No, no, no. Norton’s character is NOT really named Tyler Durden. Of course everyone thinks he is, because he would have introduced himself as Tyler Durden while he is in his fantasy personality, but that’s not his real name. His fantasy name is Tyler Durden. His birth name is not revealed, according to the movie itself.
Anyone disputing this either hasn’t read this thread in it’s entirety (all the answers are here), or needs to see the movie again, particularily the 4 commentaries, and the interview with Edward Norton.
I’m new, but I’m right, darnit.
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So when did he first become Tyler? Years and years before the movie when he started selling soap to the cute girl at the department store? When he extinguished the pilot light before his business trip? When he got in his first fight?
I don’t see any reason not to believe that the person ‘Tyler Durden’ pre-existed the Edward Norton character, whose name was never revealed. No reason to think it was an invention of Norton’s. I need to watch again with an eye to identifiers and expectations, maybe - but I’m not convinced that there is a lack of a name for this person just because his personality is split between two actors in a movie.
Who knows? As far as I can tell, they don’t give that info in the movie. If the info isn’t given in the movie, it doesn’t necessarily exist, so picking the movie apart in this sense is useless. The info may be in the book, or I may need to see it again, but it starts with him having insomnia, so he may have been going out at night creating havoc, or he may have created Tyler right after he met Marla (he seems to blame everything on her). He said on the plane, “This is how I met Tyler Durden.” He alludes to creating him there, but when he got off the plane his house was blown up. The point is, being a fictional movie, it is only coherent with the info that is given to you, or even just enough to suspend your belief. Once you start asking questions not answered by the movie, you will find many inconsistencies that can never be answered cuz the answers don’t exist. The same can be done to Sixth Sense, and many others. You can’t explain something for which the writer never gave answers.
Would the makers of the movie itself convince you? Edward Norton said that he knew the name, but the director did not. Regardless, it wasn’t revealed. He may have one, but it wasn’t revealed. And it sure as hell isn’t Tyler Durden. From what I can tell, Norton is the one who needed a way out of his current life, and Tyler Durden was his answer. This is how I see it, because this is how it was shown, without assumptions.
If anyone has verifiable proof showing otherwise, then please mention it, and where I can see it as well.
I think the reason he blames everything on Marla is because after he met her is when he notices Tyler.
He has insomnia, so he gets night jobs. He mentions narcilepsy to his doctor “I go to sleep and when I wake up I don’t know where I’m at.” (or something like that) Implying that Tyler Derden may already be in his life, he just doesn’t realize it. This is also supported by the fact that we see Tyler like five or six times in the beginning of the movie before he meets him on the plane. This is also supported by the fact that Tyler blew up Norton’s apartment right after we met him.
He goes to support groups temporarily silencing Durden for a while, what did he say? A year? But then Marla comes along, disrupts his comfortable lil life, but this time so badly that Tyler begans radically changing Norton’s life. He associates meeting Marla with meeting Tyler, so while it’s not her fault, per se, she did start the chain reaction.
I think I need to explain again my theory on the name issue (for selfish reasons of course, but if you’ve read this far you’ll probably want to hear it)
First off, I understand that any information not expressly divulged in the movie itself does not exist in some limited sense. However, the movie refers to a real world about which clues are given in the movie. This hypothesis is based on rationalizing the information in the movie with the most likely correspnding scenario in a world which is similar to our “real world” unless proven otherwise.
Tyler Durden was born to human parents. This presumption is made by assuming that there was never a motivation to create the name ‘Tyler Durden’ on the part of anyone in the movie. The lifestyle we see Edward Norton describing in the opening scenes requires a name, and since no other name is given, I still see no reason not to assume that it’s Tyler. The “proof” that the director states plainly that Norton’s character doesn’t have a name is irrelevant because in the movie Norton’s character is only PART of the person that was born Tyler Durden. He’s the disconnected insomniac materialist recall auditor. Tyler Durden, at some point before the movie opens (apparently quite some time) has become two personalities. Norton uses a credit card number that is probably assigned to Tyler Durden, but because he’s disconnected, he doesn’t recognize the name when Pitt introduces himself. He first “meets” Tyler Durden as he begins the process of reconnecting his two personalities.
Tyler Durden looks like Edward Norton to everybody else. This presumption is made on stronger evidence. Most of the characters address only Norton. Security cameras see only Norton. Pitt’s penguin shirt is related to the dream penguin, and so his appearance seems to be projected from this troubled mind.
To everyone else in the “Fight Club” world, there is no one walking around with a name that isn’t given in the movie. We, the audience, are introduced to a part of Tyler’s brain that doesn’t use a name - but everyone who met his in any other way calls him Tyler. (except when the camera is on, so as not to give anything away)
So, to sum up: Norton’s character has no name. Norton’s character is only part of Tyler Durden, who does have a name and does exist. When Norton subsumes the divergent personality played by Pitt, he regains the name Pitt had used during the period portrayed in the movie. If there were a prequel or a sequel, then we would all know Tyler Durden, who would be played by Edward Norton (or Jake Lloyd, depending on how early this prequel is set) and there is no reason to think any other proper name applies to either Norton or Pitt.
In the realm of mental illness, is it even theoretically possible for a personality like Tyler to exist? I mean, Tyler can actually beat up the Narrator using the Narrator’s own body and he doesn’t realize this! Tyler can drive a car using the Narrator’s body, but the Narrator thinks he’s really sitting next to a real Tyler who’s driving the car. Not to mention that Tyler knows he’s a figment of the Narrator’s imagination even when the Narrator doesn’t.
More supporting evidence that Edward Norton’s character is not named Tyler Durden: When the Narrator asks Tyler how he got the house if he isn’t real, Tyler says it was rented in the Narrator’s name.
Another interesting point: How come Tyler knows how to make soap and explosives, but the Narrator doesn’t seem to?
Tyler knows how to make soap and explosives because he has existed long before Norton knew about him. Remember, Norton is an insomniac, but he also reports to the doctor that he falls asleep and wakes up, not nowing where he is and still being tired. One could surmise, then, that while he is “sleeping”, he is really out playing Tyler. The house which Tyler lives in is full of books and magazines on a whole slew of subjects, so at some point while Norton was “asleep”, Tyler found the house, read a book on soap, and then found another book on explosives, and learned how to make both.
why does he have to have a name? of course he does have a name, but we don’t know it. why can’t you accept that? does it really bother you that the director didn’t want you to know? do you feel left out? does this sadden you? what don’t you get about this? just because nobody told you his name, that doesn’t make it your responsibilty to assign one.
to follow your logic, i see no reason not to assume that his name is marla. or bob.
This is just a red herring, and a good one. When I saw the movie, I thought, of course, that Tyler was a real person. So I thought that Tyler had had surgery to look like the Narrator (even the Narrator seemed to think this for a minute) – and then gone and #$%%ed Marla, etc, posing as Norton.
Um, I thought the Travel thing was contemporaneous. i.e. – the Narrator would fly to a town, fall asleep, become Tyler, organize a club, wake up and become the Narrator again, always just on the heals of Tyler.
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So, who played Edward Norton?
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But seriously, he must have had a worldly name other than Tyler Durgun. We just never find out what it is. That would be the name on his tickets, lease etc.
Actually – sudden flash – the Narrator even says to Durgen about the house, and Durgen flies back with “it was rented in your name” – meaning I think that the Narrator’s real name isn’t Durgen, but maybe signifying nothing.
The source novel actually deals with the consequences of this in a wittier and much more cynical way. The gunshot takes place in much the same way. Afterwards, the Narrator awakens in “Heaven,” which turns out to be an asylum. He is under care there, having been committed after recovering from his gunshot wound (can’t recall if the authorities manage to foil the bombing of the credit card companies). He is asked by “God” (the doctor) every day if he is ready to “return to Earth” (join the outside world again). Unfortunately, he doesn’t feel safe returning, since every day members of the staff assure him that " . . . Project Mayhem is proceeding according to your plans, sir."
The name on the tickets IS “Tyler Durden.” We clearly see them when the Narrator is looking at them, and they are almost certainly the tickets issued to him by his boss along with the computer and paychecks when he beats himself up in the boss’ office. If his name isn’t “Tyler Durden,” and he doesn’t yet know Tyler is part of him, why would he ask for the tickets in that name?
The “narrator’s name” could still be Tyler Durden. Wouldn’t it make sense for Pitt to use it if that was their name?
why? WHY? WHYYYYY?
why does he have to have a name? of course he does have a name, but we don’t know it. why can’t you accept that? does it really bother you that the director didn’t want you to know? do you feel left out? does this sadden you? what don’t you get about this? just because nobody told you his name, that doesn’t make it your responsibilty to assign one.
to follow your logic, i see no reason not to assume that his name is marla. or bob.
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OK. I’ll try again. I’m not distressed that the name isn’t given. I just happen to think that there really ISN’T a name for Norton’s character because he’s part of Tyler Durden. (Instead of your theory that there is a unnamed guy with a second personality named Tyler, I think there’s a guy named Tyler with an unnamed second personality) I think my version is much more resonable, and not because I’m uncomfortable not being able to call Norton something else. I’m not assigning a name, I’m deducing one. I’m not naming the unnamed, I’m just saying that before Norton/Pitt disconnected himself into two parts, he/they were named Tyler. The reason I said his lifestyle requires a name is because he uses credit cards and fills out job applications, much like Pitt prints business cards and rents apartments.
To assume that his name were Marla or Bob would be slightly more reasonable than to assume he has no name at all. None of those assumptions are warranted. As you have plainly stated, the fact of his name is never given in the movie. This has the obvious function of maintaining the conceit that Norton and Pitt are different people. If Norton’s character did have a hypothetical name for the purposes of ordering bath towels, there would be no reason not to divulge it. It doesn’t bother me that no one did, because it works out better that way. However, there IS evidence to support that the name was Tyler, and only a stunning LACK of evidence supporting anything else. In any case, Nortons CHARACTER remains always, and forever, nameless. I’m cool with that. Really.
ok…not to beat a dead horse or anything…BUT…does it really matter if the tickets were issued to “Tyler Durden”??? I don’t think so. Let’s just chalk that up to creative license as well guys. Perhaps Ed Norton’s character transfered the tickets in his altered state…who knows…it’s really not that important. Had Norton found tickets that were issued to “Your kookie alter ego”, the movie would have been a wash for me right there.
Here’s my take on the name issue (now be nice guys…this is my virginal post…treat me kind…I’ll remember this forever)
Ed Norton plays “the narrator”
Brad Pitt plays Tyler Durden – the narrator’s alter ego.
…the narrator is NOT Tyler Durden. Hell…Tyler Durden isn’t even Tyler Durden because Tyler Durden doesn’t exist!
Wouldn’t Ed Norton’s character think it a bit odd to meet someone with THE EXACT SAME NAME AS HIM?? Of course he would. Thus the character has a real name – which is not Tyler Durden.
welcome, blue. i like you.
a good point, pldennison. i will have to investigate when i get home. finally somebody brought some actual evidence to support the human being named tyler durden.
I don’t know if anyone has brought this up yet…I didn’t have time to read through all of the responses. I saw Marla as Ed Norton’s feminine side since she appeared after Bob’s mothering influence. I think that she was just another side of his personality like Tyler instead of a separate character.
Thanks Blue, and welcome – good point. I don’t think it was that long ago either that airlines didn’t even bother checking your ID. Of course, I haven’t been around that long. And the narrator flew a lot anyway – maybe they just recognized him. Maybe he bought two sets of tickets – didn’t part of the deal he worked out with his boss get him free tickets anywhere he wanted?
I only saw the movie once but it was only a month ago…