Eh, I dunno. I felt that he showed lots of examples of becoming more confident and embracing his abilities in the first Matrix movie. There was the fight with Agent Smith in the subway, where he didn't run, and instead turned to fight. There is the fact that he decided to come up with that plan to break Morpheus out of the Agent facility. There is the way that he consistantly resisted, and defied the Agents, Smith in particular, like when he was about to die and said "My name...is NEO" *jump and smash to escape* It wasn't just after he came back from the dead and was able to super hack things. It was a progression. I personally thought it was portrayed pretty well actually.Relish in Chaos said:I mean, I love The Matrix, but, ignoring the fact that he's played by Keanu Reeves, Neo remains as the same stoic and unsure hacker throughout the film, up until the final confrontation where he's revived or whatever by Trinity's kiss and goes all "badass Matrihax" on Agent Smith's ass. Then, at the end and in the sequels, he's all of a sudden this confident freedom fighter fully embracing his role. It just seemed so quick, and there's no real reason for Neo to be so much better than the other people in the Matrix other than Morpheus (and the Oracle, correct me if I'm wrong) thinks so. He's not more intelligent, skilled or brave than the others. He just simply is.
As for the part about him simply being better at it in the later ones...well...apparently that was explained by the Architect in that long, monotone, droning speech he did, saying that Neo was born (programmed, whatever) with a higher level of control of the Matrix coding. That this was by design. He was sort of a failsafe. Now, considering that the Oracle is the one that taught the humans, and Morpheus about The One, she was basically shaping their belief system to coincide with Neo's higher ability with Matrix manipulation. He was able to do the stuff he did easier, and faster than the others, because he had a higher level of control/access to the Matrix coding. At least that's the gist I got from the movies, and it's reasonably feasible based on the reality of the setting.
Yeah, I'm gonna agree with you about the Harry Potter thing. When I read the books, and watched the movies, I got a definite "magical jock" feel from Harry. He didn't really do anything in school, but was really good at their sport, so he was just loved by all of them. He never actually DID magic for like, the first 4-5 books really. He might whip out his wand at the end and cast 1 spell, perfectly timed. But for the most part, he was a thug. And I use that term simply to indicate someone who uses physical ability instead of mental. Not slamming his morals or personal character or anything.Relish in Chaos said:A similar thing goes for Harry in Harry Potter. He survived Voldemort's Killing Curse on a mixture of luck and...his mother's love (WTF; I know it's magic, but still?), and seems to have gotten this far due to Dumbledore's favouritism, but Hermione Granger was always much better at magic than him and actually worked for it. I think I heard someone say that the reason Harry was the protagonist and not Hermione was because a male protagonist would get more attention. But now that I think about it, Hermione would make a better protagonist than Harry: it would give more of a reason for Malfoy to hate the main character (Malfoy pretty much hates Harry just because he rejected his offer of friendship and sided with a poor boy and a "Mudblood"), and it would show a new perspective on a protagonist of children's books who was actually somewhat of an "insufferable know-it-all", as Snape put it, who has to learn to show more humility and whatnot. Just a thought.
What do you think?
As to the basic question about the Chosen One trope in general? I think it's like any other trope. It can be a great tool, if used properly, and a terrible crutch if used poorly. So, really I don't see anything wrong with that trope specifically, just in it's execution in media.