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Trinity tells Neo (via his computer) to

"Follow the White Rabbit"

A few minutes later, Neo is invited to a club and although he initially refuses, he changes his mind when he sees that one of the would-be clubbers has a white rabbit tattoo.

How could Trinity have known that Neo would see this tattoo?

enter image description here

Valorum
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  • Are you doubting that Trinity knew Dujour would turn in such a way as to expose the tattoo on her back? – Null May 17 '16 at 15:59
  • @null - It just seems a bit tenuous – Valorum May 17 '16 at 16:38
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    Note: in the draft script for Matrix Reloaded it is revealed that these guys are Redpills, covertly keeping an eye on Neo. I'm not sure if that sort of answer is what you're looking for so I'll just leave it as a comment. – DavidS May 17 '16 at 16:38
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    @DavidS - That would be an excellent answer. – Valorum May 17 '16 at 16:50
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    "What happened happened, and couldn't have happened in any other way" – Mindwin Remember Monica May 17 '16 at 21:15
  • I always thought the girl with the tattoo was somehow with (or sympathetic to) Morpheus' crew- she got the tattoo so Neo would follow her to Trinity. Unfortunately I have no direct evidence of this but it seemed to make sense at the time. – Nu'Daq May 17 '16 at 21:24
  • @Nu'Daq - I'm waiting for DavidS to turn his comment into an answer so I can upvote it and mark it as accepted. – Valorum May 17 '16 at 21:40
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    I always assumed that the girl with the tattoo was in league with Trinity and the whole thing was as setup. I thought it was implied. – DCShannon May 17 '16 at 22:37
  • @Mindwin - Now that would be an excellent answer. – Mazura May 17 '16 at 23:28
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    Choi & DuJour = "The choice of the day". – Valorum May 17 '16 at 23:45
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    Are we certain that Trinity didn't write some "white rabbit tattoo on Of the Day's left shoulder" code herself? – Wad Cheber May 18 '16 at 05:25
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    Pursuing this line of thought a bit further - how did Trinity know that Thomas Anderson (that's his real name, dammit) wouldn't take her instructions too literally and trail a few feet behind Of the Day for the rest of his life, rather than following her to the club and then ignoring her to become a wallflower so he could meet Trinity? – Wad Cheber May 18 '16 at 05:29
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    Related: How did Trinity know that Choi would invite Neo to the club? – Wad Cheber May 18 '16 at 06:30
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    I always assumed that Choi and DuJour were explicitly sent by Trinity to get Neo. – ewanm89 May 18 '16 at 11:26
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    This is definitely the most awesomest of awesome threads on the web (matrix?) ever #fact –  May 18 '16 at 22:56
  • @PedroStephano - I'm glad you approve :-) – Valorum May 18 '16 at 23:00
  • Trinity could have just said, "go to the nightclub you're about to be invited to". The truth is simply this: It made for better cinema, both thematically and as an intriguing puzzle for the audience. – Django Reinhardt Jul 11 '21 at 00:32
  • @DjangoReinhardt - She doesn't know if the computer is secure. If she point-blank tells him where to go, then she has to wait there (exposed) until he arrives. – Valorum Jul 11 '21 at 07:57

4 Answers4

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It's not like Trinity made a prophecy that would take years to be confirmed.

As she was talking via chat with Neo, she knew that a person with a White Rabbit Tattoo was headed towards Neo's appartment.

I can see two in-universe sources for this information :

  • If Trinity is outside the Matrix at this time, she could see it directly via reading the Matrix on the screen.
  • If she was inside the Matrix at that time, she could have been informed by her operator.

It's not that different from the scene where Morpheus sends a phone to Neo, calls him right as he opens the envelop, only to tell him that the Matrix' agents are coming his way.

So, Trinity clearly saw the tattoo coming.

Also, it's not a hidden tattoo. People with tattoos wear them with pride. Maybe not all of them, but Dujour's outfit is clearly designed to show her tattoo off.

Furthermore, if Trinity says something as curious as "Follow the White Rabbit" to Neo, he will be actively seeking every form a White Rabbit can take, because he is eager to meet with Morpheus. Which make Trinity's statement a [TVTROPE] self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now these are not decisive proofs, but add them together and you have a highly probable event.

Kalissar
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  • It's a good thing it wasn't a bit chilly out that night, or Dujour might've thrown on a jacket and Neo would never have known... – Darrel Hoffman May 17 '16 at 20:24
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    @DarrelHoffman: Since there was only like 10 seconds between the warning and the knock, if Dujour was wearing a jacket, Trinity could have simply used a different attribute. – Mooing Duck May 18 '16 at 00:07
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    @MooingDuck - "Follow the warm jacket" lacks the panache of "follow the white rabbit". – Wad Cheber May 18 '16 at 05:24
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    I always assumed Trinity told them to go and bring him to the dance floor so they could meet. Seemed the most logical. – NibblyPig May 19 '16 at 15:15
  • I always thought this was the correct explanation, with the only problem being, how does one outside the Matrix see tattoos on those in the Matrix? You never actually see a video feed of what's going on in the Matrix, just the falling symbols, some of which are decoded. If this decoding includes minor physical attributes like tattoos it seems like this would be way too much information. –  May 19 '16 at 20:58
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    It just had to be TV Tropes didn't it? Wikipedia has a perfectly good article on self-fulfilling prophecies, but nope. If I'm not out in two hours, send a search squad. – Pharap May 20 '16 at 03:19
  • @Michael - Actually you see footage of what the falling script looks like to the crew in the fight scene between Neo and Morpheus – Valorum May 20 '16 at 16:31
  • @Valorum I was thinking of this conversation: Neo: Is that - Cypher: The Matrix? Yeah. Neo: Do you always look at it encoded? Cypher: Well you have to. The image translators work for the construct program. But there's way too much information to decode the Matrix. –  May 20 '16 at 19:17
  • @Michael - Indeed. Note how crappy the image-quality it when you're viewing the Matrix via the code. I reckon you could still make out a prominent tattoo though. – Valorum May 20 '16 at 19:42
  • Why didn't Trinity just tell him to go to the nightclub? – Django Reinhardt Jul 11 '21 at 00:34
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I don't think Trinity knew Neo would see the tattoo, but she knew there was a good chance he'd see it. On his computer, Trinity typed:

Follow the white rabbit.

Knock, knock, Neo.

Neo hears the knock on his door immediately after Trinity told him about the white rabbit and the knock. Trinity connected the white rabbit with the door knock in Neo's mind and made it more likely he'd notice it.

Dujour's clothing is revealing enough that the tattoo is always visible, even when she's just standing next to Choi. We can still see it (barely) in a different shot during the scene (taken from this Youtube video):

White Rabbit tattoo

The tattoo would be even more obvious without the shadow and if the camera was focused on Dujour instead of Neo. Trinity knew the tattoo was highly visible because she and other Matrix hackers can see into the Matrix from the real world. Her view of the Matrix would be in green code, but that same view is good enough for Cypher to identify "blondes, brunettes, and redheads" in the Matrix from it.

Even if Dujour didn't hug Choi and expose her tattoo to Neo (and Neo declined to go with them), there's still a good chance Neo would see it when Dujour turned around to walk away from Neo's door and go to the club. Neo would just have to keep his door open long enough to watch Dujour turn away.

Trinity wanted Neo to follow Dujour since she would lead him to a noisy club, which would be an ideal meeting place to talk about the Matrix. But even if that failed (because Neo didn't see the tattoo and didn't go to the club), Trinity still had control of Neo's computer and could try to get him out of his apartment some other way. She could, for example, tell him via his computer

Didn't you see the white rabbit on the girl? Follow her.

Obviously this is less satisfying plot-wise, but it works perfectly well in-universe. Alternatively, Trinity could have explicitly set up a meeting with Neo via his computer, ordered pizza delivery for him and told him to follow the pizza guy, etc. The Agents didn't pick up Neo until the next day while he was at work, so Trinity had all night to get Neo out of his apartment and coax him into meeting her.

Null
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  • Except that the pizza guy wouldn't have been going to the exact club where Trinity was hiding out – Valorum May 17 '16 at 17:15
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    @Richard She doesn't need to get him to the exact club, she just needs to get him to a good place to talk (which could be any club, or a bar, etc.). She could have told him to follow pizza guy to his car, then take the taxi waiting for them there, etc. Neo is curious about the Matrix and that curiosity will help her get him to a place where they can talk. – Null May 17 '16 at 17:23
  • I may be mistaken, but surely the whole point of the rabbit scene was to lead Neo to where Trinity was, not just to get him out of the house – Valorum May 17 '16 at 19:31
  • @Richard I've always assumed Trinity was not jacked into the Matrix when she contacted Neo on his computer. The scene just before Neo's apartment scene is the one in which she escaped from the Agents and jacked out. I don't think she was already at the club -- it would look really weird for her to be on a laptop in that noisy club! Instead, I think it's more likely that she contacted him while not jacked in, then jacked in and went to the club when she saw he went with Choi and Dujour. If he hadn't gone with them, she would just need to lure him to any other club and go to that one. – Null May 17 '16 at 19:45
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    I read it differently. She was on her laptop talking to neo. She tells him to follow the rabbit and then heads off to the club (after fleeing from an Agent). As David has pointed out, in another version of the sequel script, we learn that DuJour and Choi are Redpills. Even if they weren't at the time, they were most likely in league with Trinity. – Valorum May 17 '16 at 19:53
  • @Richard So the first scene of the movie, in which the policemen attempt to arrest Trinity, occurs at the same time that Neo receives Trinity's "follow the white rabbit" message? So then Trinity escaped from the police and the Agents by jacking out in the telephone booth, only to jack right back in and go to the club where she met Neo? – Null May 17 '16 at 22:39
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    Well, it's clearly not happening in precisely chronological order or the policemen couldn't have "already been dead", even though we see the fight scene afterwards. – Valorum May 17 '16 at 22:41
  • @Richard - also using the "White Rabbit" also links with Morpheous's later reference to Alice in Wonderland about seeing "how deep the rabbit hole goes..." when choosing the red pill. That would also make a link to the so-called "RedPills" –  May 17 '16 at 23:11
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    @Richard: That’s not how Agents think. “the policemen are already dead” just means that at that point of time their dead is inevitable (you remember how Agent Smith likes that word?). There doesn’t have to be a unique time scale in the Matrix (there isn’t even in the real world). All that matters for Agents is whether they can still change the course or not. – Holger May 18 '16 at 11:58
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    @Holger - If the policemen weren't already dead, the Agents would jump into them. Smith is saying that since there's no-one in the room that he can use as a vessel, that Trinity must have already killed them. – Valorum May 18 '16 at 12:01
  • @Richard: maybe it doesn’t help jumping into them right in the moment they get their neck broken or a similar deadly injury. After all, they can’t prevent a body from dying. That’s exactly what I said, they don’t care about the actual health status, only whether there’s still enough time to jump in and change the course. We never see them jumping into people already engaged in a fight; they always jump into a bystander before engaging. Besides that, at the beginning of the movie, they still care not to change bodies in front of other people; it’s only at the end when they don’t care anymore… – Holger May 18 '16 at 12:13
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    @Holger - I think if you were to ask the question "Why didn't the Agents jump into the policemen arresting Trinity", I'd be forced to quote Smith that they were already dead. I see no reason to disbelieve that he's speaking literally. – Valorum May 18 '16 at 12:19
  • I always thought Cypher was just fantasising about the "blondes, brunettes, and redheads". – BlindKungFuMaster May 19 '16 at 10:13
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Echoing DavidS's excellent comment

"In the draft script for Matrix Reloaded it is revealed that these guys are Redpills, covertly keeping an eye on Neo"

Although it's not official canon (since it comes from an earlier script version, still written by the Wachowskis but unfilmed), we learn in the Matrix Reloaded script v1 that both Choi and DuJour are in fact Redpills, he the Captain of the hovership 'Freedom' and she his trusted Lieutenant. Not only that, but it's made explicitly clear that they were working in concert with Trinity and Morpheus to assess and then rescue Neo.

That being the case, it would explain how Trinity knew that they would invite him to the club as well as explaining how Trinity knew that DuJour would prominently display her "white rabbit" tattoo to Neo at just the right moment.

THEY [Morpheus and Niobe] close for a kiss, when the FREEDOM'S captain suddenly jumps between them. It's CHOI - the NEO's supposed neighbor and hacking financier. Exuberant and oblivious, he joyfully gets in MORPHEUS' face.

CHOI: Bro, you [owe] us your asses! We saved you so hardcore you don't even know!

NIOBE smiles at Morpheus and fades back as BOOTH shouts his own praises. Morpheus turns to his less-mature peer.

CHOI: "So, you think you finally found The One, huh? Another One?"

DUJOUR, CHOI'S LIEUTENANT, pushes into their conversation, looking offscreen.

DUJOUR: Idiot, we helped him find him. Hello, Morpheus.

CHOI: Huh?

He looks at what she's seeing. His gaze halts on NEO. He's concentrating on TANK and his apparent girlfriend, who seems to be consoling him. He turns to see CHOI and DUJOUR, does a double-take, and his jaw drops open.

NEO: You?

CHOI is quick to resume his cool.

CHOI: In the flesh, so to speak.

DUJOUR: Welcome to the real world, Neo. I'm glad you're here.

CHOI: What do you think, Dujour? Should we take him with us?

DUJOUR: Definitely.

This also ties in nicely with the obsession shown by the redpills to the whole "Alice in Wonderland" mythos

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Valorum
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  • Eh, yeah. ^ That ^ :P – DavidS May 18 '16 at 08:43
  • @DavidS - I stole your answer, and for that I'm sorry but Wadcheber posted a near-dupe and I didn't want there to end up being any confusion. If you want to post your own answer using the quote above, I'd be quite happy to delete this. – Valorum May 18 '16 at 08:47
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    Not an issue. This answer is clear and well written, with appropriate citations. And I'm not much of a rep hunter. – DavidS May 18 '16 at 09:04
  • Hi Richard. Be aware that if you chose to accept this answer, I wouldn't mind at all. – Kalissar May 19 '16 at 11:00
  • @Kalissar - I'm sorely tempted to. The Wachowskis clearly had it in mind when they wrote the sequel (it survived both the first and second drafts) and it explains an awful lot about how they located Neo, how he supports himself financially, how Trinity knew where they'd go, etc etc. – Valorum May 19 '16 at 11:57
  • "Bro, you [owe] us your asses! We saved you so hardcore you don't even know!" And "the NEO"? Really? This script is awful! Is this translated from another language by any chance? – Lightness Races in Orbit May 19 '16 at 13:57
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit - Although I've no doubts of its authenticity, I do suspect that the original was a PDF that was scanned and then badly OCR'd. You'll be interested to hear that my copy is actually worse. Although I've put it into block quotes, I've actually cleaned up a few of the more obvious errors. – Valorum May 19 '16 at 14:24
  • Interesting. Reason I wondered about language is that there are subtle traces of specific international dialects of English in there. Perhaps subtle enough that I'm imagining it, though. – Lightness Races in Orbit May 19 '16 at 14:33
  • @lightnessracesinorbit - Both of the Wachowskis speak English (or at least what passes for English in America) as their first language. – Valorum May 19 '16 at 14:40
  • @Richard But the text could have been transcribed from somewhere else. It could have been re-Englishised from a non-English version originally prepared for whatever reason (international reviewers?). You never know. Also lol – Lightness Races in Orbit May 19 '16 at 14:43
  • I'll investigate. The use of language is poor enough that it merits futher study to work out what's happened. – Valorum May 19 '16 at 14:49
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I have no basis for this, but if you can hack the Matrix to insert a whole person with whatever armament and clothing you want. Wouldn't it be simple to add a static tattoo to a person, or graffiti on a wall, etc. Further, Trinity was not necessarily waiting at the bar. She could easily have been following, waiting for an opportunity to have a private conversation.

For that matter, she could have been having the console conversation with him from right outside his door on a texting phone. If she saw the rabbit, he likely would also. In this scenario, she didn't know where they were going, or that Dijour even planned to go clubbing. But it did get Neo out of the location were his IP and their conversation could have been traced to.

While I like the "earlier script" answers to this post, I wonder why a different Zionist person or team was any less risky than having Trinity confront Neo at his apartment without all the cloak and dagger.

Edit: Please disregard the placement of the tattoo, my thought developed as I wrote. My point is that I believe the group that Dijour was a part of were not Zionese. While not shown, Trinity observed the tattoo and from a local terminal, directed him to follow it. She did not know where they were going, she just needed him to get away from his IP location. She would have "met" him anywhere. It just happened to be a club.

Jammin4CO
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  • Are you suggesting that Trinity put the tattoo onto DuJour? I feel like I've completely misunderstood. – Valorum May 19 '16 at 11:58
  • Yes. Smith can manipulate Neo's mouth/skin. So we know that there is software functionality to modify the human appearance. This would be keeping with the covert and subtle tactics of the resistance pre-Neo. Being able to plant a specific image of a white rabbit allows Morpheus to introduce the Alice and Wonderland analogy later. – Jammin4CO May 24 '16 at 16:13
  • Smith can manipulate Neo's appearance because he's hard-wired into the Matrix (which they have total access to). I'm struggling to think of any time that the Zionese exhibit that same level of control. – Valorum May 24 '16 at 16:19
  • What about the events effects that took place immediately after Neo takes the pill. Are we seeing his perception, or does his arm actually change to a silver appearance? Is that the visual cue manufactured by the Zionese to trigger mind to let go of the virtual existence? Without body manipulation wouldn't Neo have bled out at the extraction of the bug? – Jammin4CO May 24 '16 at 17:05
  • According to the Wachowskis, those were hallucinations caused by the trace programme pill. They were only in Neo's mind – Valorum May 24 '16 at 17:18
  • I'm tempted to roll this back to the earlier version. You've effectively vandalised your own post and inserted a new answer. – Valorum May 24 '16 at 17:46
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    Interesting. I wonder what everyone else saw? Just a dude being trippy then poof disappears? – Jammin4CO May 24 '16 at 17:47
  • I rather assumed they just watched him die. Possibly worthy of a question on the main site. If you don't ask it, I will. – Valorum May 24 '16 at 17:51