One of the Most Confusing Things About The Matrix Sequels Actually Has an Answer

Following the break-out success of The Matrix in 1999, 2003 was the biggest year for the franchise by far, with its second and third installments, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both released that year along with the anime anthology tie-in The Animatrix. The two sequels also introduced many new characters into The Matrix universe, including the Kid as a young human freed from the machine’s artificial dream world and living in humanity’s last stronghold in the real world, the underground city of Zion. Kid also shows himself as Neo’s biggest fan as soon as he first appears in Reloaded, and the basis of his admiration for Neo was a big question that The Matrix franchise never really answered for fans, it just appeared out of nowhere.

That is, only if one never saw The Animatrix. A collection of nine individual anime short films expanding upon various aspects of The Matrix mythology, The Animatrix includes an entire short focused upon Kid’s origins and escape from the Matrix into the real world, titled Kid’s Story. Therein, Kid’s deep loyalty to and admiration of Neo is given its complete backstory.

The Animatrix Shows How Neo Freed Kid From the Matrix

Set between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, Kid’s Story focuses upon a teenage boy named Michael Karl Popper (voiced in the English dub by Watson) who has long sensed something being off in the world he lives in. He eventually learns the truth about the Matrix when he meets Neo in an online hacker chat room. The next day at school, Michael receives a call from Neo alerting him that the Matrix’s team of enforcers, the Agents, are onto him with a group them coming to apprehend him at school.

Michael ends up finding himself trapped on the roof of his school with the Agents closing in on him. Michael ultimately escapes by leaping off the roof, awakening in the real world while he a funeral is held for him by his family, friends, and school officials in the Matrix. Meanwhile, the newly awakened Michael receives a strong affirmation from Neo and Trinity (with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss voiced the two in the English dub), the duo commending him as the first person to free themselves from the Matrix all on their own, an act known as “self-substantiation” that was previously believed to be impossible. All of this leads right into Michael’s role as the renamed Kid in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

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Kid’s Loyalty to Neo Makes Much More Sense After The Animatrix

In Reloaded and Revolutions, Kid hero worships Neo for, in his view, being the one to free him from the Matrix. Neo, admittedly somewhat annoyed by Kid’s constant presence and desire to join the Nebuchadnezzar’s crew, tells Kid “You found me, I didn’t find you” and that “You saved yourself” to Kid’s belief that Neo pulled him out of his life-long stasis in the Matrix. This exchange between Neo and the Kid directly ties back into Kid’s awakening from the Matrix into the real world in Kid’s Story, with Kid thanking Neo for saving him and Neo affirming that he saved himself.

As one of the younger characters of The Matrix franchise, Kid has a more youthful outlook on Neo between the prophecy of Neo as the One and Kid’s direct contact with Neo that led to his escape from the Matrix. Had Kid been guided out of the digital fantasy world by Trinity or Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), he would surely have still be grateful, but the fact that Neo is already so much of a legend puts Kid’s hero worship of Neo into a fuller context. From Kid’s perspective, the man who can stop bullets simply by raising his hand, who defeated Agent Smith, and who many believe will end the war with the machine and save humanity, singled him out and pulled him into the real world. Kid probably understands Neo’s point that he walked through the door out of the Matrix, but he still identifies Neo as the one who showed it to him. For that, Kid will forever look to Neo as his personal hero.

Many Matrix Characters See Neo Like Kid Does

Kid is hardly the only character in The Matrix franchise who looks up to Neo. Early on in The Matrix Reloaded when the Nebuchadnezzar returns to Zion, an entire hallway of people in Zion showing their fealty to Neo as a returning hero and prophesied messiah. The latter is also very much how Morpheus has viewed Neo as far back as when he was still plugged into the Matrix as computer programmer Thomas Anderson, while Trinity, the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, and much of the population of Zion put Neo on the same kind of pedestal. The big difference with Kid is how much more personal his connection to Neo is.

From Kid’s perspective, Neo isn’t just the man who led him out of the Matrix, but the one whose guidance marked the beginning of what the Kid sees as his real life. Kid was the first person to achieve self-substantiation, but he sees Neo as an indispensable guide in enabling him to achieve a feat that once seemed an impossibility. Indeed, in being guided by Neo to his freedom via self-substantiation, the Kid arguably even sees Neo as having granted him a tiny sliver of his power as the One to accomplish something that even Neo himself was not able to do in his own exit from the Matrix. Kid’s Story in The Animatrix shows that Kid’s escape from the Matrix was a particularly unique instance of a formerly plugged-in person waking up, and with that, Kid’s hopeful, almost prayer-like line of “Neo, I believe” in the final showdown of The Matrix Revolutions is brought into focus, since Kid sees Neo in an even more heroic and messianic light than anyone else in The Matrix franchise.

The Matrix movies and The Animatrix are available to rent and buy on Amazon Prime Video.