List of Minor Characters in The Matrix Series - Spoon Boy and The Other Potentials

Spoon Boy and The Other Potentials

“Spoon Boy” (played by Rowan Witt) is one of the children that is present when Neo meets the Oracle. Spoon Boy later appears in the Matrix comic “Artistic Freedom”. He has a clean-shaven head and is dressed in the traditional garb of a Buddhist monk and he speaks with an Australian accent. The children are all bluepills who will someday become redpills and appear only in The Matrix, although it is presumed that he was freed eventually as he requests the Kid to give a real spoon to Neo in Zion in The Matrix Reloaded.

Spoon Boy is the only one of the “potentials” with a speaking role.

When Neo is taken for the first time into the Matrix after having been unplugged, he goes with Morpheus to meet the Oracle. In her apartment Neo is left waiting in a room where some children are manipulating inanimate objects with their minds; they are introduced to him as “the other potentials”. One boy is reading a Chinese book, a girl is playing chess and another girl is working on her computer. Two girls are floating toy blocks. One of the kids is bending spoons; he imparts some philosophical statements to Neo:

Spoon Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon; that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon Boy: Then you will see, it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Neo then takes one of the boy’s spoons, and is able to telekinetically bend it himself.

In The Matrix Reloaded, before Neo boards the Nebuchadnezzar, Kid hands a package to him, saying:

“One of the orphans made me promise to give it to you, he said you’d understand”.

Neo unwraps it, to find that it is a crudely made, battered metal spoon, presumably sent by Spoon Boy.