#inception posting

Just rewatched the movie yet again, less than two weeks after I did the outfit study. By the way, the love on that was overwhelming and so sweet, thank you to everyone who read through that whole mess <3 Anyway, I rewatched again because I’m home and wanted to make my mom watch it. It really was a wake up call to my own insanity. She’s sitting there like “who is Saito again?” And I’m sitting there like “wait that frame would’ve been a better screenshot for Outfit Five” girl. You are a crazy person.

I’m gonna ramble about this movie because I can and I need to. The ending, man, it always fucking gets me. The way that Cobb is still trying to convince himself that he can leave Mal behind, that he knows he has to. I wonder if Cobb listens to Conan Gray. “There will always be parts of me that are yours.”*

I want to mostly talk about Eames and Arthur, because of course I do. Credit where credit’s due, a lot of these ideas start from a post by @thenwhatthefukcisthis about Eames’ particular fondness for Arthur despite his coldness to the rest of the group. Wow, they were so on point with that observation. Eames has a magnetizing flippant attitude toward the job and its success. Yes, he wants to see it succeed, but that’s mostly out of some sort of curiosity. He has no investment in Cobb getting back home. In fact, to me, it seems like he doesn’t really care for Cobb all that much. I have theories on that, but to talk about that, I have to talk about Arthur and Cobb first. Trust me, I promise I’m going somewhere.

My theory about Cobb and Arthur’s relationship has evolved drastically over time. I think I touched on it in my outfit post, but lately I’ve developed the idea that there is some real animosity between these two. In my mind, the two of them used to be close. I’d even subscribe to the idea that Mal and Cobb are the reason Arthur got into this life in the first place. Back in the day, I imagine Mal, Cobb, Eames, and Arthur all did jobs together. The movie kind of implies that they didn’t get around to stealing until after Mal’s death, so I’m not sure what the nature of these jobs would be, but I’ll put that aside. Either way, I think everything changed when Mal died. Before then, the four of them were a happy little team connected by more than just work. They were all real friends. I’d even go so far as to say that Eames and Arthur probably had “something” going on, though I haven’t really decided if it was explicitly romantic or even sexual yet. But then, Mal dies, and their worlds get flipped upside-down. I think Arthur was faced with a choice: accept that he must grieve, and do so with Eames, or run away from the pain with Cobb. Obviously, he chose Cobb, which deeply hurt Eames. Along the way, Arthur painfully had to realize that Cobb is not the man he used to know. He is now a man wrecked by grief, destroyed by guilt, haunted by memories he cannot change. Cobb is cold, Cobb is cruel, Cobb is now clearly “the leader” and Arthur the underling who will get dragged across the globe. Arthur can leave at any time, I think he and Cobb both know that, but he doesn’t. He still has loyalty to him, love for him, for his friend that isn’t really even there anymore. So they prance around the world, Arthur following Cobb and trying to get him back home. Maybe, if he can help Cobb get back to his family, he can finally grieve. He can finally get his friend back. But, for now, he keeps on running. Maybe the two separate for a few weeks at a time, but Cobb is always back with another job, always drags him back down under.

This would explain Eames’ resentment towards Cobb. Eames doesn’t see a man who’s grieving. He sees a man who ran off with Arthur, with the man he had started falling for. Eames loses all three of his friends at once, and he’s left to mourn by himself. I’d even say that Eames was the only one of them at Mal’s funeral. He has the bear the loss, he has to face it, he has no dream to run to. So that animosity grows, and Cobb becomes just a co-worker. So when he calls on him to assist with Inception, Eames is sort of like, “what the hell, why not?”

I think Eames has some animosity for Arthur at first, especially in that conversation with Cobb when he’s first introduced. I think they probably haven’t seen each other since Mal died, though they’re clearly keeping tabs on one another. “You’re still working with that stick in the mud?” You’re still dragging him around country to country? You’re still using him? You’re still keeping him from me? But once they’re together again, all bets are off. They’re right back to their usual ways.

Hence, what @thenwhatthefukcisthis talks about in their post and what I saw overwhelmingly during these last two rewatches. Arthur is the only person Eames gives a flying fuck about during the entire mission. He really doesn’t give Ariadne any attention, and I can’t even remember if they speak any lines to one another directly. He seems to have a bit of fondness for Saito at the end, but that seems to be more out of respect for Saito’s determination than anything else. He seems amused by Yusuf, but there’s not much else there. But Cobb? Oh, he still does not like him. He still resents him, still doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. When the mission is all but lost, and Cobb is lamenting his failure, Eames doesn’t really give a damn. He’s upset that they almost “had it,” but he doesn’t care that Cobb won’t get home. And why should he care? Cobb abandoned him when he needed him most, and he took Arthur along with him. Eames may even read Cobb’s running as abandoning Mal, though Cobb really had no choice but to run. And yet, despite it all, Eames cares for Arthur.

It really is in everything he does. During the meetings, he’s always paying attention to Arthur. Kicking his chair, giggling at him, bickering with him. Sure, you could read that all as hazing, but there’s warmth to it that he doesn’t present with anyone else. In fact, Eames presents as pretty cold and intellectual to the rest of the group. Typically, most fans (including myself) imagine him with a playful, snarky attitude full of jokes and goofing around, but he’s really only like that with Arthur. He’s the only one on this job who he trusts. Repeatedly, when the job starts going wrong, Eames reverts back to “every man for himself.” He says he’ll sit the mission out, that he’ll make the kick with or without everyone else, and yet when it’s Arthur at stake, his attitude changes. He warns him, he tells him to “be back before the kick.” He doesn’t give a damn if anyone else wakes up, if the idea takes in Robert’s mind, if Cobb gets home. He cares about Arthur. If it’s just the two of them alive by the end, Eames would still take that as a victory.

I’d like to think that at the end, Eames is standing around in the airport because he’s waiting for Arthur. Maybe, just maybe, they can pick up where they left off.

In a series of fics I wrote in the past, I had a more positive outlook on everyone in the team’s relationships. I imagined them all sticking together and continuing to work. I still love that series, and that interpretation is still very warm in my heart. But I don’t think it’s as realistic as what I imagine now. I think Cobb probably goes back to his family and stays there. No more dream thievery, no more inception. He gets his happy ending with his family, and I want that for him. Sure, I’ve just written three paragraphs about how Eames hates his guts, but I still like Cobb a lot. His story is fucking beautiful, and he deserves to live a peaceful life with his children. As for Yusuf, I think he’d go on continuing what he was doing prior. Mixing chemicals, rarely joining the field. Saito goes back off to his company and reaps the rewards of Robert dismantling his future. Ariadne’s got a taste for this now, so I can’t imagine she’d stop dream sharing, but maybe she wouldn’t do illegal things with it. The building was always the most interesting aspect for her, after all. Arthur and Eames, in my wildest dreams, shack up and live peacefully in some cabin out in the middle of nowhere. I think that they’d still work in dreamsharing sometimes, and hell, maybe even with Ariadne and Yusuf. But Cobb? I don’t think that’s his life anymore. I do, optimistically, think that eventually, bridges would be mended. After all, Arthur still cares about Cobb, and that could rub off on Eames. With some time and some forgiveness, maybe they could be friends again. Not how they were, as they’ll always still be three instead of four, but they could try to get close.

I’d like to write a longer fic with this interpretation at some point, but I have no clue when. I already have another AU idea for when I’m done posting my current fic, so I’ll get to this idea in roughly a thousand years. It’s not like I won’t still be obsessed with this movie by then. There is something so special about it, I can’t take it. I could watch it every day. I cannot wait until my mom gets out of her confused, dazed state and starts asking me questions.

Also, during the scene where Arthur is helping Eames go under in the hotel, my brother looked at me and said, “Why are they flirting?” So. There’s that.