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Why Giles left
Dec. 19th, 2005 11:03 amMy in-laws gave me the "Once More With Feeling" soundtrack for my birthday (yay, in-laws!), so I've been listening to it a lot lately.
This has caused me to reflect once more on Giles's motivation for leaving California in early S6. I love the song because ASH's voice makes me warm and happy inside, but it always bothered me in terms of plot and character. It always seemed to me that Giles leaving didn't really make sense, that his explanation was weak and full of holes, that it could only really be explained by meta reasons (ASH wanting to have less involvement with the show), and that drove me nuts.
But listening to "Standing" (that's the official name of Giles's song, according to the CD cover) a bunch of times has made me re-think this.
The logic that he's going with, really, is that she'll become stronger if she has to—if he leaves so she can't lean on him anymore, she'll rise to the challenge and put herself back together. That always struck me as so blatantly and terribly wrong (in the sense of being incorrect) that I couldn't believe Giles really thought it. But ... I've started thinking about his background. He's a Watcher. He's got the British public boys' school background with all the stiff-upper-lip baggage.
Remember how he performed the Crucia-whatever on Buffy? He was reluctant to do it, sure, but he did it. The logic behind that rite of passage seems to be very similar to Giles's thinking when he left in S6—she'll become stronger if she has to. If her strength is taken away from her, she'll find new strength.
So ... yeah. That's all. I still think it was an awful decision and a lot of the S6 bad stuff might have been avoided if Giles had stuck around, but I finally am able to believe that it was Giles's decision, and not simply a plot hammer to get ASH off the show.
This has caused me to reflect once more on Giles's motivation for leaving California in early S6. I love the song because ASH's voice makes me warm and happy inside, but it always bothered me in terms of plot and character. It always seemed to me that Giles leaving didn't really make sense, that his explanation was weak and full of holes, that it could only really be explained by meta reasons (ASH wanting to have less involvement with the show), and that drove me nuts.
But listening to "Standing" (that's the official name of Giles's song, according to the CD cover) a bunch of times has made me re-think this.
The logic that he's going with, really, is that she'll become stronger if she has to—if he leaves so she can't lean on him anymore, she'll rise to the challenge and put herself back together. That always struck me as so blatantly and terribly wrong (in the sense of being incorrect) that I couldn't believe Giles really thought it. But ... I've started thinking about his background. He's a Watcher. He's got the British public boys' school background with all the stiff-upper-lip baggage.
Remember how he performed the Crucia-whatever on Buffy? He was reluctant to do it, sure, but he did it. The logic behind that rite of passage seems to be very similar to Giles's thinking when he left in S6—she'll become stronger if she has to. If her strength is taken away from her, she'll find new strength.
So ... yeah. That's all. I still think it was an awful decision and a lot of the S6 bad stuff might have been avoided if Giles had stuck around, but I finally am able to believe that it was Giles's decision, and not simply a plot hammer to get ASH off the show.
