as the control center construct or training programs. The unpredictable nature of the Matrix broadcast signal could overload her damaged jacks and cause permanent or fatal damage to her. Still, she had a tremendous amount of experience in the Matrix, so instead of becoming a Hovercraft Captain, she accepted a position as Commander Lock's liaison to field operations in the Matrix.

Tyndall is an Icelandic beauty, all cheekbones and snowy blonde hair. She addresses operatives as “Warrior,” or by their rank, and speaks constantly of vigilance and preparedness. She tries hard to imbue missions with nobility, and encourages those around her to be their best. Her manner is practiced and professional, but not without a sense of encouragement. She often ends conversations with inspirational phrases.

Tyndall considers herself to be a representative of Zion, but in spite of her effort to paint herself as a servant of the cause, she has become a leader through her devotion and dedication. She often takes personal responsibility for the mishaps of Zion, feeling that somehow, the fault is her own; she is quick to apologize when things have gone awry. Tyndall sometimes speaks to her operatives in the Matrix as if she is with them, likely because she desires nothing more than to return to the Matrix to work for Zion's victory firsthand.

Zee

Zee (played by Nona Gaye) appears in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Zee is a native Zionite who experienced the pain of losing her brothers Dozer and Tank (from the original Matrix film), both of whom were killed while serving aboard the Nebuchadnezzar. Unbeknownst to her, Zee's husband Link had a pact with Dozer that he would take over as Operator on the Neb should anything happen to Dozer. It's a constant thorn in the side of their marriage, with Zee demanding that Link switch to another ship, and Link refusing to break his promise to his wife's deceased brother. Ultimately, Zee supports her husband's decision, and even takes up arms in the defence of Zion against the invading Machine army (as shown in Revolutions), attempting to stop the diggers with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. She and another Zionite, Charra (Rachel Blackman), form a loader-gunner team (with Zee as the loader, and Charra as the trigger). Charra is killed while attempting to flee from a pack of Sentinels, which Zee narrowly manages to escape. Zee is also the sister-in-law of Cas, who was Dozer's wife.

Zee plays an integral part in the battle, by providing Kid with cover while he opened the gate to Zion. She uses a "lightning gun" to shoot down a Sentinel that was about to kill Kid, allowing Kid to blast open the gate. This allowed the Hammer to crash land and activate their EMP, disabling the first wave of Sentinels. This, in turn, gave Neo and Trinity the time they needed to get to the machine city and negotiate peace.

Zee is an adherent to an unspecified religion, in contrast to her irreligious husband Link. As such, she gives Link a charm necklace before he departs Zion with the Neb; he wears it ("Couldn't hurt," he says) during the climactic flight back to Zion during Revolutions, and it is implied that he too becomes involved with Zee's religion.

The role of Zee was originally given to singer/actress Aaliyah, who was killed in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, before she could complete shooting her part for The Matrix Reloaded. Many singers and actresses were named as potential replacements, including Eva Mendes, Samantha Mumba, Brandy Norwood and Tatyana Ali.^[8] Ali actress Nona Gaye was named as Aaliyah's replacement in April 2002.^[9] Gaye was nominated^[8] for an NAACP Image Award along with co-star Jada Pinkett Smith for the role of Niobe.

See also

• Simulated reality

References

1. (French)
2. http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/the_matrix.pdf
3. Making of Enter the Matrix dialogue
4. The Matrix Online chapter 12.1
5. The Matrix Reloaded, 2003
   Merovingian: (to Neo) I have survived your predecessors, and I will survive you.
6. "Interview with armourer for the first Matrix film". Retrieved 2007-04-07.
7. "The Mystery of Larry Wachowski". Rolling Stone. 2006-01-12. Archived from the original on 2008-08-04.
8. "35th NAACP Image Awards Nominations Announced". NAACP. 2004-01-08. Archived from the original on 2006-05-25.
9. "Nona Gaye Replaces Aaliyah As Zee". KillerMovies. 2002-04-20.