"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:cd222a0e-fb90-47a7-99ed-145f32885875@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Skipping through your thoughts about Giles, just a few small notes...
>
>> The best I could hope for was to find some structure around his
character
>> able to explain intent, even if it can't rationalize away the
execution.
>> And besides, I'd never thought much about Giles having an arc before.
>> The
>> notion that Giles had personally taken on the mantle of the WC in S7
was
>> entirely fresh to me when I read of it here in response to your first
>> reviews.
>
> It's interesting to think about, but I have to go back to the surface
> level and ask - if the average serious repeat viewer of the series
> needs to have an arc pointed out by others, is it really a very
> effective arc? As drama? I'm kinda partial to stories where my first
> thought is "it makes sense for this character to say/do that" without
> forcing me to chart through his off-screen motivations.
Well, I don't think he has an arc on par with the other major characters.
Though his character didn't stand still, one of his functions in the early
years was to be something resembling a constant in Buffy's life. I think
the primary original purpose of his being fired as Watcher was to enable
Buffy's growth - to graduate in a sense. Not so much to send his
character
on a journey. So his character arc is naturally constrained and hidden.
Also, in the first two years, I think the show was trying more to fill out
his existing character with the relation****p with Jenny and then giving
him
a back history with Ripper.
The arc doesn't end up being that big a journey anyway. Essentially all
he
does is return to being a Watcher, wear that mantle with a vengeance, and
then get reminded again of what Buffy taught him the first time, more or
less ending up the same guy he was earlier.
Giles: In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we may
appear
to have changed. (Lessons)
Even so, the exercise of tracking his arc helped make some sense of what's
going on late in the series. Better, I think it gave me more appreciation
of how much he gave up in the first 3 seasons. He knew he was violating
Watcher doctrine the way he was handling Buffy, and it cost him his
career.
I think he must always have suffered terrible doubts about his choices.
Especially since so much was founded on Buffy's way of understanding that
Giles could never get to on his own.
What I may like best is that it means that the core character tension for
Giles is laid out in WTTH/TH just as it is for Buffy. (Solid seeds are
planted for Willow and Xander too.) All that much more connecting the
series from start to end. I think one of the S7 objectives was for the
core
characters to find their old selves again as part of growing up.
>> S5 is where I think the later Giles arc takes off, perversely by first
>> restoring the Watcher/Slayer relation****p. In retrospect, I think a
>> couple
>> of unintended things may have happened. First, what had developed over
>> the
>> last couple years into an easy friend****p between equals, suddenly
became
>> formalized into a teacher/student relation****p. A second go around
that
>> I
>> think serves to distance them rather than draw them together like it
did
>> the
>> first. At the same time Giles rediscovers purpose through his old
>> personal
>> calling as Watcher. Subconsciously that likely validates the Watcher
>> model
>> for Giles, and leads him to become more conservative - more of a purist
>> in
>> its ways. I think I forgot to mention this in our last S5 discussion,
>> but
>> his rehiring as Watcher in Checkpoint can also be seen as a symbolic
>> return
>> to the fold as well as literal. He may still be outwardly contemptuous
>> of
>> the WC bureaucracy, but mentally he's a believer again.
>
> That's true, although I hadn't generally thought along those lines.
> (Wow, suddenly the existence of "Checkpoint" makes a lot more sense.)
Mmmm. Well, it fits his timeline well, making it a useful retrospective
marker. But I don't sense much in the episode sup****ting his character
development beyond the simple fact that he's employed again.
> Giles holds up pretty well through the end of Season Five, but I'm
> iffier with the rest.
I agree.
>> There is one last problem. Do I actually like it? Even with imagined
>> corrections? Not really no. The history between Buffy and Giles does
>> allow
>> for some good drama - a plus. But it still degrades the character, who
>> spends S7 especially being a crank with little to offer. To some
extent
>> that was true in S4 too, but Giles was much more engaging then, and
still
>> a
>> contributor in spite of his gentleman of leisure routine. In S7 there
>> seems
>> like a kind of emptiness around him as he's pompous, obnoxious and
mostly
>> ignored. (See Blind Date.) Even with the return to his senses at the
>> end,
>> he's relegated to cheerleader as he applauds Buffy's idea while Willow
>> does
>> all the research and work. S6 doesn't bother me as much, since he
>> retains
>> an impact during his limited time.
>> So there are things
>> to redeem his role in S6. Not so much in S7.
>
> Agreed with most of that, and it reminds me of a much simpler problem
> I have with S7 Giles (besides the undermining. And besides the
> attempt to force him uncomfortably into a metaphorical role) but
> hadn't articulated. Although you touch on it a few times above. His
> sense of humor basically disappears completely after sending Willow
> off. That was always a big part of the character for me, one of the
> first things I noticed about him back in WTTH, and the first thing
> that kept this series's adult exposition-dude/non-authority-figure
> away from the land of the stock characters.
I agree.
> -AOQ
> ~and Giles and Dawn thus end up occupying the majority of the
> discussion space in a theoretically ATS-based thread~
> ~~not a complaint, just an observation~~
One thing led to another and it just... happened.
OBS
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