Apart from the obvious clue in the title (tenet: a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy) we recently got a couple of more hints from the teaser trailer that seem to be pointing to the same direction. The taglines ''time has come for a new protagonist'' and ''...for a new kind of mission''. As other users have also pointed out (/r/tenet/comments/cm0lqb/interesting_interpretation_of_the_trailer/) these words, except for the most commonly used meaning, can also be interpreted as protagonist: an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea and mission: the vocation or calling of a religious organization, especially a Christian one, to go out into the world and spread its faith.
Now these hints, as well as others that I will touch on below, imo seem to corroborate the theory that Tenet is not going to be strictly sci-fi but it's also going to incorporate elements of a religious, mystery thriller hence the comparison to Dan Brown novels. The theory that the movie's going to deal with the manipulation of space-time is well established I believe, so I'm not going to elaborate on that. So to jump right in, my two main ideas (and a sort of TL;DR) are :
1. Characters in the movie are going to use time manipulation to study/investigate/witness historical events and particularly events with religious significace. Perhaps witness the birth of new faiths, find common traits or shared origins between different faiths, or even attempt to manipulate them. Religious fanatics who need to be stopped are a possibility in my opinion as villains
2. Whatever mechanism or explanation given for the manipulation of space-time is going to stem from some type of ancient human secret and not so much from futuristic technology. Some ancient technology perhaps lost in the Mt Vesuvius disaster(?) [explained later] that needs to be rediscovered, reinvented or a technology inspired by practices used by earlier civilizations that were mistaken for magic during earlier centuries and maybe incorporated in religious faith or myths and superstition
Where do I base this on apart from the title and taglines mentioned above? Mainly one thing: The Sator Square
Sator Square - Wikipedia.
It is a 2,000-year-old word puzzle, to be exact it's the world's oldest two-dimensional palindrome and it consists of the latin words: SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS in such a configuration that can be read the same any way you look at them with TENET and particularly its letter N as the focal point of the text. Now the way TENĆŽę“• has been stylized as a palindrome I think draws unavoidable comparisons to this ancient riddle. It's inscriptions have been discovered in many different places including England (Cirencester and Manchester), various locations in Italy, France, Syria, Portugal; some of which might turn out to be, or already are, filming locations for Tenet.
But it's oldest known inscription was, interestingly enough, discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, an ancient Italian city buried in ash after Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Now where is the movie going to be filming? In the Amalfi region of southern Italy just 15-20 miles away from the Pompeii ruins. I highly doubt it's a coincidence that from all the places in the world, in Europe and in Italy it just so happens to be filming a half-hour drive away from this ancient site. And as Pompeii itself is only an archaeological site and uninhabited, the locations in Amalfi like Ravello or Maiori, could be used as a base for both the real-life film crew as well as the film heroes, perhaps engaged in some type of investigation of the location and its riddle in particular.
The riddle itself has been a topic of debate for centuries. Its translation, although debated, is most commonly and roughly given as ''The farmer [named] Arepo uses the plough for work''. Although seemingly inconspicuous it had gained a lot of notoriety in the past, and had strong associations with Christianity as well as earlier faiths (like Jewish or Mithraic) and magic. Earlier Christians in particular by repositioning the letters around the N had made different variations of the riddle, turning it into a cross, using it as a prayer, highlighting the A's and O's as a symbol of the ''Alpha and Omega'' and so on (it's all in the article above). Some early traditions even went as far as to name the nails used in Jesus's crucifixion as well as his wounds: Sator, Arepo, Tenet, Opera and Rotas. So there is an undeniable religious context here.But even before Christians, this palindrome was used by older faiths and its origin can be traced back to ancient Mithraic religion in Syria, Persia (and perhaps even India?) as well as folk magic and superstition.
Given all that I am lead to believe that yes, the film is definitely going to involve manipulation of space-time of some kind. But it's not going to be 100% sci-fi in the way it's executed or more importantly the reasons and the motives behind it are not going to be purely scientifical. Otherwise why not make it a straightforward sci-fi, time travel film? With time machines, astronauts, wormholes etc kinda like Interstellar. Why choose to tie it so closely with an ancient text with strong religious as well as ''magical'' and paganistic implications, instead of tying it with futuristic gadgetry and scientific reasoning?
We all know that Christopher Nolan never does anything randomly and never leaves anything to chance. So I don't think the fact that he chose to implicate his movie with the ancient ''Sator Square'' riddle is coincidental or that he simply liked that text. I believe it was deliberate, that he has done his homework about it and he knows all its historical, religious and even apocryphal aspects; and he specifically opted for this historical and religious context instead of a purely scientific one because similar themes are going to be explored in the movie
P.S. bonus mini-theory: one of the characters is going to be named Arepo
