History Characters / Inception

** Cobb "The Extractor": '''The Mastermind''', '''The Con Man''', and surprisingly, '''The Wild Card''. He's the one who plans out the entire inception and dictates when and how the group goes off-script. Also, he's the one who tricks Fischer into thinking he, Ariadne, and Arthur are actually part of his mind security and not the one's infiltrating his mind. [[spoiler:And the primary reason why the entire Inception goes off the rails is because his unresolved guilt about accidentally making his wife, Mal, commit a PsychicAssistedSuicide manifests in "Mal" showing up to sabotage the plan.]]

A professor of real life architecture Dom Cobb learned a lot from to build dream settings. Despite not approving of Cobb's lifestyle as a thief, he nonetheless supports him when he can.

* AmbiguouslyRelated: He's Cobb's family as he refers to him as grandpa to his kids, though it's never made clear if he's Cobb's father or Mal's, though Miles' residence in France might imply the latter.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Not the worst example of it, and it even contributes to a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}}. Think about it: he's rich enough that not only can he outright ''buy an entire airline'', but did so on almost zero notice, implying he's also well-connected enough that he was able to fast-track whatever governmental approval needed for such a purchase. He's also able to set up, from Japan and in a similarly short timeframe, a network which will allow him to get the [[spoiler:murder charge against Cobb thrown out]] pursuant to a go/no-go phone call from him.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Not the worst example of it, and it even contributes to a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}}. The other example is how he is getting the [[spoiler:murder charges on Cobb erased]].

** Cobb "The Extractor": '''The Mastermind''' and '''The Con Man''' since he's the one who plans out the entire inception and dictates when and how the group goes off-script. Also, he's the one who tricks Fischer into thinking he, Ariadne, and Arthur are actually part of his mind security and not the one's infiltrating his mind.

** Ariadne "The Architect": '''The New Kid''' with hints of '''The Hacker''' given that she's the one who designs all of the dreams the team goes into and can thus relay any information about where hidden paths and back entrances are.

* Fiction500: Even more than Saito. He's so rich that should he not break up his company it will become an energy monopoly that controls half the world, and that's not even counting his off-hand comments about his wallet being worth more than $500 and being insured for $10 million in the case of kidnapping.

->''"At the end, he called me to his deathbed. He could barely speak; but he took the trouble to tell me one last thing. He pulled me close... and I could only make out... one word: Disappointed."''

* AntiVillain: Type IV. He's only a "villain" in so far as he's inheriting his father's legacy of creating a monopoly and his subconscious generates miltarized projections.
* CrazyPrepared: Cobb and his team are surprised to find out he has trained his subconscious to generate miltarized projections in case an extraction is attempted on him, which makes the inception mission considerably more difficult.
* DeadpanSnarker: Upon realising he's been kidnapped on the first dream level, Fischer just lets out a resigned "[[SarcasmMode wonderful]]".
* InadequateInheritor: He believes he's this to this father, as despite being set to inherit the monopoly he can't help but fear he's just a "disappointment" that got it only because he was the sole heir.

->'''Played by:''' Creator/TomHardy, Creator/TomBerenger (Browning disguise)

** Ariadne is [[TheChick the only woman in the group]] and based on her team role as the Architect, i.e., the imaginative one who is tasked with building the complex world of the dreams, she could be TheSmartGuy. But narratively, she serves as TheLancer: she is the only one to see just how bad Cobb's [[spoiler:Mal projection]] has gotten and the only one to push Cobb on the issue rather than silently acquiesce. She was not supposed to go inside the dream as a promise Cobb made to her professor, but she insists telling Cobb that someone in there needs to know the truth in order to know when and why things would go south. She even gives Cobb an ultimatum: let her join or tell Arthur. Cobb chooses the former, cementing her in this role.

* TheChick: This would be her role on the team as their sole female member who is also the youngest and least experienced.

* CriticalResearchFailure: In-universe example, Arthur fails to find out that Fischer has had mental training to protect his subconscious from infiltration - arguably the most important piece of information needed when planning to infiltrate someone's dream.

* BreakingTheFellowship: [[spoiler: Implied. But they seem to be going their separate ways at the end.]]

** Ariadne is [[TheChick the only woman in the group]] and based on her team role as the Architect, i.e. the imaginative one who is tasked with building the complex world of the dreams, she could be TheSmartGuy. But narratively, she serves as TheLancer: she is the only one to see just how bad Cobb's [[spoiler:Mal projection]] has gotten and the only one to push Cobb on the issue rather than silently acquiesce. She was not supposed to go inside the dream as a promise Cobb made to her professor, but she insists telling Cobb that someone in there needs to know the truth in order to know when and why things would go south. She even gives Cobb an ultimatum: let her join or tell Arthur. Cobb chooses the former, cementing her in this role.

* MovingBeyondBereavement: Throughout the film, Cobb's dreams are haunted by Mal's shade, a reflection of him being unable to move on from her death. However, in the finale, he is able to confront her and finally admit the AwfulTruth: [[spoiler: he's directly responsible for the real Mal's death, having forced her to leave Limbo by planting the idea that the dreamworld wasn't real - only for her to become convinced that the real world was a dream as well and commit suicide in an attempt to wake up]]. Furthermore, Cobb acknowledges that the shade is just his best effort at recreating his wife in his dreams - but it's nowhere near as good as the real thing. [[spoiler: After this confrontation, Mal troubles him no further.]]

-->'''Saito''': "No room for tourists on these jobs".\\
'''Eames''': ''[smiling]'' Don't be silly.