In the latest installment of the Matrix trilogy we learn that Sigmund Freud had lasik surgery and was even more of a pompous prick than we’d imagined. Not only that, but he is the creator of the Matrix and goes by the hacker name of “the Architect.” (Some issues with your chosen profession, Sigmund?)

The Oracle, the Architect informs us, is the mother of the Matrix, responsible specifically for discovering that the early versions of the Matrix failed because humanity needed imperfection to function, not heaven on earth. So we have a mother goddess, but not of the usual variety. She’s wise and compassionate, but she also needs a bodyguard and runs the hell away as soon as the rougue Agent Smith(s) comes around. The usual surroundings of a mother goddess are absent–nature, life, animals, fecundity–replaced instead by concrete and housing projects.

From the Oracle’s insights into humanity’s need for imperfection, the Architect designed the Matrix we know and love, a Matrix that is almost perfect. Almost, because 0.1% of the human Duracells plugged into the Matrix reject it, leading to the creation of the resistance, to Zion. Eventually this leads to the arrival of the One, who must return to the Source Code of the Matrix in order to reboot it before it crashes, killing humans and machines alike. Our friend Neo, it turns out, is the sixth “One” since the creation of the Oracle-corrected Matrix.

The Oracle is complicit. There is none of the romanticism and sentimentalism of much of the current popular religious fascination with goddess sprirituality. She loves candy, true, but she is not the wholesome counter to the male sky god Architect; she is his partner in crime. The Oracle is co-responsible for the endless recreation of a world of suffering and oppression. Could it be that mother doesn’t know best either?

The cyclic nature of the Matrix is also enabled by the One. Given the choice between a reboot of the oppressive Matrix or a return to the Matrix that can only end in the annhilation of humanity, all previous Ones have chosen a return to the Source. The myth of redemptive violence is unmasked: it is only the Matrix that is redeemed. The One is still the messiah/Buddha, but he is a selfish Buddha who finds escape from the wheel of suffering only for himself. It is tempting to venture that our hero Neo in his return to the Matrix has taken the Bodhisatva’s vow, but this would be the first time a Bodhisatva returned to the wheel of suffering–not for the salvation of all beings–but for true lurv.

We also learn from the Oracle that the Matrix is not a unitary phenomenon, but an amalgam of related programs, each with their own sphere of influence and responsibilities. In this rich, polytheistic arrangement, most kami-programs clock in and clock out, controlling their respective flocks of pigeons or public housing projects and otherwise minding their own business. But some kami go rogue, among them Hades stand-in “the Merovingian” and Agent Smith. From these even the wisened Oracle and exiled Keymaker must flee.

The Wachowski brothers have denied us easy salvation, and good for them. The Oracle will not save you; in fact, she’s part of the problem. The One will not save you; he’ll just start the whole damn thing over again. Defeating your enemy might just make him stronger. And saving the Matrix might be the only way to save humanity.