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?
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?