INCEPTION Fan Theory: Why Making Cobb Leave The Dream And Go Back To His Family Was The REAL Inception

Inception is a film that has stuck with many fans since its release ten years ago. The haunting final shot of the movie has had people debating back and forth over whether Cobb was dreaming or not for the past decade and it’s become a massive talking point in the film theory community.

However, there may be an even deeper element to the entire movie that many have missed and throughout this post, we’re gonna be breaking down all the evidence that hints at Cobb being the Job. There are several lines laced throughout the film that suggest his friends and family are trying to get him to let go of the idea of his late wife which has held him back from being with his children.

From here on out there are Heavy Spoilers so if you’ve been living in a dream world and haven’t had a chance to check out the movie then I highly recommend that you check out now.

Inception Fan Theory

So since its inception, inception has inceptioned inceptions.

Sorry, what?

What I mean by that is that the movie is a multi-layered mission into the mind of a man’s subconsciousness based on the notion that an idea can be a dangerous thing.

This is something I’ve experienced myself and since rewatching the film for a big breakdown the reality of what’s going on has been gnawing away at me.

So in the film, we follow Cobb, an expert at stealing ideas who has been apparently handpicked to break into a newly appointed CEO to convince them to split their company apart.

Cobb succeeds in doing so and as a thank you, Saito (the owner of the aforementioned Corporations Competitor) pulls some strings at the American border so that Cobb can pass through it and be reunited with his children.

Cobb’s Troubles

Cobb hasn’t seen his children for years and, as we learn, he is consumed by guilt and regret, believing that he caused his wife’s death.

In the film, we discover that the two spent decades in their subconsciousness and during this Cobb planted the idea in her mind that their reality was wrong. This helped in getting her to wake up, however, this idea continued far past the dream and Mal, Cobb’s wife became obsessed with the notion that they were still in a dream and thus she committed suicide to wake up.

Mal staged the scene to look like Cobb had been complicit in her death and thus he fled the authorities.

Cobb just can’t get over her and throughout the movie, she ruins his plans, shows up at the wrong moment and almost traps him in the layers of his own subconscious. However, at the end of the movie, he finally lets her go and reunites with his family.

It seems like he came to this decision on his own but what if this itself was an Inception. What if letting her go was the entire point of the film and his friends staged the mission so that he believed he’d come up with the idea himself?

Does This Theory Stand?

Well, several clues point towards this.

Now we learn that Inception has to pretty much be inspired. You can’t just tell someone to think something as they will be able to trace this back and when we see the crew carrying out the operation in Fischer’s mind they do this by reinforcing the idea of his father so that when he reaches the final layer, it all comes together to plant one idea in his mind.

Though the target believes they have decided to do this themselves, they are actually manipulated into it through the repetition of certain things.

This is similar to how the layers work with Cobb.

Music

Now firstly is the big song that plays throughout the movie, Je Ne Regrette Rien. This French tune is dropped in at several points to signal to the team that a kick is about to happen and that they are running out of time.

On the surface, it’s a fun little song but it actually holds a lot of meaning behind it.

Firstly the song is about someone letting go of all the regrets they have in their life. They are moving on to something else and it is played to Cobb throughout the movie at several key points that could be subliminally telling him that he needs to move on from Mal.

I really can’t think of any real reason that this song was picked above any other song as all it seems to do is provide a signal to the team. So, they could’ve used this or Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley if they wanted to but the fact they stick with the French one shows its importance.

Mal herself is French so the idea of letting going of your regrets being sung in the same nationality that your regret centres around hammers this home.

Art

We also see early on a picture by Francis Bacon. This was actually one that the artist created after the death of his lover and the warped face on it symbolised that he was unable to fully recreate his lost love in all their glory. This mirrors how the Mal that Cobb created in his mind is a mere shadow of the real one and this painting could have been placed to subtly hint this idea to Cobb.

Numbers

In addition to this, the random safe code that Fischer gives at one point in the film is actually reused at several points. It appears as the woman’s phone number in the hotel and also the doors of the hotel rooms that the group stay in. This number is then used by Fischer himself as the safe code and thus it was planted into his mind by his random outburst which was reinforced.

Dialogue

Another big moment is a line that Miles says in the film. When visiting him, Miles says to Cobb “Come back to reality.”

At the time this is pretty much a throwaway line but it could be reinforcing the notion that Cobb needs to come back.

We see a similar tactic used in the film at one point when at the start of the dream it’s hinted to Fischer that his father wanted him to be his own man. Similar to the Miles moment this is a throwaway line but it is dropped so that when Fischer gets deeper into the dream, it hammers it home in his mind.

Hell, even the scenes in which Cobb says goodbye to his wife are similar to Fischer saying goodbye to his father. Both must let them go and Fischer’s father dies similar to how Mal does upon Cobb confronting her.

So we can see that one throwaway line uttered in a seemingly meaningless moment can be built upon the further into the dream you go.

Cobb at one point is told that he’s not one to judge people living in a dream world and this too could further the point in his mind that he needs to wake up and let go of what’s holding him back.

Cobb does seem to exist in a reality that is very much like a dream and he is chased by a strange agency which acts similar to how projections do in someone’s subconscious.

Now before I talk about these in more detail I need to talk about Saito.

Who is Saito?

Saito is arguably the person that actually adds to the theory of Cobb having to let go the most.

Now firstly the line “do you want to be an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone” is said three times throughout the movie. Similar to the three-layer dream, this forces Cobb to question whether he wants to live the rest of his life filled with regret, alone and away from his family or if he wants to go back to them.

If he holds onto the idea of Mal he definitely will end up like that and he will forever be fleeing from the strange agency.

Now we never learn who these are but they could be working for Saito to convince him that he needs to find safety and to trust him.

Saito even shows up to save him during this chase scene which seems completely out of the blue yet the more we think about it the more we know Saito was watching him.

Saito also takes away one of Cobb’s allies early on and though he seems like a threatening figure if this theory is true then Saito moving this man merely made him think that he should do the job with him.

I think the Old Man Filled With Regret line is very similar to the line about coming back to reality and the end of the movie in which Cobb comes face to face with Saito could be a revelation of that.

Here he sits opposite an old, lonely man and Cobb literally sees his own fate laid out for him, reminding him of what to do.

Now, this happens after his conversation with Mal but still, it shows that he is now seeing things that will continue to make him travel down this path.

Cobb could remain here but he’s told to take a leap of faith to return to the real world and be with his family.

This escaping of the dream juxtaposes what Mal wanted which was to pull him further into it.

An interesting line in the final conversation that the two have is that Mal says you promised that we’d grow old together and Cobb says that the two actually did in their shared dream.

This was one of his wedding promises to her and it may also be the truth that Cobb once knew but had forgotten.

We are also told in the film that a positive idea works better than a negative one and this too may be the reason why Cobb shutting down Mal feels like such a win.

Saito also touches Cobbs Totem which we learn pretty much invalidates it.

Doing this could be Saito deliberately letting Cobb know that dreams don’t matter anymore and that he should leave it behind.

Why Was Cobb Able to Travel?

And lastly is the fact that Cobb gets through customs at all. If this guy was really wanted for a murder I’m not sure any strings could be pulled to get him back into the country.

I actually believe that Cobb merely believed that he was wanted and that the entire time he just told people he was so that he wouldn’t have to face the truth and that he could return whenever he wanted to. He had just built Mal as an excuse not to as he couldn’t face his children because he knew that he had caused the death of their mother, this is why he constantly looks away whenever the projections of them try to look at him and he has been running because he just can’t face up to reality.

He finally gets through customs but nothing was really done and in the country, the police won’t be looking for him because they never were.

So in conclusion, Cobb is told through music, his friends, families and peers to let go of his regrets otherwise he will be an old man waiting to die alone.

On the job, he believes that he is the one who lets go of Mal and returns to his family. However, when we look at it for what it really is, the true inception was putting the idea in his head that he should return to his family, something he could only do after leaving his regrets behind.

Your Thoughts

And that’s the video, hopefully, I did my own inception here and made you agree but make sure you leave your comments below if you do or don’t. If you wanna watch a full breakdown of the film that points out all the easter eggs and awesome things in it then make sure you check it out after this.