I like your reference to Giles' betrayal being an act of treason. If we keep with the war metaphor, he committed an unforgivable crime. He did not trust the leadership so he acted independantly and against orders.
Hi. I wondered in from mutant_allies. Great post esephia, we had some similar thoughts on the episode.
It seems to me that one of the reasons the characters keep getting into this mess is because Buffy was never meant to be their general. The slayers were meant to be warriors, with the CoW acting as the general. 2 things happened with Buffy to change the natural dynamic: She quit the council and Giles left her in S6. I'm still working this out, but I think if Giles had remained in Sunnydale, we would see more Giles acting as general and Buffy following his orders (i don't know how much this would change her behavior towards Spike because I think she would still refuse to kill him, but she might be more open to not allowing him to be a part of the fight). Instead, he left her to make her own decisions and now she's the one left in charge and she is not well-prepared for it.
This doesn't excuse what Giles did (and personally I can't decide whether it is just shoddy writing on ME's part or actual character development that has left us with this shell of Giles), but I think it does explain partially why he did it. He knows Buffy doesn't have the skills to she needs to do the job and so he decides to step in and "solve" the problem, albeit in this completly patronizing and daddy-knows-best way. Bad move on his part.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-03-31 11:58 am (UTC)Hi. I wondered in from
It seems to me that one of the reasons the characters keep getting into this mess is because Buffy was never meant to be their general. The slayers were meant to be warriors, with the CoW acting as the general. 2 things happened with Buffy to change the natural dynamic: She quit the council and Giles left her in S6. I'm still working this out, but I think if Giles had remained in Sunnydale, we would see more Giles acting as general and Buffy following his orders (i don't know how much this would change her behavior towards Spike because I think she would still refuse to kill him, but she might be more open to not allowing him to be a part of the fight). Instead, he left her to make her own decisions and now she's the one left in charge and she is not well-prepared for it.
This doesn't excuse what Giles did (and personally I can't decide whether it is just shoddy writing on ME's part or actual character development that has left us with this shell of Giles), but I think it does explain partially why he did it. He knows Buffy doesn't have the skills to she needs to do the job and so he decides to step in and "solve" the problem, albeit in this completly patronizing and daddy-knows-best way. Bad move on his part.