So, Cobb, who orchestrates everything, he's the director. Ariadne , who designs the dreams, she's the screen-writer.Saito, who bankrolls the whole thing, who buys the whole airline instead of just buying out first class, he's the production company.
So for example, Arthur's totem is the loaded die. If Ariadne touched his totem, she might get inkling about how it's weighted in the real world. And she would know that whenever he rolls it in the real world, it always comes up a five.
Cobb reveals too much. When Ariadne calls totems an "elegant solution for keeping track of reality,"--this is right after he'd asked to see hers and she said, "No, you can't see it." And he says, "Good job.
Arthur only knows what number his die falls on in the real world. Only Ariadne knows how her bishop is weighted in the real world. There's another totem. Eames' totem, the poker chip.
And the walls of buildings literally close in around him just like they do in dreams. Even Ariadne , who shows just a little sliver of free will when she initially rejects the idea of being an architect--"I'm outta here.
This is why he doesn't let her touch it. This is also why Ariadne refuses to let Cobb touch her totem, the bishop. If he gets an inkling as to how it works and how it's weighted in the real world and how it falls, then it won't be able to tell her whether or not he's in one of his dreams.
Well, we only actually have two examples in the film of where you go when you exit Limbo. And that's Ariadne and Fischer. At the end of the film, they go down there to find Fischer.
They go one layer up and then Fischer finishes the inception there. And when Ariadne gets back, they ride the kicks back up the layers. But you only go one layer up when you exit Limbo, not back to the real world--not all the way back to the front.
So, even if the top falls at the end, he could still be in his own dream. He could still be in Ariadne 's dream. He could still be in Mal's dream.
Arthur's got a totem. It's the die. Ariadne 's got a totem. It's the bishop. There's some others as well.
Would that be the real world? Well, Cobb actually tells Ariadne , whenever he's recounting the events that preceded their meeting, that they entered Limbo after experimenting with--. Let me get the quote exactly right here.
And the walls of buildings literally close in around him just like they do in dreams. Arthur, Ariadne , Fischer, Saito.
He's won the Lewis Thomas Prize for writing about science, a MacArthur Fellowship, and two national magazine awards. In his work in public health, he is executive director of Ariadne labs. A Joint Center for health systems innovation and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally.
His is ordinary in the real world, unique in a dream. It's backwards. And since not only do Mal and Cobb, obviously and Ariadne know that his top would fall in the real world, we know his top would fall in the real world.
Come on. But we've only scratched the surface. If we think about Saito and where you go when you exit Limbo, if when you exit Limbo you just go one layer up, like Ariadne and Fischer did. Then where did Mal and Cobb go when they exited Limbo, when they put their head on the train tracks and they exited Limbo?