My Take on Inception

Christopher Nolan pulled a page right out of the Sopranos' book with this one. For readers who haven't seen the movie yet, I suggest you navigate away from this page because i'm going to discuss the details.

As most of you know, the movie cuts off before we are able to verify Cobb's totem. The message we are supposed to get is that it is irrelevant whether Cobb is currently in limbo, or reality. The only thing that matters is that he got what he wanted most, to go home and see his children again. Limbo, or not, it was real to Cobb.

After that being said, some people still would like to know. I'm not completely sure but there are some things I would like to point out.

Either way, Cobb's totem would prove useless. The purpose of a totem is to tell if you are in the dream world, or reality. It works like this:

The totem is only known by the owner. He/she is the only person in the universe who knows it in and out. The exact, size, weight, ect. The architect of the dream would not be able to recreate a person's totem accurately because they don't have enough information about it. However, three people knew about Cobb's totem. Since he got it from his wife, she knew everything about it. He also told Ariadne the key to his totem. So Ariadne would be able to accurately recreate the totem in the dream world, and so would the projection of Mal. So whether the totem fell or not in the ending, it would not indicate a dream state or reality.

Secondly, the whole concept of limbo is incredibly confusing. When Mal and Cobb visited the first time, they were the only two inhabitants, leading me to believe that it is a collective unconscious. This is what I believe happened. In the order of events, Cobb and Ariadne wash up on the shore of what is supposed to be Limbo. It is the same world that Mal and Cobb had created thousands of dream years ago. They find Fischer, who along with Ariadne leaves limbo.Cobb then gets stabbed by Mal. Dying in Limbo is supposed to wake you up into the previous level of the dream state. There are many possibilities here. However, when Cobb arrives at whatever state Saito is in, he is the only one that washes up on the shore. Maybe being killed by Mal took him into a deeper level, where Saito resided. Since Saito was injured throughout all the levels, it is possible that he died in the first limbo before Cobb did. That is why he was extremely aged and Cobb was unchanged.

There are many ways it could have ended but I think this is the most likely. What are your thoughts?