Re: when did it all begin?

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

A few random thoughts before I make my (longwinded) points:

1) Always nice to see a good discussion, but
2) We are a looong way from the original point, which was the origins of
B/W 'shipping (in fandom, not on screen, as I understood Chris's
original post), and 
3) Opinions are great, and I've got plenty, but let's remember that
there are multishippers here.  We can criticize the 'shipsI'll be the
first to say that I don't understand how awkward noncommunicative chats
with your attempted rapist, where nothing is ever resolved (except
teasing the 'shippers for another week) qualify as being "great"
together (at least S6 Spuffy was "This sucks as a relationship, but the
sex is hot" [well, we were told the characters found it hotfrankly, I
thought Buffy looked fairly sickened], but S7 lacked even that upside),
but let's make sure not to cross the line to personal attacks&which
IMO "ick, ick, ick" is perilously close to.

As for B/G:

"Get your books, look stuff up" is a direct quote from "The Pack", the
scene where Giles is trying to "Scully" Buffy, dismissing her ideas that
Xander is possessed.  When Willow comes with the news that Herbert the
pig was eaten and asks what he's going to do, he replies abashedly "Get
my books.  Look stuff up." and ASH does a great job here of looking like
he just got kicked in the ass.

Later in the same ep, Giles and Dr. Weirick (the zookeeper) are getting
lost in the details of animal possession and Buffy brings them back on
topic with a scolding "Boys!".  I think that was the moment when the
idea of Buffy/Giles as daughter/father died for me.

But an earlier deathblow has to be in the teaser for "Witch", the VERY
FIRST scene of the VERY FIRST ep (after the pilot), where Giles doesn't
want Buffy to join the cheerleading squad and Buffy goes "And you'll be
stopping me how?"  (And gives him a very sexy smirk, and then ignores
him, and goes cheerleading.)  Right from the very beginning, it was
established that Buffy, not Giles, is the boss here.

Buffy's reactions to Joyce (her ACTUAL parent) and to Giles could not be
more different.  Buffy has to submit to Joyce, follow her orders, and
when she doesn't, she's in severe trouble (as in "Bad Eggs" for
example).  Giles doesn't have any authority over Buffyhe can't cut
off her allowance, move her to a new city against her will, or commit
her to a mental institution.  (A good deal of the horror of the [implied
abusive] step-parent in "Ted" is that by romancing her mother, this
stranger will gain the power to run Buffy's life.) And with Giles we
never get the "I really don't like you, but you're family, so I'm stuck
with you" attitude that Buffy takes to Dawn, or that Joyce takes to
Buffy (see her conversation with Giles in "Bad Eggs", about children
being a "burden").  I don't mean that Buffy doesn't love Dawn or Joyce
doesn't love Buffy, but family is an obligation.  Friends are a choice.
Giles is Buffy's friend, not her dad.

Giles didn't raise Buffy.
Giles didn't install her attitudes, her morals, her values.
Giles doesn't share a history with Buffy, didn't share her home life,
didn't substitute for the father that Buffy actually has and has a
complex relationship with.
Giles doesn't have authority over Buffy in the least.

Yeah, he's an older guy who gives her information and tries to protect
her.  Put a leather jacket on that and you've got Angel.

In fact, Angel/Giles equivalencies were drawn throughout the length of
the series, starting in the pilot episode,  ("This&guy.  Dark,
gorgeousin an annoying kind of way.  I FIGURED YOU TWO WERE BUDS.
[emphasis added]), and up through the Angel/Giles chat in "Pangs", where
they talk about how neither one of them can let Buffy go.

Of course, Buffy then moved on from dating older guys who educated her
and had nominal (but not practical) authority over her.  Oh, wait,
noshe dated **her teacher**.

If there's one pattern in Buffy's relationships, it's that she likes men
who are older (even if Angel was "26", that's still 10 years;  Parker
was a senior, Riley a grad student, and let's not forget Tom the college
guy, or her flirting with Ben, who was 25 to Buffy's 19/20) and who are
emotionally distant (brooding Owen, brooding Angel, the "pain" Parker
faked over his dad's "death", tongue-tied and awkward Riley) and who
have knowledge to offer (Cryptic Warning Guy, poetry geek Owen, history
student Tom, Cameron rhapsodizing about the ocean, Parker's helpful tips
on dorm life, Riley the teacher['s assistant]).  They can't ALL be
"ewww, insesed!" (to quote an illiterate review a friend got for a B/G
story on ff.net).  In fact, none of them are.

(And yeah, Spike's a complete break to this pattern.  Which one reason
it was never credible to me.)

Is Giles the reason Buffy slays?  Absolutely not.  As E pointed out,
"Welcome to the Hellmouth" makes it clearit's not orders and
blathering about "duty" that get Buffy going, it's a sense of personal
responsibility, connection to the people she has to save that motivates
her.  So when Giles scolds her about "honing" her senses and so on, all
it gets him is a nasty stare and "You're like a textbook with arms!  I
know this already."  But when she sees that Willow is threatened, sees
the human cost of her inaction, she leaps into action, forgets her "no
slaying!" vow, and then spends most of the next episode beating herself
up over how her incompetence got Jesse killed.  

Yes, sometimes Giles acts as her conscience, motivates her to do what
she knows is right, but that's no more than what Willow ("Prophecy
Girl") or Xander ("The Freshman") or Angel ("Gingerbread") also do.
Buffy does NOT jump when Giles says so, in fact that's liable to be
counterproductive (see "Reptile Boy").

In fact, the show makes it clear that Buffy and Giles have a very
different relationship from standard Slayer/Watcher when Wesley comes to
town.  From "Bad Girls":

WESLEY (confused, slightly appalled):  Are you not used to being given
orders?
BUFFY (mocking):  Whenever Giles has a mission for me, he says "please".
And then I get a cookie!

Buffy is the boss, and she usually stops Giles from dithering and gets
him to take action.  (Why, yes, I've just been watching "I Robot, You
Jane"how could you tell? [See also "Teacher's Pet", "The Pack",
"Nightmares", "School Hard", "Inca Mummy Girl", etc, etc&])

One part of this is that "father figure" is thrown around loosely,
confusing "I like you because you have the same qualities I admire in my
dad" (which is healthy and normal and Buffy's pattern) with "I never had
a dad, so let me fuck you and I'll feel less lonely" (which would not be
healthy, obviously).  "Father figure" is actually a term from Jungian
psychology which has gotten misinterpreted in popular cultureit has
far more to do with mentoring/role models than with any sort of
quasi-"parental" role, much less unhealthy incestuous implications.

(For an essay on B/G and "father figure", check this out:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010717164958/www.boadicea.net/buffygiles/father.htm

Sorry about the long addy, but the site is temporarily offline, so I had
to use Wayback.)

As to the "Joseph Campbell says the Hero must have a father figure, and
Giles is Buffy's, so it's not sexual and Buffy must eventually abandon
him" argument, Campbell is analyzing existing texts, not laying down
hard and fast rules for everything to come.  There's no reason BtVS
can't break Campbell's (or anyone else's) paradigm.  In fact, I think
Joss did smash Campbell well and trulyunless there's something in
Campbell about the Heroine becoming involved in a cheap knockoff of a
previous romance in a desperate attempt to try and recapture ratings and
being infantilized and stripped of her positive attributes because James
Marsters always kisses Joss's ass and Joss wants to make Spike the hero,
not that bitch SMG who he's tired of. [/bitterness]

Lastly, there's the sexual aspect.  Originally, I was led to follow
popular thought that B/G was desexualized and sexualizing it would be
"icky", but that was partly because I only started watching in S2 and
didn't do it regularly until S3.  Once I saw S1-2, I couldn't deny that
there's a good chunk of subtext there, in part because Buffy is
constantly flirting with and teasing him, right from "Welcome to the
Hellmouth" on.  (Check out that balcony scene.) 
Joss himself said that he cast Tony Head because Tony, unlike others who
read for the part, didn't play Giles as just the Book Guy and dried up,
Tony's Giles isn't "finished", he "brought his own undercurrent of, kind
of, youth and sexiness&to the role, so it was clear this was a guy
who's still trying to figure out his own life, while the kids are as
well, and that really works for us."  [Audio commentary, "Welcome to the
Hellmouth".]  If Giles was only meant to be Boring Exposition Guy, there
were plenty of actors Joss could have hired to play that.

No, Giles is not a stock figure for Buffy to encounter and pigeonhole
and eventually discard on her own journey;  he's on a journey of his
own.  The woman he selects, Jenny, has many Buffy-like qualities
(non-conformist, sasses him, controls him, even has some of the same
vocal patterns) and is played by a much younger actress.  (Robia LaMorte
is a grand total of 17 DAYS older than Charisma Carpenter;  she's twice
as close to SMG's age than she is to ASH's.  [ASH born 1954, Robia 1970,
Sarah 1978])  One of the reasons Giles/Joyce 'shipping makes me hurl,
aside from the reflexive pigeonholing of Giles as "Old Guy, let's stick
him with Buffy's Mom", is that Joyce is **so** completely not Giles's
type.  (Which again, goes back to their very different attitudes about
Buffy, as seen in the argument in "Anne"Giles trusts Buffy, and while
hurt by her abandonment, understands her need to go her own way,
believes Buffy's an adult who can take care of herself.  Whereas to
Joycebeing A PARENT, which Giles is notBuffy will always be her
"little girl".)

It should be noted that the "six-inch rule" was not a WB mandateit
was Joss's own characterization of his worries that Buffy and Giles
being so "intense" with each other would be "unseemly" for a teacher and
student.  Which brings us back to the main pointwhile Giles has the
trappings of an authority figure, neither Buffy nor Giles treat the
relationship as such (Giles doesn't even bother to give Buffy the Slayer
Handbook, because he can see she wouldn't respond to it), and therefore
I can't see that as a bar to a relationship.

Yes, in later years, Giles was marginalized, limited, ignored, his
status on the show reduced to "Old Guy".  And I would say that this was
just as bad as Willow being reduced to "just on the show to be a lesbian
and do spells;  doesn't really impact Buffy's life at all".  To my mind,
the pigeonholing of the supporting players is a sign of boredom and bad
writing, a way to prepare for trashing them and throwing them out of
Buffy's life so St. Sunkencheeks can tell them all what rotten friends
they are before he gives Buffy the Cuddle of Pure and Chaste Love.
Well, that's not the show I signed up for (in fact, I have never seen,
nor ever will I see, the Spuffy scene in "Groped"), and I believe it's a
bastardization of what were far more complex and appealing characters
and relationships.

So, yes to the possibility of B/G, and B/W, and W/G, and C/G and so on.
No to "we have a Hero, and his girlfriend, and some spare parts that the
girlfriend keeps around because they're under contract and we can't get
rid of them."

JMO,

Dan

PSHowever, I must furiously disagree with E's characterization of
Willow as Buffy's "sister figure".  

Again, Willow does not have the shared history or attitudes or
background with Buffy that a "sister" would have.  She's not a fellow
Slayer, like Faith, nor does she have the "Princess" dreams that Buffy
and Cordelia share.  (Willow, for all her genius, will never really
understand why Buffy laughed at Cordy's joke about all those shoes in
L.A.)  She's a different person, with different attitudes, from a
different background, and the bond they form is of friends (and possibly
lovers), not "sisters".

Yes, it's very annoying that Willow was raped of all her emotional
resonances (personification of innocence/the thing that Buffy fights for
and dies to protect/Buffy's connection to the world) and that they were
grafted onto Dawnie-come-lately, leaving Willow the hollow shell she
became in later years.  (Speaking of the actual "I'm not even
**looking** at you!" eps here;  obviously, many fine writers have kept
the B/W relationship alive even in later-year fics.)

But, even so, Buffy's "I love you even though you annoy me and are a
burden to me, because we're family" relationship with Dawn is IMO a far
cry from Willow being Buffy's other half, her inspiration, her place of
comfort and joy, the voice that says "you're not just a Slayer, you have
value as a person and I love you for it", the "home" that Buffy comes
back to, and I would strongly argue that the two should not be confused.

PPSNo, TidalWave, I'm not saying that metaphoric "sister figure"
status invalidates a B/F or B/C 'ship (I should hope not, as I've
written both pairings), any more than Giles's "father figure" status
stops him from being a romantic interest for Buffy.  It's just that even
if you were to try and dismiss Buffy's romantic partners with "Giles is
her dad, and Xander's her brother, she can't date them!" (which, again,
I strongly disagree with, anyway), IMO Willow is the LAST girl on the
show who would qualify as Buffy's "sister figure".



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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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