He's Really Not All That Bad

[deird_lj]

You know, I think Giles has a bit of an undeserved reputation.


(By the way, I did actually mean that spoiler warning, so gabrielleabelle, if you're still reading, for goodness' sake STOP.)

Specifically, I'm thinking about the scene in Shells, when Angel rings Giles for help, and Giles refuses.

As a reminder: Fred has died, Illyria has emerged, and Angel, reasoning that "the soul is what matters", tries to contact Willow for help bringing Fred back. And Giles tells him that Willow is currently unable to be contacted, and refuses to help Angel at all, because Angel's still working at Wolfram & Hart.

I've seen a lot of discussion, both fic and meta, of this scene, and almost invariably, people tend to assume that Giles was being presumptuous, and he shouldn't have dismissed Angel out of hand.
And then they decide that, clearly, Willow (and Buffy) would be really annoyed with Giles for doing that (and for behaving just like he did in Lies My Parents Told Me) because, obviously, Fred was lovely and they would definitely have helped her, had Giles just let them know...

I think I disagree.

The thing is, Fred is dead. Very definitely dead.
And I really don't see Willow - season seven Willow - trying to reverse someone's death. Not after the whole pulling-Buffy-out-of-heaven, losing-her-girlfriend-horribly, and-oh-by-the-way-almost-destroying-the-world thing. She just wouldn't.
Sure, she'd be sad (possibly very sad) that Fred had died, but she wouldn't try to bring Fred back. She's done that before.

And Buffy?
Buffy had, not five episodes earlier, sent Andrew in with a squadron of Slayers to back him up, and made it perfectly clear that, while Angel was at Wolfram & Hart, she really didn't trust him.

Giles might have been giving his own opinion, he might have had Buffy right there beside him dictating his every word, he might have been lying about Willow being unreachable... I really don't know. It's possible that he didn't discuss the situation with anyone before turning Angel down. What I don't agree with is the idea that Giles was responding any differently to the way the others would have. Not definitely, anyway.

So, yeah. I think he's getting unfairly blamed for that one.
Just an opinion.

Comments

[skipp-of-ark.livejournal.com]

About the Cordelia scenario...I dunno. I know a lot of fans just assume that Cordelia can just boss Xander around whenever she wants, but consider: A) we don't know that Xander we would have been available for Giles to hand the phone to; B) the previous four seasons of television had demonstrated that neither Cordelia nor Xander had kept in contact with each other or maintained any kind of post-high school relationship whatsoever; and C) this was less than a year after Anya had died, and Xander was probably still grieving for her. Assuming that Cordelia would have been able to tell Xander, whom she'd not had any contact with in more than four years, to persuade Willow to help resurrect Cordelia's newly deceased friend while he's still grieving for his ex-fiance, is, IMO, dangerously assuming that Xander wouldn't have told her quietly to fuck herself (or words to that effect).

[deird1]

I actually think that Cordy probably would have a better chance going straight to Buffy...