Where do you think R.P. Tyler, Tadfield's resident busybody, fits in with all the angel/demon/human paralleling going on? :D
Hi there, Dear Philosopher! Hope you're doing well today. 💕 Freezing and snowy here today so to share with you is some cozy baked ziti warm from the oven. 😊
I think that R.P. Tyler is kind of a warning of a character. The goal is basically to never find yourself so fearful as a result of so much unmanaged anxiety and depression that you've slipped into becoming a bit of a R.P. Tyler.
On paper, this man doesn't have a great deal of things to worry about that we can see, which is why I think he can come across as more irritating than the kind of just sad person that he is. He lives in a picturesque town-- the only fictional English village where there's likely never been a murder. He has good physical health, a partner, nice neighbors, and he's retired with plenty of resources. He should be living life to the fullest. Instead, he's just a heart-breakingly miserable man who is suffering from some pretty evident undiagnosed anxiety and depression. He could be appreciating his life a bit more and spreading that gratitude for what he has by sharing it with others but he's locked down by refusing to approach people with kindness and curiosity and, instead, choosing a bit more, well... obnoxiousness.
If we look at his name in support of his character? His last name is Tyler, which is an occupational surname derived from tiler or brick maker. On one level, building metaphorical walls and foundations isn't a bad thing-- it's indicative of helping to form a better society-- but, on another level, walls can also be really negative.
Think: putting up emotional walls and shutting everyone out or building metaphorical fortresses to gate-keep in order to preserve what you believe is the 'right sort' of society. R.P. Tyler falls more along the negative side of things. (Note that the "R.P." is also an acronym for "Received Pronunciation", amusingly emphasizing his love of what he believes is "proper.")
As we learned in other scenes, bricks are not always a bad thing. Gabriel and Beez, according to the bartender in The Resurrectionist, are Freemasons. Symbolically, yes, they are-- a mason is a builder and the two of them, when together out in the world, are free and making a better place for themselves and others. They're not at risk of R.P. Tyler-ing-- they're the opposite of him because neither of them are narrow-minded in their thinking about people and the world.
But when people get all R.P. Tyler-y? It can get dangerous. He's mostly harmless, kept in relative check by the fact that everyone in town thinks of him as a high-strung, busy body of an old man and mostly ignores him and his unsolicited advice and endless letters to The Tadfield Advertiser. But R.P. Tyler is also what happens when people, especially men, don't open up somebody and while he himself isn't really all dangerous, it's this same mentality that can worsen and slip from these kids these days! to people who then take this all to a more political level and cause massive problems to the health and safety of other people in society.
After all, tiles and bricks? They can be weapons in a good way-- you can build something that can help make the world better and thwart off all sorts of Armageddons...
...or they can be a tool of violence, like the one the demons threw into the bookshop to demand they send out that free mason Jim.
R.P. Tyler is a really interesting character because, initially, he seems like he will not be that important to the story. He's largely the Mr. Wilson to Adam's Dennis the Menace for awhile there but, then, it turns out that every single major character has to go through R.P. Tyler to find the way to Armageddon.
And when you think about it? They would need to, right?
Because who else knows the best route to take to get to a closed, American air force base than the most shut-off, repressed, locked down, and miserable old guy imaginable? The humor in all of it, though, is that R.P. Tyler cannot actually recognize what's going on-- not with the people who ask him for directions to the end of the world or with the fact that Tadfield really is ground zero for Armageddon.
R.P. Tyler cannot recognize true crisis because he's obsessed with false crisis because he doesn't acknowledge his own crisis. He's in constant, unacknowledged, untreated mental health crisis himself and his only way of trying to manage it is to try to control the world around him instead of leaning on that world for support and inspiration. He spends his days worried about too much sex being shown on the BBC and an eleven year old kid taking apples from his tree. He thinks these are actual problems.
A healthier man would be fine with admitting to liking a bit of spice in his programs and would not be trying to suppress art. A more secure man would recognize that, as an elder man in his community, he could be an adopted grandfather/godfather of sorts to The Them, and that kids eating healthy food is not exactly something to worry about.
The man who runs the Neighborhood Watch and is obsessed with the safety of his community has never thought that he owns an apple orchard full of more apples than he and his wife could ever eat and maybe showing up with a basketful of them for the Young family and other neighbors or even just waving hi when Adam picks one is going to do far more for his community than obsessively monitoring the non-existent "safety threats" to his neighborhood.
R.P. Tyler is kind of the whole doomed future example bit of The Christmas Carol-- the 'If These Shadows Remain Unaltered By The Future' of Good Omens. He's the warning of what kind of future awaits anyone who doesn't learn how to open their mind and approach the world more as a free mason wanting to help build it up rather than someone wielding a brick, looking to destroy progress and set everyone back.
In terms of who is paralleling R.P. Tyler in the different areas of the story in S2, I think Michael in the Up and Shax in the Down both run the risk of getting a bit R.P. Tyler and trying to uphold the 'traditional values' of their societies but both seem like they can be swayed back from that edge if others let them in-- and if they decide they are willing.
In the human world, the closest thing to R.P. Tyler in S2 is a guy who is likely going to avoid it because he's fundamentally way more with it than R.P. and that's Mr. Brown of Brown's World of Carpets. Mr. Vacuum likes things Just So and sees his role as the President of The Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Association as if it's his responsibility to keep a sense of order over the neighborhood and be its standard-bearer example.
We see great examples of that in his arrival at the ball, where Mrs. Sandwich spots him and turns away with visible disgust-- undoubtedly because while Aziraphale will recognize hers as a business like any other on the street, Mr. Vacuum thinks she's bringing down the neighborhood and likely has made that known in the past.
We also see him be a bit ornery about how Aziraphale isn't following all the usual rules of the meeting, which Mr. Brown always has under his control, of course.
Where are his seats?! Things are falling to pieces around here! 😂
Mr. Carpet is a deeply unhappy and lonely man but what he has going for him is that he's probably a bit more open to change than R.P. Tyler-- a bit softer, a bit more willing to be vulnerable. He's also just younger and of a different generation.
In some ways, Mr. Brown is emblematic of how we still have so many toxic ideas about masculinity but things have been improving in many ways from the days that were more difficult for the R.P. Tylers of the world. That's a good example of the progress that, ironically, R.P. Tyler finds threatening, but that hopefully might find its way towards him a bit at some point and help him get some more peaceful years in there. Hopefully. For the sake of his poor wife, anyway. If not, Mrs. R.P. Tyler is totally hooking up with Brenda's long-suffering Ron in the afterlife. 😂
