Ramblings from the 'goblinn

A long while back, I found it helpful to set down in writing the way I viewed the character of Rupert Giles to see how I was or was not capturing his essence as I wrote:
Original "My Giles" Post (have to scroll down a bit) -- And a later addendum.

It strikes me now that, in addition to rereading this and doing a couple more for the Willow and Ethan of my Summer of Giles Story, I really need to do one for Snape. The Snape of "In Loco Parentis" is not the same Snape as the ghost in "Lost Boys." Neither are quite the Snape from canon, either.

That's perfectly okay. While fanfiction creates the expectation that your work is going to be highly derivative and based on a common framework, each writer brings his or her own "take" on the characters, puts them in situations quite unlike those we see in canon, and often has to choose among inconsistent clues from different places in that canon. And sometimes, while choosing, has to decide what kind of character he wants to spend time with.

So, that will be my project for the day, after helping out with the church Rummage Sale, getting Wee Hob a shiny new planner to write down his plans for completing merit badges this summer (and inexplicably, he wants me to teach him Latin, which, yeah, I'll do as long as he promises not to be a Dunderhead and actually does some homework) and cleaning up a bit.

But in the meantime, if anyone wants to weigh in on any of these characters, particularly how you see Snape (and Hermione) in "In Loco Parentis", I would love to see what has been coming across for you. I can already tell from a couple of reviews on this last part that I need to be doing a better job of making clear how this Snape is unlike the one in canon, and making the how and why of that plausible for the purposes of this story.

Happy Saturday, all.

Title: Graveside
Author: hobgoblin
Rating: FRC, genfic

Written for summer_of_giles

DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television, the WB Television Network, and whoever else may have a hold on them. I do not mean to infringe upon any copyrights.

Here's my offering for today. And yes, Potterdammmerung did suck out my brain, leaving me only with this fragment from months ago. Least it's short.

An alternate universe, an alternate perspective. Post Chosen. Anyone who'd like to take this idea and run with it, just ask.

She watches him, sometimes. He's greyer now, older, infinitely weary. They've been friends, lovers, enemies, colleagues, comrades at arms, strangers over the years. Sometimes all of them at once. She got right with him, then wrong, then right again, more times than she cares to count. For the better part of a decade now, she's watched. Watched as the burdens ground him down to this man she barely recognizes.

She crosses the distance between them now as the crowd disperses, leaving him to stand alone at the grave, gazing off into nowhere. He starts as she lays a hand on his arm. He's shaking so hard, trying to hold it in, to be strong in front of his charges, but she knows better. Without a word, he opens his arms and wraps them around her, but it is she who holds him up.

She’s been with the coven for a long while, ever since she came to help Willow with her magic, and her grief. She’s always felt responsible for that-- that she wasn’t there while her friends’ lives came unhinged; that she didn’t even know Giles wasn’t there, either, until it was far too late. When Buffy called, her voice like ice.

But Rupert feels responsible for much more. He stands now at the grave of another Slayer, one not much older than the child they might have had. Another casualty in the never ending war. He always does this afterward-- gives himself fully to his grief this one time, then takes up his mantle again and carries on. She hates the stiff upper lip bullshit, but she sees why he does it, now. That grim determination has gotten them through more bad nights than she can number.

But she can’t help missing his smile.

Except for his departure at the end of Tabula Rasa, does Giles ever truly leave Buffy unaided in her battles?

Throughout the series, he trains her for routine patrols and does research for more serious threats. When the chips are down though, he either fights alongside her: "Bad Girls", "The Zeppo," "The Gift," "Graduation Day," comes to her rescue: "Gingerbread," breaks his resolve to let her fight alone: "Helpless," "Once More with Feeling," "Two to Go/Grave." And when he knows she's really going to die, he resolves to go out and die in her place: "Prophecy Girl."

I think this is why the Council sent him in the first place. They knew it was exceedingly likely he would die for his Slayer, or put himself in harm's way fighting alongside her, and it seems from the way the Council operates that they were hoping for this outcome, and that his end would take this unexpected and uncontrolled Slayer with him, clearing the way for someone they could more easily control.

My question for the f-list: I'm sure there are objections one could make to this characterization, that Giles never truly lets Buffy go off without him. But, can an even stronger case be made for my premise above? And if so, what must it do to him, when he's suddenly the head of the Council, and he can no longer personally fight for all the girls he feels a duty to protect? When his decisions lead some of them to their deaths?

I have an addition to the "My Giles" list I wrote in November:

My Giles

no longer knows every Slayer by name. But he never forgets the names of the Dead, nor the circumstances of their deaths. Nor the faces of each parent, each sibling, when he breaks the news of their Slayer's sacrifice. He carries them all in his heart. It's his duty, you see.

***
I got about 822 words written tonight, not couting the above, on my "Watcher's Love*" story (*new working title), rewound now to the point where it started to Jump the Shark. As a happy coincidence, I read some of Wil Wheaton's DVD commentaries on ST:TNG recced by liz_marcs last night, and some of his comments about people needing a Reason to enter or leave a scene really struck home. That was part of what was wrong with where I was trying to go-- I had lost sight of the Reasons why I was writing this story (and why a Documentary is So not what I want here....)

I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on all this.

Been a long weekend. Especially adding in an emergency wedding gig which ended just about the time I was supposed to Be At the Concert Hall across town for the last performance of "Solace for Survivors." Both nights went off quite well-- I was hoping for no more than to have no train wrecks, after only about 7 rehearsals on this very difficult music, but it really touched people, myself included. It was quite exhausting, though.

And while I was enduring the wedding, and blocking out the priest's reading all the hopelessly naive things the happy couple had written about each other, I was reflecting on their second reading, from 1 Corinthians, 13:1-13. It's a discussion of what Love is, and one of the thing that struck me as applying to my Giles, post Chosen, was this: "And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to move mountains yet do not have love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, yet do not have Love, it profits me nothing." The passage goes on to describe what Love Does, but not what Love Is. And that makes sense-- we all of us know that Love is much less warm happy feelings than it is what we are willing to Do for those we love.

Here's my difficulty-- Giles Does a great deal for the world. But at some point near the end, probably dating back to Buffy's death in The Gift, he has stopped giving himself fully to those he loves. He's always been reserved. But he's also always been generous, with understanding and support as well as with research and willingness to thrust swords through things that threaten his family.

I'm extrapolating the emotional distance of S7, and assuming it continues and worsens as he takes on re-establishing the Council and takes responsibility of the fate not of one girl, but of hundreds, and it seems to me that he's deliberately avoiding love. He can't bear actually caring personally for anyone, because losing them hurts so damned much now. He pushes the core scoobies away and doggedly trudges away at his empty existence.

Anyway, I'm playing with how a man like this might act, might deal with a new attempt to engage him in the business of humanity. I have to assume Willow and Xander and Buffy and Dawn and Faith at least Tried before scattering all over the globe. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this. I have some new scenes in mind, though I may not be sharing them for a while.

Oh-- here's my revised word count - 235 for tonight. As few as 10 earlier this week. Getting better again, anyway.