MOVIE THEORY
We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question About Inception
It’s not about whether the top stops spinning
As Cobb walks away from the spinning top to see his kids, it seems to slow, teeter, and wobble. The screen cuts to black before we see if it regains its spin or falls fully to the table. Many assume that if it falls, Cobb has returned to the real world, reuniting with his kids after a long absence.
The common question viewers ask is: Is he in the real world? Is Cobb, the futuristic Odysseus, finally returning home, or is he a fool succumbing to the very horrors he warned his students against?
The first time I watched Inception, I believed the top was about to fall, confirming Cobb’s return to reality. But this scene lingered in my mind for years, as my strange brain often revisits such moments.
It doesn’t matter if the top falls
What truly matters is that he stopped watching. He no longer cares which version of reality is in. This is the only reality which matters because it is the only reality in which his kids exist.
Cobb explains a totem’s purpose is to check for reality, but he never says the top would never stop spinning for him. That’s how it behaved for Mal. It was always Mal’s…
