Inception: What Happened To The First Architect

Dom Cobb's team in Inception initially had a different architect, Nash, whose fate was left unknown at the beginning. Here's what happened.

Inception: What Happened To The First Architect

Dom Cobb’s team in Inception is formed by talented people who Cobb also trusts, except for Nash, the team’s first architect – but what happened to him after he betrayed Cobb? Christopher Nolan has become known for the complex themes he tends to address in his movies, such as identity, time, and memory, and in 2010, he took all these one step further by mixing them with the complexity of dreams in Inception.

Inception follows Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a professional thief whose specialty is stealing information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets through their dreams, extracting and implanting ideas in the process and as needed. When Cobb is offered to have his criminal history erased so he can go back to his family after years of being on the run due to his “crimes”, he takes on a complex mission that requires the help of his team, formed by architects, chemists, and more. Cobb and company build dream scenarios with different layers so they can extract the information they need from business heir Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), but their mission gets more and more complicated in each layer.

The man responsible for such a complex and even dangerous mission (as they could end up trapped in limbo) is Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), a businessman who hires Cobb and his team to implant an idea into Fischer’s subconscious as his father was Saito’s biggest competitor. Inception wastes no time in showing how Cobb works, and it opens with them infiltrating Saito’s subconscious, but he quickly notices a mistake that gave it all away. This flaw in the design of the dream was blamed on Nash (Lukas Haas), the team’s first architect, who after that failed mission betrayed Cobb and told Saito everything about it, and it’s unclear what happened to him after that, but he might have not had a happy ending.

Nash was in charge of designing the dream where Cobb and Arthur would extract information from Saito for Cobol Engineering, the company that hired Cobb and company. While in the dream, Cobb mentioned to Saito that Cobol won’t accept failure and they won’t last two days if they don’t give them what they want. Cobb threw Saito on the floor to threaten him, but Saito noticed the carpet was different from the one in his real apartment, making him realize they were in a dream. Arthur complained to Nash about messing that seemingly unimportant detail up, and Nash later betrayed Cobb and Arthur by telling Saito all about their mission. Saito gave Cobb the option to kill Nash himself but refused, and so Nash was taken away. Saito mentioned Cobol Engineering would take care of him, and taking into account Cobb’s previous comment of them not lasting two days if they failed, it’s implied that Nash was either severely punished for not only messing the mission up but also betraying Cobb and Cobol, or he was killed.

As for why Saito gave Cobb the option to kill Nash or give him to Cobol Engineering instead of just letting him go or recruiting him, it’s all due to Nash’s actions. Nash not only proved to be unprofessional (by Cobb’s standards, at least) as he should have paid attention to every detail in order for the mission to be successful, but he also wasn’t trustworthy, as he betrayed the team almost immediately after the plan failed. Saito was impressed by Cobb’s work, which is why he hired him for a seemingly impossible mission, but he knew Nash couldn’t be involved or it wouldn’t work. Luckily for Saito, Cobb found a better architect in Ariadne, and the mission into Fischer’s subconscious was successful. Christopher Nolan tends to leave some details ambiguous and open for interpretation, and Inception has many of those moments, beginning with Nash’s fate.