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The very first scene in Fight Club is Tyler with a gun in Jack's mouth and asking "Any last words?" Based on what we learn about their relationship throughout the movie, this scene doesn't make any sense.

Tyler can't kill Jack because they're the same person, so we wouldn't expect him to be able to follow through. Tyler also consistently supports Jack and pushes him through things, in his own words, he fully intends to drag Jack "kicking and screaming" through this whole affair, not kill him.

Aside from leading up to the best joke in the entire film, I can't see much reason he'd have to put a gun in his mouth.

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    Notice how one of the characters in question does die and the other lives on. Couldn't it have been the other way around?
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented May 25, 2016 at 2:18
  • Jack is keeping things slow! People aren't always reasonable! There is a huge element of auto-destruction in the movie.
    – nilon
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 16:28

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Tyler does not want the Narrator dead. He needs the Narrator to take the action because Tyler isn't real. Tyler spent the entire film manipulating the Narrator into taking those actions (well, at least when the Narrator is conscious), and knowing that the Narrator, though reckless, does not want to die, has to eventually directly threaten to kill him to get him to do what he wants. Hence, the gun in the mouth.

Of course, this comes at a critical moment when the Narrator realizes he's had the gun all along, and has his "aha!" moment about what it really means to have that gun in his mouth.

The great twist is that, while the Narrator thinks he wants to kill Tyler, he really only kills off the part of him that was keeping himself from fully becoming Tyler.

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