"Why the ear, man?" makes no sense (SPOILERS)
OK, so Tyler wants to be hit. When we know the movie and watch this scene, it's kind of a peculiar thing; basically, the Narrator will have to hit his own body. Yet, we see him lunge forward and punch Tyler in the ear. This (FALSE?) motion is not the biggest problem, however.
It's that the Narrator doesn't feel anything from his own punch to his own ear. Think about it; he hits HIMSELF in the ear very hard! (or is it 'on the ear'? I suck at english sometimes)
The Narrator should, the VERY second the punch lands, feel a big, sharp, throbbing pain in his ear, and also go down in some way and perhaps scream, moan or at least grunt a bit. But he doesn't.
This brings in a big problem with this movie; obviously the visuals DO NOT MATCH what's happening, especially since we're seeing Tyler where there IS no Tyler. But even Narrator's MOTIONS do not match, and how can Tyler feel physical pain and moan and have to go down a bit, without the Narrator feeling the same?
Does Narrator hit Tyler somehow 'figuratively', where it's NOT an actual physical punch (except into the air, so the motion COULD be believable, but then, wouldn't the Narrator wonder why Tyler's ear/head didn't stop his punch motion at all, but it went straight through, which is NOT what we see anyway, so it's a FALSE motion that we see - THAT punch motion never happened!)?
Does he just stand there and hit Tyler purely in his imagination? What is the REAL motion, what would an outsider see the Narrator do with this punch?
What I am trying to get at, that no matter how you look at this, the movie LIES to us, as it's IMPOSSIBLE that Narrator performs THAT motion that STOPS realistically, and that then only Tyler feels pain.
If he hits only in his imagination, we should see Narrator NOT MOVE AT ALL (well, we all move a little bit all the time usually), for it to be honest and truthful and to make sense. But the movie lies to us, without specifying even later WHICH of the visuals were fabrications and HOW they were fabricated. I have talked about the impossible beer bottle scene before, and it's just ridiculous how the Narrator's imagination can render 100% realistic imagery in a split second to editorialize what he's seeing into what he thinks he's supposed to be seeing to maintain the lie even to himself (not to mention viewers).
This scene just doesn't make any sense..Narrator should either be feeling a lot of pain, or the movie should at least explain which motions are purely fabricated and a lie to maintain the bigger lie to fool the audience and to keep Narrator falsely believeing that Tyler has his own body and is not using his.
Many of this movie's scenes become a bit impossible, when you think about them and KNOW the 'twist'. They would be perfectly plausible without the twist, though - another case, where the twist ruins the rest of the movie.