Oracle (The Matrix)
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The Oracle is a fictional character portrayed by Gloria Foster (and later, by Mary Alice) within the Matrix series of films created by the Wachowski brothers.
The character also appears in the video game Enter the Matrix and the MMORPG The Matrix Online.
[edit] Overview
In the first film, she is a mysterious but powerful figure, incongruously depicted as a cheerful old lady who has a penchant for smoking cigarettes and baking cookies. (Though oddly enough, when seen smoking she inhales but never blows out any smoke. This might represent how she "receives" information but doesn't let out much). She possesses the power of foresight, which she uses to advise and guide the humans attempting to fight the Matrix's system. Later, she is revealed to be a sapient program who is integral to the very nature of the Matrix itself. Whether her power of prediction is deterministic or not is a concept given much treatment in all three films. She herself claims that she lacks the ability to see past her own choice, explaining that choices are not understood by the person who makes them. It becomes clear in the films that her power cannot be used to predict the ultimate actions of Neo, who possesses genuine free will once he defies the Architect.
Her power of foresight, on the other hand, is not a foresight, but rather a calculation; The Architect revealed The Oracle to be "a program designed to investigate the human psyche"; thus, allowing The Matrix to become more accustomed for the majority of the human population to accept. The foresight only applies in the most fundamental levels; such as her warning to Neo about "breaking the vase" in the first movie. In further levels, she only exhibits a trait for predicting events directly relevant to the nature and/or programming of The Matrix, and natural human responses according to the level she knows them; this is most clear in her prediction of Neo's choice between Morpheus' life and his own. While The Oracle knew that The Agents would be searching for Morpheus as he was searching for 'The One', and seeing Cypher's actions and reactions (such as his conversation with Agent Smith), she predicted the most likely event. Another example is her prediction about Neo's choice in the second movie, The Matrix Reloaded; she basically had existed throughout 5 versions, and regardless of The One's ability to exhibit free will, she had experienced a series of events that had and would occur and push The One, "inexorably" (as The Architect put) to the Source.
The Oracle is played by Gloria Foster in the first two Matrix movies (The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded) and by Mary Alice in the third Matrix movie (The Matrix Revolutions) and the video game (Enter the Matrix). In The Matrix Revolutions and Enter the Matrix it is explained that Kamala and Ramachandra, the parents of Sati, traded with the Merovingian, giving the Oracle's termination code in exchange for their daughter's passage into the Matrix as an Exile via the Trainman. In reality, Mary Alice played The Oracle because Gloria Foster died of complications from diabetes before her role in Matrix Revolutions was shot; however the change in actresses led to a powerful development in the character of the Oracle that might not have been present otherwise, as it allowed insight to her relation to the nature of choice and the consequences of one's choices.
In the third Matrix movie, the Oracle hints at her true purpose, which is to bring imbalance, rather than balance, to the equations that form the Matrix. In that she is opposed to her counterpart, The Architect, who brings balance to the equations that form the Matrix.
The Oracle's purpose is to aid The One and the humans following him by means of the Prophecy (predicting the victory of the One and the fall of the machines), not in order to bring down the Matrix, but rather so that they can voluntarily disconnect themselves from the system, ensuring its stability while preventing its destruction. As discovered by Neo, the prophecy is "just another system of control." The role of the Architect is then to reunite the One with the Source and bring about the destruction of Zion. The pair together thus ensure that neither the humans nor the machines ever achieve a permanent victory.
This Yin-Yang relationship itself is a form of balance between opposing forces, so it becomes obvious that the Architect and the Oracle are the two balancing forces of the Matrix itself: the fallible human factor and the logic of the machines. This idea is even hinted at in the films as the Oracle is wearing yin-yang earrings throughout the third film. This process of balance between opposing forces is even more realized in the conflict between Agent Smith and Neo at the end of the third Matrix movie, when they literally annihilate one another, like a collision between matter and anti-matter. Since the Oracle and the Architect are the Yin and Yang for the Matrix itself, they both must exist for the Matrix to exist. So when Smith took over the Oracle, he became a threat to the very existence of the Matrix itself.
In the first Matrix movie, Agent Smith revealed that the first Matrix was a failure because it was too perfect. This would likely have been a system run only by the Architect. And so by adding the Oracle, who unbalanced the equations and brought the human factor to the otherwise perfect world, the system became stable, and so the final Matrix was formed.
In the final two films, the Oracle succeeds in unbalancing the Matrix (seeing the simultaneous rises of both Neo and Smith) to the extent that it is almost destroyed. However, in so doing, she manages to bring about a resolution in which the machines and the humans can coexist in peace. She now makes frequent appearances in debir court in The Matrix Online.
