History WMG / Inception

No "so-called 'reality' was all Cobb's dream", no "Mal planted an inception in Cobb." Everyone lives, no one is trapped in limbo for eternity, the inception on Fischer Jr. was successful, Saito undid Cobb's arrest warrant, Cobb was reunited with his children, Ariadne paid off her student loans, everyone on the team became best friends, and after they job they all got together for an epic party where they got massively drunk on wine that is more expensive than we will ever know. (Also at said party, Arthur hooked up with Ariadne.) They all lived happily ever after.

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g6g2mvItp4 It all makes sense.]] Weird clothes, curiously empty streets, Tsundere woman manifesting weaponry out of thin air, teleporting, said woman's superhuman strength, etc. Or they're in Limbo. The woman even manages to be in multiple places at once.

[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g6g2mvItp4 It all makes sense.]] Weird clothes, curiously empty streets, Tsundere woman manifesting weaponry out of thin air, teleporting, said woman's superhuman strength, etc. Obviously they've managed to suppress the projections. Or they're in Limbo. What's not clear is if the woman is real, or a projection.

* [[http://clothesonfilm.com/inception-jeffrey-kurland-costume-qa/14317/ Jossed.]]

Will fill this out once this troper sees the movie.

[[WMG: The kids at the end are just memories]]
They're wearing the same clothing that they were in all of the flashbacks!

* Supporting note: the projections ''never attack Cobb.'' Cobb shoots them, but they never shoot back directly at him.

If Fischer was trained enough to have subconscious mooks defend him, he would have been able to recognize when he was in a dream and remember it (Ariadne could do this with what's shown as minimal training). Since he isn't, we can assume that those weren't part of his subconscious. Ariadne knew about Cobb's obsession with Mal, and Cobb knew that she wanted to help him get rid of it; Saito offered to help him see his kids again if the mission was successful. Since both of these had been parts of his subconscious for so long, he sent out his own mooks to sabotage their mission.

** There '''were no''' murder charges. This was lampshaded when Moll hung a big fat lampshade on "A bunch of people chasing you around the world" when he was in "limbo". She might not even be dead, just on the other side of a messy divorce or something like that. All we saw was a long, long dream from a guy who inserted the people around him into it, including the Asian man who had a propensity to make phone calls (so his 'phone call' at the end was just something he's '''been''' doing the whole time Cobb was asleep)

'Remember you told me you had a dream about us growing old together?'

* Or, the wobbling top signifies that Cobb is losing his sence of reality, and he is still in a dream but doesn't realize it.

* That makes so much sense.

It's all in the title. I usually hate "characters are the same because they share an actor" WMGs, but this is so damn close: [[http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/snl-digital-short-the-mirror/224715/ Sorry, Non-Americans, there isn't even a version on Youtube.]]

Now, up to this point we can be certain that in the world Cobb is in when he gets on the plane, the top will fall over. Since the top falls over in someone else’s dream, it is already a given that levels one, two, three, [[spoiler: and four]] are dreams.

From this point of view, it doesn't matter at all, if Leos Character is in a dream inside the movies realm, since the movie itself is basicly dreamed up by Nolan himself. The best clue for that is Hans Zimmer's awesome soundtrack. The main theme of it is a slowed version of the wake-up music the characters hear inside a dream, so when we, the audience hear it, it means we are counted down to wake up. Also, as stated in the movie, we don't see the "beginning" of the plot(i.e. dream), we are more or less thrown into the movie( and any movie for that matter) and when we finally get to the movies conclusion ... it ends abruptly. Never mind if Leo's totem falls or not, we are given to understand it is useless anyway (since it is not his own). The movie is frakking brilliant.

From this point of view, it doesn't matter at all, if Leos Character is in a dream inside the movies realm, since the movie itself is basicly dreamed up by Nolan himself. The best clue for that is Hans Zimmer's awesome soundtrack. The main theme of it is a slowed version of the wake-up music the characters hear inside a dream, so when we, the audience hear it, it means we are counted down to wake up. Also, as stated in the movie, we don't see the "beginning" of the plot, we are more or less thrown into the movie( and any movie for that matter) and when we finally get to the movies conclusion ... it ends abruptly. Never mind if Leo's totem falls or not, we are given to understand it is useless anyway (since it is not his own). The movie is frakking brilliant.

What was Cobb's totem before Mal died? Well, every time he is 'found' by Saito's search team, he is carrying two things: the top and a gun. I don't think anyone else touches his gun. Unlike the others, when he uses a gun it's generally the same one. Rather than drop his gun, he shoots his partner in the head.

The subconscious is a shared dreamspace, and in convincing Mal that the world was fake, Cobb also accidentally performed the same inception on himself. That's why he's so obsessive about the top in the real world, why we're shown him spinning the top and pointing a gun at his own head until it falls, and why certain things (the man who hosts the collective dream in Mumbasa talking about a "leap of faith" is the one that springs to mind) are shot with a lot of meaning despite reality-- these are just things that happen in life, but Cobb takes them as hints that he's still dreaming because of the inception, like when you learn a new vocab word and suddenly you see it everywhere. Mal in the other levels of the dream just represents Cobb's guilt over her death and is thus {{yandere}}, but the Mal in limbo represents the inception as well, as she tries to convince him that his world is no more real than limbo. (You could also say that Ariadne shooting this Mal is undoing the inception, but I think that Cobb undoes it himself in his "shade" speech.) So the final shot, like a lot of people have said, is about him finally recognizing reality as itself.