Rupert Giles, version 7.18
May. 2nd, 2003 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynLike a lot of people (or at least, people who love Giles), I've been distressed by how Giles is behaving this season, especially in the past few episodes. His relationship with Buffy is the core of why I started watching this show, and has remained my primary reason for loving it no matter what ship or other character I was smitten with. I watched the first ep of Buffy for two reasons: ASH, and I loved the movie (yes, I realize that makes me one of about three people in America).
I first saw ASH on those Taster's Choice commercials -- I was told I'd seen him before on Brit TV, but I didn't cue in on him until those ads (and the British versions -- I was actually sappy enough over those ads that I got hold of the paperback book Love Over Gold -- can anyone else claim such stupidity? Raise your hand, 'cause you and I need to form a club). It amazed me that someone could take a character in an advertisement series and make him so interesting, so charming, and with such mystique that you eagerly awaited the next ad. Then he turned up on VR5 as a very ambiguous, possibly bad guy maybe good guy character, and I was totally, hopelessly in love, so of course I watched when I found out he was on Buffy. And I immediately loved Giles. He was sexy and funny and tweedy and dorky in all the right combinations, and as we found out more and more about him, his strengths and weaknesses (especially as regarded Buffy), he became the anchor of the show. He's always been the one constant in it, even when he was away last year. It was no surprise that it would be Giles who would have the strength and the ability to take on Willow in Grave, because he's always been the one person who provided the foundation for these younger characters (or troubled characters) to build on, to grow on, and he was always the strongest emotionally -- not just because of age, but because of his wisdom and his love.
The CoW thought his love for Buffy was a weakness, and they took away his responsibility for her. But it would be impossible to remove Giles from Buffy's life and work, from anyone there, really, and not see how much weaker they become without him. Buffy knew after that that what she got from him wasn't just because he was a Watcher, but because he was who he was. When Buffy increasingly turns to him in S6 because she can't handle the life responsibilities, it's Giles she gives them to, not anyone else. Everyone knows that Giles is the center, the core, of them all, even though they don't appreciate him or understand him because he's older. No other parent fulfills this role for them; nor do any teachers at any point in the show. Giles is both the outsider and the center at the same time, and the kids know it, and he knows it (most of the time, episodes like New Man notwithstanding). And it's been Giles's love for Buffy that has sustained her many times (when she hits him in Passion it's not just to knock sense into him, but also to make him understand how desperate she is -- that she really cannot do this without him), and her love for him that has brought her lowest at various times (her shame at letting him down in Innocence, her regret at not telling him about Angel in Revelations). And their trust and need for each other that caused them the most trouble when it was broken (Helpless and Yoko Factor).
So this is why I'm having so much trouble with the pod person representation of a Giles I don't know this season, and a Buffy and Giles relationship that bears no resemblance to the one I've watched be forged out of pain and understanding and love and betrayal and forgiveness these past few years. I have no idea who these people are anymore when they relate to each other. We know Giles has the capacity for deceit and murder, from Helpless and The Gift -- but those were both in service of something larger. The first because he believed he had to do that under the direction of the Council, and the second to prevent Glory from ever coming back. But working with Wood to murder Spike, and keep it from Buffy, makes no sense in regards to his character as we've seen it before -- it's not for a greater good or his belief in his role, but for what he deems as Buffy's own good, which indicates that Giles has reduced it to a personal issue. He's refusing to see Spike's potential for good, which Buffy clearly sees, and focuses only on the potential for harm, showing that he has no faith in her judgment. Yet he's seen time and again that she will step up to the plate to find a solution, even when it means her own death, and that she's capable of seeing things in others that no one else sees (she is, after all, the one who figures out Spike's behind their split in Yoko Factor). So why, suddenly, is her belief in someone he doesn't like a sign of her inability as a leader? Why go behind her back and try to destroy something she depends upon? This seems uncharacteristic at best, dangerous at worst. Why would Giles, who knows she needs support and backup, suddenly lose his ability to see the things inside her she resists, understand the things about herself she doesn't always want to understand? He gives her no credit for her ability to lead, and in fact tears her down during the fight in the graveyard in Lies My Parents Told Me. He doesn't just insinuate that he doesn't believe in her, he flat out says it.
And that episode title isn't just applicable to Wood and Spike -- it's also about Buffy and Giles. He's long been her father stand-in, and rather than showing her support even if he doesn't agree with her decisions like a good father would, he mutinies in the next episode like an unworthy soldier. It's one of the falsest moments of his character they've ever represented -- he demands that she make the hard decisions, tells her she can't and that he has to do it for her because she's too personally involved with Spike to do it, challenges every decision she makes yet supports a decision by Faith to take the SITs out for a fun run when things are at their most dangerous, and then joins the rejection party because she has made the hard decision, because she is focusing on the mission (which he complained bitterly about in First Date -- that people weren't focusing on the matter at hand), and because she is doing the difficult job of leading. What bothers me most is that he throws away a chance at guiding her and building her trust back; he turns argumentative and stubborn about it, and there's a prime opportunity to make her see how afraid everyone else is and find positive solutions that move the mission forward AND build belief again. The old Buffy and Giles would have understood this, and she would have turned to him, or they'd have hashed it out like they did in the Gift, and everyone would follow. For Giles to stand there and tell her that he can't trust her, when he's undermined her so much recently, is not the Giles we have come to love (nor is it the Giles who told her what a great person she'd become in Spiral). He's some sort of out of touch CoW stiff with an inability to look at the larger picture, focused instead on the minutiae of obedience and correctness.
The old Giles wouldn't squander an opportunity to help "his slayer" or to school her in leadership of an army that's balking. He wouldn't join that mutiny, though he'd argue with her, certainly, and clearly state his reasons for disapproval. And the old Buffy and Giles dynamic would have allowed for that; instead we've got subterfuge and mistrust, which not only won't accomplish anything, it rids the Good side of their most powerful weapon. They've completely thrown away their highest card, instead of hearing her out -- Giles helped to put her on the defensive so far that all she could do was fight for leadership, rather than get others on board with her plan. Do they know for certain that she meant they all go in to the winery, guns blazing? She may have intended it more as a recon-type mission, rather than something riskier. Did anyone stop to ask her and see if her encounter with Caleb has scared her and made her more controlling because she's frightened? These are things the old Giles would have done -- he could see inside her before, he was good at that, at identifying fears (how else could he have tricked her into unburdening herself about killing Angel in Faith, Hope and Trick?) and guiding her away from them. I don't understand who this man is standing around with Giles's glasses.
I think Giles knows that love and togetherness and trust are the only things that will save them (in the 4th season ender, he certainly did). Or rather, the Giles we know would know that -- in order to forge an army out of frightened, damaged kids, those elements have to be there, and Giles would have been the right guy to guide them. Because he's done it before, with kids, and helped them avert apocalypses. He's good at that. He's strong and sensible and mostly reliable, but he's all those things quietly, strongly. And that's what Buffy needs right now; instead he's conspiring with Wood to kill the one thing she's most afraid of losing and consistently undermining her authority. Instead, Buffy loses him, and he loses her trust and belief. I can only hope that maybe this is part of a plot, because the idea of the show going out with Buffy and Giles so separated, so against each other, upsets me almost more than my Spuffy fears. Their closeness and love has been the foundation the show was built on, and everything will crumble in the end if that foundation is gone completely. I want old Giles back, and soon, because this mystery man is not appealing to me, even if he looks like ASH. If they irrevocably destroy this foundation, they've destroyed the show.
If anyone wants to argue, disagree, whatever, I'd love to hear your viewpoint (I don't mind disagreement!). But if I don't respond, it's not 'cause I'm mad -- I'm heading up to Vancouver this weekend and won't be back till late Sunday night.
I first saw ASH on those Taster's Choice commercials -- I was told I'd seen him before on Brit TV, but I didn't cue in on him until those ads (and the British versions -- I was actually sappy enough over those ads that I got hold of the paperback book Love Over Gold -- can anyone else claim such stupidity? Raise your hand, 'cause you and I need to form a club). It amazed me that someone could take a character in an advertisement series and make him so interesting, so charming, and with such mystique that you eagerly awaited the next ad. Then he turned up on VR5 as a very ambiguous, possibly bad guy maybe good guy character, and I was totally, hopelessly in love, so of course I watched when I found out he was on Buffy. And I immediately loved Giles. He was sexy and funny and tweedy and dorky in all the right combinations, and as we found out more and more about him, his strengths and weaknesses (especially as regarded Buffy), he became the anchor of the show. He's always been the one constant in it, even when he was away last year. It was no surprise that it would be Giles who would have the strength and the ability to take on Willow in Grave, because he's always been the one person who provided the foundation for these younger characters (or troubled characters) to build on, to grow on, and he was always the strongest emotionally -- not just because of age, but because of his wisdom and his love.
The CoW thought his love for Buffy was a weakness, and they took away his responsibility for her. But it would be impossible to remove Giles from Buffy's life and work, from anyone there, really, and not see how much weaker they become without him. Buffy knew after that that what she got from him wasn't just because he was a Watcher, but because he was who he was. When Buffy increasingly turns to him in S6 because she can't handle the life responsibilities, it's Giles she gives them to, not anyone else. Everyone knows that Giles is the center, the core, of them all, even though they don't appreciate him or understand him because he's older. No other parent fulfills this role for them; nor do any teachers at any point in the show. Giles is both the outsider and the center at the same time, and the kids know it, and he knows it (most of the time, episodes like New Man notwithstanding). And it's been Giles's love for Buffy that has sustained her many times (when she hits him in Passion it's not just to knock sense into him, but also to make him understand how desperate she is -- that she really cannot do this without him), and her love for him that has brought her lowest at various times (her shame at letting him down in Innocence, her regret at not telling him about Angel in Revelations). And their trust and need for each other that caused them the most trouble when it was broken (Helpless and Yoko Factor).
So this is why I'm having so much trouble with the pod person representation of a Giles I don't know this season, and a Buffy and Giles relationship that bears no resemblance to the one I've watched be forged out of pain and understanding and love and betrayal and forgiveness these past few years. I have no idea who these people are anymore when they relate to each other. We know Giles has the capacity for deceit and murder, from Helpless and The Gift -- but those were both in service of something larger. The first because he believed he had to do that under the direction of the Council, and the second to prevent Glory from ever coming back. But working with Wood to murder Spike, and keep it from Buffy, makes no sense in regards to his character as we've seen it before -- it's not for a greater good or his belief in his role, but for what he deems as Buffy's own good, which indicates that Giles has reduced it to a personal issue. He's refusing to see Spike's potential for good, which Buffy clearly sees, and focuses only on the potential for harm, showing that he has no faith in her judgment. Yet he's seen time and again that she will step up to the plate to find a solution, even when it means her own death, and that she's capable of seeing things in others that no one else sees (she is, after all, the one who figures out Spike's behind their split in Yoko Factor). So why, suddenly, is her belief in someone he doesn't like a sign of her inability as a leader? Why go behind her back and try to destroy something she depends upon? This seems uncharacteristic at best, dangerous at worst. Why would Giles, who knows she needs support and backup, suddenly lose his ability to see the things inside her she resists, understand the things about herself she doesn't always want to understand? He gives her no credit for her ability to lead, and in fact tears her down during the fight in the graveyard in Lies My Parents Told Me. He doesn't just insinuate that he doesn't believe in her, he flat out says it.
And that episode title isn't just applicable to Wood and Spike -- it's also about Buffy and Giles. He's long been her father stand-in, and rather than showing her support even if he doesn't agree with her decisions like a good father would, he mutinies in the next episode like an unworthy soldier. It's one of the falsest moments of his character they've ever represented -- he demands that she make the hard decisions, tells her she can't and that he has to do it for her because she's too personally involved with Spike to do it, challenges every decision she makes yet supports a decision by Faith to take the SITs out for a fun run when things are at their most dangerous, and then joins the rejection party because she has made the hard decision, because she is focusing on the mission (which he complained bitterly about in First Date -- that people weren't focusing on the matter at hand), and because she is doing the difficult job of leading. What bothers me most is that he throws away a chance at guiding her and building her trust back; he turns argumentative and stubborn about it, and there's a prime opportunity to make her see how afraid everyone else is and find positive solutions that move the mission forward AND build belief again. The old Buffy and Giles would have understood this, and she would have turned to him, or they'd have hashed it out like they did in the Gift, and everyone would follow. For Giles to stand there and tell her that he can't trust her, when he's undermined her so much recently, is not the Giles we have come to love (nor is it the Giles who told her what a great person she'd become in Spiral). He's some sort of out of touch CoW stiff with an inability to look at the larger picture, focused instead on the minutiae of obedience and correctness.
The old Giles wouldn't squander an opportunity to help "his slayer" or to school her in leadership of an army that's balking. He wouldn't join that mutiny, though he'd argue with her, certainly, and clearly state his reasons for disapproval. And the old Buffy and Giles dynamic would have allowed for that; instead we've got subterfuge and mistrust, which not only won't accomplish anything, it rids the Good side of their most powerful weapon. They've completely thrown away their highest card, instead of hearing her out -- Giles helped to put her on the defensive so far that all she could do was fight for leadership, rather than get others on board with her plan. Do they know for certain that she meant they all go in to the winery, guns blazing? She may have intended it more as a recon-type mission, rather than something riskier. Did anyone stop to ask her and see if her encounter with Caleb has scared her and made her more controlling because she's frightened? These are things the old Giles would have done -- he could see inside her before, he was good at that, at identifying fears (how else could he have tricked her into unburdening herself about killing Angel in Faith, Hope and Trick?) and guiding her away from them. I don't understand who this man is standing around with Giles's glasses.
I think Giles knows that love and togetherness and trust are the only things that will save them (in the 4th season ender, he certainly did). Or rather, the Giles we know would know that -- in order to forge an army out of frightened, damaged kids, those elements have to be there, and Giles would have been the right guy to guide them. Because he's done it before, with kids, and helped them avert apocalypses. He's good at that. He's strong and sensible and mostly reliable, but he's all those things quietly, strongly. And that's what Buffy needs right now; instead he's conspiring with Wood to kill the one thing she's most afraid of losing and consistently undermining her authority. Instead, Buffy loses him, and he loses her trust and belief. I can only hope that maybe this is part of a plot, because the idea of the show going out with Buffy and Giles so separated, so against each other, upsets me almost more than my Spuffy fears. Their closeness and love has been the foundation the show was built on, and everything will crumble in the end if that foundation is gone completely. I want old Giles back, and soon, because this mystery man is not appealing to me, even if he looks like ASH. If they irrevocably destroy this foundation, they've destroyed the show.
If anyone wants to argue, disagree, whatever, I'd love to hear your viewpoint (I don't mind disagreement!). But if I don't respond, it's not 'cause I'm mad -- I'm heading up to Vancouver this weekend and won't be back till late Sunday night.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-02 03:00 pm (UTC)One thing... the only possible explaination I've come up with for *some* of Giles attitude is about what you wrote here: . Yet he's seen time and again that she will step up to the plate to find a solution, even when it means her own death
I don't think that was Giles idea of a solution. I think that he's afraid she'll do something like this again and he'll lose her again- or worse, that he'll have to be "happy" about her death if it means the FE has lost, or that he might even possibly be in a position (as in season 1) of "sending" her to her death. I think the guy is traumatized and afraid and doesn't know how to deal with that. We never did see him react to Buffy's decision to die for Dawn. We only saw how her death broke him and then brought him around again in Flooded.
The thing is, I hate the way they are writing Giles, Trauma and Giles, Fear because it has little to no emotional resonance. And that's putting it mildly.
Lots more to add but... X-Men awaits. I'm glad you wrote this.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-02 03:50 pm (UTC)Even though she was there for nefarious purposes, Gwen Post, and then later Wesley, show us that for most watchers, it's probably a question of divorcing yourself from attachment to the slayer you're in charge of. And Giles never does that, especially not after PG. So yeah, he's probably deeply afraid of what her decision making ability will lead to, as it has in the past. But I guess I'm still traumatized by why that kind of thing would lead him to try to kill Spike, and mutiny against her in her own home, and... and... feh. Can't go there.
Re:
Date: 2003-05-02 05:57 pm (UTC)And there, I have no clue.
Except... okay, to say this, I'm having to force myself here to think of Pod Giles as actually being Giles, which goes against the grain. But if he truly considered Spike a threat to Buffy, his behavior makes some sort of sense. What makes no sense at all is why he'd go behind her back. I mean, yeah, we got a few arguments between them but nothing that convinced me Giles felt Spike to be enough of a threat to do something so drastic- and that something is go behind Buffy's back, not plan to take out Spike, because Giles has always shown that he will do what he feels is necessary to save the world no matter what that is or what personal feelings he has about it (ie, Ben)... but he's never treated Buffy as a lesser player. He's never been willing to disrespect her that way, to treat her as less. I loved his speech in Spiral where he told her, basically, that what things others might consider her imperfections were the things he loved about her. And now? Where did that Giles go?
Like you wrote earlier, I'm really hoping this is a plot point that will be explored and dealt with before the last episode. Still, even if it is, I'm pissed that they did this now. If they did it and fixed it earlier (as in Helpless) that would be one thing, but now? There's no time to fix it to my satisfaction. But I'm still hopeful.
In my cynical mind, I'm wondering if Joss is throwing over the Buffy and Giles relationship to make a statement about
no subject
Date: 2003-05-02 04:53 pm (UTC)Well, actually, a little else to say. I recently made a Buffy/Giles vid, and I realized after it was finished that S7 was a B/G void. I couldn't think of any good scenes between the two characters in the ENTIRE season. Really, how DARE the writers mess with that relationship when we have so few episodes left in this series? Chaps my frickin' hide. If this rift between them isn't dealt with in some satisfying manner before the finale, a bitter, bitter taste is going to be left in my mouth.
ditto.
Date: 2003-05-02 07:19 pm (UTC)The only thing that will make this crap acceptable at this point is for them to go - thats not the real Giles, thats podGiles (as everyone is calling him) and real Giles is off in England or something. I'm starting to think that the revelation that his head was chopped off is better than the Giles that returned from England.
I keep telling myself "its the writers, just the writers" its the only thing that stops me from throwing stuff at the screen when ASH appears. (Now if that would only work for Cordy -snerk-)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-03 02:52 am (UTC)I miss Real!Giles! I've loved him for 6.5 years and I miss him. I adore Spike beyond all reason, but I love Giles too, and the underlying characters - when the writers listen to them - want to be mates - c.f. Bargaining and The Gift. This whole thing is both Out Of Character and yet another example of ME using the characters as puppets not deriving the story from the characters - which seems to be bad storytelling. I hate the writers using Giles as a cypher to give Buffy a symbolic parental rejection. He's not a symbol, he's Giles.
The Guy that Does What Has to be Done, c.f. The Gift, would also have done the job himself. And he'd have done it quickly and efficiently - like he did Ben. Sending Spike off with a man with a vendetta Giles was aware of was just incompetant. Giles isn't incompetant. A man with a grudge makes mistakes, one's that could have led to his own death if Spike hadn't been the better man, and that could have resulted in a deeply pissed off or triggered Spike coming back for blood in Revello Drive. Far far easier to have taken Spike out for a walk and staked him, simple, no warning and efficient.
Sending a Slayer of Slayers off with someone Giles has never seen fight himself on the assumption they can take him - not sensible. Even if Real Giles would have done the whole basement thing that way - which he wouldn't - Wood wouldn't have been there, and Spike would have almost certanly responded differently while not feeling like an exhibit.
And the pod creature in EP - not my guy, so not my guy. I'm just going to have to have to continue with my lalala it's not the real Jossverse, it's a bad AU severly lacking beta readers, or if it has them, competant ones.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-03 03:42 am (UTC)One of the huge problems with it is that the arc suggests that they didn't decide the "Giles has no faith in Buffy" storyline until late. It's certainly not written into the ridiculous "Is Giles the First" arc, unless that was the point of the Beljoxa's Eye "Showtime" scenes: not that there's a weakness in the Slayer line but that GILES thinks so. The Beljoxa's Eye scenes got absolutely no follow-up, however, so if that's the case the writers did a terrible job in setting up the story.
The first and only time we see Giles's reaction to the whole Spike issue is in "First Date" -- and what's so offensive to me about the writing there is that he basically has, what, five scenes, and most of them are "comedy". I realise it's Jane Espenson whose work I've loved and it's supposed to be the lighter episode, but the comedy-Giles in the cemetery, and with the going to the mall, and the flashcards, doesn't work in canon AND doesn't express the stress and trauma under which he's operating. His rant at the end doesn't play with the weight it needs, and this is solely because of the writing. As you say, it has no emotional resonance, and it does nothing to lead into the out-of-character decision in LMPTM. You've done a wonderful job in articulating all the problems of that episode, and I thank you.
I'd comment on what comes after, but I confess that I stopped watching the show after LMPTM. I couldn't take any more Giles character-assassination.