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An unknown man in SWAT gear points a gun at Protagonist, while he was defusing bombs placed near the cheap seats of an opera house packed with civilians:

Unknown Man: Walk away. You don't have to kill these people.

screen capture of scene described above

Since Protagonist was clearly trying to save people here, why did the unknown man think he was trying to kill them?

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It is the Protagonist that says those lines, not the Ukrainian SWAT (unknown man). When "Walk away" and "You don't have to kill these people" were being said, the camera was focused on the Protagonist. Also, the lines were spoken in English. In an earlier scene where another Ukrainian SWAT (the one who exposed the Protagonist as a fake Ukrainian SWAT by removing his patch) talked to the Protagonist, that SWAT spoke in Ukrainian, not English.

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  • For the record, he is not the Protagonist. His character is identified as Protagonist in the film and credits. If you're referring to his character as the protagonist (in a literary sense), it would be non-capitalised.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 9:53
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    @Valorum I wrote it that way as writing "Protagonist" without "the" makes it sound like his name is literally Protagonist. That is also how it is written in the Wikipedia article for Tenet and in the Tenet screenplay book. Also, near the end of the film, we learn that the Protagonist is The Protagonist. The whole operation was the Protagonist's as stated in a dialogue between Neil and the Protagonist.
    – galacticninja
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 10:27
  • Fair enough. I'll accept the screenplay is a fair indication of what the director had in mind.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 10:36
  • Let’s avoid any confusing by calling him “Prot”.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 18:55

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