Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is a high-concept sci-fi thriller that plays with the very structure of time, featuring a plot that moves both forward and backward simultaneously. The film’s climax—non-linear, explosive, and riddled with layered implications—leaves many viewers puzzled. What exactly happens at the end of Tenet ? Who is Neil? What is the Protagonist’s role in all of this? And what does it all mean? Let’s break it down. The Core Mechanic: Time Inversion Before tackling the ending, we need to understand inversion , the film’s key sci-fi concept. In Tenet , inversion is the process of reversing an object or person’s entropy, causing them to move backward through time rather than forward. It’s not just time travel—it’s experiencing time in reverse. An inverted bullet, for example, moves backward into the gun. An inverted person breathes differently, perceives the world reversed, and can interact with people moving forward in time. Importantly, inversion doesn’t change the t...