We're not given much (either than that it happened and this out of focus clip during his flashback on Stalsk-12) so let's speculate away.

This is the chain of events with inverted Sator in Tallin after the interrogation as I understand it.

• Inverted Sator exits facility with non inverted Kat and hands her over to non inverted goons.

• he and his inverted driver then get into a car that has a non inverted driver.

• they drive to the gunfight, Sator checks the BMW and finds it empty. He and the two drivers then go to collect the empty case so they can go to the hand off.

• they go to the highway and Sator and his inverted driver cross into the moving car with Kat in it.

So the non inverted driver's chain of events is this.

• go to intercept the backwars moving SUV to collect inverted Sator and inverted driver. (Somebody would have to tell him in advance to do this)

• once they are in the car, he follows Sator's instructions. (Sator is giving instructions after the fact)

• first, he takes them to collect the case. (Dropping it from his perspective)

• he then takes them to the gunfight for Sator to check the BMW

• he then takes them to the turnstile facility.

My question is this. Why couldn't the inverted driver and non inverted driver be the same guy? After he drops Sator off he goes into the facility to help with the interrogation and gets forced to invert with Sator and then has to go back out into the fray. What's to stop this from being the case? Can anyone get a clear enough look at both drivers to disprove this?

I don't know if this exact fan theory has been discussed before but, after watching Tenet so many times (I watched it yesterday and still amazes me that it gets better each time you watch it. A really underrated film and one of the best films ever made by Nolan, specially from a technical view, starring the best female Nolan character, too), the conclusion I came with that makes the most sense about Neil's death to me is this one, though I could be wrong.

From Neil's POV (i.e Inverted):

1) He inverts himself (after having acquired the algorithm and shared it with Ives and TP), either before tunnel is blocked or waiting to be unblocked from the explosion.

2) He gets though the gate (which is unlocked) and opens it for The Protagonist and Ives

3) When TP and Ives finish what they were doing, Neil locks the door (i.e unlocking it from TP and Ives' POV so they can get through it, kill Volkov and obtaining the final algorithm)

4) He gets shot "normally" by Volkov (i.e a forward bullet) few seconds after having locked the door and he dies, falling to the floor while having that killing bullet located in Neil's corpse. Nothing else, no magical bullet appearing or disappearing from nothingness

Now, from Volkov's POV (i.e Forward):

1) He puts an explosion trap at the entrance of the tunnel much time before any Tenet member (neither inverted or forward) can access the tunnel.

2) He locks the gate and prepares the algorithm explosives.

3) He faces TP and Ives and knocks down Ives.

4) He and Sator discusses with TP.

5) Sator tells him to kill TP.

6) Now's the key moment. He approches the gate to kill TP BUT, instead of firing a normal bullet, he is not really "shooting" but getting back the bullet. And he gets back that bullet by having Neil's corpse stand up by himself, the killing bullet is "retrieved" through Neil's head right to his gun, Neil is "alived" and unlocks the gate.

So, in a few words, the bullet is inverted, the gun is not. And Vulkov didn't know it, hence his surprise face retrieving a bullet instead of really firing it (well, that and watching someone come back to life and unlocking the gate that you originally locked is pretty shocking, too).

It's like that scientist scene at the beginning of the film, where TP is using a normal gun in front of a rock but instead of firing, he's getting back the bullet stored in that rock.

In other words, like in Neil's death, the gun is NORMAL but the bullet is INVERTED. It's the same thing.

This film has melted my brain but I broadly understand it, I think, except for this aspect…

The future scientist broke up the algorithm into pieces, inverted them, hid them, and sent them to the safest place - the past.

So they are travelling into the past in their hiding places and they’re ’in the lead’.

So how was the evil organisation able to tell Sator where to find them? Surely the pieces wouldn’t be there by the time Sator receives any time capsule messages/gold because they’ve travelled into the past?

After the Tallin heist Sator had the option to tell his past self where the algorithm piece was but chose not to. ("Ignorance is our ammunition"). So how and when did Sator hiding by the red room find out the box TP threw was empty? Volkov drags TP out of the car. That happens before inverted Sator tosses/collects the empty case. So who told him and when? When he goes into the red room to start the interrogation, he angrily rips his earpiece out which means someone was still talking to him. Maybe it was Vulkov going back on the coms after depositing TP to tell him the case was empty and the piece must be in either the car or firetruck. But how would Vulkov know? How would anyone know? Inverted Sator already knows the case is empty so he's not going to say that on the coms. Would post Tallin Sator be savvy enough to give Vulkov secret instructions to tell him that after he drops TP off? He had plenty of time post Tallin to mull over what information needed to be withheld and what needed to be distrubuted. (Grandmaster TP likely arranged for Sir Michael to tell him about the Stalsk 12 explosion)

Interested to hear what the sub thinks.

Is the bullet still in Neil's head?

Like from his perspective a bullet jumped out of his head into Volkov's chamber (makes sense). From Volkov's perspective, he lodges a bullet into Neil's head (makes sense).

Was the bullet already in Neil's head when he said goodbye to John David???

Has it always been in his head???

Is there a bullet in Max's head rn???

Was he born with a bullet-in-brain syndrome??

Tenet is my favourite movie and I've watched it nearly a dozen times but this bullet keeps me up at night after every rewatch.

So I've seen this film three times now, and after my third watch it's a subjective 10/10 for me. I've never gotten so much value out of a single film before, showing it to my friends to watch them get mindfucked (And selfishly, for me to rewatch and gather more details) has been my favourite thing to do as of late.

Unlike Nolan's other films however, I can't find a clear meaning behind it all, not that there has to be per se. Inception was at it's core about a man trying to get home to his kids. Interstellar was about love for your kids transcending time and space. Tenet though? The only thing I've got is that it's about the complexities of global intelligence agencies and the insane situations that can come out of that mess. Does anybody else have theories?

This is a break off of a different thread of comments here from this post.

An attempt to summarize, we have been exploring time and the passage of it and turned more into if block universe theory fits the movie Tenet. Why or why not? Does time pass or is it already set? What evidence in the movie supports it? or refutes it?

Feel free to answer the above. Below I am going to continue replying to u/WelbyReddit and everyone is welcome to join in.

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Correct in that both teams are 'briefed' but only very specific information. Like the layout of the land. The discovery of the secret door. and some coordinated events like the double building attack. Otherwise, they are never told who lives or dies.

Sure I agree mostly, but the leaders would know which leaders survived no? The ones who briefed each other. Typically leaders are the ones responsible for briefing, debriefing, and knowing tactics, results, etc. Thus I would think that Wheeler, TP, Neil, and Ives in the least would know each other survived, thus was successful. It would seem 3 of the 4 above would know since they were all present with the algorithm.

Although this brings up a issue of the whole "no one who's seen this leaves the field" -TP. Obviously Ives and Neil did know when they were at the operating base, since they hopped on the chopper. Neil knew that information going back into the battle.

They knew of the tunnel, but correct, nobody knew about the booby trap. Neil happened to witness it though and took off to try to make sure TP/Ives didn't trigger it, which he has no knowledge of if they did or not at this point.

And since Neil didn't revert with Wheeler he wasn't a part of the Blue to red briefing. So the booby trap was never relayed to them.

Why would Neil not just continue inversion and relay the information at the red team briefing before the battle begins? Then he KNOWS they would have the information.

Why not just shoot the guy before he sets the trap? He had a clear view and could have easily shot him coming off the helicopter.

Why did he not take action here? I believe it is because if he had, Sator would have know and could have reacted to it because I think HE thinks there is still cause an effect in both directions. This is why instead he tries to only warn the splinter team.

​

I do think Neil is definitely deviating, since Wheeler is apparently confused about where he is running to. It is possible red team briefed them about a tunnel and splinter team. Neil may not even know TP is part of it. He just knows that 'someone' on his team is splinter unit and will be using that tunnel., so why not try to save them if he can.

Why does he assume they aren't in there already? Especially if he doesn't know who is on splinter unit? I think he did know, and that was why he was chasing them down. Otherwise chasing them would be futile since he wouldn't know how to look for.

​

Neil only learns about the door after he pulls them out of the hole. At the top, when they are catching their breath he hears Ives talking to Tp about the door.

I can see this, but I believe he already knew about it and that he was going to his death, otherwise why would he say it is the end of a beautiful friendship? He says goodbye as if he knows this is it. The entire movie, he knows things, but acts like he doesn't, while still doing his job because he must.

Enough to give the writers an 'out' to explain the possibility. ;p

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Correct. You don't lose your memories or anything. You still grow old and as far as your body is concerned relative to yourself you are normal.

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LOL, yes on the same page with these...

... Which is why we get scenes in the movie where the bullet holes are already there and why there is a smoking Car on the highway already.

...

This is also a concept that I have yet to figure out. Again the whole where does it come from if it is not caused by the inverted timeline? If it has already happened, something can't come out of nothing in either direction. A car can suddenly appear, someone had to have reacted to this car being there in forward time before the inverted crash happened. OR maybe because of the "entropic wind" mentioned in the video, it disappears? That's a different topic though.

The fight scene I understand, because he had taken the time to go inverted thus creating the altercation. He didn't appear out of nowhere, he was in a causality loop through time (forward and inverted).

TLDR: THIS IS MORE A QUESTION THAN A THEORY IF ANYONE HAS ANY INSIGHT - I state what I believe the answer to my question is (my theory) below but, again, looking for if anyone has insight

QUESTION: if the protagonist founded Tenet, then how can the test at the beginning of the movie make sense where it was a fake suicide pill. The CIA guy told him it was a test - But why would he test himself?

————————————————————— My tentative theory:

Ok, not sure if this has already been brought up because I looked up this question and did not see much except one question that someone posted that loosely asked what I am about to ask.

The protagonist is the person who created Tenet…and at the beginning the CIA guy who first tells the protagonist about Tenet says he passed “the test” that ensures he would be a good operative for tenet by taking the suicide pill. Which makes it seem like the reason Tenet recruited him was because he is willing to sacrifice himself for the mission or whatever.

But then we find out later that The Protagonist is who founded Tenet. So one major thought I have been having - what’s happened has happened…

My theory question whatever - the protagonist actually did die after taking the suicide pill, but he was saved by someone from Tenet using inversion to go to the time before those thugs are able to kidnap the protagonist and his associate after the opera siege or at least before they start torturing them whatever. So when they say they rebuilt his mouth they did not actually rebuild his mouth. The protagonist we see is actually the one from before he is kidnapped.

But that of course makes no sense because then why does he have knowledge that he was kidnapped tortured and took the suicide pill.

So it has to be instead that someone inverted themselves and made sure that the suicide pill his associate gave him was a fake. Because it makes no sense that the CIA would give him a fake suicide pill - he has no test to pass if he is the one who founded Tenet. If it was the CIA who gave him the pill, it would be real. And I saw someone mention how the pill Sator has at the end is the Protagonist’s actual pill they disposed of before they began torturing him. So if the protagonist had taken his pill he would have died. Maybe there even is a timeline where he did take his pill and Sator’s team with this knowledge went back and informed the thugs who torture him that there is a pill he is going to take. So that is how the thug knew about it.

And then the protagonist of the future knew he was going to take his associate’s pill so he made sure that the pill was fake. Talking about what’s happened has happened it is confusing but there is some sort of loop created during that time.

Again this is a theory but there is something about the beginning that makes no sense - Tenet has to be involved with what happened at the beginning with the suicide pill because the guy who recruits the protagonist acts like he was recruited into the organization because he took that pill and is willing to sacrifice himself. But that makes no sense because Tenet was founded by the protagonist and is not necessarily affiliated with the CIA. It makes more sense that the protagonist of the future saved himself just like how Neil saved him at the Opera house.

That is my theory but I mean it as a question if anyone gets what I am saying.

I don't even think this is a plot hole or anything, it's perfect. The reason the antagonists lose is because they are consumed by greed. Their greed killed the world, their greed was going to sacrifice us for the planet and their geed will always lead to their destruction... It's fitting, really

If Sator just said yes when she asked they wouldn't have had the fight and he could have taken his cyanide pill with his wife and son at the sunset like he planned, but his ego couldn't give up the feeling of control, even if just for a few seconds

Sorry if this has been said already, but I just finished my nth rewatch of this movie, and I have become convinced that Protagonist's handler, who he calls after arriving in Mumbai to request an assist to meet with Sanjay/Priya, is his future self: the Founder of TENET.

"No friends at dusk. I was told you left the building?"

The Founder (as I'll refer to him from here on) has a very similar accent and cool way of talking as Protagonist, but a little older and wiser. The way the Founder quickly responds to Protagonist's prompt, "We live in a twilight world", has an air of confidence to it, as if he has been saying the response for years, and already knew this was the call he was expecting from his younger self. Even when the Founder says "I'll see who's on deck", it seems almost certain that he knows it's time for him to send Neil, who has been on standby waiting for this exact moment, when he is going to be sent to meet the Founder's younger self, Protagonist, for the first time. I can imagine The Founder saying to Neil after hanging up the phone, "You're up. It's time to go." before saying their final goodbyes.

"You're well informed." "It pays to be in our profession." "Well, I prefer soda water." "No, you don't."

Neil has a similar air of confidence and excitement about him upon meeting Protagonist for the first time at the Bombay Yacht Club, as if he was literally just with the Founder, having been sent by him personally to meet his past self. He already knows his preferred beverage, and orders for him as if he had just poured the Founder a Diet Coke for the last (or second-to-last?) time before meeting Protagonist.

I got through the rest of the movie having not found anything that could could refute this. The Founder is also the only person participating in this operation that we don't explicitly see in person. And I don't recall many instances of the characters personally encountering overlapping versions of themselves moving in the same temporal direction, except for at the Oslo freeport (correct me if I'm missing any others).

"Whose policy [to supress]?" "Ours, my friend. We're the people saving the world from what might have been."

"This whole operation's a temporal pincer." "Whose?" "Yours!"

Any further thoughts on this?

I have a question 🙋 I’d like to ask very gently and with the utmost kindness and respect:

EDIT: Bullet is inverted, pistol and person firing/catching are NOT inverted. Thank you for all of the kindness and respect during this discussion.

In the Tenet universe, once a reverse entropy bullet returns to the chamber of the pistol that fired it, what happens when the trigger is next pulled?

Anyone seen The Prestige? There's a tgeory that the Transporting Machine doesn't clone people, but is just a plain old tesla coil and the 'clones' are just wax models, and the dead Angier is his old double. The movie doesn't explain this central lie.

I think the same is true for Tenet. When Protagonist first fights his inverted self, it appears that his future self is trying to kill him, but from his future selfs view, he's trying to defend himself and disarm himself. Makes sense that going about an action in reverse order makes your intentions appear to be the opposite of what they are.

Just as it nakes no sense to kill your past self, it makes no sense to kill your ancestors. This plot point has been spoken of regarding this movie ans time travel in general. But like the inverted Protagonist fighting to keep both of himselves alive, and it appearing to his past self that he's trying to kill him, perhaps the same thing is happening in the future.

It also clears up some odd dialogue from the guy who bought him in: "To know the nature of this war is to lose." How can you fight someone who isn't trying to fight you. Perhaps the past and futures survival relies on this illusionary war.

Just my theory, add to it or break it apart.

So glad I found this sub, first of all.

I have some questions regarding Neil after I read another post in here.

1. If Neil is from the future and inverted to the past, where has he been before the events of the movie? Like is he just sitting in a container for 20+ years waiting for mission date?

2. What happens to your body while its been inverted that long?

I don’t know if this has been said but while I was watching the rerelease on Tenet today, I thought about something. The wall at the beginning has bullets that are connected to sator and priya, and with sator dying before the explosion at the hypocenter, to me it makes sense that the wall at the beginning is from the rubble at Stalsk-12. It also matched the colors of the building that were blown up and shot at there. I also have an addition theory that it’s the piece the Protagonist trips on that connects to the building. The shape even looked similar. Now I wouldn’t know the specifics but I wouldn’t be surprised as apart of Tenet, The Protagonist or someone else, knew that was the piece to be studied or knew that one needed to be studied so they picked up the piece in the past. They could have gone before the battle, picked up a piece and then inverted to take it back to the past and then re inverted, that would make it to where it should make its way back to the field. I don’t know the specifics, again this is just a theory.

I just watched Tenet for the first time tonight. Loved the idea! I'm dying to go back and rewatch multiple times. I was just thinking about one thing though:

NOTE: I added "Spoiler" tag just in case anything I'm saying is a spoiler (even though I think I'm not).

What would it be like to fight someone moving in reverse time from you? What would it look like? For example, I throw a straight punch at someone and hit them in the chest and then pull back straight. To them, what appears to be the beginning of the punch is actually the end of my "pulling back". In addition, they will be feeling the "after effects" of the connected punch before I ever apparently start the punch. If I try to block the (apparently oncoming) punch, too late, I've already been hit. Now I'm dying to rewatch that fight scene with that in mind.

In addition, I was thinking about what strategy you could employ if you were moving backwards in time and wanted to fight someone moving in forward time. Then I realized that there is NO strategy you could employ. That fight has already happened and its events and outcomes are predetermined. Before I ever enter the fight, I will already have all the bruises and sore hands as a result of the fight.

Mind-bender! Looking forward to the rewatch.

So I've been trying to wrap my head around this, but it keeps getting more confusing... but I think I've finally cracked it. We see an inverted Neil reanimate and get un-shot from TPs perspective, he then runs off backwards out of the tunnel, but how was his body there from the beginning? When they arrive at the gate, Neil is already dead on the floor (having already saved them by that point in the future)

An inverted team must've retrieved his body then? I've seen people saying his body would then always be there and then appear out of no-where suddenly... If his body had always been there, Sator would have known what happened, and a body can't just appear out of nowhere. Neil must have told Ives about his plan to sacrifice himself so that he can unlock the door, instructing that the tunnel needed to be cleared and his body retrieved to ensure the mission's success.

So the tunnel is cleared an inverted Neil runs in, unlocks the door, gets killed, and his body is then retrieved by another inverted team in the past inbetween the time Volkov hides in the Hypocentre. As Neils body dies while inverted, its retrieval happens before the events take place but this also makes it possible for the Neils body to be there when TP arrives at the gate too, because the inverted team retrieving the body in the past would be also be placing the body there as well so that Neil can reanimate as planned and unlock the door to save TPs live and allow everything to go ahead as planned.

Edit:
After looking over a bunch of Welbys videos "entropy wind" explains how objects like the car mirror and the glass will disappear and reappear due to the direction that entropy travels. This also happens when people suffer unfatal wounds. But when people suffer fatal wounds entropy travels in the direction of cause. Therefore Neils body shouldn't then evaporate due to "entropy wind". The bullet that went through his head was most likely lodged in his helmet or somewhere behind him.

I personally am near 90% on the Max=Neil theory. As much as I would like to get to 100%, I think Nolan made a specific choice here to withhold that kind of satisfaction from the audience.

Pure speculation, but I even wonder if the final shot of the movie, with Max and his backpack at the center of the frame, was originally written, or perhaps even filmed, to show the coin charm on the backpack and give one last reveal. Given the oblique tone of the movie, I can see why Nolan would have opted not to give the audience that kind of satisfaction.

In my view, the movie leaves us with a more subtle version of the infamous Inception cliffhanger. As much as I would like to know for certain, it's fitting that we don't.

So let’s take all the complicating factors out like how a gun works and how a car works….

What if a forward person picks up an inverted glass of water and tips it over?

The setup being I tell you to wait an hour and put this glass of water in the turnstile and send it.

I then walk into the turnstile room to see the inverted glass of water sitting in the turnstile as it has been for the next hour as a result if you inverting it.

I walk over, pick it up and tip it 90 degrees to the side such that if it was a forward glass of water it would pour out.

I then put the glass back down where I found it.

Assuming both sides had cameras that were recording everything and could see into the turnstiles what would someone watching the tapes see?

Can anyone explain to me if for instance the bullet hole in the opera had been there since the opera house had been built?

Or had Robert Pattinson’s body been in front of the missile silo for eternity and the goons had simply been working around him?

Or the mirror on the car, had it been broken since it came off the assembly line?

Never understood the logic.

I know I know, “don’t try to understand it, just feel it”

Hi! I just watched the movie. I'm also reading some theory / explanations about it.

I've read Neil could be Max. But if he has a master degree, we're talking a lot of years in the future. Inverted Neil would have to spend the same amount of time inverted, in a room with inverted air, doing nothing. It's not clear if inverted people age forward relative to themselves (as their wounds seems to go backwards, it's not clear how aging works), still, Neil would either be much older or get back to being a kid after spending so much time on the way back in time. We're talking 10-15 years, or am I missing something?

So we see a forward person fire an inverted gun with inverted rounds in the lab.

Do we ever see a forward person load an inverted gun with inverted rounds and fire it will not themselves inverted?

I’m trying to imagine what would happen….