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“It’s this notion of belief, the sense that we’re all sort of imprisoned in our own views of the passage of time, of what’s going on in the world, and all the rest. And so there’s this kind of leap of faith to the idea of an objective reality, the belief and faith involved with what these characters are choosing to invest in.”

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a christmas short story 🎄☃️

For Christmas, you usually have a family gathering, of sorts.

(A family can be officially dead people working for a ghost organization, dear friends you didn’t meet yet sending you letters from the past-future, and a couple stray cats and dogs sneaking in for the food.)

The cabin is old and the woods around are much older, and your little team has a potluck dinner, sharing stories and meals from all over the world – Neil brought British food once; since then, only tea is allowed – like the world isn’t on the verge of ending for one goddamn day.

You always wear the ugliest Christmas sweaters you can find – obviously making it a contest, one Mahir wins quite often – and enjoy each other’s company by the fireplace, sitting on mismatched couches with a drink in hand and fond smiles up your sleeve.

(You still come here, even years, decades later when the world is somewhat saved and Kat able to join as well – in a more concrete form than a letter – and it may actually be one of the closest thing you and the lads can call home.)

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🎄

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weaving another past in the fabric of this mission

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excuse YOU @bloodredandvividblue @drawnonward first of all you're both very right second of all i hate you both AND THIRD lmao so much about allowing neil the dignity of his choice protag be like "what if we can do things differently? haha jk......... unless😏"

do you think neil wanted to hear the protag asking him to stay a little harder? do you think in his thoughts, he’s like

‘ask me again, please, i might actually stay’

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TENET (2020)

Director - Christopher Nolan, Cinematography - Hoyte van Hoytema

"I'll see you in the beginning, friend."

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“There’s nothing simple about a Chris Nolan movie.”

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I love how even when the Protagonist couldn't breathe, he still tried to pull Neil to safety with him

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what’s happened’s happened, or Neil’s master in bullshitting

hey lads as promised by my hilarious username imma yell about causal time loops, aka the bootstrap paradox, and how the actual tenet of Tenet (ie. what’s happened’s happened) may have been a lie all along

buckle up! it’s theory time

so first of all i’m in no way an expert, i’m just a physics/time travel nerd who happens to have an actual master-in-physics-student bf, equally nerdy and obsessed with tenet (okay this part isn’t quite true but he indulges me anyway) as i am

second, let’s start with the simple stuff: the bootstrap paradox is a causal loop, aka a theoretical proposition in which (bc retrocausality and/or time travel) an event is involved in causing another event, which is in turn causes the first-mentioned event.

TP working for himself is a direct example of that, bc him being recruited by Tenet leads to him founding Tenet and thus it closes the loop. sounds like a paradox indeed, except we don’t care bc the movie embraces the concept and stays coherent with its own paradigms (as to why i personally believe TP goes back in time, see this post)

(btw retrocausality = when an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one, aka the entirety of the movie; maybe i’ll elaborate later on that if y’all are interested)

now let’s talk about free will. we all know the “what’s happened’s happened” refrain by now i’m sure, and how it is used to convince the characters (and us) that’s there’s no actual free will in the paradigm of the movie. one pretty straightforward example would be the end of the movie, when Neil says goodbye and leaves to go open that damn door and [REDACTED]. he has to do it bc it has already been done, and as such has no choice in the matter. 

(this leads to an unique causal loop: because there’s no way to change things, the loop is closed once and only once)

interestingly, while Neil insists a lot on the “what’s happened’s happened” part, he also says stuff like that:

if what’s happened’s truly happened, there is no way to change the past, right? so why would Neil be worried about TP making a change or acting differently?

maybe bc Neil doesn’t actually believe in “what’s happened’s happened” and, as TP says himself, only speaks f*cking half-truths.

as to why, well. let’s say you can change things if you get knowledge from the future. but like, rly change things (not simply making local changes that still eventually lead to the same event). what will happen to the future? Neil says it himself: it’s unknowable, bc if you’re there (in the past) making a change, you’re not here (in the present/future) to observe its effect. and this, friends, is extremely dangerous bc a mission that saved the world can actually become one that destroys it, and there’s no way of knowing the direct consequences of any kind of change in the timeline.

in that paradigm, a causal loop could basically close a second time, leading to a completely different sequence of events from that of the first loop:

we all want to save Neil (especially me but that’s not the point) but at what cost? certainly not at the expense of everything and everyone who’s ever lived, right?

and what can be done to prevent people mingling with the timeline and potentially bringing temporal apocalypse? making them believe “what’s happened’s happened” and that there’s no way to change the past. hence Tenet’s policy is to suppress and all the knowledge divided, bc how can you be sure someone isn’t gonna try to do things differently for personal gain (even to save a lost loved one, coughs blood)? short answer is you don’t, and so it’s safer (for everyone involved) to give little to no information to anyone and have a strict tenet you use at will, even tho it may not be entirely true.

tdlr; Neil wouldn’t say “what if you acted differently” if what’s happened’s truly happened (and thus there was no free will), and as such i believe you actually can change things if you act differently in the paradigm of the movie. this leads to the natural conclusion that if Neil ever has got a master in anything, it’s most certainly in actual bullshitting. 

(i don’t blame him bc i do believe TP knows this too, and thankfully he doesn’t need to mingle with the causal loop per se to save Neil; but this, friends, is a story for another day >:D)

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on the creation of Tenet in the past(future)

hi lads i may have been writing a lil on causal loops and how to Actually Save Neil From Being [REDACTED], and well, i needed to elaborate a bit on what i believe is TP’s journey to the past to create Tenet

i’ll start with this: i’m but a simple gremlin and what follows is one interpretation among the many possible ones. it is, however, what i personally believe and go by while writing silly drabbles!

long story short, be it in the past or future or both, TP is the Big Boss and as such has to create Tenet to eventually be recruited by it (it’s the heart of the buttbootstrap paradox; see that post for further info). 

let’s start with what we know: Tenet already exists at the time of the movie, bc TP gets recruited after the Kiev opera siege. we later learn thanks to Priya that Tenet will be founded in the future, and that TP has a future in the past, as stated by Neil. it’s confusing; was Tenet created in the future or the past? well, i’d say both bc:

1) TP needs to save Kat from getting killed (it necessarily takes place after the 10min operation) 

2) he needs to get money and intel, which can be acquired by using Sator’s turnstiles/dead drops as well as simply taking advantage of the already existing Tenet network

this has to happen in the future (relative to the 10min mission). and from then, well, TP could continue forwards for months/years and build Tenet – which already exists, seems a bit useless to me but he could secure turnstiles and gold idk – and recruit Neil, Ives, Wheeler etc. before eventually inverting everyone to when the 10min operation takes place:

or it could be the other way around, aka after saving Kat and getting as much intel/money as needed, TP goes backwards in time to create Tenet (it needs to be done anyway, because it already exists when the movie starts). further evidence seems to support this: logistically speaking it seems easier to invert one person than entire commandos bc you actually have to take care of where and when everyone’s double is, at any given moment. besides, Neil says this (no, i’m not crying):

knowing the whole operation is a temporal pincer movement and Ives’ explanation of how it works (“half his team moves forward through the event, he monitors them and then attacks at the end moving backwards, knowing everything”) i believe TP’s journey through the movie is taking place forwards, and since the 10min operation is him being “halfway there”, he then inverts back to go through the backwards part:

how long can it be? knowing how well-established Tenet is, i’d say a couple of years at least, 4-8 years max (to properly recruit/train everyone, get the reverse chronology working etc; it also fits with what Neil says: “years ago from me”). granted, the movie only shows a 1-week and a 2-weeks inversions, but it’s at sea so i guess it could take longer?

(even tho i believe long-time inversions would need to be done in parts, not in one go. it’s trickier to accomplish however i’m not sure the body would be able to withstand long periods of inversion, plus the fact you need to get replenished in inverted food/resources at some point. the important part is to avoid being in contact with your double and having a turnstile working, i think.)

years also fits bc whatever Neil and TP have going would need more than a couple of months in the making; and i’m mostly taking jobwise here, knowing how well Neil works with/understands TP.

in any case, i don’t believe the way to efficiently tackle this issue is to go through entire years in the span of several months/a year, bc logistically it would get nightmarish very very quickly (bc possible temporal overlap):

tdlr; i do believe TP stayed in the future for a couple of months/max a year (to save Kat; get money/intel). he then went backwards in time to create Tenet and recruit its agents, years ago from the movie (as stated by Neil: “you did [recruit me], years ago for me”), but in TP’s own future, hence the “Tenet will be founded in the future”

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if u disrespect elizabeth debicki and/or jdw u will die by my sword 

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this very brief shot of neil going all, “IF YOU STILL CARE” and the protag being like “i’m trying very, very hard not to be mad with you anymore” is totally Sending me lmaooo

and then the protag throwing him under the bus to explain things to kat GOOD LUCK PAL

and kat’s all like WHO TF ARE YOU

neil giant nerd that he is, launches right into a classroom lecture. “let me start with the simple stuff” he says… EVERY LAW OF PHYSICS!!!

poor kat⁣

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