“You take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

– Morpheus, The Matrix

A pivotal scene in The Matrix is when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn) presents Neo (Keanu Reeves) with a choice between taking two different coloured pills. Morpheus compares this journey to the adventures of Alice in Wonderland; taking the red pill will plunge Neo down the rabbit hole, representing a choice to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth. Symbolically, the red pill represents the journey of self-discovery. The blue pill means things remain the same.

I did a quick search, as is my nature, around themes in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The story is centred around Alice’s struggle to survive in the confusing world of adults. To understand the adult world, Alice must overcome the open-mindedness that is characteristic of children. She must narrow her view, her scope of the endless possibilities of the world to connect to the adult world. She must narrow her perspective of what’s possible. Alice in Wonderland is one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre.

Nonsense… No kidding…

I have this friend – she’s amazing – and one of her favourite movies is The Matrix. It’s just like her to like a movie about choices. About growth. About change. She’s a lot like Alice; she thinks adults can be ridiculous.

When I examine themes in The Matrix, I consider pill colour choices as follows:

– The blue pill is a sedative. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

– The red pill means you are unplugged. You are unplugged but you are fully charged. LFG.

What colour do you choose?