Matrix, The Easter Egg - Room 101

101 is binary for 5

In George Orwell's book 1984 (well at lest in theb Penguin Books pub.) Turn to page 303 (303 was the door number of the room Trinity was in) of 1984 and you will find the 2 + 2 = 5 formula introduced into the story line...I just thought it was neato to share.

Room 101 in the book 1984 is the place where people finally submit themself to doublethink and all of Ingsoc's ways. They do this by forcing the thought criminals to face their worst fear imaginable, making them betray their loved ones by begging the people who are torturing them to put their own loved ones to this fear instead of themselves. Maybe Thomas Anderson's room no. is this particular number because as Neo, he is the Matrix's worst fear.

this is true. glad no one is arguing because i heard it straight from aolTimeWarner tonight in a Matrix Reloaded plug. sweet

One other meaning for room 101. Assume it's base 2 (binary) and convert to base 10 (decimal), giving five. That puzzled me for a long time, because it isn't a number with much special significance in literature. Until I was hit with a blinding flash of the obvious, and realized that it *was*, if you were looking at the right tradition. The five wounds of Christ; the five Stations of the Cross; the five points of the pentacle (which is symbolic of all the other Christian fives--it's only demonic when inverted, which most people don't get). A number of other fives from Medieval Christian tradition, certainly. For a pretty fair representation of them, read a *good* translation (or the original, if you're up to a difficult linguistic task--Tolkien's is probably still the best scholarly version) of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." I don't mean that the other comments are wrong, and can't believe I didn't immediately remember Room 101 from "1984," having done my Doctoral work in literature . Rather, it's another layer of meaning . There's also a passage fairly early on in Carlo Castaneda's "Journey to Ixtlan" that's so on-the-money concerning disbelieving reality (it even mentions rabbits) that I can't imagine that the Wachowski's weren't aware of it. It may, for all I know, have been the germ from which the initial idea grew. About the only tradition they appear not to have drawn from is Hindu, which goes so far as to personify "the world pulled over your eyes" as an attar of a god, Maya. (I'm prepared to be proven wrong on that one, as I haven't actively thought much about it.) My guess would be that they didn't want to dilute the Christian symbology for an audience (and a bunch of nervous studio execs) to the point where they'd miss it altogether. It could simply be that they didn't think of it. After all, there are a number of things (character names come immediately to mind) drawn from Greek and/or Roman sources. Ship names tend, again, to be of Biblical derivation, and I won't gloss any here, as I'm sure it's been done to death elsewhere.

cyborg, pantagrams are satanic no matter how they're turned! how did jesus get 5 wounds?

The book Taking the Red Pill - Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix, says... 101--Neo's apartment number, reference to his being "The One." Note that it's written in binary code. I don't know though, 101 IS 5 in binary...

Freeza Frost, pentagrams are NOT always Satanic. The five points, I believe, are representations of the four elements and the spirit. When there is a single point of the star at the top, then this represents that the spirit is in control of the four elements and is not the Satanic pentagram. However, when the single point is at the both, then the elements are in control of the spirit, and chaos is the order and therefore a Satanic pentagram. Try looking at http://www.spellsandmagic.com/pentagrams.html if you think differently.

This is just a side note for those who don't know much about the pentacle. It was only converted to an evil symbol by those who chose to, but it was originally a sign symbolizing the elements, commonly used in 'witchcraft' when performing certain spells. Especially in Wiccan tradition.

Freeza, you're wrong. The Pentagram is actually never satanic, simply a symbolused, as described, to depict nature and the four elements, fire, earth, water, and air, and spirit. It was deemed "satanic" by the Christian Church in Medieval Europe. It IS a Wiccan symbol, and a symbol used in nature worship. But it has never had a satanic meaning by those who use it properly.

The Heart of the City hotel is basically the central core of the movie, really being the analogy for entering reality, the door into the matrix and as such is where the story starts and ends. Trinity (3) starts her search in 303 (3 x 101). Asthe matrix is about fate then it is probably not a coincidence that fate led her to this room. There is actually a link to Neo here. Neo lives in 101 (Number 5 in decimal). The sign for the heart of the city has one letter not working...... E as in abcdE, count em. Shows that fate is leading her there Tenuous I am sure but the whole film seems to be very subtle