[madeyeshawn]

As stated previously I was in the "it's all a dream" team. Technically, I still am; but with a twist. I now believe Cobb is the antagonist and Maude is a background protagonist (which is kind of an oxymoron in hollywood). I believe the original inception was against Cobb done by Maude and it convinced him everything was real. If Maude was as much of a dream expert as Cobb, why wouldn't she be inclined to try the same thing? The difference being, hers worked and his didn't.

I can imagine a fan fiction follow up about Maude in reality fighting and plotting ways to invade Cobb's dreams and undo her own inception. This is why she appears as an antagonist to us/him trying to foil his plans and kill his sub consciously created team members who are all acting as a defense mechanism. If you look at her suicide scheme from this perspective it fits perfectly considering it would either lead him to undo his inception or drive him away from his imaginary children, thence forth making her inception even harder to live with.

In the end she gives up and loses her husband forever to his perfect dream with his children. It would make for an interesting sequel. It disgusts me to discuss franchising such an original piece of film (blame the matrix), but it seems like that would be an awesome direction with a unique and new story to tell, especially since she is such an amazing actress.

It's kind of a convoluted theory and I rarely get into this kind of movie chat i.e. the mindlessly dull Donnie Darko debates BLAH!, but it's about a convoluted film that successfully makes you think even with its many obvious faults.