Comics 1-5: Burning Hope
Comics 1-7: A Sword of a Different Color
Story & Art by Dave Gibbons
Based on Concepts by the Wachowskis
Zhuangzi (transliterated as Chuang Tzu) is a Chinese philosopher who famously said:
| Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. |
This famous quotation is spread over 5 pages of this story, with no other dialogue or text. The picture-only story consists of cuts back and forth between a rainy city action scene (a redpill being chased by agents with frequent exchanges of gunfire) and a calm indoor scene (Chuang Tzu in white clothes, lighting incense, meditating, and sweeping). A butterfly flutters around in the calm scene and is later spotted in the action scene.
Eventually, the redpill comes crashing through Chuang Tzu's window. Chuang Tzu greets the man, a phone rings, and three agents enter the room. Chuang Tzu stands between the agents and the man and knocks the guns out of the agents' hands. The redpill is gone, so the agents shoot and kill Chuang Tzu. After he closes his eyes, a butterfly appears and flies away in the city.
This ties back into the major philosophical theme of simulation and simulcra / desert of the real, a theme that was first brought up by Cypher in M1 during his filet mignon dinner with Agent Smith when he says that in some ways, the Matrix is "more real" than the real world.
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