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In the opening (and one of the closing) scenes of The Matrix Reloaded, Trinity jumps backwards out the window of a skyscraper shooting at Agent Thompson, and he immediately jumps out after her, shooting wildly.

Image of Trinity falling and shooting Agent Thompson

Now, as Agent Thompson first saw her while he was on the elevator, he knows:

  • They're on a really high floor, and presumably that there's nothing but tarmac below.
  • Nobody but The One could survive such a fall, and she isn't.
  • She will die on impact.

With this in mind, apart from being a really cool shot to put in the trailer, why would Agent Thompson bother to try and shoot her to death instead of letting her fall to her death unaided?

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    "presumably that there's nothing but tarmac below." I don't think 'presumably' cuts it for the agents. Imagine if there had been a window cleaning trolley on a building across the street. Or perhaps Trinity was planning to deploy one of those 'clothes airfoils' to make a controlled landing. Or heck, maybe 'the one' was waiting below to catch her - what a chance to fire a few off at him! ..
    – Andrew Thompson
    Sep 25, 2014 at 7:39

2 Answers 2

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The Agents are 'immortal', reckless and unyielding.

In a chase scenario, and given the agents inability to die, why would an agent do anything other than to chase the target and confirm the kill? There is no risk on the Agents part, and even if he remained on the upper floor, he would have still needed to confirm the kill by checking the target has expired.

He has three options:

  • Walk down to the ground floor in his current 'host', wasting valuable time
  • Adopt another host on the ground floor somewhere, and find his way over to the corpse
  • Follow the target out of the window, matching velocity, keeping the target in sight at all times and continuing to barrage the quarry with bulletfire.

Which of these sounds more like the actions of an efficient killing machine?

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  • Couldn't have said it better myself! +1
    – Him_Jalpert
    Sep 25, 2014 at 17:10
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    "No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?"
    – Vince Bowdren
    Sep 26, 2014 at 9:33
  • They aren't reckless. On at least one occasion we see them running away
    – user7812
    Nov 14, 2015 at 12:46
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There are a number of occasions, notably in the Animatrix short "Final Flight of the Osiris" and the webcomic "Run, Saga, Run" where a redpill has survived an extremely high fall onto a solid floor with no visible injury.

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Given that the agent is essentially immortal (e.g. it can simply take over a new body when its current one is damaged) there's absolutely no reason not to keep trying to kill Trinity until it's absolutely sure that she's absolutely dead.

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