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BTVS essay on Authority Figures
Written in 2003, shortly after Lies My Parents Told Me.
Authority figures.
(Warning – in order to make a point, I tend to exaggerate a little on some characters, particularly Giles and Nikki. Nikki is the slayer Spike killed in New York in 1977 and we have very little information on. If you can’t handle it? Don’t read. The following appears as it did on the www.aptobtvs.com board in April 2003, shortly after the airing of Lies My Parents Told Me and Players.)
Who are our authority figures? When we are children they are usually our teachers, the school Principal, a mentor, our parents, our priest or rabbi or minister. And these figures usually are represented by educational structures such as schools or religious organizations. As we grow up, these figures are gradually replaced by new and less obvious authority figures. Employers. Presidents. Police Officers. Priests.
If we think about it throughout our lives, if we choose, we are always bowing down to someone. Whether it be an institution or a person. When they say march, we march.
When they say fight, we fight. Often without question. The authority figures impose order and structure on our lives.
Yet, history shows us that it is not always a good thing to strictly follow authority. Questioning, protesting, even rebelling is actually a good thing. Part of growing up actually is rebelling against authority or breaking off from it, which we all do sooner or later in different ways. It may feel safe and comfy staying put, not fighting, not questioning. But you don’t grow that way. You become in a word, constipated. Sorry can’t think of a better word for it than that one.
So in every child’s life there comes a time where they must break away from authority whether that authority be represented by a parent or a time-worn structure. They must learn to think for themselves, to teach themselves, to question what the fussy old mentor tells them. Because like it or not that fussy old mentor isn’t always right. They aren’t a god, they aren’t infallible, and they don’t know more than we do. They are human, limited by the very things that make them human – environment, genetics, their own experiences and upbringing. There comes a time in every parent/child and teacher/student relationship that the child becomes the parent and the teacher becomes the student. There comes a time where the student outdistances the teacher.
1. Giles : The father figure/mentor/teacher
I remember the day I realized that my father wasn’t as wise or knowledgable as I thought he was. The day he fell off his pedestal and became just a man. Still my father. But no longer the knight in shining armor or wise old sage. It wasn’t a melodramatic moment. I don’t remember what caused this revelation exactly. I just remember that all of sudden I looked at him and I saw a tired, genuinely caring, but somewhat confused man. A man, who was still my father, but did not know all the answers and could not solve life’s problems for me. He wasn’t my teacher or my boss any longer; I had somehow gotten past him, just as he had once gotten past his own father.
Giles reminds me of my father. The writers and Anthony Stewart Head (the actor who plays Giles) have perfectly captured the moment my father went from being wise old sage who can answer all my questions to frightened, genuinely caring, at times over-protective, man. And looking back over the series, I started to see how Giles was in fact always that way, he’d never been the wise sage, he’d never been overly effective, he never knew the answers and he never solved the problem. Like my own father and the authority figures I’ve known, the best that Giles could do was guide, and he didn’t always guide in the right places.
Now, just in case, you think I’m projecting – let me state that my father is nothing like Rupert Giles. If I had to choose between the two – I’d pick my Dad any day. The only similarity here – is the turning point – when I realized that I moved past him. And my Dad, being the man he is, did a happy snoopy dance when I figured it out. He didn’t try to hold me back in any way. Giles in a way has attempted to let Buffy move past him, yet, can’t, not quite, because Giles isn’t just or rather never really felt he was Buffy’s father, he’s felt he was her boss, her guide, her superior. And moving past one’s mentor or superior is quite another thing altogether.
What do we know about Giles? What do we know about the Watcher Council for that matter?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. And I ask you, has the Watcher Council ever been shown in a positive light on this series? If they have – how quickly did the writers subvert that image? The more I thought about it, the more the Watcher Council began to remind me of well Wolfram and Hart. Wesely Wyndom-Pryce’s comment to Fred in Players regarding Lilah was very telling: “We were fighting the same war just on opposite sides.” Fight the war. Being the generals. Actually not the generals so much as the people sending the generals and soliders out to die. If you hate a war, btw, don’t blame the people on the field or in the ships fighting the war, blame the nicely suited, clean cut men sitting behind their desks in their comfy offices and war rooms who watch it from a distance, never getting much more than a paper cut. Wolfram and Hart and The Watcher Council NEVER fought on the front lines. They hung back and threw out orders. They manipulated the players. And they justified their acts by claiming a higher power talked to them. A higher power who finally decided to just wipe them off the face of the earth, because they had gotten so comfortable in their nice neat offices that they’d become ineffective and outlived their usefulness.
The best way to test a theory is to trip back through the episodes…
Season 1 – Giles is introduced as Buffy’s Watcher. He’s pretty ineffectual, if we think about it. Spends most of the first two episodes trying to convince Buffy to fight vampires. He doesn’t really know how and makes it clear that he can’t do it. She even asks him why he can’t and he sort of fussily makes excuses. The information he has on vampires is pulled from a musty old book. He requires Willow’s help to operate the computer and determine the whereabouts of the vampire’s hideout. In the episodes that follow, it’s the kids, Willow/Xander/and Buffy who figure out the problem, Giles often tells them they are wrong. Rarely is it Giles who comes up with the solution or figures it out. And in some instances Giles himself adds to the problem. I wonder, thinking back on it, why I kept thinking Giles helped as much as he did, and I realized something – he did help but not by providing answers or solutions, he was horrible at that, but by providing a structure for locating those answers, by empowering his students to do it. He was their engine, their confident, their counselor. Their, if you like, sounding board. He supported them.
In Witch – it is Buffy who figures out that Amy and Catherine switched places and the witch is Catherine Madison not Amy as Giles suspects. But Giles helps, by supporting Buffy in her analysis and by acting on what she’s discovered. They act as a team. He does not act as her boss, so much as a guide. They discuss the problem and solve it.
In The Pack – Giles screws up. He dismisses Buffy and Willow’s suspicions that Xander is possessed. He says it’s just being a 16 year old boy. Giles, for all his books and magic devices, really doesn’t believe in the stuff. It’s a clever and somewhat ironic twist – that Giles who knows the hellmouth and all this crap exists, doesn’t quite want to believe it does. Every time he realizes he’s wrong, he gets the funniest look on his face, sort of a “oh crap, it’s not chicanery and balderdash after all” and “what the heck am I doing here? I know zip about this stuff…I wanted to be a fighter pilot or rock star…this is stupid.”
I always felt a little sorry for him when he got that look. And he got that look big time, when he discovers that the pig has been eaten, raw. But it’s too late, so has Principal Flutie.
In Nightmares – Giles’ nightmares are fascinating. They emphasize Giles’ own feelings of inferiority or ineffectiveness. In the first two nightmares – Giles gets lost in his own library. (This reminds me of a line in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade – where Denholm Elliots fussy librarian character was accused of getting lost in his own library.) Then Giles can’t read his own books. He can’t read anything. The source of his power is in those books. It’s through reading. He feels he can contribute nothing without them. Each nightmare seems to build on the metaphor of Giles’ fears of being ineffective.
The first – getting lost in his own library, no sense of direction, unable to guide anyone.
The second – losing the ability to read or understand language, remember in Primeval where Giles was the one who had to read Summerian? No one else knew it. That was the power he had. Giles’ power of the mind is in his reading. In Tabula Rasa – Anya assumes he can’t do it, only she can, until he takes the books away from her and does it and saves the day. And in Buffy vs. Dracula – Giles feels that his contribution is in his books, they don’t need him any longer to interpret.
These two nightmares, which seem more humorous than scary lead up to the final one, the nightmare that may in a way explain Giles the most. In Nightmares – there is one nightmare that informs each character – it is the finale, the one the others have been building towards. And for Giles that nightmare is Buffy becoming the monster that Giles has sworn to fight. It’s Buffy becoming a vampire. When Giles, Willow and Xander walk into the darkness in this episode, Giles’ response to X/W’s query: whose nightmare is this, is : “Mine. This is my nightmare.” And we think it’s finding Buffy dead. Which in a sense it is. But it’s more than that. It’s finding her part of the undead. If you think long and hard about that scene, Giles reactions to Spike and Angel should not surprise you. (Oh quick aside/tangent: Also in the scene where Buffy rises from the grave – she’s still Buffy in vampire form. And as she states to Giles and her friends, they need to hurry, she only has a limited amount of time before she loses herself completely to the darkness. Apparently when a vampire first rises they are still pretty close to the human they once were, the memories, etc, it’s after that first kill, after time passes, that the monster truly takes up residence. The monster is built over time. So killing the vampire when it rises from the grave is in a sense, a preemptive strike.)
Something very important to remember about Giles – to Giles the books say it all. The books are the authority.
In Prophecy Girl – Giles believes the books prophecy that Buffy will die. Remember this is his nightmare. He attempts to stop her from going out and sacrificing herself. But Buffy knocks him unconscious. Giles is knocked unconscious a lot in the series, have you ever wondered why? It is not Giles who solves the problems in Prophecy Girl or finds the way out. It is the Buffy/Xander/Angel trio who actually do it.
Thinking back on Season 1, it occurs to me the number of times Buffy has to somehow turn Giles’ guidance around like a puzzle to figure something out. It also occurs to me the number of times Giles gets knocked out or suffers some injury to the head. Puppet Show – Giles unknowingly places himself in danger and almost gets scalped. Buffy and gang figure it out in time and save him. Come to think of it, Giles spends many an episode unconscious. When he locates information on something, he’s either knocked unconscious before he can communicate it or he doesn’t trust what he’s discovered. Later examples include – Giles in Once More With Feeling when he figures out it’s probably a demon, then immediately dismisses it as “no, something isn’t right there.” Or Giles in Flooded – noticing someone’s about to break into the house and is immediately knocked out. Giles in Doomed who doesn’t realize the world is in danger until he literally is hit over the head with the information. In each case, it is Buffy who brings the situation to his attention and bugs him to pay attention. But back to Season 1.
I Robot You Jane – Giles is responsible for having Willow transpose Moloch into the computer. He hates the devices. When Buffy figures it out Giles attempts to somehow solve the problem with Jenny the technowizard. But all they really accomplish is trapping Moloch in the robot form. It’s Buffy who figures out how to defeat and destroy Moloch, not Giles.
Giles and The Vampires. In Never Kill A Boy on The First Date (NKBFD) – Giles misunderstands the prophecy, believing the anointed one is a man not a child. And he attempts to fight the vampires – he can’t of course and almost gets killed. Throughout the series we are reminded how ineffective Giles is when it comes to slaying vampires. He has to be saved every time. In NKBFD, Buffy/Willow and Xander save him from vamps in the morgue. In Bargaining – Spike saves him from a vampire. In Life Serial, Spike and Buffy save him. In Lies My Parents Told Me, one can’t help but wonder how long Giles would have lasted with Richard in that cemetery? Also note the difference between Giles training Buffy, Buffy training Dawn ,and Spike teaching Buffy in Fool for Love? Is it any wonder Buffy picks Spike to help her train the Potentials, not Giles?? Giles’ advice to Buffy is the same as in his Restless dream – “Buffy you’re dropping your elbow” and of course the vamp, not dangerous, just a cardboard villain not a person. The person is completely gone in Giles head. While Spike’s advice to Buffy is – how did I kill them? Well, Lesson the first? Always remember to have your weapon in hand. I already have mine. Lesson the second – don’t give up, I’ll take any opportunity you give me. And remember who has the power? Use whatever is available and kill quickly.
Giles has a piece of the puzzle but he seldom figures it on his own, it takes time and patience and the help of someone else. Jenny helped him figure out the Prophecy in Prophecy Girl – he’d gotten the whole anointed one thing wrong. In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Angel helps him figure out first what it means to be invisible – not so much fun and second provides him with the right copy of the prophecy. In Graduation Day, S3 – it’s Anya who comes up with what the Ascension amounts to. And in Choices – it’s Willow who gets him the necessary information to figure it out what the Mayor is up to. But it is Buffy who comes up with the attack plan, when it comes to strategizing, Giles is, well, ineffectual. It’s Buffy who figures out how to make things work. She figures out how to defeat the Master in Prophecy Girl. She figures out how to prevent him from coming back again in When She Was Bad (which is another fascinating episode…come to think of it…). Giles buries the Master, intact, thus ensuring he can come back again. Buffy bashes his bones.
In When She Was Bad – Buffy has a nightmare about Giles attempting to kill her while Willow and Xander do absolutely nothing. The nightmare is instructive since in it Giles unmasked becomes the Master. Giles and the Master. Think about that for a minute or two. Giles the Master. I removed the and. The Master doesn’t have a name, he is THE MASTER. And he’s the first vampire to bite Buffy, biting her sets him free, Xander brings her back to life not Giles, so newly empowered she can go kill the Master. Giles enables the Master to potentially be brought back to life by the anointed one, by only burying the Master. Hence the reason for Buffy’s nightmare. Also Giles misreads the trap, believing Buffy is stepping into it when actually it is Giles that the anointed one wants. (When She Was Bad was also the last time we saw Hank, Buffy’s biological father, – not in flashback or in a dream sequence. In the beginning of the episode, Hank is shown complaining to Joyce about Buffy not really talking to him and seeming somewhat removed.)
At the end of season 2, Becoming arc, Buffy is forced to kill Angel, the one person she loved most, to save Giles, the father/mentor, and the world. And it is Giles that provides Angelus with the information to destroy the world, just as the year before it was Angel who provided Giles with the information to save it. And Angelus tortures Giles – as he would a father figure. He goes after Buffy’s old man. Interestingly enough Angel’s issue is the disapproving father – it’s the reason he goes after Giles, because Giles represents Angel’s old man. Angelus’ torture of Giles metaphorically represents Buffy’s own fears and anger regarding her father figure and mentor. Her fear that he disapproves of her and her guilt regarding her relationship with Angel. This fear comes up again and again in later seasons. Note that it is not Buffy who saves Giles, but Xander and Spike who do so. Buffy, partly because of Giles, ends up saving the world by killing her beloved. It is indirectly due to Giles that she is forced to do this. Just as it is indirectly due to Giles in When She was Bad – that she is threatened by The Master again. Giles’ failure to figure out the information and convey it to the right parties places them all in danger. This theme is repeated throughout seasons, finally coming to a head in Season 7, where Giles’ inability to communicate causes the Scooby Gang to actually believe at one point he is the First Evil. (Killer in Me S7).
Giles and Willow. Another point in Becoming S2 Btvs– Giles goes along with Willow’s idea of cursing Angel again – as a means of stopping Angelus – but also because it’s what Jenny wanted. Giles does not however have the ability to do the curse himself nor does he seem to understand how it’s done. A joke is made of the fact that he uses the orb of thesulah as a paper weight. It’s important to note, that Giles lets Willow, a novice, attempt the spell with little to no knowledge of how it works himself. This is by no means the first time he does this. He relies as the seasons progress more and more on Willow to do magics, dark magics, with little to no guidance or instruction. In some ways Jenny was a better mentor on this than Giles is. Giles does not step in and say anything to Willow really until she is so powerful she can literally blast him across the room. Giles’ behavior and use of Willow has always been consistent and does NOT, I repeat, does NOT reflect at all favorably upon Giles. He is a pragmaticist as he’s been taught to be by the Council. Use any weapon available. To Giles, Willow is a weapon. That is NOT to say that he doesn’t love her and care about her. But first and foremost, she is a weapon. Her use of magics serves his purpose. So he turns a blind eye. Don’t believe me? Let’s trip back through the episodes again shall we?
1. Becoming – Willow doing the curse
2. Faith, Hope and Trick – Willow asking to help and telling Giles how much magic she’s done, he ignores her.
3. Gingerbread – Willow is blatantly using magic by now and almost gets burned at the stake for it. Giles does and says nothing.
4. Choices – Giles allows Willow to perform the magics to get the box of gavrok
5. Dopplegangerland – no one asks why Willow performed that spell or attempts to teach her not to do it again
6. Something Blue – Giles goes to Willow to do a truth spell when she’s clearly emotionally unstable. He notices this but really appears to be blind to the problem. When she literally causes his blindness and other chaos – he punishes her by having her detail his car. He does not suggest she get proper training or anything else.
7. Giles appears oblivious to the magics that Willow is practicing and experimenting with. Even though – Willow and Tara create the means of switching Faith and Buffy back in Who Are You. And it is Tara not Giles who quickly figures out they switched places. Giles can’t see it. Giles doesn’t have any problem letting Willow perform the Primeval spell even though he knows how incredibly dangerous it is. In fact he suggests she do it.
8. Giles ignores Willow’s magics in Season 5, often making side comments about how dangerous that is. He barely blinks when she separates Xander and Spike telepathically or enters Buffy’s mind.
In a nutshell, Giles has not exactly been much of a mentor or teacher to Willow. Perhaps if he had been, DarthRosenberg would never have come into being?? Don’t know. Giles’ redeems himself a little by coming back and giving Willow the whammy in Grave. But, and a huge but here, it’s not his whammy that saves Willow so much as Willow’s love for Xander.
Giles and Xander. Everyone assumes that if Giles had been around in Season 6, Xander would have married Anya. Uhm, why??? When has Giles ever supported or helped Xander come to grips with anything? Name the episode. Give up? I’ll help. All The Way S6 – Xander announces it to Giles and Giles is less than pleased. So he tells Xander about all the responsibilities he now has – like, are you hunting for a house? Have you figured out what you’re going to do next? Are you going to have a family? The next time we see Xander, he is hyperventilating on the porch and Buffy is reassuring him. It’s Buffy who supports his decision NOT Giles. In fact in Tabula Rasa, when Giles and Anya think they are an item, Giles seems to be contemplating leaving her. Whenever Xander and Anya kiss in front of Giles, he has a disgusted look on his face and takes off his glasses. At no point in this series has Giles EVER been into the Anya/Xander relationship. At no point does Giles give Xander fatherly advice.
In the Replacement – Giles makes the comment that the two Xander’s are a bad influence on each other. In The Initiative, Giles is annoyed but tolerant of Xander’s behavior, but certainly not encouraging. Xander and Giles have an odd friendship, they care about each other, but Giles has never played father to Xander or really, mentor. Sometimes he plays confidante. Briefly in The Pack. And occasionally in Season 4.
The reason Giles lets Xander stay involved, is well Buffy. It’s Buffy who involves Xander and Willow not Giles. Giles just realizes he can’t stop her. So he more or less allows it. Besides they want to help and do, often more effectively than he does.
Giles the pragmatist Giles in Season 5, begins to realize he really can’t help Buffy anymore. This realization in part arises from his vague memory of his dream. It’s not completely conscious and he’s fighting it. Because he does have a father’s love for Buffy and he does want to feel important. Catch the gleam in his eye when Buffy asks him to be her Watcher again in Buffy vs. Dracula? He truly didn’t want to leave. But does he really help her much in Season 5? Does he provide her with much information? Does the council? All they really tell her is that Glorificus is a hell-god intent on using Dawn to open up hell dimensions. It’s the Knight’s of The Byzantine who tell her why. Buffy has to figure out how to stop Glory on her own with a little help from Anya and Spike. Spike provides them with the books. Anya with the weapons. All Giles comes up with is that Buffy must kill Dawn. And when Buffy asks Giles to explain the deaths of slayers, he is well speechless. It is Spike who provides her with the information she needs. Just as it is Spike not Giles who helps her get transportation in Spiral, get the information in Weight of The World, provides her with the key to defeating Glory (it’s all about Blood – blood is the answer, speech) and it is Spike who attempts to stop Doc from killing Dawn. The only thing Giles does in The Gift is kill a poor defenseless man lying on the concrete, bleeding. And he does it by suffocating this man, blocking all the passageways of Glory’s prison. Giles does a preemptive strike and rightly states, Buffy wouldn’t do it.
According to David Fury on Bronze Beta – there was a speech in Lies My Parents Told Me, where Giles confesses to Buffy that he killed Ben. They removed it because it made the episode too long and they didn’t think fans would care. (sigh. They should know better.) I think Giles’ decision is important. Because I truly believe Giles would have killed Dawn. So did Buffy. It is the reason she pulls Spike aside and invites him back into her house – she gives him a mission – protect Dawn at all costs. She knows Spike would not hesitate to kill Giles to protect Dawn. She needs someone to protect her sister, who at this point in time is defenseless and a true damsel, from her mentor who believes that the world comes first no matter the cost. Well, there are some costs that Buffy is no longer willing to take. Giles is willing to sell his soul to save the world. Buffy isn’t. And call me crazy, but I agree with Buffy. Hell is the world we get when we start selling our souls to protect it. Willow, Cordelia, and Wesley discovered this lesson very recently. Giles still has to learn it.
Giles’ actions in Tabula Rasa…didn’t make sense to people. Made a heck of a lot of sense to me. Giles felt ineffective. He felt he was holding Buffy back. He was depressed. So he left. He tells Buffy the reason he did more than once, most notably in LMPTM – the comment that seems to enrage Buffy the most may be: “at least Angel was self-aware enough to realize he had to leave you”. Giles probably felt he made the same good decision in S6. Giles, Willow was right in Something Blue – you are a blind fool.
This comment reminded me a great deal of Helpless – an episode that also deals with the ineffectual and manipulative father.
In Helpless – Giles drugs Buffy. He renders her helpless. A girl who can’t defend herself.
When she comes to him panicked that she is losing her powers, he states that he has no clue what is causing it and maybe it’s temporary or something. He hypnotizes her each time to do it. Taking away her control. The most painful part of the episode is when Buffy comes to Giles to ask him to take her to the ice show. To act as a stand-in for her father. She had just finished telling Angel that she had a date for her birthday – with her Dad, it was an annual thing, he always took her to the ice show. But Dad stands her up. He’s busy at work. He can’t come. It’s Buffy’s birthday. So she goes to Giles, somewhat awkwardly, and asks her teacher and mentor, the person she trusts most next to Mom, to take her instead. Watch this scene closely, in it Buffy is stammering, clearly working up the courage to ask the man she has somewhat subconsciously decided is her father to consciously take her father’s place in her life. She wants him to celebrate her birthday with her. This scene is probably one of the most painful scenes in the series. Because, instead of giving her an answer, Giles hypnotizes her and drugs her. Making her physically weak and taking control of her mind and spirit to work his will. Giles betrayal of Buffy in this episode comes from the Council, from being a Watcher. It is the Council who ordered Giles to do it. It’s not until Giles realizes that the insane vampire Buffy is supposed to defeat has escaped and eaten the Council members who are supposed to be guarding it that he decides to reveal what he’s done in order to protect Buffy from the monster. Buffy understandably rejects him. She survives. The monster is defeated. Buffy’s defeat of the monster reasserts her mental prowess and capabilities over the nits who insist on controlling her for their own ends.
(Tangent: Helpless, Get it Done and Lies My Parents Tell Me are similar in one way – all involve people attempting through arrogance, false sense of superiority, and emotional manipulation to obtain control over the girl. The poor deluded girl. In each instance the men rely on subterfuge and deceit to accomplish their task. They justify their actions with phrases such as “greater good”, “we’re fighting a war”, “it’s in her best interest”. When questioned – they state arguments such as can you come up with a better way? Isn’t saving the world worth it? We are fighting a war and there must be casualties, everyone is expendable. When I hear words like these, my first thought is, okay I don’t see you fighting on the front lines. Buffy however is. She is risking her life on a daily basis. And taking time out to save the butts of the nits who like to make these speeches, speeches she’s begun to repeat because they’ve said them so many times. When Buffy resists or rebels – these men or council members condescend to her much like Professor Walsh does in Season 4 – calling her deluded unmanageable or a blind fool. The irony is this girl through her own initiative, intuition and brain power has time and again defeated the monster. She’s 5-0 on the apocalypse meter. While the monster defeats and destroys the men – either by blowing them up (NLM), eating them (Helpless), or destroying them from within (Primevil). End Tangent.)
Back to Helpless, Giles sort of redeems himself by killing a vampire and getting fired by the Council. But it is important to note that Giles did not take action until he realized that he placed innocent lives in danger due to his actions and that the greater good was not being achieved. An insane and powerful vampire was now on the loose and there was no one who could stop it. If Buffy’s life had not been in danger, if the Council had not lost control of the vampire, I seriously doubt Giles would have come clean.
Giles’ words to Willow in Lessons come back to haunt us. “We are who we are no matter how much we may have appeared to have changed.” Giles hasn’t changed. Giles is the same man he was when he was first introduced. The only difference is we are now looking at him without the rose colored glasses and layers of metaphor. We are seeing Giles as he is, neither good nor bad, neither black nor white, but rather a muted shade of gray, and through the eyes of the adult. The ineffectual counselor, filled with all sorts of relevant information, but unable to effectively communicate it, partly due to the fact he does not trust the listener and partly due to his own fears and insecurities regarding the interpretation. This fear leads him to make serious mistakes in judgment. It leads to hubris and preemptive strikes that could end up doing more damage over time than good.
2. The Watcher Council – Authority as an Organization
The Watcher Council is to Btvs what Wolfram and Hart is to Ats. It is an organization that believes first and foremost in its own acquisition of power, yet ironically has none. So instead it manipulates people with power to accomplish its own ends. And it justifies its actions with the following: we are fighting a war and wars require strenuous measures.
This in a nutshell is Quentin’s speech to Giles in Helpless. Quentin’s speech to Buffy in Checkpoint. Giles’ speech to Buffy in the Gift. Giles speech to Buffy in Grave. Wes’ speech to Buffy in Choices when he suggests killing Willow and keeping the box. Wes’ speech to Justine, to Lilah, to numerous people in Season 3-4 Angel. Cordelia’s speeches to Connor. Have you ever found it odd how often people use the “greater good” or “god’s crusade” or “the cause” to justify heinous actions? For some reason people think that as long as it’s for the greater good, they can literally do whatever they please. They have a “get out of jail free” card. God’s with me on this guys! God wants us to kill and slaughter our neighbors because they are evil and it’s hey “greater good”! What is it Lilah sarcastically states to Cordelia about letting Angelus out to kill the Beast – “hey greater good!”
The Watcher’s Council. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Watcher’s Council. It occurred to me recently that the Watcher’s Council hasn’t really been all that helpful. They aren’t nice English gentleman or scholars setting up tea time or teaching classes as Tara believes before Giles goes off to talk to them in Triangle S5 Btvs. Nor do they really have much useful information. In fact, I’m willing to go out on a limb to suggest that the Watcher Council has caused more harm than good in their manipulations. Let’s look at what they’ve accomplished according to the television series only.
1. Alienation of Faith. Giles, Wes, Gwendolyn Post (will return to her shortly), the Watcher hit squad all manage to tear down poor Faith’s self-esteem and give her every reason in the world to fight them. It is ironically the Watcher’s worst enemy, a vampire named Angel, who manages to reach Faith.
2. Attempts on Slayers Lives. The Watcher Council attempts to kill Buffy in Helpless and Faith in Who Are You. It tries to kill them both in Sanctuary in Season 1 Ats. Angel helps save her.
3. Alienation of Buffy. Attempts on her life. Inability to communicate any information and insistence on keeping all information to itself. Rarely shares it.
4. Gwendolyn Post. Does not manage to keep track of the former Watcher or notice that she may be dangerous. If Buffy and Faith hadn’t defeated her – the Watchers would have had a serious problem. Gwen Post is a perfect metaphor for hubris and the whole anything for power, ends justify the means view of the world. She manipulates Faith to get what she wants – through much of the same tactics Giles uses on Buffy in LMPTM. She condescends to Faith. Gives Faith a false sense of trust. I think Post may be the first of many statements regarding the Council’s questionable practices and teachings. She is by far the worst, actually killing people to obtain absolute power. But if you look closely the line between Gwen and the other Watchers we’ve come to know and love isn’t that thick. Dark Wesely? Quentin Travers? And Bertram Crowley.
5. Bertram Crowley and the Creation of Wood. Wood was 4 years of age when his mother died. How could she be his entire world? At 4 yep. But it didn’t have to continue. Think about it, do you remember what happened to you at 4 years of age. Do you know anyone who is 30 years of age that does? I don’t. And I know people who experienced traumatic events at that age. (As far as Nikki goes – I still strongly believe based on the information provided, that she committed suicide by vampire as a means of releasing her son from her mission. She didn’t have the strength to give him up but also probably had grown tired of trying to do the mission, work , and take care of him at the same time. Nikki reminds me a lot of Buffy in Season 6. I think she truly believed when she died, her son would be spared her life – she’d set him free. This view is echoed in a way by William/Spike’s mother who seemed to believe the same thing. As well as Darla who stakes herself to bring Connor into the world.) Crowley made sure that boy remembered. Crowley did to Wood what Holtz did to Connor. Except Connor was fortunate enough to get away from Holtz by the age of 18. Robin doesn’t appear to have been so lucky. There’s an old saying – you are taught to hate. Carefully carefully taught. Crowley, unable to handle the death of Nikki in the line of duty, threw all his guilt and anger on to her son. Instead of finding the boy a good home and a good mother, which was what his mother may have preferred, Crowley created Principal Robin Wood – the Buffyverse’s version of Holtz (or possibly what Connor would have been like if Holtz took him to Utah and raised him to be a 30 year old man.) To take a 4 year old boy and teach him to hate and turn him into your personal weapon of vengeance is an evil and heinous thing. It’s what Holtz did with baby Connor and it’s what Crowley does with Wood. Bertram Crowley was an emotional vampire. Human yes. But filled to the core with self-righteous hate. He sold his soul for the cause. Worse yet, he sold the soul of a four-year old boy, who loved his mother, tainting and turning that love into something twisted and dark in the process. Spike did not destroy Wood’s childhood, Betram Crowley did.
I think Buffy was right in Checkpoint when she took one look at Quentin Travers and stated, you have no power. I do and you don’t and that scares you. You want power and the only way you can get it is by manipulating and controlling me. But that only works if I let you. And I don’t! Nor do they appear to have much knowledge.
Knowledge. Time and again this season and in the past Buffy has asked the Council and Giles for knowledge, they don’t give it to her. We complain about her speeches to the SIT’s but the speeches are merely repeats of what the Council and Giles have taught her.
1. In Buffy vs. Dracula, she asks Giles to teach her, but all Giles is able to tell her is she’s dropping her elbow. He has no knowledge to really convey. When she asks him in Grave why she’s been brought back, he replies you have a sacred duty. He has no clue. We wonder why he doesn’t reveal more, why the Council doesn’t, are they keeping secrets? Has it occurred to us that they have no clue? That all they have is a bunch of suspicions and clues written down by various people over time?
2. In Fool for Love, Buffy has to go to Spike to understand how a slayer dies, how the vampire kills them. Spike knows more than her Watcher does. He understands that the slayer fights alone and makes her life all about death and the mission. He also understands or seems to understand intuitively something they don’t: ie. why the slayer’s a girl. Due to his own demons, Spike sees the slayers as the destructive mothers he must defeat. A projection of his own destructive anima. The demon woman inside. Death is her gift. She will either bestow this gift upon him or he will bestow it on her. Thus repeating his traumatic and life-changing battle with his mother that happened over 100 years before. People keep arguing that Spike was lying in this episode, uhm no, remember what Anya said – when she was evil she told the truth all the time. Spike is telling the truth according to Spike and from what I’ve read of the writer’s interviews the truth according to the writers. But that’s irrelevant here and really missing the point. What’s relevant is that Giles did not have the ability to provide information on this topic nor did any of the other watchers. Because they don’t understand. They don’t fight vampires day in and day out. They don’t know what it’s like to be chosen or imbued with dark power. They have no clue.
3. In Checkpoint – Buffy is able to get a very limited amount of information from the Council. They have actually come in force to get information from her. Buffy knows more than they do. She’s met Glory. She knows who the key is. All the Council knows is Glory is a hell-god. The rest of the information she has to get from the Knight’s of Byzantine, another Buffyverse example of a self-righteous organization that believes in the ends justify the means. To the Watcher the slayer is just a weapon. They don’t really get her power, they just try to wield and control it.
4. In Bring on The Night – Giles seems to know next to nothing about the First Evil. And he seems to be confused regarding the whole slayer line. According to Giles – once Buffy dies, a new one is born. Uhm, no. We know that’s false. Just look at Bargaining. Is Giles lying or has he forgotten? The Watcher Council which got blown to smithereens in Never Leave Me, also seemed to know next to nothing. And they certainly weren’t willing to ask for Buffy’s help or provide any information to her regarding it. The lack of communication between the Council and Giles and Buffy is alarming. Giles can barely communicate with the potentials. One of them keeps wondering if he is trying to kill her. And Giles is so disconnected from the rest of the gang that they actually believe he could be the First Evil. At least they’ve wizened up enough to realize the best way of figuring this out is by physically attacking the suspect.
5. Finally, if we remember Grave, Giles makes a point of telling Buffy that it was the coven not the Council that came up with a means of helping Willow. The Council is “clueless”.
Just in case we don’t get the point, the writers show us how the council operated in ancient times with the creation of the first slayer. Interesting puppet show. By the way, Wood’s favorite toy as a child was playing with the shadow puppets – you know those scary things that show a bunch of men chaining a girl to a rock and letting a demon attack her. Just makes me feel all warm and cuddly towards the guy. And this was the Watcher’s emergency kit? A tool that allows a bunch of shadowy figures to metaphorically knock a girl up with demon dust. This was Wood’s favorite plaything? (The line is in the beginning of LMPTM – where Nikki states – “why don’t you play with those shadow things from my bag that you like so much.”) At any rate, Buffy goes through the portal to get knowledge, she mistakenly believes Wood’s bag holds knowledge. But Wood is as clueless as the bag. Neither has knowledge. What the bag contains is not weapons as Buffy believes in her dream or tools, but the primal energy that makes her the slayer. And that energy is not something that she chooses nor does it choose her. The shadowmen take the energy, chain her up and force her and the energy to mate. Neither appears to be a willing or cognizant participant. The shadowmen are the only ones who have a choice in this. Buffy repeatedly asks them for knowledge and all they can give her is nightmare images and the promise of sexual violence. She is right when she tells them that they are cowards who had to chain a poor girl up and make her fight their battles for them.
Both Wood and Giles continuously act in the roles of these shadowmen. Neither really help Buffy, instead they sort of judge her, act as her superiors when they are clearly her inferiors in both word and deed. Buffy has learned over time to trust her instincts and the show has time and again proven her right. Each time she trusts them, she wins the day.
In Prophecy Girl – she trusts her instinct to go after the Master after Xander revives her. In Angel she trusts her instinct not to kill Angel. Her ability to put aside her differences with Spike in Becoming and make a truce is part of the reason she wins the day. Just as her ability to trust him in Season 5 after he risks his life for her and Dawn, helps her save the world in the Gift. And now she trusts her instinct to ignore the authority figure and go with her gut. It’s what makes her a hero and not just a weapon.
Authority figures.
(Warning – in order to make a point, I tend to exaggerate a little on some characters, particularly Giles and Nikki. Nikki is the slayer Spike killed in New York in 1977 and we have very little information on. If you can’t handle it? Don’t read. The following appears as it did on the www.aptobtvs.com board in April 2003, shortly after the airing of Lies My Parents Told Me and Players.)
Who are our authority figures? When we are children they are usually our teachers, the school Principal, a mentor, our parents, our priest or rabbi or minister. And these figures usually are represented by educational structures such as schools or religious organizations. As we grow up, these figures are gradually replaced by new and less obvious authority figures. Employers. Presidents. Police Officers. Priests.
If we think about it throughout our lives, if we choose, we are always bowing down to someone. Whether it be an institution or a person. When they say march, we march.
When they say fight, we fight. Often without question. The authority figures impose order and structure on our lives.
Yet, history shows us that it is not always a good thing to strictly follow authority. Questioning, protesting, even rebelling is actually a good thing. Part of growing up actually is rebelling against authority or breaking off from it, which we all do sooner or later in different ways. It may feel safe and comfy staying put, not fighting, not questioning. But you don’t grow that way. You become in a word, constipated. Sorry can’t think of a better word for it than that one.
So in every child’s life there comes a time where they must break away from authority whether that authority be represented by a parent or a time-worn structure. They must learn to think for themselves, to teach themselves, to question what the fussy old mentor tells them. Because like it or not that fussy old mentor isn’t always right. They aren’t a god, they aren’t infallible, and they don’t know more than we do. They are human, limited by the very things that make them human – environment, genetics, their own experiences and upbringing. There comes a time in every parent/child and teacher/student relationship that the child becomes the parent and the teacher becomes the student. There comes a time where the student outdistances the teacher.
1. Giles : The father figure/mentor/teacher
I remember the day I realized that my father wasn’t as wise or knowledgable as I thought he was. The day he fell off his pedestal and became just a man. Still my father. But no longer the knight in shining armor or wise old sage. It wasn’t a melodramatic moment. I don’t remember what caused this revelation exactly. I just remember that all of sudden I looked at him and I saw a tired, genuinely caring, but somewhat confused man. A man, who was still my father, but did not know all the answers and could not solve life’s problems for me. He wasn’t my teacher or my boss any longer; I had somehow gotten past him, just as he had once gotten past his own father.
Giles reminds me of my father. The writers and Anthony Stewart Head (the actor who plays Giles) have perfectly captured the moment my father went from being wise old sage who can answer all my questions to frightened, genuinely caring, at times over-protective, man. And looking back over the series, I started to see how Giles was in fact always that way, he’d never been the wise sage, he’d never been overly effective, he never knew the answers and he never solved the problem. Like my own father and the authority figures I’ve known, the best that Giles could do was guide, and he didn’t always guide in the right places.
Now, just in case, you think I’m projecting – let me state that my father is nothing like Rupert Giles. If I had to choose between the two – I’d pick my Dad any day. The only similarity here – is the turning point – when I realized that I moved past him. And my Dad, being the man he is, did a happy snoopy dance when I figured it out. He didn’t try to hold me back in any way. Giles in a way has attempted to let Buffy move past him, yet, can’t, not quite, because Giles isn’t just or rather never really felt he was Buffy’s father, he’s felt he was her boss, her guide, her superior. And moving past one’s mentor or superior is quite another thing altogether.
What do we know about Giles? What do we know about the Watcher Council for that matter?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. And I ask you, has the Watcher Council ever been shown in a positive light on this series? If they have – how quickly did the writers subvert that image? The more I thought about it, the more the Watcher Council began to remind me of well Wolfram and Hart. Wesely Wyndom-Pryce’s comment to Fred in Players regarding Lilah was very telling: “We were fighting the same war just on opposite sides.” Fight the war. Being the generals. Actually not the generals so much as the people sending the generals and soliders out to die. If you hate a war, btw, don’t blame the people on the field or in the ships fighting the war, blame the nicely suited, clean cut men sitting behind their desks in their comfy offices and war rooms who watch it from a distance, never getting much more than a paper cut. Wolfram and Hart and The Watcher Council NEVER fought on the front lines. They hung back and threw out orders. They manipulated the players. And they justified their acts by claiming a higher power talked to them. A higher power who finally decided to just wipe them off the face of the earth, because they had gotten so comfortable in their nice neat offices that they’d become ineffective and outlived their usefulness.
The best way to test a theory is to trip back through the episodes…
Season 1 – Giles is introduced as Buffy’s Watcher. He’s pretty ineffectual, if we think about it. Spends most of the first two episodes trying to convince Buffy to fight vampires. He doesn’t really know how and makes it clear that he can’t do it. She even asks him why he can’t and he sort of fussily makes excuses. The information he has on vampires is pulled from a musty old book. He requires Willow’s help to operate the computer and determine the whereabouts of the vampire’s hideout. In the episodes that follow, it’s the kids, Willow/Xander/and Buffy who figure out the problem, Giles often tells them they are wrong. Rarely is it Giles who comes up with the solution or figures it out. And in some instances Giles himself adds to the problem. I wonder, thinking back on it, why I kept thinking Giles helped as much as he did, and I realized something – he did help but not by providing answers or solutions, he was horrible at that, but by providing a structure for locating those answers, by empowering his students to do it. He was their engine, their confident, their counselor. Their, if you like, sounding board. He supported them.
In Witch – it is Buffy who figures out that Amy and Catherine switched places and the witch is Catherine Madison not Amy as Giles suspects. But Giles helps, by supporting Buffy in her analysis and by acting on what she’s discovered. They act as a team. He does not act as her boss, so much as a guide. They discuss the problem and solve it.
In The Pack – Giles screws up. He dismisses Buffy and Willow’s suspicions that Xander is possessed. He says it’s just being a 16 year old boy. Giles, for all his books and magic devices, really doesn’t believe in the stuff. It’s a clever and somewhat ironic twist – that Giles who knows the hellmouth and all this crap exists, doesn’t quite want to believe it does. Every time he realizes he’s wrong, he gets the funniest look on his face, sort of a “oh crap, it’s not chicanery and balderdash after all” and “what the heck am I doing here? I know zip about this stuff…I wanted to be a fighter pilot or rock star…this is stupid.”
I always felt a little sorry for him when he got that look. And he got that look big time, when he discovers that the pig has been eaten, raw. But it’s too late, so has Principal Flutie.
In Nightmares – Giles’ nightmares are fascinating. They emphasize Giles’ own feelings of inferiority or ineffectiveness. In the first two nightmares – Giles gets lost in his own library. (This reminds me of a line in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade – where Denholm Elliots fussy librarian character was accused of getting lost in his own library.) Then Giles can’t read his own books. He can’t read anything. The source of his power is in those books. It’s through reading. He feels he can contribute nothing without them. Each nightmare seems to build on the metaphor of Giles’ fears of being ineffective.
The first – getting lost in his own library, no sense of direction, unable to guide anyone.
The second – losing the ability to read or understand language, remember in Primeval where Giles was the one who had to read Summerian? No one else knew it. That was the power he had. Giles’ power of the mind is in his reading. In Tabula Rasa – Anya assumes he can’t do it, only she can, until he takes the books away from her and does it and saves the day. And in Buffy vs. Dracula – Giles feels that his contribution is in his books, they don’t need him any longer to interpret.
These two nightmares, which seem more humorous than scary lead up to the final one, the nightmare that may in a way explain Giles the most. In Nightmares – there is one nightmare that informs each character – it is the finale, the one the others have been building towards. And for Giles that nightmare is Buffy becoming the monster that Giles has sworn to fight. It’s Buffy becoming a vampire. When Giles, Willow and Xander walk into the darkness in this episode, Giles’ response to X/W’s query: whose nightmare is this, is : “Mine. This is my nightmare.” And we think it’s finding Buffy dead. Which in a sense it is. But it’s more than that. It’s finding her part of the undead. If you think long and hard about that scene, Giles reactions to Spike and Angel should not surprise you. (Oh quick aside/tangent: Also in the scene where Buffy rises from the grave – she’s still Buffy in vampire form. And as she states to Giles and her friends, they need to hurry, she only has a limited amount of time before she loses herself completely to the darkness. Apparently when a vampire first rises they are still pretty close to the human they once were, the memories, etc, it’s after that first kill, after time passes, that the monster truly takes up residence. The monster is built over time. So killing the vampire when it rises from the grave is in a sense, a preemptive strike.)
Something very important to remember about Giles – to Giles the books say it all. The books are the authority.
In Prophecy Girl – Giles believes the books prophecy that Buffy will die. Remember this is his nightmare. He attempts to stop her from going out and sacrificing herself. But Buffy knocks him unconscious. Giles is knocked unconscious a lot in the series, have you ever wondered why? It is not Giles who solves the problems in Prophecy Girl or finds the way out. It is the Buffy/Xander/Angel trio who actually do it.
Thinking back on Season 1, it occurs to me the number of times Buffy has to somehow turn Giles’ guidance around like a puzzle to figure something out. It also occurs to me the number of times Giles gets knocked out or suffers some injury to the head. Puppet Show – Giles unknowingly places himself in danger and almost gets scalped. Buffy and gang figure it out in time and save him. Come to think of it, Giles spends many an episode unconscious. When he locates information on something, he’s either knocked unconscious before he can communicate it or he doesn’t trust what he’s discovered. Later examples include – Giles in Once More With Feeling when he figures out it’s probably a demon, then immediately dismisses it as “no, something isn’t right there.” Or Giles in Flooded – noticing someone’s about to break into the house and is immediately knocked out. Giles in Doomed who doesn’t realize the world is in danger until he literally is hit over the head with the information. In each case, it is Buffy who brings the situation to his attention and bugs him to pay attention. But back to Season 1.
I Robot You Jane – Giles is responsible for having Willow transpose Moloch into the computer. He hates the devices. When Buffy figures it out Giles attempts to somehow solve the problem with Jenny the technowizard. But all they really accomplish is trapping Moloch in the robot form. It’s Buffy who figures out how to defeat and destroy Moloch, not Giles.
Giles and The Vampires. In Never Kill A Boy on The First Date (NKBFD) – Giles misunderstands the prophecy, believing the anointed one is a man not a child. And he attempts to fight the vampires – he can’t of course and almost gets killed. Throughout the series we are reminded how ineffective Giles is when it comes to slaying vampires. He has to be saved every time. In NKBFD, Buffy/Willow and Xander save him from vamps in the morgue. In Bargaining – Spike saves him from a vampire. In Life Serial, Spike and Buffy save him. In Lies My Parents Told Me, one can’t help but wonder how long Giles would have lasted with Richard in that cemetery? Also note the difference between Giles training Buffy, Buffy training Dawn ,and Spike teaching Buffy in Fool for Love? Is it any wonder Buffy picks Spike to help her train the Potentials, not Giles?? Giles’ advice to Buffy is the same as in his Restless dream – “Buffy you’re dropping your elbow” and of course the vamp, not dangerous, just a cardboard villain not a person. The person is completely gone in Giles head. While Spike’s advice to Buffy is – how did I kill them? Well, Lesson the first? Always remember to have your weapon in hand. I already have mine. Lesson the second – don’t give up, I’ll take any opportunity you give me. And remember who has the power? Use whatever is available and kill quickly.
Giles has a piece of the puzzle but he seldom figures it on his own, it takes time and patience and the help of someone else. Jenny helped him figure out the Prophecy in Prophecy Girl – he’d gotten the whole anointed one thing wrong. In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Angel helps him figure out first what it means to be invisible – not so much fun and second provides him with the right copy of the prophecy. In Graduation Day, S3 – it’s Anya who comes up with what the Ascension amounts to. And in Choices – it’s Willow who gets him the necessary information to figure it out what the Mayor is up to. But it is Buffy who comes up with the attack plan, when it comes to strategizing, Giles is, well, ineffectual. It’s Buffy who figures out how to make things work. She figures out how to defeat the Master in Prophecy Girl. She figures out how to prevent him from coming back again in When She Was Bad (which is another fascinating episode…come to think of it…). Giles buries the Master, intact, thus ensuring he can come back again. Buffy bashes his bones.
In When She Was Bad – Buffy has a nightmare about Giles attempting to kill her while Willow and Xander do absolutely nothing. The nightmare is instructive since in it Giles unmasked becomes the Master. Giles and the Master. Think about that for a minute or two. Giles the Master. I removed the and. The Master doesn’t have a name, he is THE MASTER. And he’s the first vampire to bite Buffy, biting her sets him free, Xander brings her back to life not Giles, so newly empowered she can go kill the Master. Giles enables the Master to potentially be brought back to life by the anointed one, by only burying the Master. Hence the reason for Buffy’s nightmare. Also Giles misreads the trap, believing Buffy is stepping into it when actually it is Giles that the anointed one wants. (When She Was Bad was also the last time we saw Hank, Buffy’s biological father, – not in flashback or in a dream sequence. In the beginning of the episode, Hank is shown complaining to Joyce about Buffy not really talking to him and seeming somewhat removed.)
At the end of season 2, Becoming arc, Buffy is forced to kill Angel, the one person she loved most, to save Giles, the father/mentor, and the world. And it is Giles that provides Angelus with the information to destroy the world, just as the year before it was Angel who provided Giles with the information to save it. And Angelus tortures Giles – as he would a father figure. He goes after Buffy’s old man. Interestingly enough Angel’s issue is the disapproving father – it’s the reason he goes after Giles, because Giles represents Angel’s old man. Angelus’ torture of Giles metaphorically represents Buffy’s own fears and anger regarding her father figure and mentor. Her fear that he disapproves of her and her guilt regarding her relationship with Angel. This fear comes up again and again in later seasons. Note that it is not Buffy who saves Giles, but Xander and Spike who do so. Buffy, partly because of Giles, ends up saving the world by killing her beloved. It is indirectly due to Giles that she is forced to do this. Just as it is indirectly due to Giles in When She was Bad – that she is threatened by The Master again. Giles’ failure to figure out the information and convey it to the right parties places them all in danger. This theme is repeated throughout seasons, finally coming to a head in Season 7, where Giles’ inability to communicate causes the Scooby Gang to actually believe at one point he is the First Evil. (Killer in Me S7).
Giles and Willow. Another point in Becoming S2 Btvs– Giles goes along with Willow’s idea of cursing Angel again – as a means of stopping Angelus – but also because it’s what Jenny wanted. Giles does not however have the ability to do the curse himself nor does he seem to understand how it’s done. A joke is made of the fact that he uses the orb of thesulah as a paper weight. It’s important to note, that Giles lets Willow, a novice, attempt the spell with little to no knowledge of how it works himself. This is by no means the first time he does this. He relies as the seasons progress more and more on Willow to do magics, dark magics, with little to no guidance or instruction. In some ways Jenny was a better mentor on this than Giles is. Giles does not step in and say anything to Willow really until she is so powerful she can literally blast him across the room. Giles’ behavior and use of Willow has always been consistent and does NOT, I repeat, does NOT reflect at all favorably upon Giles. He is a pragmaticist as he’s been taught to be by the Council. Use any weapon available. To Giles, Willow is a weapon. That is NOT to say that he doesn’t love her and care about her. But first and foremost, she is a weapon. Her use of magics serves his purpose. So he turns a blind eye. Don’t believe me? Let’s trip back through the episodes again shall we?
1. Becoming – Willow doing the curse
2. Faith, Hope and Trick – Willow asking to help and telling Giles how much magic she’s done, he ignores her.
3. Gingerbread – Willow is blatantly using magic by now and almost gets burned at the stake for it. Giles does and says nothing.
4. Choices – Giles allows Willow to perform the magics to get the box of gavrok
5. Dopplegangerland – no one asks why Willow performed that spell or attempts to teach her not to do it again
6. Something Blue – Giles goes to Willow to do a truth spell when she’s clearly emotionally unstable. He notices this but really appears to be blind to the problem. When she literally causes his blindness and other chaos – he punishes her by having her detail his car. He does not suggest she get proper training or anything else.
7. Giles appears oblivious to the magics that Willow is practicing and experimenting with. Even though – Willow and Tara create the means of switching Faith and Buffy back in Who Are You. And it is Tara not Giles who quickly figures out they switched places. Giles can’t see it. Giles doesn’t have any problem letting Willow perform the Primeval spell even though he knows how incredibly dangerous it is. In fact he suggests she do it.
8. Giles ignores Willow’s magics in Season 5, often making side comments about how dangerous that is. He barely blinks when she separates Xander and Spike telepathically or enters Buffy’s mind.
In a nutshell, Giles has not exactly been much of a mentor or teacher to Willow. Perhaps if he had been, DarthRosenberg would never have come into being?? Don’t know. Giles’ redeems himself a little by coming back and giving Willow the whammy in Grave. But, and a huge but here, it’s not his whammy that saves Willow so much as Willow’s love for Xander.
Giles and Xander. Everyone assumes that if Giles had been around in Season 6, Xander would have married Anya. Uhm, why??? When has Giles ever supported or helped Xander come to grips with anything? Name the episode. Give up? I’ll help. All The Way S6 – Xander announces it to Giles and Giles is less than pleased. So he tells Xander about all the responsibilities he now has – like, are you hunting for a house? Have you figured out what you’re going to do next? Are you going to have a family? The next time we see Xander, he is hyperventilating on the porch and Buffy is reassuring him. It’s Buffy who supports his decision NOT Giles. In fact in Tabula Rasa, when Giles and Anya think they are an item, Giles seems to be contemplating leaving her. Whenever Xander and Anya kiss in front of Giles, he has a disgusted look on his face and takes off his glasses. At no point in this series has Giles EVER been into the Anya/Xander relationship. At no point does Giles give Xander fatherly advice.
In the Replacement – Giles makes the comment that the two Xander’s are a bad influence on each other. In The Initiative, Giles is annoyed but tolerant of Xander’s behavior, but certainly not encouraging. Xander and Giles have an odd friendship, they care about each other, but Giles has never played father to Xander or really, mentor. Sometimes he plays confidante. Briefly in The Pack. And occasionally in Season 4.
The reason Giles lets Xander stay involved, is well Buffy. It’s Buffy who involves Xander and Willow not Giles. Giles just realizes he can’t stop her. So he more or less allows it. Besides they want to help and do, often more effectively than he does.
Giles the pragmatist Giles in Season 5, begins to realize he really can’t help Buffy anymore. This realization in part arises from his vague memory of his dream. It’s not completely conscious and he’s fighting it. Because he does have a father’s love for Buffy and he does want to feel important. Catch the gleam in his eye when Buffy asks him to be her Watcher again in Buffy vs. Dracula? He truly didn’t want to leave. But does he really help her much in Season 5? Does he provide her with much information? Does the council? All they really tell her is that Glorificus is a hell-god intent on using Dawn to open up hell dimensions. It’s the Knight’s of The Byzantine who tell her why. Buffy has to figure out how to stop Glory on her own with a little help from Anya and Spike. Spike provides them with the books. Anya with the weapons. All Giles comes up with is that Buffy must kill Dawn. And when Buffy asks Giles to explain the deaths of slayers, he is well speechless. It is Spike who provides her with the information she needs. Just as it is Spike not Giles who helps her get transportation in Spiral, get the information in Weight of The World, provides her with the key to defeating Glory (it’s all about Blood – blood is the answer, speech) and it is Spike who attempts to stop Doc from killing Dawn. The only thing Giles does in The Gift is kill a poor defenseless man lying on the concrete, bleeding. And he does it by suffocating this man, blocking all the passageways of Glory’s prison. Giles does a preemptive strike and rightly states, Buffy wouldn’t do it.
According to David Fury on Bronze Beta – there was a speech in Lies My Parents Told Me, where Giles confesses to Buffy that he killed Ben. They removed it because it made the episode too long and they didn’t think fans would care. (sigh. They should know better.) I think Giles’ decision is important. Because I truly believe Giles would have killed Dawn. So did Buffy. It is the reason she pulls Spike aside and invites him back into her house – she gives him a mission – protect Dawn at all costs. She knows Spike would not hesitate to kill Giles to protect Dawn. She needs someone to protect her sister, who at this point in time is defenseless and a true damsel, from her mentor who believes that the world comes first no matter the cost. Well, there are some costs that Buffy is no longer willing to take. Giles is willing to sell his soul to save the world. Buffy isn’t. And call me crazy, but I agree with Buffy. Hell is the world we get when we start selling our souls to protect it. Willow, Cordelia, and Wesley discovered this lesson very recently. Giles still has to learn it.
Giles’ actions in Tabula Rasa…didn’t make sense to people. Made a heck of a lot of sense to me. Giles felt ineffective. He felt he was holding Buffy back. He was depressed. So he left. He tells Buffy the reason he did more than once, most notably in LMPTM – the comment that seems to enrage Buffy the most may be: “at least Angel was self-aware enough to realize he had to leave you”. Giles probably felt he made the same good decision in S6. Giles, Willow was right in Something Blue – you are a blind fool.
This comment reminded me a great deal of Helpless – an episode that also deals with the ineffectual and manipulative father.
In Helpless – Giles drugs Buffy. He renders her helpless. A girl who can’t defend herself.
When she comes to him panicked that she is losing her powers, he states that he has no clue what is causing it and maybe it’s temporary or something. He hypnotizes her each time to do it. Taking away her control. The most painful part of the episode is when Buffy comes to Giles to ask him to take her to the ice show. To act as a stand-in for her father. She had just finished telling Angel that she had a date for her birthday – with her Dad, it was an annual thing, he always took her to the ice show. But Dad stands her up. He’s busy at work. He can’t come. It’s Buffy’s birthday. So she goes to Giles, somewhat awkwardly, and asks her teacher and mentor, the person she trusts most next to Mom, to take her instead. Watch this scene closely, in it Buffy is stammering, clearly working up the courage to ask the man she has somewhat subconsciously decided is her father to consciously take her father’s place in her life. She wants him to celebrate her birthday with her. This scene is probably one of the most painful scenes in the series. Because, instead of giving her an answer, Giles hypnotizes her and drugs her. Making her physically weak and taking control of her mind and spirit to work his will. Giles betrayal of Buffy in this episode comes from the Council, from being a Watcher. It is the Council who ordered Giles to do it. It’s not until Giles realizes that the insane vampire Buffy is supposed to defeat has escaped and eaten the Council members who are supposed to be guarding it that he decides to reveal what he’s done in order to protect Buffy from the monster. Buffy understandably rejects him. She survives. The monster is defeated. Buffy’s defeat of the monster reasserts her mental prowess and capabilities over the nits who insist on controlling her for their own ends.
(Tangent: Helpless, Get it Done and Lies My Parents Tell Me are similar in one way – all involve people attempting through arrogance, false sense of superiority, and emotional manipulation to obtain control over the girl. The poor deluded girl. In each instance the men rely on subterfuge and deceit to accomplish their task. They justify their actions with phrases such as “greater good”, “we’re fighting a war”, “it’s in her best interest”. When questioned – they state arguments such as can you come up with a better way? Isn’t saving the world worth it? We are fighting a war and there must be casualties, everyone is expendable. When I hear words like these, my first thought is, okay I don’t see you fighting on the front lines. Buffy however is. She is risking her life on a daily basis. And taking time out to save the butts of the nits who like to make these speeches, speeches she’s begun to repeat because they’ve said them so many times. When Buffy resists or rebels – these men or council members condescend to her much like Professor Walsh does in Season 4 – calling her deluded unmanageable or a blind fool. The irony is this girl through her own initiative, intuition and brain power has time and again defeated the monster. She’s 5-0 on the apocalypse meter. While the monster defeats and destroys the men – either by blowing them up (NLM), eating them (Helpless), or destroying them from within (Primevil). End Tangent.)
Back to Helpless, Giles sort of redeems himself by killing a vampire and getting fired by the Council. But it is important to note that Giles did not take action until he realized that he placed innocent lives in danger due to his actions and that the greater good was not being achieved. An insane and powerful vampire was now on the loose and there was no one who could stop it. If Buffy’s life had not been in danger, if the Council had not lost control of the vampire, I seriously doubt Giles would have come clean.
Giles’ words to Willow in Lessons come back to haunt us. “We are who we are no matter how much we may have appeared to have changed.” Giles hasn’t changed. Giles is the same man he was when he was first introduced. The only difference is we are now looking at him without the rose colored glasses and layers of metaphor. We are seeing Giles as he is, neither good nor bad, neither black nor white, but rather a muted shade of gray, and through the eyes of the adult. The ineffectual counselor, filled with all sorts of relevant information, but unable to effectively communicate it, partly due to the fact he does not trust the listener and partly due to his own fears and insecurities regarding the interpretation. This fear leads him to make serious mistakes in judgment. It leads to hubris and preemptive strikes that could end up doing more damage over time than good.
2. The Watcher Council – Authority as an Organization
The Watcher Council is to Btvs what Wolfram and Hart is to Ats. It is an organization that believes first and foremost in its own acquisition of power, yet ironically has none. So instead it manipulates people with power to accomplish its own ends. And it justifies its actions with the following: we are fighting a war and wars require strenuous measures.
This in a nutshell is Quentin’s speech to Giles in Helpless. Quentin’s speech to Buffy in Checkpoint. Giles’ speech to Buffy in the Gift. Giles speech to Buffy in Grave. Wes’ speech to Buffy in Choices when he suggests killing Willow and keeping the box. Wes’ speech to Justine, to Lilah, to numerous people in Season 3-4 Angel. Cordelia’s speeches to Connor. Have you ever found it odd how often people use the “greater good” or “god’s crusade” or “the cause” to justify heinous actions? For some reason people think that as long as it’s for the greater good, they can literally do whatever they please. They have a “get out of jail free” card. God’s with me on this guys! God wants us to kill and slaughter our neighbors because they are evil and it’s hey “greater good”! What is it Lilah sarcastically states to Cordelia about letting Angelus out to kill the Beast – “hey greater good!”
The Watcher’s Council. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Watcher’s Council. It occurred to me recently that the Watcher’s Council hasn’t really been all that helpful. They aren’t nice English gentleman or scholars setting up tea time or teaching classes as Tara believes before Giles goes off to talk to them in Triangle S5 Btvs. Nor do they really have much useful information. In fact, I’m willing to go out on a limb to suggest that the Watcher Council has caused more harm than good in their manipulations. Let’s look at what they’ve accomplished according to the television series only.
1. Alienation of Faith. Giles, Wes, Gwendolyn Post (will return to her shortly), the Watcher hit squad all manage to tear down poor Faith’s self-esteem and give her every reason in the world to fight them. It is ironically the Watcher’s worst enemy, a vampire named Angel, who manages to reach Faith.
2. Attempts on Slayers Lives. The Watcher Council attempts to kill Buffy in Helpless and Faith in Who Are You. It tries to kill them both in Sanctuary in Season 1 Ats. Angel helps save her.
3. Alienation of Buffy. Attempts on her life. Inability to communicate any information and insistence on keeping all information to itself. Rarely shares it.
4. Gwendolyn Post. Does not manage to keep track of the former Watcher or notice that she may be dangerous. If Buffy and Faith hadn’t defeated her – the Watchers would have had a serious problem. Gwen Post is a perfect metaphor for hubris and the whole anything for power, ends justify the means view of the world. She manipulates Faith to get what she wants – through much of the same tactics Giles uses on Buffy in LMPTM. She condescends to Faith. Gives Faith a false sense of trust. I think Post may be the first of many statements regarding the Council’s questionable practices and teachings. She is by far the worst, actually killing people to obtain absolute power. But if you look closely the line between Gwen and the other Watchers we’ve come to know and love isn’t that thick. Dark Wesely? Quentin Travers? And Bertram Crowley.
5. Bertram Crowley and the Creation of Wood. Wood was 4 years of age when his mother died. How could she be his entire world? At 4 yep. But it didn’t have to continue. Think about it, do you remember what happened to you at 4 years of age. Do you know anyone who is 30 years of age that does? I don’t. And I know people who experienced traumatic events at that age. (As far as Nikki goes – I still strongly believe based on the information provided, that she committed suicide by vampire as a means of releasing her son from her mission. She didn’t have the strength to give him up but also probably had grown tired of trying to do the mission, work , and take care of him at the same time. Nikki reminds me a lot of Buffy in Season 6. I think she truly believed when she died, her son would be spared her life – she’d set him free. This view is echoed in a way by William/Spike’s mother who seemed to believe the same thing. As well as Darla who stakes herself to bring Connor into the world.) Crowley made sure that boy remembered. Crowley did to Wood what Holtz did to Connor. Except Connor was fortunate enough to get away from Holtz by the age of 18. Robin doesn’t appear to have been so lucky. There’s an old saying – you are taught to hate. Carefully carefully taught. Crowley, unable to handle the death of Nikki in the line of duty, threw all his guilt and anger on to her son. Instead of finding the boy a good home and a good mother, which was what his mother may have preferred, Crowley created Principal Robin Wood – the Buffyverse’s version of Holtz (or possibly what Connor would have been like if Holtz took him to Utah and raised him to be a 30 year old man.) To take a 4 year old boy and teach him to hate and turn him into your personal weapon of vengeance is an evil and heinous thing. It’s what Holtz did with baby Connor and it’s what Crowley does with Wood. Bertram Crowley was an emotional vampire. Human yes. But filled to the core with self-righteous hate. He sold his soul for the cause. Worse yet, he sold the soul of a four-year old boy, who loved his mother, tainting and turning that love into something twisted and dark in the process. Spike did not destroy Wood’s childhood, Betram Crowley did.
I think Buffy was right in Checkpoint when she took one look at Quentin Travers and stated, you have no power. I do and you don’t and that scares you. You want power and the only way you can get it is by manipulating and controlling me. But that only works if I let you. And I don’t! Nor do they appear to have much knowledge.
Knowledge. Time and again this season and in the past Buffy has asked the Council and Giles for knowledge, they don’t give it to her. We complain about her speeches to the SIT’s but the speeches are merely repeats of what the Council and Giles have taught her.
1. In Buffy vs. Dracula, she asks Giles to teach her, but all Giles is able to tell her is she’s dropping her elbow. He has no knowledge to really convey. When she asks him in Grave why she’s been brought back, he replies you have a sacred duty. He has no clue. We wonder why he doesn’t reveal more, why the Council doesn’t, are they keeping secrets? Has it occurred to us that they have no clue? That all they have is a bunch of suspicions and clues written down by various people over time?
2. In Fool for Love, Buffy has to go to Spike to understand how a slayer dies, how the vampire kills them. Spike knows more than her Watcher does. He understands that the slayer fights alone and makes her life all about death and the mission. He also understands or seems to understand intuitively something they don’t: ie. why the slayer’s a girl. Due to his own demons, Spike sees the slayers as the destructive mothers he must defeat. A projection of his own destructive anima. The demon woman inside. Death is her gift. She will either bestow this gift upon him or he will bestow it on her. Thus repeating his traumatic and life-changing battle with his mother that happened over 100 years before. People keep arguing that Spike was lying in this episode, uhm no, remember what Anya said – when she was evil she told the truth all the time. Spike is telling the truth according to Spike and from what I’ve read of the writer’s interviews the truth according to the writers. But that’s irrelevant here and really missing the point. What’s relevant is that Giles did not have the ability to provide information on this topic nor did any of the other watchers. Because they don’t understand. They don’t fight vampires day in and day out. They don’t know what it’s like to be chosen or imbued with dark power. They have no clue.
3. In Checkpoint – Buffy is able to get a very limited amount of information from the Council. They have actually come in force to get information from her. Buffy knows more than they do. She’s met Glory. She knows who the key is. All the Council knows is Glory is a hell-god. The rest of the information she has to get from the Knight’s of Byzantine, another Buffyverse example of a self-righteous organization that believes in the ends justify the means. To the Watcher the slayer is just a weapon. They don’t really get her power, they just try to wield and control it.
4. In Bring on The Night – Giles seems to know next to nothing about the First Evil. And he seems to be confused regarding the whole slayer line. According to Giles – once Buffy dies, a new one is born. Uhm, no. We know that’s false. Just look at Bargaining. Is Giles lying or has he forgotten? The Watcher Council which got blown to smithereens in Never Leave Me, also seemed to know next to nothing. And they certainly weren’t willing to ask for Buffy’s help or provide any information to her regarding it. The lack of communication between the Council and Giles and Buffy is alarming. Giles can barely communicate with the potentials. One of them keeps wondering if he is trying to kill her. And Giles is so disconnected from the rest of the gang that they actually believe he could be the First Evil. At least they’ve wizened up enough to realize the best way of figuring this out is by physically attacking the suspect.
5. Finally, if we remember Grave, Giles makes a point of telling Buffy that it was the coven not the Council that came up with a means of helping Willow. The Council is “clueless”.
Just in case we don’t get the point, the writers show us how the council operated in ancient times with the creation of the first slayer. Interesting puppet show. By the way, Wood’s favorite toy as a child was playing with the shadow puppets – you know those scary things that show a bunch of men chaining a girl to a rock and letting a demon attack her. Just makes me feel all warm and cuddly towards the guy. And this was the Watcher’s emergency kit? A tool that allows a bunch of shadowy figures to metaphorically knock a girl up with demon dust. This was Wood’s favorite plaything? (The line is in the beginning of LMPTM – where Nikki states – “why don’t you play with those shadow things from my bag that you like so much.”) At any rate, Buffy goes through the portal to get knowledge, she mistakenly believes Wood’s bag holds knowledge. But Wood is as clueless as the bag. Neither has knowledge. What the bag contains is not weapons as Buffy believes in her dream or tools, but the primal energy that makes her the slayer. And that energy is not something that she chooses nor does it choose her. The shadowmen take the energy, chain her up and force her and the energy to mate. Neither appears to be a willing or cognizant participant. The shadowmen are the only ones who have a choice in this. Buffy repeatedly asks them for knowledge and all they can give her is nightmare images and the promise of sexual violence. She is right when she tells them that they are cowards who had to chain a poor girl up and make her fight their battles for them.
Both Wood and Giles continuously act in the roles of these shadowmen. Neither really help Buffy, instead they sort of judge her, act as her superiors when they are clearly her inferiors in both word and deed. Buffy has learned over time to trust her instincts and the show has time and again proven her right. Each time she trusts them, she wins the day.
In Prophecy Girl – she trusts her instinct to go after the Master after Xander revives her. In Angel she trusts her instinct not to kill Angel. Her ability to put aside her differences with Spike in Becoming and make a truce is part of the reason she wins the day. Just as her ability to trust him in Season 5 after he risks his life for her and Dawn, helps her save the world in the Gift. And now she trusts her instinct to ignore the authority figure and go with her gut. It’s what makes her a hero and not just a weapon.