Mal's inevitable fate

This 2010 contemporary sci-fi actioner follows a subconscious security team around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams.
Post Reply
User avatar
Posts: 1310
Joined: May 2017
Location: Elk Grove, CA
What if Mal was right? What if Cobb was dreaming, and killing themselves was their way out of the dream?

I think we can all agree that the inception actually worked on Mal. Meaning that, whether or not she was correct, the idea was more of a possession than a genuinely original thought.

So what happens when Mal kills herself? In the conscious world, obviously she is dead. In the dream world, that means she will wake up the next level up... whether that next level is a dream or, again, the conscious world.

Let's assume for a moment that it's a dream. Maybe she waits it out until Cobb wakes up (which could only be a matter of hours, really). However, she is still possessed by the idea. The inception still had happened. She will, once again, be convinced that she is in a dream. She will be doomed to kill herself again.

This will repeat until she kills herself in the waking world, no matter how many levels down they may have been. It seems the idea remains regardless of how far up they trickle, even more specifically because they will believe that idea is actually theirs.

Mal was always destined to die at this point, unless Cobb decided to do something about it in Limbo the next time that he went down there (which he did not, except free his own conscience).

Thoughts?

User avatar
Posts: 112
Joined: July 2014
MuffinMcFluffin wrote: So what happens when Mal kills herself? In the conscious world, obviously she is dead. In the dream world, that means she will wake up the next level up... whether that next level is a dream or, again, the conscious world.
When you die in the dream world you disappear. Mal died and her body was still there. So... :problem:

User avatar
Posts: 3344
Joined: January 2015
Location: Poland
sebal24 wrote:
MuffinMcFluffin wrote: So what happens when Mal kills herself? In the conscious world, obviously she is dead. In the dream world, that means she will wake up the next level up... whether that next level is a dream or, again, the conscious world.
When you die in the dream world you disappear. Mal died and her body was still there. So... :problem:
I guess, but...

Do you disappear in the dream? Have we ever seen anyone disappear? I haven't seen the movie in ages so I don't really remember.

User avatar
Posts: 1310
Joined: May 2017
Location: Elk Grove, CA
LelekPL wrote:
sebal24 wrote:
MuffinMcFluffin wrote: So what happens when Mal kills herself? In the conscious world, obviously she is dead. In the dream world, that means she will wake up the next level up... whether that next level is a dream or, again, the conscious world.
When you die in the dream world you disappear. Mal died and her body was still there. So... :problem:
I guess, but...

Do you disappear in the dream? Have we ever seen anyone disappear? I haven't seen the movie in ages so I don't really remember.
I do believe they disappeared in the first dream we saw in Saito's hideout.

My post was placed under hypothetical circumstances anyway. Mal was doomed to die regardless, that was my point.

Posts: 128
Joined: February 2011
MuffinMcFluffin wrote:
October 2nd, 2017, 4:12 pm
LelekPL wrote:
sebal24 wrote: When you die in the dream world you disappear. Mal died and her body was still there. So... :problem:
I guess, but...

Do you disappear in the dream? Have we ever seen anyone disappear? I haven't seen the movie in ages so I don't really remember.
I do believe they disappeared in the first dream we saw in Saito's hideout.



My post was placed under hypothetical circumstances anyway. Mal was doomed to die regardless, that was my point.
I don’t believe Mal died
Cobb was confused
Mal found her top and it spun
That’s why she could jump
The film is about retrieving Dom from his lost sense of reality

User avatar
Posts: 1310
Joined: May 2017
Location: Elk Grove, CA
author wrote:
November 20th, 2018, 11:30 am
MuffinMcFluffin wrote:
October 2nd, 2017, 4:12 pm
LelekPL wrote: I guess, but...

Do you disappear in the dream? Have we ever seen anyone disappear? I haven't seen the movie in ages so I don't really remember.
I do believe they disappeared in the first dream we saw in Saito's hideout.



My post was placed under hypothetical circumstances anyway. Mal was doomed to die regardless, that was my point.
I don’t believe Mal died
Cobb was confused
Mal found her top and it spun
That’s why she could jump
The film is about retrieving Dom from his lost sense of reality
That's good and fine, but if inception works the way that we see in the Fischer job, then Mal will be stuck with that idea that she is in a dream in the waking world as well.

Even if Cobb "gets out" in time to see Mal while she is alive, eventually she is going to kill herself anyway.

Post Reply