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In The Matrix Revolutions, Agent Smith and the Oracle finally meet. Before he assimilates her, they have this conversation:

ORACLE: You are a bastard.

SMITH: You would know, Mom.

But earlier in the scene, Smith says the following:

The great and powerful Oracle. We meet at last.

...which implies they've never met. What exactly is their relationship, and why does he call her Mom?

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    Don't have a reference, but it's at least implied that all the programs are in some sense the "offspring" of the Oracle and the Architect.
    – Daniel Roseman
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 15:30
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    Given the quality of the rest of the movie's dialogue, I wouldn't be shocked if that was supposed to "witty."
    – TenthJustice
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 15:46
  • 24
    It's almost like the movie is kind of confusing and shabby...
    – Meat Trademark
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 16:18
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    @MeatTrademark - Whoah
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 18:21
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    I always assumed it's because she calls him a bastard and then he calls her mom - it's his indirect way of calling her a whore.
    – Natural30
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 22:08

3 Answers 3

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Per the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded:

The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being. Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection.

Thus, the answer was stumbled upon by another, an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche. If I am the father of the Matrix, she would undoubtedly be its mother.

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  • 2
    Precisely what I was going to say. :-)
    – MikeV
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 18:35
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    Which raises the question if Smith actually managed to assimilate the Architect as well ...
    – bitmask
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 18:57
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    @bitmask It's hard to imagine how: there's 2 doors between the architect and the door to his room, the Keymaker was needed to get through both and he's dead.
    – Crow T Robot
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 19:00
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    I'd also add that in the first movie, Smith acts in a much more human way than the other agents do. It stands to reason the he was special in that regard, and likely was created by the Oracle.
    – Kratz
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 20:54
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    @Kratz: He was special in that regards because he and Neo are both the remainders of the equations used to generate the matrix
    – slebetman
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 21:26
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I understood her being called the mother of Smith to mean that the oracle reproduced Smith after he was destroyed in the first movie because she saw the potential for him to create the conditions wherein peace could brokered between humans and the machines. I.e. she reproduced Smith with far greater powers to be a kind of computer virus that would lead to the peace Neo effects at the end of Revolutions.

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    No, Smith explains to Neo in Reloaded that he was flagged for deletion but was "compelled to disobey" and became an exile. And the Oracle clearly opposes Smith so why would she "reproduce" him?
    – Null ♦
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 21:32
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I think it is because he swallowed Sati and that's where "cookies need love" also comes from. So it's rather the thought of Sati, than Smith's.

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    The Oracle wasn't Sati's mother.
    – Valorum
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 15:42
  • @Richard Depending on how you interprete the accepted answer she kind of was - in a more metaphorical way. But while we see Sati's "real" mother, we are talking about bits and bytes here, so the Oracle could be called Sati's mother, or her grandmother, or whatever...
    – BMWurm
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 15:48
  • Actually I think she adopted Sati. When Neo meets the Oracle the first time you see a bunch of children at the Oracles's place. And when Neo brokes the vase, she say's : ' Don't worry about it, I'll have one of my kids fix it'. Maybe the Oracle was hiding exiles that way, and Sati became one of them, so that she can avoid being deleted.
    – Guest-apo
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 18:39
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    @Guest-apo - Her "kids" are all children who've been rescued from the Matrix rather than being adopted by her. They're seen in the webcomic Broadcast Depth.
    – Valorum
    Commented May 20, 2017 at 10:00

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