10 Movie Characters That Mean More Than You Think

6. Seraph - The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions

Seraph (Collin Chou) is one of the coolest and most memorable characters from the Matrix sequels, though it's also fair to say that most viewers simply think of him as that badass martial artist program who protects the Oracle (Gloria Foster) and holds his own against Neo (Keanu Reeves).

But in fact, there are some sly hints throughout the films that Seraph is far more than just a strong fighter.

Chiefly, he claims to have defeated Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in the past, which in conjunction with Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) telling Neo in the first movie that everyone who stood their ground against an Agent has died, suggests he's more than just your average entity.

In Revolutions, Seraph is referred to as "wingless" by several characters, and the Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) calls him "Judas", implying Seraph was once under Merv's employ before rebelling and siding with the Oracle.

While that's everything the movies give you about Seraph's mysterious past and origins, the Wachowskis-directed MMORPG The Matrix Online delved deeper into Seraph's backstory, speculating that he was an Agent in the very first version of The Matrix.

In this version, the Agents resembled angels, and in addition to the name Seraph being a truncated version of the word "seraphim" (angel), it's implied that Seraph had his wings removed while being tortured following a disagreement with the Merovingian.

This explains not only Seraph's name and the numerous references to his wings in the movies, but also how he's able to fend off both Agent Smith and Neo, being a former Agent and all.

While a popular early theory was that Seraph was himself one of the previous Ones in an earlier version of The Matrix, we have to defer to word of God here, especially as the Wachowskis were intimately involved in the creation and development of The Matrix Online.