Why does a non-inverted Neil shoot/catch an inverted bullet?

Why does a non-inverted Neil shoot/catch an inverted bullet? - Woman in Maroon Long Sleeve Shirt Lying on White Flower Field

In the opening scene in Tenet, the protagonist is saved by a masked SWAT member, who shoots a terrorist-disguised-as-a-SWAT with an inverted bullet.

It turns out this masked SWAT member is Neil, who is not inverted; we can see him running normally after shooting/catching an inverted bullet.

I am wondering why a non-inverted Neil shoots/catches an inverted bullet instead of a normal bullet.



Best Answer

The short answer: we don't know and the movie doesn't tell us.

We don't find out anything that happens to Neil after the events in Stalsk-12, and so we can't know his reasoning for anything he'll do after that. By shooting the inverted round, he showed the Protagonist something he'd never seen before and effectively kicked off the plot of the movie—the Protagonist went to Bombay to follow up on the inverted round and learned about Sator—and Neil likely knows this either through his discussions with the Protagonist at the hotel after Oslo or sometime in the future. Since Neil believes whatever happened happened, he may have felt like he needed to set off all these events as part of his mission.




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What happens if you get shot with an inverted bullet?

Forwards person shooting an inverted gun with bullets in the chamber: nothing happens. Forwards person shooting an inverted gun with bullets outside the chamber (e.g. in a wall): Bullets return to the gun, dealing damage to anyone in the trajectory.

Is Neil inverted in Tenet?

The Protagonist is part of the Red Team, who will be performing the operation through the normal direction of time while Neil is part of the Blue Team, which observed the operation from afar and then were inverted, traveling backward in time, knowing what they need to do to be victorious.

Is Neil inverted at the opera?

Bookmark this question. Show activity on this post. At the opera in Tenet, when Neil saves the protagonist, he shot an inverted bullet.

How do inverted objects work Tenet?

Entropy out of the way, Tenet also deals with a concept of 'inversion', which an Empire article explains as: \u201cInversion is a process whereby an object (or person) has its entropy reversed, essentially flipping its chronology so that from that point on it travels backwards in time instead of forwards.\u201d



Tenet / Inverted Bullets Training Scene (Don't Try To Understand It)




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