[Inception movie/fandom review] HELP ME I'M DROWNING IN ARTHUR/EAMES FIC

[vikki]

Random Inception thoughts, just because otherwise I'm going to vomit these things all over the journals of other people who don't know me or care

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[vikki]

Cobb is seen with a wedding band and he's fingering it, some people think that's actually his totem
I've seen this idea played with and I quite like it. But like you I think that Nolan never planned that out. Or maybe we'll get a surprise on the DVD extras!

I think you're able to only get out of it when you are aware it's a dream, only then does dying become an escape.
When I first watched the movie I was like 'unconstructed dream space what does that even mean', but while I was checking this rant/meta for html errors it crossed my mind that 'unconstructed' dreamspace is actually quite possible in this world: if you're sharing a dream and there's no defined dreamer/subject relationship, than Limbo is whatever comes after the lowest level you've actively constructed. I agree that Limbo can't be escaped unless you understand it's a dream.

even if you're creating things lucidly, you still aren't necessarily aware that you're dreaming.
The movie explicitly states that dream architecture is addictive when Cobb promises Arthur that Ariadne will return: therefore it's not hard to see how a regular dreamsharer would easily be 'addicted' to limbo. Mal deliberately chose to forget what reality was (the symbolism of her locking away her totem). Saito seems to forget due to time/living in memories. (Is Limbo the ultimate case of Alzheimer's?)

Most of my questions about limbo are created by the sedative conceit the movie picks up in Fischer's dream, honestly, and only because Saito is so old when Cobb finds him again (whereas Cobb doesn't seem to have aged much at all), and then they both 'wake up' or whatever on the plane and it's only 20 minutes to landing. If the dream was a week on the top level and Saito aged to like 120 years old before Cobb found him, then limbo for, say, 8 hours of real time must be AGES. How did Cobb not also age? I don't know.

Yeah, I thought that too, they still got 6 days! But perhaps if Fischer accepted the team as his protectors, his projections would back off because he mentally accepted them?
This is one of the things I'd love to see explored in fanfic. I'd also love to see exploration of the crazy things we dream up. I have a lot of chase dreams involving monsters and dinosaurs. WHERE WERE THE DINOSAURS? (I also tend to dream myself as different people. I want a fic where a subject naturally forges like Eames.)

I thought the kick thing made sense in the first dream: Nash knocks Cobb into a tub of water and Cobb wakes up, so a kick on the level above is enough to kick dreamers up a level. But in Fischer's dream the team seems to require a kick from both sides: Ariadne flinging herself and Fischer off a building in limbo, for instance, and it seems that exploding the fortress/hospital on level three was always planned as a 'kick' back to level two.

I think Cobb dying in Limbo knocked the sense that it was a dream from his head, so all he knew was that he was trying to find Saito, and not necessarily why, who knows how much he was drifting around, we know Saito might have aged really quick or really slow or have lived many lives many times over, that's kept vague intentionally, I think.
All great points, which answers some of my questions above. I had a thought: after finding Mal and Fischer, it's quite possible that Cobb also kicked up to level one along with the rest of the team - only to die (drowning) on level one, thus plunging back to limbo. This might explain why Cobb loses his sense of why he's chasing Saito.

how gamers are more likely to accept the film's ending as is, because both are true if you look for the details hard enough.
Interesting! It's much more fun ambiguous.

[blackmarth]

I think Nolan intentionally put the wedding ring in, but didn't develop a huge thing around it, it was more if you found it, it enriched your experience and planted inception in your mind that maybe his top is NOT his totem.

As they said in the movie, you don't realize something was weird until you wake up, and there's been tons of times in my dreams where something is SUPER illogical but you don't register it as illogical until you wake up.

I think aging in Limbo is not as stable as they say it is in the game, sort of how if you're waiting for something, a minute seems forever, whereas if you have a minute to like finish something, it's way too short! So Saito perceived his Limbo as really long, while Cobb may just be drifting in and out and staying the same age, and it all seems an instant. I've aged in my dreams, or weeks seem to have passed in my dreams, too, so I understand how discombobulated time passing can be.

lol, that's a good point, projections don't necessarily have to be people, and we're not necessarily ourselves.

Cobb dying in level one from drowning is actually something I didn't think about, so your explanation makes sense too. They never show him getting out, only waking up and having his team members smile at him weirdly without saying anything. How very dreamlike, well-played Nolan!

Anyway, I'm never a fandom dweller, I just stick around for the awesome drawn porn/fanart. And, perhaps, explaining how I feel about the movie in these HUGE responses lol, sorry.