the way birds are treated in magic tricks subtly hints at the film’s central theme of duality and sacrifice. Early on, a magician crushes a bird in a collapsing cage to make it "disappear," only to produce a seemingly identical one moments later. A young boy, seeing through the trick, asks, “But where’s his brother?” a chilling detail that foreshadows the truth about Borden and Angier. Just like the bird, Borden’s twin sacrifices his identity for the illusion, while Angier…
