Giles and the "Wild Woman"

[norwie2010]

Giles and the „Wild Woman“

Preface 1: No fic, sorry. These are some meta-y thoughts about Giles, his role on the TV show and his relationship with different women. It is a bit incoherent, jumping from point to point and not restricted to Giles-thoughts. The Master, Wesley, Angel/us, Caleb, Snyder, … all make a short appearance. Oh, and the women, of

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In vague response to your comment to Emmie above, a few more Willow thoughts! The one other thing worth noting about Dark Willow is that I think, deep down, M.E. are ambivalent about _the world itself_, and recognize that we all on some level are tempted to destroy it or our little corner of it, _ourselves_. Or maybe that’s just me. But more to the point: Willow, in expressing the desire to destroy the world because it is so painful, losing hope that it can bring anything but misery, gives voice to one of the show’s most central questions in a way that Buffy-who on some level, is perhaps *constrained* to be the hero-cannot directly, though she does indirectly in “The Gift,” “Once More, with Feeling” and “Normal Again.” Angel arguably is motivated by some of the same reasons in Becoming, Part 2, but is certainly *not* concerned about anyone but himself (and the woman he can’t destroy). Willow begins with herself, and then extends her own feeling to the whole world, and, interpreting the whole world through her own understanding of life, concludes that life itself is untenable and must be wiped out. Buffy’s inability to stop her is because, I think, Buffy hasn’t yet figured out consciously what it is that makes life worth living for her, though she has gotten to the point of wanting to live through Dawn.

Anyway, I do agree with most of what you say here, but I do also look upon Giles’ role in Grave a little What Giles does for Willow is the other thing he gives for Buffy. He doesn’t merely tame her, but he does give her a mission. It’s not much; he is not particularly good at being a tutor. But he tells her: this is what you can do. You can save people from vampires. He frames it as things she must do, and this is bad. But I think the show ultimately comes down on the side that it is good for Buffy to slay vampires and help people, and that it is good for Buffy to do so, and that she enjoys it. That service to the community, acts of love for other people, are ultimately good. Giles recognizes this, and he passes it on to Buffy, inexpertly. He passes it onto Willow even more directly, by allowing her direct access to the connectedness of the world and the feelings of other people. His power source is from a mystical Coven, which is a power structure but one explicitly female-coded (though sadly, we never meet anyone working there). He can’t quite get past the idea that there has to be a power structure, but he is moving toward accepting matriarchal rather than patriarchal ones.

I think it’s remarkable and a little heartening that Giles’ answer to Willow’s power-freakout is to give her *more* power, rather than less. It’s not his first choice, but it’s one of his choices. He doesn’t hold anything back. He gives her all the knowledge he has, all the power, and hopes that with it she can make the right decisions. It does have the effect of taming her, but it’s more by imparting on her a sense of responsibility. This is still something to be ambivalent about-should Willow, who took years and years to come to the point where she didn’t have to feel “responsible” at every moment, really be saddled with more responsibility?-but the positive read is that she is given opportunity to understand more clearly the way people are connected to each other in a visceral manner, rather than being given a set of contradictory, unhelpful rules that she must abide by in order to be a good girl. This is why I think while Giles isn’t entirely there at the end of season six, it does reflect a step forward, rather than a step back. To the best of his knowledge, he gives Willow everything he knows, all in one fell swoop.

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Anyway, back to Giles and “the wild woman” more generally. Giles’ commitment is to “the world.” That is how he states it in _The Gift_. Like Buffy, Giles is given no choice but to fulfill his role in the patriarchal system. And his role is not entirely a bad one. It is perhaps because of the patriarchy that Wild Women are so dangerous -- but ultimately, as articulated before, they are sometimes dangerous. “The world” includes the patriarchal order, and that is probably what the Watchers Council most badly wants to protect. But the world also includes people of both genders, of all walks of life. It includes Buffy. So what is interesting then is that Giles fulfills a role he actually *needs* to fulfill, on some level. Ordinary citizens -- both men and women -- should be protected from any super-powerful individuals. The Watchers Council tells him this part of his mission and he believes that is his entire mission. It isn't. The rest of his mission is to maintain the current order, which is the Patriarchy, as you say. But he believes, and he is not entirely wrong, that he is doing good works. The Watchers Council appeals to his sense of right as well as his sense of order. It appeals to his desire to help people as well as his fear of a demonized other. In a world where Buffy never came to Sunnydale in The Wish, he is tremendously valuable in the fight against evil. So what fascinates me most about Giles is that tension.

Speaking of Giles: his role in Anya’s story is subtle but huge. He is the one who depowers Anyanka; and he is the one who later gives her a job at the Magic Box. The Magic Box is interesting and representative of Giles’ attempt to bridge different worlds. He attempts to use capitalism to connect people with magic, which is coded-feminine, and thus to empower people. It’s a mixture of the (from your political perspective, which I somewhat share but I’m young and can change my mind on a whim) oppressive with the freeing. Anya stands with him right on that border, but he keeps her somewhat subjugated. As with Buffy and Willow, he both offers her the possibility of power, and restricts her growth. While it’s very tempting to view him as entirely a Tamer of her, we also learn as early as Doppelgangland (which is probably the first episode written with Anya as a recurring character in mind) that she was not a “Wild Woman” but had a place within a patriarchal power structure, headed by D’Hoffryn. Anya and internalized patriarchy/misogyny, even while she rails against patriarchy explicitly: such an interesting story!

OK, I'm done. Really, gender is not my primary lens to look at BtVS -- I think, for one thing, that I would have a hard time being objective, especially because of my close identification with Willow and Xander influencing my takes on them to a large degree. I identify with Buffy a lot too, obviously, though later-series Buffy more so. But gender probably really is the central lens for the show, even if it is not one that 'comes naturally' for me as much. I think, in the end, the show is all "about power," as Buffy says, and it favours taking power away from highly entrenched institutions, and favouring giving it to love-based, female-headed communities. Wow, why I am I telling you this? :)

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A clarification:

When I say that I think that Willow and Faith (especially) are influenced by the patriarchy/power structures/society in general and this contributes to their evil, I am talking about a very clever merging of form and content, in-show and without. Faith and Willow live in a world that is basically the same as our world, and just as the writers only have a certain number of tropes to call upon and be recognizable as a pop culture story, the characters *themselves* only have a small number of identities that they can understand and latch onto. Faith has to be a bad girl, and so she goes to the Mayor's door. Willow is convinced she can never be forgiven for her trespasses, and doesn't know any other way to be but 'evil' -- because anything resembling good is no longer available to her.

Since Giles resides within the story world in which Wild Women are going to tend to fall into these tropes -- because people, in the Buffyverse, tend to follow roles that are set out for them by others, in some way or another -- does good in some senses by acting as a Tamer of Wild Women. But it is not nearly as good as it would be to let them know there are alternatives to being evil and destructive. To an extent, imperfectly, I *do* think that he does this with Willow in Grave, by giving her all his knowledge & power and hoping that it will show her a different path than the one she believes she has to be on.