Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

Projection Mal

While Mal may have been as wonderful as all get-out in real life, Cobb's projection of her isn't very nice. Not only is she manipulative, getting all teary eyed and trying to pull Cobb back to her in Limbo, but she also has a thing for stabbing people.

She betrays Cobb twice in the Saito extraction dream. She also alerts the projections in the snowy Level #3 dream and is the one who shoots and kidnaps Fischer. However, what makes Mal a particularly interesting antagonist is that she makes Cobb both the protagonist and the antagonist.