Giles and Willow Parallels

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FaithByFive

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I think one of my favourite things about Buffy is all the parallels there are in earlier seasons and also between characters

And I was watching S5 and when Buffy tells Giles about the weird voluntary vampire biting Riley is into Giles makes a side comment about not having seen anything like that since his "Ripper days" and maybe I'm reading too much into this but I feel it kind of implies that in his youth Giles went to the same places as Riley did.

Anyway, the reason I find this interesting enough to make a forum post about is because of how much this parallels with Willow's experience with Rack ? Because Willow and Giles both wanted an escape from their routine, Giles with his intense watcher destiny and Willow with her dorky nerdness. They wanted to be powerful and the parallel is so strong because it's why Giles is always so hesitant to Willow using magic especially in the first two seasons.

And that led me to thinking, should Giles have intervened more ? Knowing where the path Willow was going lead to ?

Because he is worried about her after she brings Buffy back and is definitely very angry and almost upset at himself for not doing more to stop this and I was just wondering what everyone else thought about this

(Also sorry if this is in the wrong place, I'm new to this forum (I made an account ages ago but haven't posted anything before) I'll move it if this is the wrong place but can you guide me where to put it)
 
I can see the parallels, they were both seemingly responsible children/young adults with above average intelligence who shirked their responsibilities and engaged with some responsibility relieving, rebellion embracing, dark arts.

However, I think, although Giles was worried about Willow's use of magic, he definitely would have intervened if he'd have known what was going to happen, after all, it was the murder of Tara that triggered Willow's extreme use of magic, which no one could have predicted. The worst Willow could have done from Giles POV is essentially what she did with Rack, and we all saw how that ended, but it wasn't really that bad, it's very similar to a young adult experimenting with drugs but then deciding it's not for them after a few tries.
 
I think that's an interesting point. I feel like Giles did help Willow, knowing where she was coming from. I think that's why he understood about what had happened.
 
giles also understands what it's like taking a life, such as in the case of ben, who was more innocent than warren, certainly. presumably, giles has some heavy early experiences back in his ripper days, perhaps when the magick was more in control of him than he it. i always sort of felt that, at the time he left after once more with feeling, that the person who needed him most was willow, not buffy. willow was out of control, manipulating tara with magick, over-using it, endangering others. at this point, she could have used some guidance from someone with empathy and understanding. even though this preceeded tara's death, willow was clearly drowning, and i think giles knew it.

but the life-taking is what i really want to talk about. there were many points during season 5 that i felt ben probably should have taken his own life; even though it wasn't his fault that he was sharing a body with glory, once he was aware of who glory was and what she was doing, he might have taken it upon himself to end it for the sake of everyone else. and certainly, as the season went on, it was clear that ben was kind of in denial, and trying to justify his life even though he had some conflict. but giles took care of it. as he pointed out, he and ben weren't heroes like buffy. but i think he certainly understands what taking a life--the act in and of itself, regardless of the subjective "worth" of that life--does to someone, and it is here that i think he actually provides the deepest empathy and understanding for willow, and his pain at her having crossed that line. warren certainly deserved what he got, but that doesn't change the impact that that act has on the killer. as she and anya would later discuss, the emptiness remains.
 
True, Willow and Giles do seem to have that kind of rationale, utilitarian approach to fighting evil, i.e. this person will cause pain, so to stop them doing that, kill them, which is why they're a good part of the team. Particularly in the case of Ben, where jail would not have held him/Glory, I wonder if without the magic, Willow would have settled for letting Warren being punished in the legal sense or if she'd still have tried to kill him.

ohhh... another parallel, someone kills the person that they love, and their first instinct is to kill... interestingly, we excuse Giles because Angel was an evil vampire, but Willow is chastised for the exact same action just because it's an evil human? However, that's likely because there is a legal system in place to punish Warren, so Willow was essentially a vigilante, whereas Giles had to take the law into his own hands (or at least try) for any kind of revenge/justice to take place
 
you raise a good point and it's possibly the only aspect of the show that, like a grain of sand in my eye, becomes more and more irritating. first, why are human souls sacrosanct and demons ripe for the killing? would it be okay if someone up and decided to kill clem? someone raised a point about vampires being passionate creatures, which i think is a great point, so that would make the soul kind of the equivalent of the super-ego, with demons being creatures of pure id, especially as, from what i've read, joss is devoutly atheistic. but often i feel like demons are just doing their thing, like any other living (dead) thing, and not necessarily acting from a place of evil.

which is a long-winded way of saying, i suppose, that to take a human life, even a seemingly worthless one like warren, is a souless act and threatens the sanctity of that person's soul. and while i do fear for willow's well-being,i can't say i blame her response. warren was as evil as any demon presented on the show, moreso really, because theoretically he has a soul (super-ego) and is still a misogynist jerk-wad. so really, at the end of the day, why is killing warren any worse than dusting a vamp, as he proves that soul or not, he acts from pure id?
 
HowiMetdaSlayer
HowiMetdaSlayer
good points!
Xin Rong said:
ohhh... another parallel, someone kills the person that they love, and their first instinct is to kill
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this another excellent point, and an interesting aspect of the show: why is this everyone's first instinct? since vengeance is shown throughout buffy to be empty and meaningless (principal wood, willow, giles), i can only assume that like wes craven, this is a point that the writers really want us to absorb: there is no justice in vengeance. and this goes back to the id and super-ego: the former wants to react, the latter wants to approach tragedy in more measured terms.
 
HowiMetdaSlayer said:
Did Buffy ever kill a human on the show (not including comics)?
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i can't think of any; the closest i think she came was with the deputy mayor, when she was present with faith.
 
HowiMetdaSlayer said:
Did Buffy ever kill a human on the show (not including comics)?
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She killed the zookeeper in "The Pack" and several of the Knights of Byzantium in Season 5. In "I Only Have Eyes for You" she pulled a gun on Angel thinking he was the teacher from years ago. Her actions resulted in the death of the coach in "Go Fish" but as with "The Pack", she did not personally kill him, she threw him to the animals whereby the mutated students killed him, just as the hyenas killed the zookeeper. She killed Caleb but he was not entirely human.
 
I think the knights are the only time she actively kills a run-of-the-mill definitely not possessed human, though I may be wrong?
 
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