Rupert Giles

Biography

Character history

Rupert Edmund Giles (most frequently called Giles) was born circa 1955 in England. His family has worked within the Council of Watchers for at least three generations; both his father and grandmother, Edna Giles (née Fairweather), were also Watchers. As a child, Giles dreamt of being either "a fighter pilot or possibly a grocer", but he soon learned that being a Watcher is a calling, much as being a Slayer is, and Rupert's father explained his destiny to him when he was ten years old (revealed in "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date").

Although the Scooby Gang later joked that he wore tweed nappies as a child, Giles was in fact a rebellious youth, rejecting his responsibility as a Watcher and dropping out of Oxford University, where he was studying history, when he was twenty-one. During this time, Giles claimed to be a founding member of Pink Floyd in order to impress girls (although since Pink Floyd was founded in 1965, when Giles would have been around ten years old, it was not a particularly credible claim), and may have delved into criminal activity (he remarks that hot-wiring a car is "like riding a bloody bicycle", and a psychologically younger Giles has no qualms about breaking into a clothing store and attacking a police officer). He is a talented singer and guitar player (as Head was in real life) which the gang discovered, to their astonishment, when they saw him singing "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who in "Where the Wild Things Are". Spike also saw him singing "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd in "The Yoko Factor".

He began to explore dark magic and befriended a group of young people who delved into the dark arts for fun or money: Ethan Rayne, Philip Henry, Dierdre Page, Thomas Sutcliff, and Randall. Giles gained the nickname "Ripper" during this time. Together, the group summoned a demon called Eyghon, who would possess and eventually destroy Randall.

Following Randall's death, Ethan and the others failed to exorcise Eyghon, and Giles accepted his destiny of becoming a Watcher. Before becoming a fully-fledged Watcher, he also worked as "the curator of a British museum, maybe the British Museum" as Willow says ("Welcome to the Hellmouth"), although, given the context, she may well have been repeating a rumor that was going around the school.

Sunnydale

At the behest of the Watchers' Council, Giles travels to Sunnydale, California, and works as the librarian at the local secondary school. There he meets the current Slayer, Buffy Summers, whom he begins training. The library, a quasi-command centre for Buffy's demon-hunting gang, sits right above the Hellmouth.

As the Watcher, librarian, and general authority figure, Giles often delivers exposition. He is a father figure to Buffy and her friends Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, together forming the "core four" of the Scooby Gang. Giles is often portrayed as something of a "straight man" and his "stuffy" Oxford sensibility serves as counterpoint to the stereotypical Southern Californian characters and setting. He makes a "weird cluck-cluck sound with his tongue" when he is angry but is "too English to say anything" ("Faith, Hope & Trick"). He admits to being technophobic, a fact which often brings him into conflict with technopagan and computer science teacher, Jenny Calendar. However, after Jenny aids him in casting the demon Moloch out of the Internet, the pair reach an understanding and begin a romantic relationship. Despite his obvious fear with modern technology, Giles is quite adept with computers, which is required in his occupation as a librarian (season 3 episode "Gingerbread") and likely had received this training while earning his master's degree in library and information science. It was never revealed of which library school Giles attended or whether he had pursued his PhD in this field.

In season 2, Giles' dark side is revealed and his relationship with Jenny deepens. In "The Dark Age", Ethan Rayne comes to Sunnydale to flee the demon Eyghon. Giles ashamedly admits to Buffy that he was responsible for summoning the demon in his youth, and is horrified when Jenny becomes possessed by Eyghon. Although Eyghon is defeated, Jenny takes time to cope with her ordeal, remaining distant from Giles in the meantime. When new Slayer Kendra Young arrives in Sunnydale, Giles shares with her an appreciation for obscure texts, resulting in Buffy nicknaming her the "She-Giles." Giles feels betrayed when Jenny reveals she is actually a member of the Kalderash gypsy clan, sent to keep an eye on Buffy's relationship with the vampire Angel. When Angel loses his soul he reverts to his evil, sadistic alter ego Angelus. Angelus murders Jenny, leaving her corpse for Giles to find in a romantic setting in his apartment ("Passion"), Giles seeks revenge by burning down Angelus' base. Angelus later kidnaps and tortures him, and Drusilla hypnotizes him into thinking she is Jenny so he will reveal how to awake Acathla. Buffy is forced to kill Angel to save the world, despite Willow's restoring his soul, and subsequently leaves Sunnydale.

Literature

A main character from the beginning of the series, Giles has appeared in most of the spin-off books published based on the series. He plays a particularly key role in The Lost Slayer series, where a chain of events lead to Buffy (from a point early in the fourth season) being projected into the body of her twenty-four-year-old self in a timeline where Giles was turned into a vampire by the followers of an Aztec bat god, forcing Buffy to face a foe who knows her every technique before she manages to find a way to return to the past and prevent Giles being captured and turned.

In the canonical comic book continuation of the series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the Scooby Gang has expanded into a global organization, training approximately five hundred Slayers spread over ten squads. Giles is head of the Slayer operations in England, parallel with Andrew's operations in Italy and Buffy and Xander's in Scotland, and he keeps in close contact with Xander and Andrew, discussing issues. In the Season Eight arc, "No Future For You", he comes to Faith to request her assistance assassinating another Slayer, who will bring about the Apocalypse if left unchecked. After they are both forced to make the difficult decisions to kill the rogue Slayer Gigi and her mentor Roden, they decide to work together in the future as equal partners, keeping Slayers from turning down the dark path that both Faith and Gigi walked. As a result of their covert operation, Buffy and Giles are no longer on speaking terms.

In the story "Safe," Giles and Faith hear of a "Slayer Sanctuary" in a town called Hanselstadt from a young Slayer named Courtney. There, Giles encounters Duncan Fillworthe, a former Watcher, who claims vampires do not dare to enter the town because they know the town contains an army of Slayers. Later, as Giles argues that a stalemate is not a solution to the vampire problem, Duncan reveals that in fact the town is feeding the Slayers who come seeking sanctuary to an ancient demon. The fear of the demon is what really keeps the vampires from entering. Giles goes to warn Faith as Duncan states this is the fate that Slayers deserve for rejecting the Watchers Council, especially Buffy, reminding Giles that Buffy's relationship with Angel resulted in Jenny Calendar's death. Giles finds Faith already in combat with the demon, which feeds on beings who feel regret and fear. While trying to free Courtney from the demon, Duncan intercepts Giles. During their skirmish, the demon devours Duncan and Giles saves Courtney while Faith kills the demon. The stalemate ended, Giles and Faith rally the reluctant townspeople against the coming vampires, telling them if they want to live, they'll have to fight. After Harmony Kendall's reality show establishes a new pro-vampire, anti-Slayer world order, Faith and Giles are in hiding in the Führerbunker in the "Retreat" storyline. Once their underground hideout is compromised by demons, they retreat to Scotland to reunite with Buffy. Giles and Buffy are driven to reconcile by Twilight's attacks. The entire group are later transported to Oz in Tibet to learn how to suppress magic to stop Twilight tracking them.

Powers and abilities

Giles has extensive knowledge of demonology and Slayer combat (including at least a theoretical knowledge of jujutsu and aikido, but excelling at the art of fencing), mainly due to his training as a Watcher. His youthful interest in witchcraft and sorcery has endured into his adult life; though his natural aptitude for it is only moderate (much less than that of Willow), he does have a high amount of magical knowledge. Giles is proficient in several languages, including Latin, ancient Greek, Sumerian ("Primeval"), Japanese ("Checkpoint"), and possibly Gaelic ("Fear, Itself"), but weak in German ("Gingerbread"), Mandarin and Cantonese ("First Date"). While he has no prominent supernatural powers of his own, his extensive experience with dealing with vampires, demons, and other creatures makes him capable of handling them effectively.

Giles has moderate skill in hand-to-hand combat, as well as various melee weapons. While his demeanor is typically mild and polite, Giles is not above using raw violence to solve a problem, such as physically threatening Principal Snyder into readmitting Buffy to school after her expulsion ("Dead Man's Party"), pummeling Angelus senseless with a flaming baseball bat and burning down his hideout upon discovering that he had killed Jenny Calendar ("Passion"), manhandling Spike while ordering him to get over his feelings for Buffy ("I Was Made to Love You"), forcing Glory's minion Slook to talk by inflicting a painful-sounding injury offscreen ("Tough Love"), severely beating up Ethan Rayne for information ("Halloween"), and suffocating a critically injured Ben with his bare hands to keep Glory from awakening in his body. ("The Gift"). Typically, however, Giles' calm demeanor and professionalism offer him a detached state of authority even in the face of fearsome monsters, as demonstrated during his confrontation with a violent demon in "The Long Way Home". He is also shown to be able to quickly hotwire a car in the episode "Dead Man's Party".

In the season 6 finale, Giles was temporarily endowed with powers of the Devon Coven in an attempt to stop Willow. During this time, he demonstrated powers such as teleportation, telekinesis, and energy projection. He lost all of these powers when Willow drained him and left him on the brink of death, but he recovered immediately after Xander calmed her down from her rampage. His moderate proficiency in magic combined with his natural acumen and intelligence still make him quite formidable; in Season Eight's "No Future for You", he kills the warlock Roden, who could fly and conjure easily, through using a spell inventively. After being resurrected in the form of an adolescent, Giles displays much more magical aptitude, which is briefly lost when Willow temporarily ages him back into an adult form. Sophronia and Lavinia theorised that if Giles had been tutored in magic by them rather than being trained as a Watcher at the wishes of his father and grandmother, he would have become an extremely powerful magician, and could achieve this potential in his new life.

Reception

Head's portrayal of Giles was largely well received by television critics. An article for The Wrap summarized, "For more than five seasons, the British actor added depth and charm to Joss Whedon's groundbreaking 1997-2003 series as mild-mannered librarian Rupert Giles." Head was nominated in for the 2001 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, but lost out to co-star James Marsters.