Tenet Theory: What if the Protagonist's biggest mistake was trusting himself?
So first, please don't judge me too hard. I'm new to Reddit and new to theories. I've never had one before. Also, be aware that this post is full of spoilers, so don't read any further if you want to experience the movie without knowing anything about what happens. So here we go!
So it's about Christopher Nolan's movie "Tenet". A movie that is hard to get in full picture and every time you see it, it offers something new that you didn't notice earlier at least it's my experience with this movie. It's about stopping the end of the world because some people want to end it or were forced to do so.
This movie offers two main solutions to "time traveling" if you want to interact with the past.
1. All is predestinated: "What's happened, happened." You can't change the outcome even if you don't know how it turns out. You can't change it even if you try to change it for a positive outcome.
2. Branching Timelines or alternative Timelines: Neil suggests that by interacting with the past, you might create a new timeline for the world, while the original timeline where you never interacted with the past would still continue to exist alongside it.
So the movie offers these two possible solutions, but never says which one actually applies.
After the Protagonist tried to prevent the handover of a piece of the Algorithm, he couldn't do it because it was already preset. He was in his own loop, you could say, and he couldn't escape it. So the conclusion was that "What's happened, happened" should apply in this world.
But what if that's not the case?
The Protagonist had only tried to change something once. That's far from a scientific study. He could have made himself believe that this is how time works, but one try isn't enough proof of that. Then he took a risk and tried to save the wife of Sator, Katherine "Kat", played by Elizabeth Debicki, after she got shot by Sator.
She gets really important for this theory, so stick with me here.
So now we are on the same page and hopefully remember what happened in the movie. Let's start.
The original Protagonist and Tenet
The Protagonist is the boss of Tenet in the future. He himself founded Tenet and is also the boss of the arms dealer Priya.
Priya has two ideas of how the philosophy of Tenet works. Never change the past or even try. And never let people live who know too much about Tenet or the time stuff.
I think the Protagonist who founded Tenet and the one that we see in the movie aren't the same character anymore, and that this is where the timeline could split.
Yes, they are the same person, but they might have different experiences and in the end turn out to be different characters. How fitting that this character has no name and is only called the Protagonist. But let me explain that.
I think the Boss of Tenet figured out that he can't save the world without taking a big risk. He wanted to interact further in the past, and to do that he needed someone that he could trust. But he couldn't trust anyone in the world to do that.
He decided he could only trust himself and not anyone who wasn't him. He made Neil recruit himself in the past to try to save the future because he trusted only in himself (and Neil).
We already know from Priya that all loose ends and witnesses get eliminated. I think Priya only uses the rules of Tenet and her Boss. So the main Protagonist, before he changed the timeline, made Tenet and also set the rules in stone so it wouldn't get too complicated. Only a few people should know about the Algorithm. It's safer that way. Not a bad intention if you want to save the world.
So because his future had no good outcome anymore, he decided to take a big risk and try to change something for the better of the world. He trusted in himself because he thought he knew himself better than anyone else.
The plan with Neil
Neil then recruits the Protagonist in the past, and both try to prevent a bad future by getting close to Sator.
The important thing here is that the original Boss of Tenet already knows what kind of person he is. He knows what he would do and he believes he can predict his younger self.
The rule was never let yourself see yourself by using protective suits to block vision or get in touch with yourself.
The younger Protagonist is supposed to do his part without knowing everything. He should steal the piece of the Algorithm, but he isn't supposed to know what it really is. He only thinks it's Plutonium.
After the job is done, he should end contact with himself and have the piece of the Algorithm saved so the world can't end.
At least that's what I think the original plan was.
But then Kat happens.
Kat changes the Protagonist
In the process of getting close to Sator, the Protagonist gets in contact with his wife.
He made up a lie that he is the secret lover of Kat to get to the information about where he could get his hands on a part of the Algorithm. At that time he didn't know that it was the Algorithm. He only thought it was Plutonium.
After Kat tried to eliminate Sator while on the speed boat by making him fall into the water, the Protagonist saved Sator because he needed the information about where the Plutonium was.
Then there is that talk between Kat and the Protagonist where she tells him that he never cared about her safety in the first place and that she was just a tool so that the Protagonist could get close to Sator.
The young Protagonist, who at that time still had not founded Tenet, thinks about what she said and gives her a weapon for self defense.
He starts to care about her safety more and more.
After she gets shot by Sator in the red and blue room with the Temporal Turnstile, he wants to save her life now.
And this is where I think something important happens to the Protagonist.
We know that Neil and the Protagonist had a long friendship in the future that Neil himself already experienced most of it. But when the Protagonist says that he wants to save Kat, Neil seems surprised by what is going to happen now. He says something like: "We never did this. I don't know what happens." Despite this being his last plot with his fiend and showing at the start of the movie that he even knows exactly what the Protagonist loves to drink.
At least to me, it seems like he doesn't recognize his friend in this situation. The Protagonist caring about one person feels off to him.
Saving the whole world, yes, he knows that from the Boss of Tenet. But saving a single life just because he wants to save that one person is something he has never witnessed before.
It seems that by meeting Kat, the Protagonist had an experience that had a strong impact on him and changed his view of what to do and what is right.
I would say that the Protagonist in this moment changed from his former self, the person who created Tenet, because of different experiences in life.
Sure, the Boss who founded Tenet didn't have this experience.
But his younger self now has.
And this is exactly where I think the original Protagonist made a mistake.
He trusted himself because he thought he knew himself better than anyone else. But how can you know what you will become after experiencing something that you haven't experienced yet?
The older Protagonist knew himself as the person who had already lived his life and founded Tenet.
But his younger self hasn't lived that life yet.
His younger self can have experiences that the older version of him never had in the same way.
And those experiences can change him.
Priya and the old philosophy of Tenet
His younger self made decisions that go against the rules of his own company, Tenet.
These rules are made known by Priya to the viewer. No witnesses. The less people who know, the better. And no loose ends. If you know too much, your life has to end somehow.
I don't think Priya necessarily has a completely different philosophy from the Protagonist. I think she might simply be following the rules that her Boss created.
The original Protagonist believed that saving the world was more important than saving a single person.
That's why Tenet has these rules.
If someone knows too much, they become a risk.
If someone becomes a loose end, they have to be eliminated.
If changing the past could make everything worse, you don't try to change it.
It all makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of the original Boss of Tenet.
But the younger Protagonist is starting to see things differently.
The moment everything changes
The younger self even gave Kat a device to contact him if she feels in danger.
Kat uses that device in the end of the movie.
And now I think we reach the most important part of the theory.
The younger Protagonist, who experienced everything that happened in the movie, now saves Kat and ends Priya's life before she can shoot Kat.
Priya is following the rules of Tenet. Kat knows too much and is therefore a loose end.
But the Protagonist doesn't care about that rule anymore.
He changed.
The person who founded Tenet believed that saving the world was more important than saving one person.
The younger Protagonist now believes that saving Kat is worth breaking the rules of his own organization.
And this is where I think the timeline might have changed.
The possible new timeline
The original Protagonist trusted himself because he thought he knew himself better than anyone else.
But maybe he didn't know himself as well as he thought.
He knew what kind of person he was when he founded Tenet, but he didn't know what his younger self would become after experiencing something that his older self had never experienced in the same way.
So maybe the original Protagonist created a new version of himself without realizing it.
If branching timelines are possible, this could mean that the original future where the first Protagonist was the Boss of Tenet still exists, while the new version of the Protagonist creates a different future.
A future where he becomes the Boss of Tenet again, but with a different philosophy.
The original Protagonist created Tenet with one philosophy because of everything he experienced in his own life.
The new Protagonist has experienced something different.
He experienced Kat. He experienced caring about someone personally.
He experienced wanting to save one person even when it goes against the rules he is supposed to follow.
So even though they are technically the same person, they don't necessarily have to become the same character that then decide the same.
And that's the part I find most interesting about this theory.
The paradox
The original Protagonist wanted to change the future.
He knew that he couldn't trust anyone else, so he trusted himself.
He thought that if anyone could carry out his plan, it would be himself.
But maybe the biggest mistake was assuming that he would always make the same decisions.
He didn't account for his younger self changing because of experiences that the older version never had.
So he trusted himself because he thought he knew himself.
But he didn't know himself as well as he thought.
Maybe the original Protagonist created the circumstances that caused his younger self to become a different version of him.
And if that is true, then the original Tenet Boss and the new Tenet Boss are both the Protagonist, but they are no longer the same character.
The old Protagonist created Tenet with one philosophy.
The new Protagonist could take over Tenet with a different philosophy.
And maybe that is why the character has no name and is only called "The Protagonist".
We aren't just watching what he does.
We are watching what kind of person he becomes.
I'm not saying this is definitely what Nolan intended.
The movie clearly supports the "What's happened, happened" interpretation.
But I don't think the movie ever proves that branching timelines are impossible.
And if both possibilities are intentionally left open, I think the Kat and Priya scene is where the branching timeline interpretation becomes really interesting.
Maybe the biggest paradox in Tenet isn't that the Protagonist becomes the founder of Tenet.
Maybe it's that the founder of Tenet creates a younger version of himself who eventually becomes someone different.
He trusted himself because he thought nobody could understand him better than himself.
But maybe he didn't realize that you can't completely predict who you will become after living through experiences you haven't had yet.
What do you guys think?