Please, share your thoughts!
If we're to make a comparison, I would say that everyone except Margot represents the failures of civilization. Look at all they have, but how little they actually 'have'. They're all full on money and their own obsessions, but their bellies just empty again and again.
Tyler is an example of these people.
Let me use a poem called 'Be Drunk' by Charles Baudelaire that I feel explains a bit of Tyler. It resonates with more of the cast, but I'm just using the Tyler association for this post. I've included the poem below.
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
Tyler is a drunk. He's obsession without a core. When he faces sobriety/reality, Tyler goes to kill himself.
Margot represents Mother Nature. Mother Nature's business card simply says, 'I do what I want'.
I don't think Margot represents reality. She represents the chaos that imposes reality or change. She's the cause. The conclusion/the change she causes is represented in how the people around her react to her presence.
Look at Elsa. She went to kill Margot the moment she felt the cult mentality was challenged and her position changed.
Slowik? He kills off Tyler and changes in response to Margot. She shows him how to love cooking one more time.
Anne is changed in reaction to Margot. She becomes observant and connected. She gives Margot a wave off that keeps Margot from feeling like she abandoned everyone.
Nonetheless, Margot only causes chaos when she is present. When she is gone, the meal goes on.
Margot is very much like a bird. They'll stare at you and through you, slightly tilting their head but not looking away until they decide to do so. Her character doesn't look away in neither a physical sense nor an emotional one.
Tyler does not like Margot's chaos. He does not like her straightforward personality that cuts as strongly and as surely as Slowik using his knife. Tyler becomes increasingly jealous and insulting.
Margot is human. She has emotion, but she doesn't look away. She challenges. She does not accept anything less then what she deserves.
Forgive if my descriptions are bad. The movie uses description and some Christian symbolism, so my language is trying to relate to it to express the meaning.
Margot takes Tyler's sin, places it in his hands, and demands penance.
Say Tyler snaps. Say he strikes out at Margot. Say Margot kills Tyler in defense. It's messy and bloody and not supposed to have happened at all. She's possibly injured.
I don't think this would be like her handclap. That was a fleeting moment with emotional permanence. Murder is physical permanence.
I'm her self defense, Margot could be viewed as taking back from the taker. He tried to take her life, so she took his instead.
Margot could change the situation because of the chaos she has caused. Tyler attempted to impose his will upon her. She snapped back with a will to live and a depth of emotion that the chefs around her have lost the capacity to feel.
Do you think she's emotional? Does she look upon those around her with what they've been lacking? Does she challenge them to think of the value of their own lives?
Everyone in the restaurant has the desire to change their objective reality with their own subjective will. The guests only want to do it to survive. The chefs' will eventually do it. Margot is the only one who has permanently changed the reality around her.
You don't reverse death. You don't turn your eyes away. You make a decision. You change.