The Wedding Ring Clue You Missed

Inception has one of the most intriguing and talked-about endings of all time, but the biggest clue to solving its mystery isn’t the spinning top. In 2010, Christopher Nolan explored the complexity of dreams in Inception, though without leaving behind his common themes of identity, time, and more.

Inception follows Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who specializes in infiltrating dreams to either extract information or implant an idea. Cobb has been on the run for years, but when he’s offered the chance to have his criminal record erased in exchange for implanting an idea into a target’s subconscious, he puts together a team of experts.

The process turns out to be more challenging than he expected, with Cobb’s subconscious also getting in the way. Inception was a critical and commercial success, ranking among the best sci-fi movies of all time. Inception’s ambiguous ending continues to be a topic of debate, but there’s a key detail in it to solve the mystery, and it’s not the spinning top.

Cobb Isn’t Wearing His Wedding Ring At The End Of Inception

Inception explains the complex process of infiltrating someone’s dream, which is why Cobb needs a team of experts that includes architects, chemists, and more. Each of them needs a totem, an object with which they can test if they are in a dream or the real world. This object has a unique modified quality that only the owner knows.

This way, if they are in someone else’s dream, that modification won’t be present in the object. Throughout Inception, Cobb uses a spinning top that was originally his wife Mal’s (Marion Cotillard) totem, but his real, personal totem is never revealed. Now, the reason why Cobb is on the run is that Mal framed him for her death.

After being trapped in Limbo, Cobb had to perform “inception” on Mal to bring her back to the real world. Unfortunately, Mal believed the real world was a dream, and killed herself to return to what she believed was her reality. Cobb was forced to leave his children and run away, but Mal tormented him in his subconscious.

Inception famously ends with Cobb reuniting with his children, but not before he spins the totem one more time to confirm that he’s not dreaming anymore. Cobb doesn’t look back at the totem and runs to hug his kids, with the camera focusing on the totem, and as it begins to wobble, it cuts to black.

The subtle wobbling confirms Cobb wasn’t dreaming anymore, but there’s also the detail of his wedding ring. It has been theorized that Cobb’s real totem was his wedding ring, as he wears it when he’s dreaming but not when he’s awake – and in the final scene of Inception, Cobb isn’t wearing the ring, so he’s not dreaming.

Could Cobb Still Be Dreaming Without The Wedding Ring?

Leonardo Dicaprio as Cobb on a plane in Inception

Cobb not wearing his wedding ring at the end of Inception is a clear clue that it’s not a dream, but I admit this can raise other questions. A key moment in the mission of implanting an idea in Robert Fischer’s (Cillian Murphy) subconscious is Cobb finally confronting his past and trauma.

When the “inception” doesn’t go as planned, Robert and Saito (Ken Watanabe) are sent to Limbo, forcing Cobb and Ariadne (Elliot Page) to go rescue them. There, Cobb is also forced to confront his past and finally makes peace with his part in Mal’s death, after which Ariadne kills her projection.

Thanks to this, Cobb finally frees himself from Mal’s haunting presence in his subconscious, and thanks to this, he could have removed his wedding ring from his dreams, too. The ending of Inception is most likely real, but if Cobb ever infiltrates dreams again, he might not wear his wedding ring anymore.

Nolan Is A Master Of Cinematic Misdirection

Christian Bale performing a coin trick in The Prestige

When looking at Christopher Nolan’s movies, it’s not surprising that Inception has an ambiguous and misleading ending. Nolan’s works stand out for their themes, Nolan’s visual style, and for their twists, but also for how he masterfully misleads the audience to get to those shocking moments.

Some of the best examples of this are The Prestige and Tenet. The Prestige is the story of two rival magicians – Christian Bale’s Alfred and Hugh Jackman’s Robert – feuding over a teleportation illusion. The Prestige perfectly builds suspense and leads the audience towards one conclusion, only to be completely changed by one of the most unexpected twists in Nolan’s career.

Tenet is one of Nolan’s most complex stories, following a former CIA agent on a mission that involves time traveling, and, of course, it has its misleads and twists. Of course, a concept like that of Inception was going to have some misdirections, twists, and ambiguous moments, but Nolan’s track record is also key to solving Inception’s mystery.

Thanks to Nolan’s mastery of misdirection, it’s more likely that he would use the wedding ring as a sneaky proof of where Cobb is at all times (as in, the real world or dreams) while making the audience focus on the spinning top every time it’s on the screen.

The Fact Inception’s Ending Still Sparks Debate Proves It Was A Genius Conclusion

The top spinning at the end of Inception — Inception ending top spinning

Over a decade has passed since Inception was released, and its ending continues to be debated. While some believe the spinning top eventually fell, others believe the cut in black confirms it continued spinning and Cobb never returned home to his kids, as tragic as that is.

Others share Nolan’s views on the end of Inception, as the director has said that it doesn’t matter if Cobb is dreaming or not – what’s important is that Cobb has decided that this is his new reality. Ultimately, all this debate only proves the genius of Inception.

Throughout Inception, the characters have to check whether they are still dreaming or not, and at the end, this becomes the audience’s task with Cobb. Until Christopher Nolan decides to give a definitive answer, the ending of Inception will continue to invite different interpretations.