Forum: scifi.stackexchange.com
Tags: <the-matrix>
Title: Why does Neo jump into Smith?
Question: At the end of the movie Neo jumps into Smith and blows him up.  Is there a reason he chooses this method to kill him?

Answers:
sents: text: The scene was a rather neat way for the Wachowskis to visually represent Neo's transformation into a Hacker of the Matrix.
text: Upon his rebirth, he perceives the programming language that creates the Matrix 'reality' directly, including the Agents.
text: When he enters Smith and destroys him from the inside, the act evokes the real-life techniques of advanced hacking, in which the programmer manipulates the underlying code, rather than the 'surface' interface that simple users see.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/13112/Metamaterial girl
score: 57
sents: text: Neo jumping into Agent Smith is a reflection of how the Agents override the humans in the Matrix.
text: At various points in the movie, you can see the Agents both exit and enter humans - it's a representation of how they are overriding the human.
text: Similarly, Neo is rewriting Agent Smith's source code - he is inserting himself into Smith the same way that the Agents insert themselves into the other humans.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/373/HorusKol
score: 36
sents: text: Jumping into him was like editing his source code.
text: Since he is a program, he couldn't be killed in a traditional sense.
text: So he was deleted.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/47410/shadow11001
score: 10
sents: text: Is there a reason he chooses this method to kill him?
text: Yes, Neo failed to 'conventionally' kill Agents because machines tend to be back.
text: Neo tries something new.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6510/n611x007
score: 7
sents: text: I don't know what all these other answers are about.
text: As a gamer, it looked to me like a routine "spawn-kill" from an old FPS game, where two people would spawn on the same spot, or one person would spawn on the same spot where somebody else is already standing.
text: The game physics can't compensate for two objects being in the same physical space, so it immediately terminates one of them.
text: In a game, this is where the ragdoll physics are applied to the killed object/person and it is pushed away or falls down.
text: In the matrix, Agent Smith exploded.
text: Obviously it took a little longer in the movie for dramatic effect.
text: It looked like Neo turned himself into liquid, then after the explosion it seemed like he had pushed outward from inside Smith, bending space itself.
text: I believe he chose this method because it completely undermined the laws of physics in a world that is based on simulating reality - the other agents would know there is nothing they can do against this kind of threat.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/47522/vahanpwns
score: 5
sents: text: Neo did not Hack Agent Smith, he merged with Agent Smith and in doing so allowed his code to merge with Agent Smiths.
text: The moment he does that the Machines (which Neo is plugged into) can then rewrite the entire Matrix deleting agent Smith, Rebooting the Matrix and allowing a refresh of the system It isnt Neo that destroys Smith it is the Machines that do that.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/86251/Richard C
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
He may have chosen this method because it was something new and completely undermined the laws of physics in a world that is based on simulating reality - the other agents would know there is nothing they can do against this kind of threat. This is an equivalent of "hacking", as since he is a program, he cannot be killed in a traditional way.
Neo is able to hack and override Smith using the unconventional method of jumping into him without the risk of harming himself.