With Christopher Nolan's Tenet coming up, fans are reliving some of his most cryptic work like Memento, Inception and The Prestige. The magician war in The Prestige stands tall, with Hugh Jackman's Robert Angier engaging in a rivalry with Christian Bale's Alfred Borden. Both men harbored dark secrets about their tricks of the trade, which led to tragedy after tragedy. Like any Nolan film, there were plenty of twists, and once again, discussions are being had over the fate that befell Angier in the end.
Going to the beginning, Angier's dispute begins when Borden accidentally tied a knot too tight, causing Angier's wife, Julia (Piper Perabo), to drown in a water tank. He seeks to destroy Borden's career, and after stealing Borden's dairy, he meets Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) in search of a special machine.
The machine, while it gives trouble at first, is recalibrated to produce clones; although, the film never specifies how the process works. In fact, Angier admits he doesn't know who is the real him and who is a clone. While there are two outcomes to look at, both are bleak, compounding how far Angier was willing to go to ruin Borden.
When Angier Prime tries the machine out, another Angier is produced; however, it's hard to say if the one in the secondary spot is the Prime who's been teleported or if this is a clone. Nonetheless, the one in the Prime spot shoots the second one after the initial test, killing him.
If the man who fires the gun is indeed Angier Prime, it means Angier killed himself on the first night of the "New Transported Man" show after falling into a water tank, which locked automatically, and the clone appearing in the balcony lives for the next day, garnering applause and prestige without the audience knowing about the fate of the real Angrier. Thus, the next night, this means the clone, who is now in the Prime position, kills himself as well since he knows the trick will lead to his death.
Angier willingly becomes a sacrificial lamb because he lives on through his clones. This seems harsh, but this pseudo-immortality angle works for a few reasons. Angier lost himself after Julia died, and Cutter (Michael Caine) did tell him drowning feels like "going home," so it could be each time he opts to die is like a reunion with his true love. He also feels responsible for letting Cutter and Borden endanger Julia, so this suicide is an atonement for his guilt, while also giving him the spotlight to a certain extent, making the death a mix of pleasure and pain.
The second scenario is that it's actually the clone who is produced in the Prime spot, which means the clone shoots the real Angier, who teleported to a second spot during the test. Fans who believe this think that because the secondary spot Angier is excited, he is Angier Prime, feeling joy over the machine's success. This also means that Angier Prime knows he will be safe in the balcony during the show while the clone takes the fall on stage. The fact the clone Angier in the primary spot is mortified when he sees his copy in the balcony also suggests this theory holds weight because he was clueless about what was happening after his "birth," and that confusion and fear leads to him shooting Angier Prime.
It's never confirmed, but in this case, if the real Angier was murdered there, it has a sinister serendipity to it. He ends up suffering for his art and paying the ultimate price, which is fair given how many people he hurt, like Oliva, Cutter and the Borden family. This death would be apt according to the viewer's moral compass, and thus the Angier 2.0 who shot him would proceed to get all the "prestige" moments afterwards, killing the other clones night after night, living on as Lord Caldlow and aiming to take Borden's daughter.