How does Sati end up with the Oracle, with regards to Rama-Kandra's deal with the Merovingian? [closed]

Question

Rama-Kandra said he had to go through the Merovingian to get Sati into the Matrix:

Rama-Kandra: I know only what I need to know. I know that if you want to take something from our world into your world that does not belong there, you must go to the Frenchman.

Neo: Is that what you’re doing here?

Kamala: Rama, please!

Rama-Kandra: I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. He may never see another face for the rest of his life.

Neo: I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that question.

Rama-Kandra: No. I don’t mind. The answer is simple. I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But where we are from, that is not enough. Every program that is created must have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted. I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter.

^{The Matrix Revolutions transcript}

After the scene with the Trainman punching Neo ("Down here, I'm God"), we don't see Sati's parents again. We next see Sati with the Oracle, in her kitchen ("Cookies need love like everything does"). This matches up with what her father, Rama-Kandra, says to Neo in Mobil Avenue (before the Trainman gets there):

Rama-Kandra: Everyone knows the Oracle. I consulted with her before I met with the Frenchman. She promised she would look after Sati after we said goodbye.

^{The Matrix Revolutions transcript}

How did Sati then end up with the Oracle? Why would the Merovingian allow that? He hates the Oracle, surely he wouldn't have wanted to hand over Sati to her?

Not only that, but, since he had apparently destroyed the Oracle's previous shell, he would have presumed that there was no Oracle to hand Sati over to, unless he decided not to destroy her shell until after she had taken Sati from him. He claims that her return is "not unexpected", but the word "disappointing" at least leads me to believe he had hoped she wouldn't have "come back" in another shell, and on top of that, his "if you take something from me you will pay the price" part implies that he wasn't expecting Sati to end up with the Oracle in the first place:

Merovingian: ... I can only surmise that the fortune teller has found herself another shell? Disappointing, but not unexpected. I do hope, however, she has the good manners to learn her lesson, and to remember that there is no action without consequence. And if you take something from me you will pay the price.

^{The Matrix Revolutions transcript}

Furthermore, in the Enter the Matrix video game (which I haven't played), we learn this (taken from here):

The Oracle explains why her appearance has changed: The Merovingian warned her that if she helped Neo, she would pay. Two programs she trusted sold the termination code of her original shell to the Merovingian to protect the life of their child. She allowed this to happen because she believes the child will one day change both her world and the real word forever. The Merovingian used the code to terminate her previous shell.

So that tells us that it was Rama-Kandra who provided the Merovingian with the termination codes to destroy the Oracle's shell, and that the Oracle allowed this to happen, which adds further complication to this scenario.

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So, from the above, I have derived the follow sequence of events:

1. Rama-Kandra goes to see the Oracle and tells her about Sati. The Oracle at this point promises to look after Sati. So, the Oracle intends to look after Sati, Rama-Kandra intends for Sati to go into the Oracle's care.
2. Rama-Kandra goes to see the Merovingian and asks him to smuggle Sati into the Matrix (via Trainman). The Merovingian makes a deal that he will do this if Rama-Kandra gets the termination codes to destroy the Oracle's shell.
3. Presumably, Rama-Kandra then goes back to the Oracle to get this from her, and the Oracle lets him. At this point, both Rama-Kandra and the Oracle are making their initial agreement void, unless both know that the Oracle can just get some new shell so that their prior arrangement can still take place even after her original shell is destroyed.
4. Rama-Kandra delivers the termination codes for the Oracle's shell to the Merovingian, and he then smuggles Sati into the Matrix, as agreed.
5. The Oracle, presumably in her old shell form still, takes Sati under her care, as per her original arrangement with Rama-Kandra; I'm not sure how she managed to intercept the Trainman delivering Sati to the Merovingian, but we later see the Oracle and Sati together in the Oracle's kitchen, so somehow she must have pulled this off.
6. The Merovingian, annoyed at this, destroys the Oracle's shell at this point; he apparently hadn't done so before now, because his "if you take something from me you will pay the price" statement implies this order of events, although that also raises the question of why he wouldn't have just destroyed her shell the first opportunity he got, but whatever; he apparently tells us that he waited until she "took something from him" before retaliating. Maybe he was planning on blackmailing her with it or something...
7. The Oracle somehow acquires a new shell and carries on as intended: looking after Sati and guiding Neo, etc. Also apparently the Merovingian accepts that Sati isn't going to be under his control (presumably he was due to gain control over her once he smuggled her in; otherwise, what was the Oracle taking from him?), and given that the Oracle finding a new shell is "not unexpected" implies he apparently put no effort into trying to take Sati back from her once he's destroyed her shell.

This raises the following questions:

• If Rama-Kandra acquired the termination codes for the Oracle's shell, why would he agree to hand it over to the Merovingian, who he surely knows plans to destroy the Oracle, if he's also already arranged for the Oracle to look after Sati? Rama-Kandra basically knowingly helped the Merovingian to destroy the one he's arranged to leave Sati in the care of!
• If the Oracle chose to allow her shell to be destroyed, and yet she still agreed to look after Sati, that means she must have known how to acquired a new shell in order to carry out her promise to Rama-Kandra; did Rama-Kandra know this, and that's why he went through with it, because he knew that the Merovingian destroying her shell wouldn't have any lasting consequences?
• How much of this did the Merovingian know regarding how easily the Oracle can acquire a new shell? If we take his "not unexpected" literally, was this just a petty act that everyone involved knew wouldn't really have any lasting consequences?
• Given his "if you take something from me you will pay the price" line, it implies he wasn't expecting Sati to end up with the Oracle, so then why did he just let Sati end up with the Oracle without making any attempt to recover her?

Can someone please help me make sense of all this?

I can split this up into multiple questions if need be, but I wouldn't know how to explain each individual question without the context of the full post, which is why I'm asking them all in one go (they are at least all about one overall arrangement, even if I'm asking many sub-questions about different facets of that arrangement). A good answer might be able to clear up my confusion without necessarily addressing every single question individually.

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Related: Why did The Merovingian destroy The Oracle's shell?

Answer 1

I think you're overthinking this a bit.

To answer to your title question ("how does Sati end up with the Oracle?"), it is likely the case that the Oracle sent Seraph to escort Sati from the train station in the Matrix to the Oracle. Although Seraph's job is to protect the Oracle, Seraph does leave the Oracle from time to time (e.g. to help Trinity and Morpheus meet with the Merovingian in Club Hel) and the Oracle even had Seraph abandon her in order to attempt to protect Sati from Smith. Seraph is the only machine capable of holding his own against the One in a fight, so Seraph would be able to protect Sati against the Merovingian's henchmen even if the Merovingian attempted to renege on the deal.

As far as the sequence of events, only one meeting is really necessary between the Oracle and Rama Kandra. The Oracle can predict the future so she knew that the Merovingian would demand her termination code from Rama Kandra, and she would have given Rama Kandra permission to meet with the Merovingian and accept his demands at that time. She also would have assured him that she knew she would survive the Merovingian's attack. We don't know how Rama Kandra acquired the Oracle's termination code (maybe he already had it as part of his purpose as "manager for recycling operations", or maybe the Oracle gave it to him), but in any case he probably had it by the time he met the Oracle the first/only time. Rama Kandra then met the Merovingian in Le Vrai (Neo saw him being escorted out just as Neo was being taken to meet with the Merovingian) and gave him the Oracle's termination code¹, and then Rama Kandra brought Sati into the Matrix using the Trainman.

From the Merovingian's perspective, he wasn't surprised that the Oracle survived because she's the Oracle: she can predict the future. Nonetheless, the deal still made sense to him because an attack on the Oracle with a low chance of success is better than no attack (with no chance of success at all). Furthermore, the only thing he has to give up is an apparently useless program: Sati, who is in danger of being deleted because she literally has no purpose. Why would he care if the Oracle is able to meet with such a purposeless program, especially if he had a chance to either kill the Oracle (with the termination code from Rama Kandra) or end her choice-based Matrix system (by holding Neo in Mobil Avenue indefinitely and thus preventing him from completing the path of the One)?

From the Oracle's perspective the deal also makes sense. She can predict the future so she knew she would survive the attack. Note that when she explained why she had a new shell to Trinity and Morpheus she said

I made a choice, and that choice cost me more than I wanted it to.

_{The Matrix Revolutions transcript}

She didn't say that the choice cost her more than she expected (as if she was surprised by the attack), only that it cost her more than she wanted. Furthermore, the Oracle thought Sati was highly important for the future of the Matrix and so the sacrifice of her shell was worth it to her. This is explained in a conversation between the Oracle and Zion operative Ghost in the video game Enter the Matrix. Here's a clip of the conversation:

Here's a transcript of the relevant conversation:

Ghost: Can you tell me what happened to you?

The Oracle: Two programs that I trusted sold the termination code of my original shell to the Merovingian.

Ghost: Why did they do that?

The Oracle: For love. For the life of their child.

Ghost: You knew about it and yet you let it happen?

The Oracle: I had to.

Ghost: Why?

The Oracle: Because the child is important. I can't tell you why but I believe that one day the child will change both our world and yours forever.

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As an aside, one of your points of confusion appears to be

[the Merovingian's] "if you take something from me you will pay the price" part implies that he wasn't expecting Sati to end up with the Oracle in the first place

I disagree. I think it is much more likely that the Merovingian is referring to the Oracle taking away either his purpose or perhaps even the Keymaker rather than Sati (the latter of whom didn't belong to him anyway, either with or without his deal with Rama Kandra).

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¹ It would have made more sense for Rama Kandra to give the Merovingian the Oracle's termination code only once Sati was safely in the Matrix since Rama Kandra would still need to return to the machine world using the Trainman, but evidently the Oracle had already lost her shell by that time since we saw her new shell before Sati arrived in the Matrix. This is likely just an unfortunate limitation as a result of Gloria Foster (the original actress for the Oracle) dying before such a scene could be shot. Indeed, the whole Oracle shell plot line was probably only invented as a way to explain why the Oracle looked different.