Arguably one of Christopher Nolan’s most complicated movies, Tenet carries a lot with its story that is deliberately made to make the audience feel lost.
Throughout the film, our Protagonist is introduced to several characters but he learns very little about them so there is no way that things can be compromised. Ignorance is their best weapon and thus the less information that is provided, the more unlikely it is that Sator and the people from the future will be able to change things.
What this means though is that there are several different people who all have questions over their heads but if we look at the little clues we are given, it is possible to figure out who is who.
Doubles
Now the first person that I wanna talk about is the scientist from the future. Nolan has a habit of creating doubles in his films and this has been shown in movies like Memento with the multiple Lenny’s and John G’s.
The two Ra’s Al Ghuls, Bruce Wayne and Batman, Two-Face, the twins in the prestige as well as the two opposing magicians and so on.
In film, this is known as a Hitchcock Double and what the technique involves is placing doppelgangers in cinematic works that hint towards their relationship and so on. In TENET this of course appears in the two Kats, the two protagonists that fight one another and potentially Neil and Max being one and the same if you subscribe to that theory.
We will be discussing these ideas a lot through the video so I feel that they’re very important to bear in mind.
The Scientist
Now early on in the movie, we are introduced to a scientist. she’s named Laura on Google casting but Barbara if you check IMDB. Either way, they make it very clear that this is a woman who has been put in charge of investigating inverted objects and the science behind the algorithm.
Later on in the film, we discover from Priya that the scientist who actually invented the Algorithm itself was a woman from a future generation. Now firstly we have to take the term generations and define how long that actually is. Typically a generation is thought to be between 15-30 years and thus if we take it at its lowest value it is possible that a 50-60-year-old Laura discovered how to create the algorithm and then inverted it to send it back to her past self.
The planet at that point could also be at the point of destabilising due to global warming and thus things do line up. I think from the way that the film operates that it becomes clear that the future protagonist did know the scientist and this is how they were able to learn about them inverting the algorithm and sending it back to the past. They then took this information and used it to set up the domino pieces that would eventually lead to their past self stopping Sator from burying it.
Priyah saying that the scientist is she, very much plays on the idea of Hitchcockian doubles once more and leads me to believe that this specific gender was assigned because we have already met a scientist that is studying inversion and that they are one and the same.
However, there is another possibility and this is that it’s actually the scientist’s daughter. In the film when she first enters you can see that Laura is actually pregnant and thus it could be her child that grew up to study inversion and that she was the one who did it. This would mean that several generations could also pass and give the film more of a gap between the present events and the future.
Priya
Now as for Priyah, she initially starts off as an arms dealer that is using her husband as a front for her company. She points the protagonist in the direction of Sator and we later learn that she is actually working for Tenet. Now Priyah believes herself to be above all and actually in the inner circle of Tenet. In her eyes, she knows the truth about what’s going on, and who the other protagonists are and have been selected with tying up the loose ends.
However, she herself is a loose end, someone that could potentially leak information that could be found by the people in the future and thus she is a liability. Though she believes herself to be a queen, she’s actually a pawn, used by the Protagonist who even remarks on an arms dealer being the easiest trigger he’s had to pull. Therefore he has no issues with using her as a piece in the chess game rather than someone with actual power.
Thus, much in the same way that she used her husband as a front, The Future Protagonist used her as one to provide not only the information to himself and Sator so that he would start to collect the pieces of the algorithm and thus the Tenet team could steal them after they’d been assembled.
He does give Priyah an out that would allow her to survive the events of the movie but as she goes back on her word and attempts to kill Kat she seals her fate.
Is Priyah the Future Protagonist?
Now there exists a really good theory that was made by Speed Sable which states that Priyah is actually the scientist from the future. As stated she created the algorithm and then put in place this plan which would lead to Sator assembling all of the pieces so that the Protagonist could steal it, dissemble it and then with Ives hide the pieces so that they could never be found.
This, of course, fits in with the plan that she says the scientist lays out and her actions get her killed at the end of the movie which could be hinting at her taking her own life which we know that the scientist did.
It would also fit in with the aesthetic that the scientist is a woman and we also know from Priyah’s husband that she doesn’t mind using men as a front.
This really is a pick your poison with her and I’d of course love to hear which one you side with below.
Neil
Now as mentioned earlier, there exists a theory that Neil and Kat’s son Max are one and the same. I’ve already done a big breakdown on this so don’t want to just retread old ground but definitely check it out after this.
The main reason I want to bring it up though is that Nolan purposely had Robert Pattinson dye his hair and he also adopted an accent that was more in line with Kat’s so it is safe to assume that this was done on purpose for a specific reason.
Ives
Now the reason that I bring this up is that Ives adopts a heavy cockney accent in the film even Aaron Taylor Johnson who plays him is American.
Though this could be seen as his audition for Captain Price in a Call Of Duty movie, it actually could hint at him and Sir Michael Crosby being one and the same. Again this ties into the idea of Hitchcockian doubles and from what Crosby does in the movie we do get the feeling that he has knowledge of Stalsk-12.
Upon meeting him in the restaurant, Crosby discusses the secret soviet cities and also discusses Sator’s past which he knows a lot of details about. Sator is quite a private person and thus Crosby knowing this does hint at him perhaps having studied him closely.
Now another thing that he brings up is that there was an explosion at Stalsk-12 two weeks prior. After rewatching the movie it becomes clear that this conversation is of course referring to the climactic battle at the end of the movie and the explosion happens at the hypocentre.
Now it is possible that Crosby knew to have his surveillance keep an eye on the area because when he was a younger man he actually participated in the operation. Ives clearly was recruited by The Future Protagonist which is why he had no issue with him joining the splinter cell at the end of the movie even though he was a complete stranger.
Thus it does seem like the two could know each other and Ives may have taken his piece of the algorithm at the end and he eventually went on to ascend throughout the organisation until he was knighted and became a piece of the puzzle that would allow the Protagonist to carry out his mission.
Ives does say that if he ever catches the protagonist again that he’ll kill him but because of the way that everything has to happen the way that it happens if he is Crosby then he likely realises the irony in their conversation which is where the lethal British banter stems from.
We love you, Michael Caine.
Protagonist is CIA
Now the final theory that I’m a bit unsure of is that The Protagonist is actually his own contact at the CIA. We do hear the two talking on the phone (just before the protagonist meets Neil) and they do have similar accents.
At this point, the Protagonist is also thought to be dead due to taking his cyanide pill so it doesn’t really make sense as to why his CIA contact would not have any questions over this.
The opening of the movie also lets us know that the CIA know about the Opera Seige in advance and this is why they are working with Sator’s men. From Neil, we learn that The Protagonist has a future in the past and it is possible that he went back in time, rose through the ranks of the CIA and then recruited himself to assign this mission that would go on to lead to him working for the CIA whilst creating Tenet.
That’s one of the more tenuous theories but still an interesting one so I just thought I’d include it.
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