Morpheus (The Matrix)

Morpheus
The Matrix character
First appearance	The Matrix
Last appearance	The Matrix Revolutions
Created by	Wachowski Siblings
Portrayed by	Laurence Fishburne
Information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Title	Captain of the Nebuchadnezzar
Fighting style	Budo Krav Maga Wushu

Morpheus /ˈmɔːrfiəs/ is a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. He is portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the films, and in the video game The Matrix: Path of Neo where he was the only actor to reprise his character's voice.

Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the creators of The Matrix franchise, instructed Fishburne to base his performance on Morpheus, a character in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman. At the studio's request, Gaiman later wrote "Goliath", a promotional short story set in the film's universe.

The name Morpheus is that of the god of dreams in Greek mythology, which is consistent with the character's involvement with the "dreaming" of the Matrix. The mythical Morpheus and his family, including two brothers (Phobetor and Phantasos), lived in a dream world protected by the Gates of Morpheus with two monsters standing guard. Beyond the gates were the River of Forgetfulness, beside which Morpheus once carried his father to hide in a cave, and the River of Oblivion. This theme of duality carries over to Morpheus in The Matrix, who offers Neo either a blue pill (to forget about The Matrix and continue to live in the world of illusion) or a red pill (to enter the painful world of reality).

In the Matrix films, Morpheus is the captain of the Nebuchadnezzar, which is a hovercraft of the human forces of the last human city, Zion, in a devastated world where most humans are grown by sentient machines and kept imprisoned in the Matrix, a virtual computer-generated world. Morpheus was once a human living inside the Matrix until he was freed.

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