The Oracle

"We can never see past the choices we don't understand."

- The Oracle

The Oracle is one of the central characters in The Matrix film trilogy. In the theatrical releases she is portrayed by actresses Gloria Foster and Mary Alice.

Biography
The Oracle appears as an eldery Black woman in her late 50s. She frequently enjoys making cookies and likes the smell they make when they are cooking, she also has a penchant for candy.

The Oracle aids the human resistance in freeing humanity from the oppression of the Machines. According to Morpheus, the Oracle has been in the service of the resistance "since the beginning."

The Oracle gives predictions and insight to Zion operatives who choose to hear her. The one prediction she relays to the resistance of Zion is that of the Prophecy, where the war will end when The One returns to end the hold of the Matrix.

For Morpheus, the Oracle tells him that he would find The One, a man with incredible powers within the Matrix who could end the Machine War.

The Oracle's powers of precognition appear amazingly accurate, even knowing that Neo was about to knock over a vase in her kitchen. She leaves the doubtful Neo in doubt as to his true path, noting that he has the "gift," but appears to be waiting for something: "Your next life, maybe." This is presumably meaning the moment where Neo dies and comes back to life at the end of The Matrix, aware of his powers as The One. She also predicts a time where Neo will have to choose between his life and that of his leader, Morpheus. One of them will be saved, but the other will die.

The Oracle's prediction leads Neo to rescue Morpheus, but lose his own life at the hands of Agent Smith in the process. But Trinity intervenes. She confesses to Neo's lifeless body in the real world that the Oracle had told that that she would fall in love with The One, which meant that Neo could not actually be dead. With a kiss from Trinity, Neo's consciousness rejects the idea that he has actually died, and he re-awakens within the Matrix, enlightened, and empowered as The One.

In a later meeting, Neo can now see that the Oracle is not a human at all, but yet another program within the Matrix, perhaps yet another form of control over humanity. But the Oracle warns Neo to make up his own mind as to whether she was a friend or enemy. She directs Neo to find the entryway to the Source by finding the Keymaker, a program that can open hidden and locked backdoors within the Matrix. Unfortunately, the Keymaker is being held by what the Oracle describes as "a very dangerous program, one of the oldest of us. He is called the Merovingian."

While Neo is successful in reaching the Source, he meets with the Architect, who tells him that the Oracle, a program designed to understand human psychology, is the Matrix' "mother," for lack of a better term. Neo also learns that the Prophecy is just another form of control to use him to reload the Matrix. Unlike his predecessors, Neo defies the Architect's blackmail of the extinction of man should Neo not comply. The Oracle apparently has changed the rules in making The One fall in love--not just with humanity, but with one specific person. Neo breaks the death/life cycle of Zion but leaves a new path to be forged if humanity--and the Matrix--is to be saved.

The Oracle has problems of her own. Her bodyguard, Seraph, protects her from her enemies by never letting her stay at any one place for too long. However, an event occurs where the Oracle's original appearance (or the Oracle herself) is destroyed, forcing her to return in a new appearance.

When Neo finds himself imprisoned in Mobil Station, Trinity and Morpheus, with help of Seraph who is given to them by Oracle to guide them and protect them from Agents if the need arises, takes the initiative to find Neo and rescue him from the clutches of the Merovingian, whose henchman, the Trainman, runs the construct imprisoning Neo. The Merovingian proposes that Neo can be freed if Trinity brings him the eyes of the Oracle. But Trinity forces "Merv" to release Neo from her gunpoint instead.

In their last conversation, the Oracle tells Neo that he must still reach the Source, but now she states that the Source resides in the Machine City, a vision he experienced while in Mobil Station. She warns that Smith, whose clones are assimilating everyone in the Matrix and causing it to fail faster than normal, is Neo's opposite. The Oracle gives a final comment: "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo."

Neo succeeds in reaching the Machine City, at a price: Trinity is killed in the crash of their hovercraft, the Logos, and Neo was blinded by Bane some time earlier. He makes a proposal to the Deus Ex Machina in exchange for ridding the virulent Smith from the Matrix.

Neo is initially unsuccessful; a copy of Smith, earlier, had surrounded and assimilated the Oracle herself, and in doing, has her powers, which are remarkably similar but more powerful than Neo's own. The two have a epic fight on and above the streets of the damaged Mega City, but Smith's powers from the assimilated Oracle prove too powerful for Neo to counter fully. An exhausted Neo listens to Smith proclaiming victory, telling that, with the Oracle's powers, he can already see his victory. Neo may have remembered the Oracle's conversation about choice on the apartment playground days before:


 * Oracle: Candy?
 * Neo: Do you already know if I'm going to take it?
 * Oracle: Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't.
 * Neo: But if you already know, how could I make a choice?
 * Oracle: Because you didn't come here to make the choice. You already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it.

Smith also finds himself repeating words said to Neo by the Oracle hours before: "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo." In his final act of enlightenment, Neo finally understands the why of his choice before he commits to it.

After the Matrix is reloaded, the Oracle sits on a park bench, looking at a sunrise created by Sati. When Sati asks if Neo will come back, the Oracle is hopeful.

Appearances

 * The Matrix
 * The Matrix: Path of Neo
 * Enter the Matrix
 * The Matrix Reloaded
 * ''The Matrix Revolutions
 * The Matrix Online