Why It Matters Whether Cobb Returned To Reality

There is a popular (also lazy) thought about the ending of Inception - "It doesn't matter if the last scene was real or not, Cobb was happy". There is nothing happy about that. Read on.

Cobb and Mal were irresponsible parents!

Here's something that nobody talks about. Cobb and Mal were parents of two children. They knew well that they were experimenting with the mind and this could have dangerous side effects. Yet they placed their work before their children and both of them simultaneously entered and experimented with deeper and deeper layers of the subconscious. What was the result? They lost their minds in there. Cobb had to incept an idea in to Mal's head so that both of them would kill themselves to get back to reality. That results in Mal going nuts about here reality and ends up killing herself thinking the real world was a level further above. After that Cobb had to flee the country to avoid arrest.

From the view point of the children

Let's see what went down for them. Two little kids suddenly has their own mother not looking them in the eye like she used to. This change happens within the day. They lose her love instantaneously. Soon they lose their mother because she commits suicide. The next thing? Their father absconds and they are left alone with their aging grandfather. They wait a couple of years for their father to return to them. If the grandfather dies, the kids will be orphaned.

The Only Real HAPPY ENDING

So no! It's not enough that Cobb "thought" that we was back in reality, and all that matters is he's made peace with what he's got because he's not looking at the spinning top anymore. No. There can be a happy ending only if the children actually reunited with their father who will now know never to mess around with the mind and the dream. That last scene is a happy ending because the children will now not be orphaned.

thisisbarry / Via thisisbarry.com