Triangle Review

[sunclouds33]

I wrote a review of Triangle for BuffyForums and I'm posting it (edited for LJ) here! First, I responded to some board comments on Into the Woods because it sets up the Triangle dynamics

I'm less on Anya's side or at least, less ANTI-Xander/Willow than most fans in Into the Woods. Xander and Anya don't have a typical boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. They have a rather *spoken* agreement that Xander is supposed to teach Anya how to interact socially like a normal person. Xander and Anya are trying to form a middle-class life together, beyond Anya's criminal gang days and Xander's poverty. Because they have to swim together which requires two paychecks and decent social immersion in their small circle since they're necessarily socially isolated from the wider world because of their evil fighting activities (and frankly, Anya's abrasive other-worldly personality), Xander and Anya have an understanding that she particularly needs coaching to make her a career and social swimmer. So, Anya takes his lists of Employer/Employee no-nos or rules on how to interact with customers as a saleswoman. It's actually a little like how Anya thinks that she needs to push unambitious, "lazy", push-over Xander to make commitments to her or stand up for himself at work or get the apartment to make him a swimmer.

Anya wanted Xander to commit to a lease on a fancy apartment which they now share and she has ambitions to get more stuff? Then, Anya can't lose her job which means the she needs to be more careful about respecting Giles than any of the other Scoobies or she needs to be more cognizant that far from scabs, Willow's and the gang's free labor to the Magic Box actually helps paid!employee Anya. With the Scoobs' free labor, Giles doesn't have to hire other employees, and can devote more of the salary and bonus income to Anya. Anya makes partner of the business after just a year of working there without putting up any sort of capital contribution, partly because Giles never had a need to hire another employee what with all of the free sporadic labor that he gets, so Anya was the sole candidate to become partner when Giles went back to England.

I think Xander was also rightfully aggravated with Anya's behavior. Yes, the Scoobies make snarky remarks. However, it is particularly galling for Anya to throw back in Giles's face that he'd be an old man wetting himself after Giles gave a Anya's dream sales job to an ex-vengeance demon with no retail experience and an abrasive personality. It's particularly galling for Anya to mock Willow for all of the vigorous sitting around when Willow volunteers her time there. Xander can absolutely be loyal to Anya, but point out when she's being an ass.

Willow's "No one talks like that" remark is smug. However, once again, I have to tip my hat to Alyson Hannigan. There's a great subtlety to the remark:

ANYA: Oh, yes. Very humorous. Make fun of the ex-demon. I can just hear you in private: "I dislike that Anya. She is newly-human and strangely literal."
WILLOW: What? I don't say that. (OFFENDED AND HURT THAT SHE'S BEING TAGGED WITH SUCH A BITCHY GOSSIPY BEHIND ANYA'S BACK REMARK) No one says that. (REALIZES THAT PATTERN OF DIALOGUE IS ALIEN AND WILLOW CAN'T EVEN PICTURE HERSELF TALKING THAT WAY) No one talks like that. (RUNS WITH HER REALIZATION ON THE STRANGENESS OF THE DIALOGUE TO ACTUALLY FUFILL ANYA'S ACCUSATION WITH A SMUG INSULT)

I mean, just, LOLOLOL. However, I think this part of the set-up of Triangle. Willow never liked the idea of Xander/Anya, from the minute that Xander went to prom with her just a few weeks after Anya tried tricking Willow into recovering her necklace so Anya can go back to killing, maiming, hurting philanderers and any collateral damage and then, tried to have Willow killed when Willow tried to stop some of the damage that Anya caused in her attempt to get the necklace back- the wholesale slaughter of everyone in the Bronze. I wrote when BuffyForums was discussing The Prom in our Rewatch:

I do think that Willow decided to strategically not make a fuss (to use her language when she reproaches Xander in The Harsh Light of Day). For now, Xander is just talking about taking Anya as a prom date. Then in S4, Willow didn't really take Xanya seriously and saw her as much as a temporary, ridiculous girlfriend as Xander was taking temporary, ridiculous jobs. Willow doesn't see as Anya as a hard-core catastrophic decision where Xander may tie himself permanently to a harpie b*tch until S5 and finally Triangle, where things come to a boiling point.

As I said in the Choices review, the Faith experience put Willow on guard that the wrong kind of hustler could break up the group and hurt her best friends. However at the same time, IMO, Willow felt a little on a limb and exposed with her Faith-antagonism. She was embarrassed to admit that her moral judgment is compromised because she's upset that Faith's been stealing her people. She was forcibly chipper that she's OK talking Faith with Buffy in Doppelgangland. She determinedly took her pain that Faith and Xander slept with each other to the restroom to have a cry all alone. IMO, Willow feels that it's unseemly to get publicly and loudly jealous. She also doesn't want to be the "clinger" in the B/W/X triad because angrily clinging is unseemly and any kind of clinging comes off as weak and desperate. To Willow's observations, Buffy and Xander don't cling so much to Willow that they gets pissy when Willow gets another friend/SO. (Willow was pretty oblivious about Xander's Malcolm jealousy and early Oz-jealousy.)

However, right now, Willow could see writing on the wall that Xander and Anya were getting serious and Anya could be The One. It puts Willow in a tough spot. Willow still sees the vengeance demon who could hurt Xander when she looks at Anya. It's partly helped along by how Anya REGRETS NOTHING about her past and continues to brag about her days as a vengeance demon and has kept up her "human society is below me and not worth learning" affect, especially with how she talks to Willow. But Willow can't accuse Anya of still being a demon, at heart, as easily as she could two years ago after Anya spent the last couple of years fighting evil and not hurting people. She can't come out and say, "If Anya tries to get you killed, put me down for a big 'I told you so'" for these paradoxical reasons. Anya hasn't killed anyone in TWO WHOLE YEARS which is a lot by Buffyverse standards so Willow can't harshly accuse Anya so much. But then, Willow feels like harshly accusing Anya even more than she did in The Prom because Anya has so much power to hurt them all, compared to when Willow was regarding Anya as a bizarro prom date for Xander.

It leaves Willow tremendously conflicted. Willow still suspects Anya of doing the worst to Xander and them all, but she sounds sillier by the day to outright make the accusation so Willow criticizes the weirdly social behavior that she constantly observes every day, even though Willow is partly criticizing the vengeance demon past evil that Willow believes still informs Anya's behavior to this day. Willow knows that Anya doesn't come by this bizarre, "What are typical social rules?" by like, being naturally shy and abused by an overbearing redneck family, but instead by living as a demon bent on murdering, maiming, and hurting who still gives indications that she enjoyed and may have even preferred that lifestyle. And that's why Willow is so harsh on Anya's problems adopting socially, even though Willow has her own problems appearing normal even as someone immersed in human society for her entire life.

I think part of the Triangle is an examination of how people are graded for how they perform in the act of romantic love. For the kind of partners they attract, how they behave in a relationship, where they can hold onto a boyfriend, whether they can draw romantic mates. Romantic love is a unique concept in society because there's almost little stigma for outsiders grading personal fitness based on whether someone is lucky in love. It's just so clearly observable. Is someone in a public, happy-seeming relationship or not? If they are, they're winning at life; if they're not, they're losing.

Sure, people judge others all the time for their wealth or whether they've had kids and whether their kids seem well-behaved and happy. However, to my own single and possibly biased eyes, there's more of a stigma for openly conditioning a person's goodness and and wisdom on whether they're rich or whether they chose to have children. Those factors aren't as easily communicated messages on whose the bitter spinster and who's the blissfully happy bride and who's the cheating husband.

Ironically since going to college, I've had friends who decided to decided to cut off ties or have distant relationships with their horrible parents and my friends told me horror stories about how assholic their parents were. However when I told my adult relatives these stories in the past, they'd say stuff like, "It's impossible to judge from outside- I'm sure it's breaking up your friends' parents' hearts that your friends won't call them or visit them." However, these same adult relatives could confidently start guessing the cause of a notable neighborhood or temple divorce or give me probing advice on what defect in my character has caused romantic trouble in the past or kept me single now, even if it's always lovingly meant.

Most people don't intend to use money as a barometer of goodness- easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven and all. There's a stilted block where well-intentioned people believe that children owe their parents loyalty no matter what but it's not good to bash a child who feels mistreated enough to cut off contact during their college yeas and beyond- so most well-intentioned people just remain blocked and refuse to pass judgment. It's hard to judge what friendships are real and whose accumulated the most friendships of value. However, whether someone has an impressive, well-mannered romantic partner to take everywhere and whether they pass the life-milestones of romance- dating, going steady, living together, marriage- THAT'S easy to judge.

TEASER

Of course, no one in this cast of Triangle is free from this kind of judgment- so let's proceed. Xander and Anya start the proceeding with the exact kind of judgment that I'm discussing and also fearing the kind of judgment that comes with relationship failure. In fact, I thought the most interesting section of this Xanya scene is that Anya indicating that she passed judgment on the women who she was supposedly avenging.

Anya: Humans make the same mistakes over and over. I saw it when I was a vengeance demon. Some guy dumps a girl, she calls me... I exact vengeance, blah blah, then the next year, same girl, different guy. After you smite a few of them, you start going, my goodness, young lady, maybe you're doing something wrong here too.

Anya's claims that she was HELPING women always felt like bullshit, especially since the majority of Anya's on-screen vengeance spells involving manipulating and then, hurting women. Cordelia died in the Wishverse that Anya manipulated in existence. To get her vengeance powers, Anya lied to and manipulated Willow and then, tried to have Willow murdered. Anya trapped that girl in [I]Selfless[/I] among the dead bodies of the frat boys that the girl didn't really mean to kill and with the live crawling giant spider who did the job.

Along with that evidence, Anya's admission that she knew that break-ups weren't always the man's fault but she'd still do the vengeance that these women would request is further damning. It meshes with a general point- Anya did vengeance because it made her feel good to hurt people and exert that kind of power and be D'Hoffyrn's favorite- not because po' po' Anya was so clueless and isolated from human rules that the darling, ignorant little NOT-bunny could only think in terms of vengeance-against-men because she was trapped in her remembrance of misogynistic Norse culture.

It's really infuriating that Anya can just lay there passing judgment that Buffy messes things up romantically (with the implication that there's some horrible defect in Buffy's character) while in between, Anya babbles about her life as a vengeance demon who calculatedly ruined men's life, even if she knew better that the relationship likely failed because the woman had her own problems. However, that's the culture that Anya benefits from. Anya with the one with a nice boyfriend in a steady relationship that's growing more serious by the day; Buffy was the one who dumped. Who cares that Anya spent a thousand years mutilating and murdering while Buffy has spent almost a third of her short life saving lives? Certainly, no one outside of the little Scooby clique who doesn't know about the supernatural.

I often see people judging Xander and Anya equally for this scene, like they're saying the same exact things. IMO, that's very wrong. Xander *is* very disappointed in Buffy for letting Riley go and disappointed that Riley is gone. However, I think Xander is studiously trying to say as little as possible of his more judgey feelings; Xander doesn't want to bad-mouth Buffy, Xander SAW Buffy try running after Riley, Xander had an epiphany at the end of Into the Woods that he could also be fairly accused of exactly what he was accusing Buffy- being emotionally unavailable to a great partner and Xander tried to remedy that. However, IMO, Xander is holding back quite a bit of disappointment and anger which Anya is spurring Xander to express.

That said, as far as I'm concerned, it's not great that Xander was still passing judgment on Buffy. There's an interesting difference here between the original shooting script and the transcript.

The shooting script

XANDER: I don't know if it's a pattern with her. I mean, she's had some real bad luck. What bothers me is that this time, the second time, it's even worse. I mean, Angel... he had to go. There was no way. But Riley, that could've actually been something. And I just... you know, now that it's happened again, man number two, I wonder how she's dealing with it.

The transcript

XANDER: I don't think it's a pattern with her. No, it's just ... you know, now that it happened again ... man number two ... I wonder how she's dealing with it.

I think the shooting script comes off far better and expresses what actually bothers Xander. Unlike the implication in the transcript and any sense of agreeing with Anya, Xander is deliberately NOT saying it's any kind of pattern in the cut lines from the shooting script. Xander was specifically saying that the Angel-situation was completely not Buffy's fault, but his frustration with her and Riley is that Buffy/Riley really could have gone the distance. Given the potential success of Biley, Xander wonders how Buffy's dealing with it.

The transcript gives off more of an impression that Xander was pro-forma disagreeing that Buffy had a bad pattern at the start, but really calling it a pattern "now that it's happened again...man number two" like Angel and Riley were the same situation. Moreover, Xander more directly links the "how she's dealing with it" with Buffy's bad pattern, not with the tragedy that Biley was a potentially great relationship until they broke up.

I believe that, knowing what we do about Xander, we can assume the sentiments of the shooting script live in the transcript, despite the cut lines. I mean really, Xander would blame Buffy for the Bangel break-up? I think Xander always thinks that "Angel had to go!", in every shrimp v. no shrimp or transcript v. shooting script universe. ;-) I think we're absolutely supposed to believe that Xander was disappointed because he saw a future in Biley, not because Buffy didn't complete Relationship Obstacle Course #2.

However, I wonder why it was cut. Obviously, length is always a good guess. However, I also think, within the theme of the ep, they wanted to show a Xander more in YES, DEAR mode with Anya to elucidate the eps theme- how does Xander reconcile his loyalty to Anya (which in Anya-world, means constant agreement, praise, support, and adoration no matter what she's doing) and his loyalty to his best friends. Xander isn't going to actively bad mouth Buffy; however, he won't defend Buffy enough to clearly state the reasons why there's no pattern of Buffy being crappy in relationships and Anya's whole pattern analysis is wrong, even though he shares Anya's concern about Biley's break-up.

That *is* a problem. Obviously, I think Xander should have defended Buffy ala shooting script- even though Anya is the only one that angers me in this scene.

Speaking of Buffy, she's using a vampire-mission at a nunnery to see if that celibate life is all that it's cracked up to be. It's a short comedy scene but it could yet another in a long line of Buffy/Drusilla parallels but also Buffy avoiding Dru's path.

ACT 1

Buffy and Giles train and discuss Giles's upcoming fact finding mission to England to discuss defeating Glory with the Watcher's Counsel. Of course, they're apprehensive because the Watcher's Council has proven untrustworthy. The kind of untrustworthy that deal with finding out that Dawn is the Key by experimenting on her or killing her to stop Glory from getting the Key. Then, Giles brings up the Initiative which brings of Riley which creates some awkwardness...but Buffy teases Giles a little but reassures him that she's fine.

It's a bit of a tease on the fire that Buffy attracts as the central female protagonist. Buffy demonstrates some self-awareness that...Spordelais of her type can be viewed as drama queens who go nuts when her subjects don't act like she's the center of the world, even that's certainly not Buffy.

Next, the Anya/Willow issues start. Giles informs the group that he's leaving for England.

Here's how the transcript describes the scene:

ANYA: You're going away for a *week*? That's great!
GILES: Yes, yes, everybody seems delighted about it. (picks something up to read)
ANYA: Well, I get to run the store, right?
Giles looks alarmed.
GILES: You? Ah, w-well, it's quite a lot for one person to take care of. Well, I-I mean, the trash men, for example, I mean, they, they, they've been making such a mess in the back alley, the recycling people can't get in there to collect. Well, somebody has to talk to them.
ANYA: I can take care of that.
TARA: I'm envious, Mr. Giles. A trip to England sounds so exciting and exotic. (realizes) Un...less you're English. (Giles grins)
BUFFY: Look, don't worry about the shop. We'll take care of it. We can open and close, and, and we'll deal with everyone.
Anya frowns.
WILLOW: We can come by between classes! Usually I use that time to copy over my class notes with a system of different colored pens ... but it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane.
TARA: I said "quirky."
ANYA: (annoyed) Hello, I work here! I'll take care of everything.
XANDER: (not looking up from his reading) Yeah, Anya can do it!
ANYA: Thanks, sweetie. (pats him on shoulder) Well said.
GILES: Um, Anya, while, while I completely trust you uh, uh, to take care of the inventory and the money, um ... dealing with people requires a certain, uh ... finesse.
ANYA: (angry) I have finesse! I have finesse coming out of my bottom! I can completely lie to the health inspector. I can, you know, distract him with coy smiles, and, and bribe him with money and goods.
XANDER: See there? She'll be great.
WILLOW: Don't worry, Giles. I'll help her take care of everything. It'll be ship-shape. Better, it'll be shop-shape.
ANYA: Xander, she's talking to Giles like I'm not here. Make her stop.
GILES: Perhaps I'd better call the airline...
WILLOW: I'm just trying to help out! Xander, tell her. (smacks Xander in the arm)
GILES: ...schedule an earlier flight back, excuse me.
ANYA: Tell her that I don't need her help.

IMO, this confusion partly begins with Giles. Giles owns the store and he's Anya's boss. Giles can and should set up firm rules. He's the one that can say, "Willow, Anya's an official employee. You don't work here so butt out" or "Anya, it takes everyone here to keep this shop going. You need to cooperate. Willow, you can talk to the inspector. Anya, you manage the register."

However, Giles didn't do any of that. And as a matter of fact, the confusion went beyond Willow v. Anya. Buffy also thought she should volunteer to open and close and deal with everyone. As I read it, the non-Anya Scoobies feel an obligation to help unpaid in the Magic Box because it's helping *Giles*. Giles took on a notably busy enterprise that attracts a lot of danger and includes a lot of shady moving parts. In total cheapskate fashion, he only begrudgingly hired Anya after a long, busy day because he was loathe to cut into his profits. Most of the Scoobies (besides Anya) haven't reached the stage of adulthood where they start wondering where their piece of the action is and start blaming Giles for being greedy and understaffing a business. They're a really idealistic group. Buffy and Willow, definitely, are still supported by their parents. Who knows what keeps Tara in incense and kitten accouterments? A trust fund from her mother? Scholarships + student loans for incidental living expenses? Help from Willow? Conjuring gold coins? But you don't get the impression Tara earns money for her incidental expenses from a paying job. These near-children basically decided to approach the Magic Box like part of their mission- to meet and plan to fight evil and to help each other, very much including Giles.

Willow, feels a particularly keen need to help in the Magic Box even beyond the others, because she wants to be close to the merchandise- both for samples (this ep) and to rummage through it and learn magic that way (Out of My Mind). Moreover, particularly on display in this ep, Willow has a teacher's pet inclination to be Giles's favorite. Willow's done hacking, organizing, magic work at Giles's command before- like the different color pens, the suck-up straight A-student runs deep into everything Willow does. However, ironically, all of this is true of Anya as well. Anya wanted a Magic Box job, partly because she misses being around objects of mysticism and she feels better close to the merchandise. Anya also has a honed teacher's pet mentality from her millennium working for D'Hoffryn. Along with their connection to Xander, Willow and Anya clash, partly, because they're so similar.

Giles doesn't want to discourage any of this. He really enjoys all of this talented, youthful, (FREE) energy directed at his bottom line. Really, the Magic Box staff should be bigger than Giles and Anya. Yes, there are slow periods. However Giles and Anya can't handle all of the Magic Box business all by themselves, especially during busy periods and a store should have enough personnel for not just the slow periods, but the busy periods as well. It's implied that there's a built demand for Magic Box materials in Sunnydale- the store was a goldmine before Giles got there. The only thing that's undesirable about running the Magic Box is that it invites violent attacks- but Giles knows that he has an edge on that score because he's a professional evil-fighter and even more, HE'S SURROUNDED BY AN ARMY OF EVIL FIGHTERS INCLUDING THE SLAYER. Giles pointedly accepts the the Scoobies' FREE help and protection- without compensating the Scoobies.

It's a continuation of Watcher values- take advantage of a young person's idealism and openheartedness so that Watcher can profit. Giles takes advantage of how much the Scoobies want to be his friend and help him to treat them like unpaid employees. That said, I don't think Giles is operating on such a consciously calculated way. Heck, Watchers don't operate on that kind of self-aware level. IMO, in Giles's head, he wants to see steady profits from the Magic Box for big sales but low overhead (including salaries). However, he also wants to see the Magic Box as a nice communitarian endeavor that makes a home for everyone. That was a big component in how he introduced the Magic Box to Buffy- a place for the gang to meet and for Buffy to properly train as she hadn't in S7. It does hit Giles pretty hard in Checkpoint when the Watchers Council mock him for losing his knightly important birthright of a profession to become a shopkeeper.

As a boy, Giles couldn't decide if he wanted to be a grocer or a fighter pilot- and Giles always had this conundrum behind whether he wanted a brave warrior protector of humanity operating on a grand scale or a more private, self-interested businessman operating on a smaller scale. As a teenager, this materialized into being a self-interested thief/magician who was bent on grand scale magic and small scale garage rock music. Giles continues the pattern here- he's ambivalent about what he wants to the Magic Box to represent- a profit-seeking regular store or a store that secretly serves humanity above all. So Giles created an environment where I think Willow/Tara can understandably have the impression that Giles throws them free ingredients while they're working there for R&D projects for Buffy and an environment where Anya can understandably have the impression that taking anything for free is stealing. He made this confusion.

So, Dawn/Joyce/Buffy scene. However the meaty scene is when Buffy allows Dawn into her room...and her, inner life. We've seen Buffy love Dawn prior to this point, but this scene is kind of a sea change. In the past eps, Buffy would care for Dawn as definitively just a little sister to be shielded. However, here Buffy lets Dawn into her room and tells her about her Riley-break up feelings. Dawn almost occupies a Willow-like role here, and this Buffy/Dawn somewhat substitutes for a what would be a Buffy/Willow scene if Buffy and Riley broke up in S1-4. However to some extent, it's a bit of a surrender for Buffy. In Buffy's Riley-days, Buffy could consider herself much more of an independent boyfriend, regarding her room as sacrosanct romantic adult space whether Riley was there or not.

Dawn: What're you doing?
Buffy: My boyfriend. Go away!

However as I said above, losing a romantic partner changes how you are able to interact with the world. Newly single people fall back on family, taking refuge in how you can't pick them and they can't pick you after they've been rejected by a romantic partner who CAN do picking. This scene solidifies Dawn's role as the family where both Dawn and Buffy didn't pick each other but they love each other, even if the Monks actually did do some picking as opposed to Joyce/Hank deciding that they wanted Buffy to have a sibling. Buffy de-Rileyed the room by taking down his photos- and so, Buffy also de-Rileyed the room as a place for romantic adults. Buffy is the type of person who needs to fill her heart and company with someone and with Riley gone, Buffy falls to Dawn for the rest of the season.

So, I think Willow and Anya contributed to the Olaf-emergency and have their own moments of behaving unreasonably. I put the blame more on Anya, even though I think they both bear some responsibility. First, we should all note that both Willow and Tara felt comfortable yacking in broad daylight as they went behind the counter to gather ingredients for the Ball of Sunlight spell. This was hardly a covert theft. To all appearances, Willow and Tara were acting like it was just a typical R&D session on behalf of the gang- they go gather ingredients to experiment with in the Magic Box in service of Buffy's mission. To some extent, Anya both backs them up and gives herself a good point when she objects.

ANYA: That sounds swell, but you can't use this stuff. Giles has only been gone two days and you're already causing trouble. You shouldn't do things while he's gone.

In this statement, Anya somewhat subliminally indicates that Willow and Tara can do spells with free ingredients when Giles is there. Her objection is that they shouldn't do it while Giles is gone and he can't decide whether he wants to subsidize this R&D project or demand payment. That's fair. However, Anya can't ban them from doing magic period and I don't believe she's drawing a line that she doesn't want magic performed in the store at all because that's not an iron-clad rule. It's a magic store- people are going to test the products.

Really, Anya wants the money for the ingredients right now; Willow wants to get the ingredients for free to do the spell. The immediate obvious compromise is to enact the same credit deal that Willow seemed to have with previous non-Giles Magic Box owners (see Graduation Day Part I) as a frequent customer- they take an accounting of what Willow and Tara used and present the bill to Giles to see if this is something he wants to help pay for because the project is a really good cause or to compensate Willow/Tara for some of their time spent working at the store or because Giles likes them and wants to give two college girls a present, pick your good reason here.

Willow's as good for the money as anyone- Anya/Giles see her every day and can ban her from shopping or getting free ingredients in the future if she doesn't pay her bills. It's a far better solution than Willow and Tara immediately paying for the goods upon delivery. In these types of situations where loyal customers get perks, the natural and typical solution is that customers have a line of credit at the store and then, they haggle over the final bill with the proprietor. It's not that the customer pays the goods immediately- and then, the customer tries to get their money back in accordance with their perks. Negotiation happens before payment, not AFTER payment. The Magic Box/Giles/Anya can punish Willow/Tara if they don't pay their bills by not letting them shop or work there again.

However, Willow/Tara can't exactly punish The Magic Box/Giles/Anya if they pay for the ingredients outright, expecting a discount/subsidization later on, but then Giles doesn't deliver on that because he enjoys the money currently in his register. The Magic Box is the only magic store in town. Willow/Tara couldn't boycott even if they wanted to. Moreover, Willow and Tara are, subliminally, trying to extract these discounts partly because they're providing a service to the gang. They stand a much better chance of making an argument to Giles to help them with the bill, if they come back with a Ball of Sunlight that can wipe out vamps in the dark.

In most of these types of situations, I'm inclined to side with the customer over the business. However, especially, in this situation. Partly, as unjust as it is that the Slayer/Scoobies don't get paid for their efforts to fight demons, it's particularly unjust that Willow, not only doesn't get paid for her labor, but has to shell out her own cash to ply her services for the good of humanity because her beat is technology and magic. Now, I think Willow has lots of discretionary cash for a young girl. In my head-canon, UC Sunndyale threw every scholarship and grant at her to get her to attend. Her upper middle-class but neglectful parents gave her a generous allowance and don't pay attention to what she spends it on. Generally, Willow decided to spent it on the stuff that matters to her and she actually enjoys- tech stuff and magic ingredients and books. However even a pretty privileged young girl still needs to look for discounts. And that's always Willow's mentality as she dives on the Ted!robot scraps, sucks up to Ted for his free upgrades, and looks for opportunities to give her time working at the Magic Box for a chance to use the merchandise. There's still an injustice that humanity, including a gold-mine of a monopolistic (for Sunnydale) owned by a wealthy guy like Giles who already made a lot of money off young people's fight against evil, somewhat relies on a 19-year old girl giving both her time and forking over her own personal allowance to fight evil.

However, both Willow and Anya, for now, were both not presenting the natural compromise (which they both come to later) but instead sticking to their guns. IMO, Anya conflates working at the store with owning the store. Once a Communist, always a Communist, amiright? Not but seriously, Anya kind of views the store as hers because so much of her talent and energy goes into making the Magic Box a success. She works harder than Giles and is much more committed to the store as a profit-making enterprise. As she said, "If it wasn't for me, Giles would be a terrified old man staring at a quarterly tax statement and wetting himself." So, Anya wants to enforce her rules- to immediately demand payment or stop the spell.

Meanwhile, IMO, Willow and Tara instinctively thought they could just go behind the counter and get ingredients but they were both stopped short at Anya pointing out that Giles isn't there. Tara was anxious be as rule-following as possible- so Tara immediately went to Anya's extreme with "Maybe we should just pay". Willow, on the other hand, was treating this as a cause celebre beyond the ingredients. At this point, it became about PRIDE to Willow and how Willow will not stand for anyone, but ESPECIALLY ANYA, telling her what to do and more particularly, making her and Tara reverse course from an activity that they thought was fine and helpful when they started.

Correspondingly, Willow tries a varying tactics in such a short scene to demonstrate her strength and her ability to win at social situations in a way that she couldn't before. However, I think this is important- IMO, Willow's tactics are based firmly on charm and displays of confidence with some twists of social aggression. Willow was being pretty calculated in this scene, but she wasn't being as purposefully intimidating as she's accused of. First, she has a cliquey moment with Tara re: The Cat and the Hat. Now, I don't think that Willow was intentionally trying to exclude Anya in that literature club there. The Cat in the Hat is a pretty universal story. How does Willow know that not even the most popular books had a chance to sink into Anya's world in a thousand years of living? However, Willow was definitely trying to buddy up with Tara in their own little world of cutesy allusions and well...CATS. That was Strategy #1- Willow lurches to how she and Tara on the same soulmate team. It works for a bit- this type of allusion is definitely Tillow language. However, Tara was cowed by Anya's insistence and immediately went the doormat solution of just doing exactly what Anya said and forking over payment.

So, Willow decided on Strategy #2: Charm Offensive. Try to induct Anya and Tara both into her circle to all do magic together. It wasn't all aggression. Willow was first out to win this social interaction with charm, on Tara first and then on Anya. It almost worked- but then, Anya figured out Willow's game. Next, Willow tried the border between charm and aggression by trying to get Xander on her team- Strategy #3. It's partly charm because she's still thinking about how to soft power win this interaction with approval from others, right down to the pretty calculated "I'm just trying to help Buffy" pout. However, it's partly aggression- Willow is also trying to show Anya that Xander will side with Willow. Then, I think Willow's worst act in the ep is making the cash register disappear because that was obviously careless and could have lost the store a fair amount of money. However, even that was a mistake. Willow didn't intend to make the register disappear. It was part of Willow's "charm" offensive- demonstrate a carefree swashbuckling confidence in herself and her powers by doing spells willy nilly to underlie her jokes.

It is interesting that Xander is determined to not get involved, because he feels torn between agreeing with his girlfriend and best friend. Xander did lecture Anya in Into the Woods, but here, Xander just refuses to make one judgment or another. However, Tara doesn't have best friend v. girlfriend qualms. Willow is her girlfriend; Anya is a friend, but they're not that close. However, Tara does admonish Willow twice- by saying they should just pay for the goods right now to satisfy Anya and to admonish Willow for pulling Xander into the discussion. Tara doesn't admonish Anya at all. It's a point for Xander. If there's such a rule as "You always take the girlfriend's side or at the very least, keep your mouth shut", Tara's not following it either. For all the criticism that Xander catches for admonishing Anya, I really don't see him doing that much more than most Buffyverse couples, especially Tara who finds fault with Willow constantly.

I think Tara had a fair point to admonish Willow for dragging Xander into this because she was protecting Xander from a needless source of drama in his home. However, I think Tara was ridiculous to suggest forking over cash for the merchandise that Tara felt comfortable taking five seconds ago for the reasons I stated above. I'd still think Tara was being a push-over who was obstructing the valid of Principle of the Thing that Willow was fighting for even if Tara just forked over her own money, since I believe she and Willow have separate accounts at this point. However, it's even more annoying that Tara was saying WE should just pay now, like she was volunteering Willow's money just because Anya demanded it.

Willow is so locked into her perception of Willow/Tara: Ultimate Love Story that Willow can't really hear criticism (or deception) from Tara and when it finally does start to sink in as criticism (Tough Love), Willow is SHOCKED and can't sanguinely take it or even just accept it as nothing ground-breaking. However, ironically, Willow/Tara is so idyllic and peaceful in much of S4-5 because Willow doesn't really take Tara's criticisms seriously, even though Tara badly wants to be taken seriously but also to have a conflict-free idyllic relationship with no arguing.

Tara and Xander left Willow/Anya to their own devices. To Willow/Anya's credit, they actually DID come to the best compromise. Willow could do her spell, but Anya would take down everything that Willow was using to present to Giles so he could handle payment. However, it doesn't stop there.

WILLOW: Fleabane... (measures some stuff into her mortar)
ANYA: Fifteen cents. (writes)
WILLOW: Salamander eyes... (puts them into the mortar)
ANYA: Ten bucks for twelve. Bargain. (writes)
WILLOW: Bindweed. (puts it in)
ANYA: Ugh, ooh, that's a pricey one. (writes)
WILLOW: Would you stop that? It's very distracting.
ANYA: Fine. Make your little ball of sunshine. I'll be quiet.
WILLOW: Good, because this spell is very sensitive. Once I begin, any non-ritual word can disrupt it. (mashes the ingredients together with the pestle)
ANYA: Fine.
WILLOW: Okay, here we go.
ANYA: Did you start yet?
WILLOW: (exhales loudly, turns to give Anya an annoyed look) Shh, no! This is it...Spirits of light, I invoke thee. Let the gloom of darkness part before you.

IMO, the spell's failure was mainly Anya's fault but Willow shares some blame. Anya should have respected Willow's statement that the spell was sensitive and a non-ritual word could disrupt it. Anya was hoping to make a sale off of this spell? Fine, she should have let it continue uninterrupted instead of being so desperate to flap her gums that she disrupted it. However, of course, Willow was at the helm. If Anya couldn't be counted on to shut her trap even after she was warned, Willow should have been the grownup magical practitioner and realized this was an unsafe place to practice. Instead, Willow persisted and got sucked into arguing with Anya while the spell was still live. I'd have no problem if Willow shut the spell down in the middle and was all, "As usual, Anya, you don't know when to shut the **** up. If you were hoping for a sale, you just lost it. Go explain to Giles why I'm not paying for the ingredients put in the pot because I didn't have a chance the complete the spell safely. But I'm not about to risk goodness knows what because Giles, unfortunately, has a magical saleswoman who can't understand the terms 'sensitive' and 'non-ritual word.'"

However, Willow didn't do that. She immaturely argued back and the result was Olaf (who, btw, his existence is Anya's fault too.)

ACT TWO

A Buffy/Tara scene. Tara generally acts like such a FAN of Buffy, like Buffy is the most glamorous person that Tara knows. I guess that's why they picked Tara for such an unusual OTT Buffy scene as THEY HAVE A MIRACULOUS LOVE. A more irreverent friend would be more WTF? and sarcastic about Buffy blubbering over an innocuous little story about Xander getting upset at Anya and Xander's squabbles. However, Tara is so eager to please Buffy that she takes it all seriously- immediately accommodating Buffy to sit a few rows back from the spitting professor, taking Buffy's waterworks over nothing very very seriously.

I'm disappointed that Willow apparently says crap like, "Everything happens for reason." I'm with Buffy- pointless non-descriptive statement to lend unhelpful dialogue when bad things happen. Really, Willow, this is antithetical to you being my Forever Homegirl! I've head-cannoned that Willow was using the phrase ironically but Tara missed the sarcasm. But I've also explained that a dumber, more prosaic, determinedly cliched Willow comes out in Willow/Tara scenes. It could be one or the other.

The Willow/Anya car scene is a treat.

WILLOW: I don't even get how we made that guy, because, wow, advanced!
ANYA: No one made him. He must have been trapped in that crystal, and you released him.
WILLOW: *I* released him? No, this was definitely a "we" thing. Or, or a "you" thing! I-it definite feels like a you thing.

WILLOW: This is very, very bad. There, there's an ogre on the loose-
ANYA: Troll.
WILLOW: What?

I gather that Anya actually did recognize Olaf here so that's how she could say with such confidence that they didn't "make" him but instead, he must have been released from the crystal. And that he's a troll, instead of an ogre. However when the blame is up to question, Anya is nervous about volunteering that information. It's part of a deliberate string of clues that Anya had something to do with troll on the loose.

Willow patting herself on the back for being advanced enough to make the murderous troll on the loose >>>>>>>>>>>> Willow saying "Everything happens for a reason." Yes, I'm callous and strange. Let's move on.

Not to bang the same drum, but the recklessness with the car is more of Anya's fault. At least Willow knew how to do magic when she volunteered to make the Ball of Sunlight, even if magic is risky. Unlike, Anya taking the wheel when she can't drive instead of letting Willow drive.

This ep of duos + problem or....Triangle! goes back to another set of duos- Xander/Spike (and their concerns about the women in their life) and Buffy/Tara (and their concern about missing Anya/Willow).

For more clues about Anya/Olaf, Olaf is a little Xanderish- a fun-loving guy with some definite hedonistic instincts who likes to eat and flirt. However, he also has an Anyaesque literalism to his speech."You do well to flee, townspeople! I will pillage your lands and dwellings! I will burn your crops and make merry sport with your more attractive daughters! Ha ha ha! Mark my words!" You could argue that Anya's manner of speech comes as much from her vengeance demon years. D'Hoffryn is also strangely literal, but Hallie talks more like an everyday woman.

However, I do think the show makes a point that the beings over a thousand years old expressed themselves much more....brutally (Illyria, D'Hoffryn, Olaf, Anya). They weren't like the Buffyverse teenagers, firmly ensconced in a modern world where their basic needs were more easily taken care of and they were the latest in a string of generations who had the comfort to cutesy up their language to appear more sophisticated instead of the pressure to express themselves directly in order to be assured of having basic needs. To some extent, vengeance demons punish humanity, especially in the modern years, for evolving past ancient codes of dominance and vengeance. Humanity got better and are more likely to just creatively use language to self-heal their hurt. Vengeance demons try to return humanity to a much more base, violent history and disabuse humanity's comfort that they can just confide their feelings to a trusted new friend. According to vengeance demon codes, humans may not get over emotional hurt with such modern concepts as confiding in a friend or talk therapy with say, a school counselor- but instead violently destroying anyone who slighted you and if humans can't get on board with that, a vengeance demon will pervert your modern attempt at talking through your feelings to make it more like medieval-styled vengeance. :lol:

Anya's literalism is all well and good and fun to listen to. However, her bending a little on that point is a component of her evolving past this "kill or be killed" ancient mentality into the rest of humanity's efforts to get a little higher on Maslow's hierarchy with every passing generation.

Willow and Anya burst into the Bronze, where Xander is trying to mollify Olaf and Spike is paralyzed with not caring very much. Then, Buffy and Tara burst in. In Willow's and Anya's fight over blame and who to set it on, Anya does the best of rushing to blame.

ANYA: Willow stole ingredients and released him from a purple crystal. He's a troll.
BUFFY: (to Willow) You did this?
WILLOW: Me? No, we. I mean, us. (points to Anya) Uh, her. It's very complex.

Anya: 1 Willow: 0

However then the secret gets out- Anya and Olaf dated and she turned him into a troll. I think my favorite exchange of this very funny episode?

OLAF: I did not cheat! Not in my heart. It was only one wench! I, I had had a great deal of mead! Next thing I know, I'm a troll! Ohh ... ohh ... you did this, Anyanka. You will die for this.
XANDER: But, but, you seem to enjoy the, the being a troll.
OLAF: (shrugs) I adjusted.

Willow doesn't finish the spell to entrap him. Not for the first time or the last time, havoc is wreaked at the Bronze. This time, it's Olaf smashing around everything.

ACT THREE

BUFFY: What are you doing?
SPIKE: Making this woman more comfortable. (looks up at Buffy) I'm not sampling, I'll have you know. (looks around) Just look at all these lovely blood-covered people. I could, but not a taste for Spike, not a lick. Know you wouldn't like it.
BUFFY: (amazed) You want credit for not feeding on bleeding disaster victims?
SPIKE: Well, yeah.
BUFFY: You're disgusting. (Walks away)
Spike looks after her in disbelief.
SPIKE: (to himself) What's it take? (sighs, continues helping the injured woman)

Willow and Anya go back to the Bronze and lay their cards on the table.

ANYA: In case we need 'em, I'm getting more of all the things you stole.
WILLOW: I didn't - why do you do that?
ANYA: What?
WILLOW: You're so rude! I mean, sure, at first, ex-demon, doesn't know the rules. Well, you been here forever. Learn the rules.
ANYA: Rules are stupid.
WILLOW: Great, whatever. I just thought you might be interested in learning to act more human. Some of us enjoy it. Oh, look for, uh, spells with dimensional portals too.
ANYA: I *am* a human. And there are ... many humans who are stranger than me.
WILLOW: Uh-huh, but, unless I'm really wrong about crazy Larry down at the bus stop, he's probably not gonna turn Xander into a troll.
ANYA: Well, now, that's a very complicated proced... (pauses) Oh. You think I'm gonna hurt Xander? I would *never* hurt Xander! (Willow looks skeptical) You really think I would do that!
WILLOW: Anya, it's what you do. You spent what, a thousand years hurting men? You got your "thousand years of hurting men" gold watch.
ANYA: I was a demon then, and, and I don't even have any powers now! Is this the spell?
WILLOW: (looks) Only if you want him to double in size, and grow extra arms, which ... let's not. A-and by the way, you weren't a demon when you turned Olaf into Lord of the Hammers. You managed that. Also, there's ... other ways to hurt Xander.

That's the crux of Willow's harshness on Anya. As I said above, Willow has total compassion for a crazy Larry down at the bus stop or something who's just an oddball. She has all of this involuntary empathy for spazzyness, because Willow is such a a spaz. However, Willow sees all of Anya's rudeness as directly correlative with Anya's years of a murderer. Anya held humanity in such contempt that she murdered, maimed for thousands of years. Yes, Anya's wings were clipped so she can't currently be a vengeance demon, and Anya fought that kicking and screaming and Willow has a special childhood trauma as a souvenir of THAT experience. However every time that Anya is dismissive of humanity's rules or rude to someone, Willow still sees the qualities that made Anya a vengeance demon and could threaten Xander.

Although, Anya actually starts softening Willow here:

ANYA: I don't do magic now. You're the one with that kind of power. In fact, D'Hoffryn offered you my old job. You're closer to being a vengeance demon than I am, maybe Xander should be afraid of you.
WILLOW: Xander's my best friend!
ANYA: Oh, and you don't want anyone else to have him. I know what broke up him and Cordelia, you know. It was you! And your lips!
WILLOW: No it was not! Well, yes it was so, but ... that was a long time ago. Do you think I'd do that again?
ANYA: Why not?
WILLOW: Well, hello, gay now.
ANYA: But you're always doing everything you can to, to point out how much I'm an outsider. You've known him since you were squalling infants together. You'll always know him better than I do. You could sweep in and, and poison his mind against me.
WILLOW: You're insane! I am not gonna take him away and I am not gonna hurt him.
ANYA: Well, I'm not either!

On one hand, I'm a little cynical about Anya's line of defense. D'Hoffryn offering Willow the vengeance gig which Willow declined doesn't make Willow closer to being a vengeance demon. Unlike Anya, Willow made a choice to not make a multi-lifetime career out of causing pain. Anya's defense is also to go on the attack and make Willow feel bad about herself for....high school kissy cheating and being desired by D'Hoffryn...that Willow desists her line of argumentation on how Anya remains non-repentant or humble about her millennia of murdering, mayhem, and gleefully destroying lives.

On the other hand, Anya's point gets to Willow more than just Anya's amateur (non-Jewish) guilt trips because it's an opportunity for joint rapprochement that people get better and they should be given chances to be judged on what they're doing now instead of what they're doing in the past. Willow doesn't want her S3 behavior to brand her a "cheater" and someone who'll sabotage Xander's relationships forevermore. That puts a pressure on Willow to also extend such a second chance to Anya and not brand her as someone who'll always hurt any guy who gets close to her.

ACT FOUR

However, I think that lesson was only troll-hammered into Willow because Anya offered to sacrifice herself for Xander. There's a deliberateness to the sacrificial game. Olaf gave Xander a Sophie's Choice between Anya and Willow, and Xander wouldn't and couldn't partake in the "insane troll logic" of choosing between his best friend and his girlfriend. So, Olaf lurches to kill Xander. However, Anya and NOT Willow volunteers to sacrifice herself for Xander.

I'm not sure how much to read into all of this. It's absolutely a clear statement that Xander loves Willow and Anya both too much to deliberately send one of them to their death to save the other. However, does it mean that Xander loves them equally? I don't think so. After all, Xander wouldn't willfully send Ben to his death to easily save Dawn and protect his friends.

There's a clear statement that Anya loves Xander so much that she'd sacrifice herself for him. Does it mean that Willow loves him less than Anya loves him because she didn't volunteer herself first? I don't think so. I have a hard time judging love because one person sacrifice her life before the other in a five second interval. That said, I do think it's telling that Willow didn't argue with Anya that *Willow* insists on sacrificing her life for Xander instead of Anya. On first watch, I was kind of expecting Willow and Anya to start squabbling again over who gets to sacrifice their life for Xander- in keeping with the tone of the rest of the ep. I'll say it- I think Willow was starting to barely soften towards Anya and this gesture impressed Willow but Willow wasn't about to start laying down her life for Anya.

Instead, Willow was absolutely figuring a way out so no one dies but not sacrificing herself if Anya was the latest one on the line. Just after Anya offered to sacrifice herself, Willow was shown sneaking up behind Olaf to do a spell to disappear him. Willow absolutely wasn't going to throw Anya away- Willow was going to do what she generally does. NOT sacrifice herself but instead to look for any magical or tech cheat codes so no one has to endure the miserable alternatives in front of them. Still, I think Anya sacrificing herself was preferable to Willow than Xander dying, Willow dying, or all of them dying. I think it's a little bit of a callback to [I]Doppelgangland[/I] where Willow tried to get the vampires to kill Anya because it was better than them slaughtering all of the humans in the Bronze, including Willow herself.

Now, I sit and reflect on the "darkness" that Willow wouldn't sacrifice herself to save Anya's life....but I'm actually really cool with it. Obviously, it'd be best for no one to die but if it has to be one of Willow/Xander/Anya, it's better that it's 1,000+ years Anya killed by the boyfriend that she turned into malevolent threat, by the act of turning him into a troll and set up for psychological torture as people needed to protect themselves by trapping him in crystals magically. It's preferable to killing 19-year olds who had no part in making Olaf. I don't think Anya is exactly repentant or cognizant of how her life should come to a stopping point more than the young people that she fights with to be in touch with this.

However, it's clear proof that Anya loves Xander so much and I think that has a huge effect on how Willow sees Anya going forward. Note, this is pretty imperfect. As it turns out, Anya didn't need to repent or recant her crimes to earn Willow's tolerance and even, whacked out affection from this point on. Anya just needed to prove that she loved Xander. That Xander wasn't this distracting little whim for a forced-to-retire-vengeance-demon to be easily disposed of once he did something to disappoint Anya according to her whacked out conception of justice. Hence:

Willow begins mixing more ingredients.
ANYA: How can I help?
WILLOW: Uh, distract him from Buffy, (shot of Buffy and Olaf grappling over the hammer again) uh, piss him off.
ANYA: I don't know how.
WILLOW: Anya, I have faith in you. There is no one you cannot piss off.
Anya smiles proudly, rushes out from behind the counter.
Shot of Buffy and Olaf exchanging blows.
ANYA: Hey Olaf! You're as inadequate a troll as you were a boyfriend!
Olaf looks over at her with an angry grunt. Buffy lands another blow.
Anya looks back at Willow, who gives her the thumbs-up.

------------
ANYA: Hey, good job!
WILLOW: You too! Very irritating.

BONDING

There's something very femme-slashy about Willow and Anya cooperating to trap Olaf. Lesbian witch + misandrist vengeance demon = ending a grossly masculine troll bitching about witches and emasculating women. It's part of Willow working up a lot of sexual tension with every woman on this show (and AtS when she guest-stars). However, it really is a happy ending. Even for Olaf, as more modern female empowerment took the fore instead of vengeance based in misandry. Unlike the past witches, Willow and Anya didn't further psychologically torture him in crystals.

BUFFY: Where did you send him?
ANYA: The land of the trolls. He'll like it there. Full of trolls.

It's another sort of call back to Doppelgangland, when mostly Anya and Willow sent Vamp Willow back to the Wishverse. A similar kind of "Let's protect our dimension right here from this menace but we've gotta be somewhat sentimental about this MoTW so let's send them back "into the wild"/into another dimension that they'll like." However, Willow's learned enough magic to realize that it's harder to assure success with these kinds of inter-dimensional transfers. Instead of the joke that Vamp Willow was instantly staked upon her return to the Wishverse ("Aw fu...."), Willow discusses that it's not a science:

WILLOW: It's hard to be precise, though. Alternate universes don't stay put. Trying to send him to a specific place is sort of like ... like ... trying to hit a ... puppy, by throwing a live bee at it. (They all look at her) Which is a weird image, and you should all just forget it.
ANYA: It's possible that he's in the land of perpetual Wednesday ... or the crazy melty land ... or, you know, the world without shrimp.

The scene ends with Buffy/Joyce/Giles. Giles complains that his Magic Box was trashed- but I have little sympathy for the reasons I stated above. I feel worse for the Bronze proprietors who probably aren't too cheap to enforce a clear employee structure. The Bronze proprietors also aren't trained Watchers/magical practitioners who sell and keep dangerous items like crystals with a homicidal maniac troll as a toy surprise inside them because I dunno, doing an inventory check on the items and books that they're releasing into the market place harshes their fun. Mollock trapped in the book, the Word of Valios as a key apocalyptic spell ingredient, or Olaf in one of the crystals never serves as warning to Giles to CHECK HIS SHIT. Compared to this danger, Willow telekinetically moving a Swiffer mop seems really fucking benign.

I'll note that I don't think Giles is malicious in his Magic Box managerial failures. However, I don't think his failure to check his goods or clearly define roles for his employees is just a gosh-darn innocent accident that everyone makes. Giles certainly appears to have had it harder than the Watchers that we'll revisit in Checkpoint. But even as a Field Watcher, I do think Giles has an entitlement that children work for free to help him earn his salary, even though he should still be recognized for having arguably the most vital, important role for the good of humanity (save maybe the Slayer and even then, that's questionable). However, frustratingly but also cutely, Giles is just so used to this as the Natural Order of Things that he can't even be thoughtful or calculating about it. It just *is* and everyone enables him.

Moreover, for the designated intelligence expert of the gang, Giles is way over chill. In some ways, it's an interesting way that Giles and Wesley diverge. Giles frequently screws up because he has his head in the sand or he's overly relaxed about potential dangers or developing problems. "I told you! Giles, I said, "end of the world," and you're all like...pooh pooh, Southern California pooh pooh--" A lot of Wesley's screw ups are because he's paranoid and on hair-trigger alert to OVERLY address any distant threat. "Angel - you don't - find me - especially paranoid, do you?...Oh, thank G-d. I was worried!"

IMO, Giles increasingly arrives at this chillaxedness in S1-6 for this paradoxical reason that Buffy and Co. are so competent at foiling threats but they're also really clearly children who are less experienced and wise and graceful in caution than him. Giles exists with such an awareness that he's the only grown-up in a group of children that he doesn't think to check himself as much as others but he's also so used to how these children take care of business that he doesn't sit and worry about Sunnydale's human and demon population having an over-saturation of mystical goods or even mystical goods with a defective toy surprise. I don't think Giles consciously ponders it but there's an (unfounded) calm he can't make Sunnydale any more dangerous or so dangerous that the Scoobies can't handle it by selling the wrong goods to the wrong people.

However, yes, to some extent, Willow is repeatedly dangerous for exposing the problems in Giles's White Man Repositories of Books and Magical Items from unleashing Mollock with her scanner to unleashing Olaf with her spells. Speaking of White Man Repositories, Giles/Joyce/Buffy discuss how to extract resources that the Watcher's Council has been able to get a monopoly on without entrusting them to even more information = power that they can't be trusted with. In short, Dawn's origins. However, the other Watchers aren't there and I'm not going to jump up and down on them because Giles snarked that their theories were mostly nonsensical. However, in terms of that Watcher that IS sitting there, we leave the ep with poor Dawn sitting on the stairs kept in ignorance of her person and Joyce only pointedly only invited to the tea confab session because she was crazy for a night and Buffy/Giles couldn't continue to lie to her about her daughter. See:

BUFFY: What about the key? Were they all over it?
GILES: (warily) Yes. (to Joyce) You, you know all of this?

The Watcher Giles is wary that DA MUDDA is sitting there in a meeting about protecting her daughter, especially as Buffy stresses continuously that this A FAMILY MATTER, right down to the subject of the discussion to keep the Watcher's Council out of the loop because that's how little they belong in A FAMILY MATTER. Just as long THE FAMILY MATTER doesn't include the mother unless she forces herself into the Club with insanity or the daughter/sister subject of the discussion.

In short, I feel sappy about most of the ep which was Anya/Willow bitch-fights where they still ended up working things out after they laid out their cards on the table and had a crisis that demanded life or death honesty. But then, the ep ends cynically for me with the "tea and comforting earth tones" SO EARNEST AND PEACEABLE meeting. I'M ANGRY AT ALL OF YOU, BUT DAWN.