Enjoying Vacation

Wow, sleep is really good when you can catch it. I almost forgot how nice it can be to sleep in till like 9:30. Between work and grad school not much sleep to be found, always doing research for my master's program or doing a group project. anywho, back to the info.
So, this topic will be

REDEMPTION & CYCLES

The Dark Tower and the Matrix Trilogy have a lot in common. Both have protagonists that have a beginning and an end to their lives. Both became more than what they originally were and they served the greater good.

Now, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last Gunslinger in All-World, lived, breathed and eventually dies a Gunslinger, ideals in tact. Thomas Anderson, aka, Neo, the One, did not live or breathe as anything other than a hacker. When he inevitably comes to the realization that he Must die in order to protect the last remaining human city of Zion, he becomes more than just the One that everyone keeps telling him he his, he becomes the One, the person that will end the war between man and machine, though from the film, perhaps not forever, but at least for a time.

What Roland saves is no less noble, he saves the Universe. Born to be a hero since birth, Roland's sole goal in life is to protect the Dark Tower, the reasoning behind this is that if the Tower should fall, all the Universe would be destroyed and the beings of Chaos would rule. What unites Roland and Neo are their extra burdens they place upon themselves. For Roland he must not only save the Tower but enter it. For Neo he must end the war and protect Trinity, his love. It is these extra burdens that unite the characters neither of them has to do what they do. But then they wouldn't be heroes if they did.

Both Neo and Roland experience a type of Purgatory or Limbo. For Neo, it is literally Mobil(anagram of limbo) Station. He patiently awaits the Trainman and meets two programs from the machine world. It is here that we first see the trains that run throughout the Matrix and see that one of them says in the destination header: LOOP. This is in the Matrix: Revolutions. Revolution does not simply mean war in this series, it also takes on the meaning of one comlete Cycle. Literally, everything comes full circle.

For Roland, his purgatory and Limbo is the Mohaine Desert and the splitting of his mind after the death of Jake Chambers. This is due to the fact that up until that period of the Cycle, Roland had never let Jake fall. This time, for whatever reason, he let Jake fall and the boy died in Midworld and was reborn in New York once more, but with the knowledge that he had already died.

In the Matrix: Revolutions, in the battle dubbed the SuperBurly Brawl, Both Neo and Agent Smith tangle high above the city and spin each other while fighting this creates the yin and yang symbol that both men come to embody physically. Smith, however, had realized that this had happened before, in the opening sequence of the Matrix: Reloaded. He says to the copy Smith, "Everything's happening like before," but then the original Smith says, "well, not exactly like before," meaning that this time Smith has done something different in the scheme.