Giles in Season 7 - Something I had forgotten

[hobgoblinn]

So I posted the last part of "In Loco" I'll probably get to before Summer of Giles, and while doing the formatting, I had been listening to Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along." For those who aren't familiar with the show, it runs backward through the lives of three friends, starting with them all estranged, their lives outwardly "successful" with all the things they thought they wanted, and ending with them together watching Sputnik passing overhead, their whole lives ahead of them. It asks the question, "How did we get there from here?"

I thought it might give me a new perspective, going back through the Buffy canon from the end. And so far, yeah, it's been interesting.

But something just happened that threw me completely. In the episode "Touched," Giles listens with the others to the Bringer speaking through Andrew's body, about how it serves the First Evil and how it will be around long after they're all dead. The Bringer is bound and helpless. And Giles picks up a knife and cuts the Bringer's throat to silence him.

Just trying to wrap my mind around this. I know it's often been remarked how Giles is anti-Giles in this final season. But I'd appreciate thoughts on this and what it might say about Giles, here and post Chosen. I can't write this story if I can't get back in the head space of these characters. And I'm not sure this Giles is someone I can understand well enough to write, or even to edit what I have to finish this.

Comments

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Both that it's stupid and doesn't seem to make any sense. And that he's so detached while he's doing it-- he's not angry, not defending anyone. It's so wastefully brutal a way to shut the creature up. Is there any reason for him to kill it? The only thing I can come up with is, if the hive mind of the Bringers constitutes something he sees as a threat.

Yeah, that might be an explanation.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

But but but... what else could he do? Let it go so that it could turn around and start killing more Potentials? Or keep it permanently locked up in Buffy's basement next to Spike? Especially since it's strongly implied that all Bringers are in constant communion with each other and the First, so anything this one hears, will automatically and immediately be known by all the others.

I do agree his action was very abrupt - he could at least have asked if anyone had any more questions...

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's kind of what I came to as well. It had to be put down like a rabid dog. Just the way he did it, so quickly and emotionlessly, and so without warning, is what threw me, I think.