(All Btvs quotes taken from Psyche Transcripts.)
Part III - Giles Dream: Lack of Intellect
Before I start my analysis of Giles' Restless Dream, let's flashback a few episodes to Yoko Factor. Before Spike comes into Giles' apartment in Yoko Factor to the Initiative's discs, Giles is singing "Freebird":
Giles: Would you still remember me?/ Well I must be traveling on now/ There's too many places I've got to see/ And if I stay here with you girl/ Things just couldn't be the same/'Cause I'm as free as bird now-
All season long Giles' has felt aimless, wondering why he's still in Sunnydale, yet reluctant to leave his charges. His girlfriend Olivia visits from England, but he at no point really includes her in his duties as a Watcher or in his charges' lives. When she learns what he does, she more or less flees back to England. (see HUSH, Season 4 Btvs.) He has no job. The council is no longer paying him a salary. And although he cares deeply for Willow, Xander, and Buffy, he knows he is neither their father nor any longer their librarian/watcher. His library has been blown to smithereens. He feels stuck in their lives, aimless, and wants to travel on, yet at the same time is afraid to leave. Spike picks up on these insecurities when he encounters Giles and milks them for all they're worth.
Spike:…This deal's with the Slayer.
Giles: I'll tell her.
Spike: Oh, you'll tell her! Great comfort that. What makes you think she'll listen to you?
Giles: Because . . . (trails off, unsure)
Spike: Very convincing.
Giles: I'm her Watcher.
Spike: I think you're neglecting the past-tense there, Rupert. Besides, she barely listened to you when you were in charge. I've seen the way she treats you.
Giles: Oh, yes? And how's that?
Spike: Very much like a retired librarian.
These are the thoughts that have been roiling around in Giles brain all season long. They are also the thoughts that are still buried inside him when he has his dream in Restless.
Giles is on the metaphorical riverboat journey with Buffy, Willow, and Xander heading into the Heart of Darkness. But Giles is the old steamboat skipper, seasoned and somewhat reluctant to go much further. He has seen the darkness, he has experienced the pain, he would like to retire and go elsewhere. Yet, he is tied to the boat at the moment by his responsibility to his charges and to his sworn duty as a 'watcher", a duty as he professed way back in NEVER KILL A BOY ON THE FIRST DATE, (Season 1, Btvs) that was not his first choice. He wanted to be in a rock band or be a fighter pilot, instead his father forced him to be a Watcher.
Giles: I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, and his, uh, mother before him, and I was to be next.
Buffy: Were you thrilled beyond all measure?
Giles: No, I had very definite plans about my future. I was going to be a fighter pilot. Or possibly a grocer. Well, uh... My father gave me a very tiresome speech about, uh, responsibility and sacrifice.
Like the skipper and Willard in Apocalypse Now, Giles and Buffy were drafted. They did not choose their calling. Willow and Xander on the other hand did. This may explain the difference in the dreams and why both Giles and Buffy are aware of the first slayer in Restless, while Willow and Xander never truly are. Willow and Xander came along for the ride in somewhat the same way as the eager surfer boy, the rookie, and the intellectual did in Apocalypse Now.
In Restless, Giles' dream opens with him attempting to hypnotize a childlike Buffy. She is in pigtails and giggling at him in the scene. They are in his house, on the floor, with no furniture except one chair, which Buffy is sitting on. He is dangling a pocket watch in front of her and telling her : "You have to stop thinking. Let it wash over you." Odd thing for a watcher to tell his slayer - to stop thinking. To go with her gut. Is he telling her this or is he telling himself? Or is it simpler than that - is it that he wants to be the mind and if she starts thinking, he's not needed? He has no purpose?
BUFFY: Don't you think it's a little old-fashioned?
GILES: This is the way women and men have behaved since the beginning......before time. Now look into the light.
Men and women? Does this mean that she should let men do the thinking? Let me plan it out for you, I'm the Watcher. Otherwise I have no purpose here? And is he right, has it really always been so?
Later in Buffy vs. Dracula, (Season 5)- Giles tells Willow: "Well, it's become quite obvious that Buffy doesn't need me. I-I don't say that in a self-pitying way, I'm, I'm quite proud, actually."
He may be proud but he still wants to be needed. Could this be what is going on here - a mental struggle inside Giles? Later on in the dream - towards the end, he says to the first slayer: "I know who you are. And I can defeat you ... with my intellect. I ... can cripple you with my thoughts. Of course, you underestimate me. You couldn't know. You never had a Watcher." And that's the point really, she didn't. She could think perfectly well without him. Perhaps all he's done is hold Buffy back. Perhaps that's what he is doing now?
The next portion of the dream takes place at a carnival where there are cardboard vampires. Buffy is a little girl in a jump-suite and Olivia is pushing along a baby stroller. Giles like Xander in his dream, seems to be viewing Buffy as the child, yet as one poster pointed out - perhaps it is the reverse? Perhaps Giles is truly the child, left behind? And maybe that's what Giles' fears? Another interesting point about this scene - is Giles' advice to Buffy, it is similar to the advice he gives her in Intervention, OMWF and several other episodes: "Buffy, you have a sacred birthright to protect mankind. (Buffy turns to look at him, pouting) Don't stick out your elbow." He doesn't tell her how to think or strategize. Or how to find her inner balance. He resorts to material or physical criticism like a dance instructor: Don't stick out your elbow. It's an ironic comment coming from someone who represents the "mind". Is he really using his?
Before this comment, Giles attempts to reference a parable, but he can't quite remember it. It is about patience and a fox.
OLIVIA: Does she always want to train this badly?
GILES: Well, it appears she's never heard the fable about patience.
OLIVIA: Which one is that?
GILES: The, the one about the fox, and the, uh, less patient fox.
Foxes often are used to describe someone who is clever, quick-witted, or highly intelligent. "Clever as a fox." Is Giles referring to himself and Buffy = one patient fox and one less patient? Or is Giles referring to both sides of himself: Giles and Ripper?
Then when Buffy hits the cardboard vampire and he falls down, she turns to Giles expectantly, hoping for some sort of treat. Giles says there aren't any treats. Olivia chides him for this, but he insists that "it is my business. Blood of the lamb and all that." But I get the sense he's beginning to doubt this. What does blood of the lamb mean? In Christianity - it stands for Christ's blood or sacrifice of innocence for the mutual good. Could this refer to the great sacrifices Giles believes he's made all his life for his calling? After all he lost Jenny, he had to relocate to Sunnydale, give up his wants and desires, even kill for the cause. He also has to hurt Buffy, whom he loves, in Helpless (Season 3, Btvs.). Does he see Buffy as the lamb? Possibly - since the next image is Buffy with mud on her face, looking a lot like the first slayer, the primitive essence of the warrior, an image that is later echoed in Buffy's dream. I wonder if the first slayer is trying to tell Giles' something?
But before he can figure it out - Spike interrupts. Fitting that Spike shows up in Giles' dream instead of Riley. Of the two characters, Giles identifies with Spike. Spike may even represent the reckless adolescent that still resides inside Giles. Giles leaves Olivia and Buffy to follow Spike into the cavern, (representative of Giles' subconscious) where Spike proceeds to pose in front of photographers.
The poses make fun of the Vampires that Giles has spent his life hunting. Just like the cardboard vampire in the carnival, Spike is reinforcing the message that vampires aren't the true enemy anymore, they may never have been. That the world isn't painted in black and whites as it once was in childhood. And the slayer is about much more than killing a few vampires, she always has been.
Before conversing with Spike, Giles passes Olivia who is weeping and he tells her not to distract him, he has a lot to do. She is weeping next to a coffin, which is beside an overturned baby carriage. Is this foreshadowing Giles' departure? Or is it talking about how Giles has put aside children and family and a personal life, to be a Watcher and may resent it?
Now we come to Spike. I'm not sure if the scene with Spike is so much about Spike as it is about Giles. It is Giles' dream. Perhaps we should look at it from both angles.
Spike is doing lots of poses, the first three are vampire ones reminiscent of black and white vamp flicks, more campy than frightening. Almost as if Spike is posing as the Big Bad, but isn't, not really. Never has been. He's just pretending to be a villain, doing it for showbiz. All the poses and shots of Spike are in Black and White, no color. As if it isn't real, Spike isn't real, just a sideshow attraction, barely worth watching. Giles comments that he's become a sideshow freak - and in a way he has. Chipped. Harmless. Purposeless. Why is he still here? But hasn't Giles also become a sideshow freak? Purposeless. Harmless. Why is Giles still here? Sometimes black and white images can be viewed as a reflection or shadow of ourselves in dreams. Perhaps Spike is Giles' reflection? If you think back to Xander's dream - Spike is also shown in close proximity to Giles - again a reflection? This is who Giles' might have become, if he hadn't been a watcher? This is what Spike might have become if he hadn't become a vampire?
GILES: (very confused) What am I supposed to do with all of this?
SPIKE: (offscreen) You gotta make up your mind, Rupes. What are you wasting your time for? (Pose, flashbulbs)(Color: Giles turning to look at Spike again.)(B&W shot of Spike.) Haven't you figured it all out yet, with your enormous squishy frontal lobes? (Another pose, more oohs, flashbulbs)(Color: Giles walking across the crypt.)
GILES: I still think Buffy should have killed you. (B&W: Spike looks annoyed. He strikes a Jesus-on-the-cross pose. Very loud oohs, cameras flashing.)
Spike in this section makes me think of Ripper or Giles' own mind speaking to him. 'You gotta make up your mind Giles - staying or going? Staying here in limbo is helping no one, we both know it. Haven't you figured out what's going on? Aren't you using your brain?' (Sort of like the scarecrow in Wizard of OZ - if I could only use my brain- everything would be so clear…) But the answer of course is obvious, Giles just doesn't want to see it - so he tells his conscience or the annoying voice to drop dead. Spike obliges with a nice crucifixion pose.
This is when the cheese/bald man appears. It's been suggested that the cheese man means nothing, I beg to differ. In this scene the cheese man says: "I wear the cheese. It does not wear me." Which is a very Giles like statement - he can do magic but it does not define him. He can date whomever he likes, it does not define him. He defines himself. Willow must make a place in her life for her cheese or magic and/or sexuality. Xander wants to protect himself with the jobs he does and the girl he dates (cheese), setting them up as protective barriers against what lies upstairs, against who he might be deep inside. (The cheese won't protect you.) And Giles? He states clearly he can wear the cheese, take it off, it does not rule him or control him. It's an odd scene to occur right after Spike's. Almost as if Giles is reaffirming his mission in life after Spike has questioned it. "My mission does not define me, I choose to follow it, but it is not solely who I am. I am not a freakshow like you suggest, doing old parlor tricks. A retired librarian with no job, hanging on the coattails of the slayer."
Giles is now at the Bronze - a place he has never felt comfortable in. Willow and Xander are on his couch, both looking somewhat wounded. Xander is bleeding. And they are once again conducting research. Willow tells Giles that it is his fault. When I first watched this, I believed she was referring to the spell they cast in Primeval. But now - I think she is giving voice to Giles' own feelings of guilt and uncertainty, which crop up later in Bargaining Part I (Season 6, Btvs):
GILES: I just can't help but wonder if ... she would have been better off without me. Buffy.
BUFFYBOT: I don't think that's true. You were very helpful to her.
GILES: (laughs) Right. Yes, I was a perfect Watcher. I did what any good Watcher would do. Got my Slayer killed in the line of duty.
BUFFYBOT: Oh, that wasn't your fault.
GILES: Of course not. That's how all Slayer/Watcher relationships end, isn't it?
I think he was feeling this way all along. Questioning himself, wondering if Buffy and the others would have been better off without him. If his true business isn't sacrificing them for the good of the council, the good of a war that he no longer believes in - hence the black and white vampire poses and the cardboard vampires. Is Buffy's life worth it? Are theirs?
Flashing back to Anya's joke that occurs during this. Anya is on the stage alone telling jokes, as a preview to Giles' big performance. (Yes - I know this in some ways foreshadows the events of Hells Bells, when Xander skips out on Anya and Buffy entertains the audience - but again, remember whose dream this is. Giles'.) The joke is: "Okay. A man ... walks into the office of a doctor. He's wearing on his head, um... Wait, there's, there's a, there's a duck. Is that right? And ... then the duck tells the doctor that there's a man, that's attached to my ass."(edited for length and emphasis from Psyche's Transcript of Restless (Btvs Season 4)) Giles is probably feeling a lot like the man attached to the duck or vice versa. A worthless appendage that can't do much more than quack. His former charges sit in front of him wounded and he knows he's next, but his duty is to warn Buffy, but first he wants to do his gig. Remember he wanted to be a rock star, not a watcher. He was forced into being the Watcher, a job he's never felt all that suited for.
Willow tells him that he has to focus, has to figure out what is after them. And he knows what is after them, but questions the knowledge. How many times has Giles guessed the right answer then pushed it aside? In OMWF he sings that it must be a dancing demon - then immediately casts the thought aside as impossible. He no longer trusts his intellect. Just as Xander has stopped trusting his heart. And Willow has stopped trusting her spirit. This is why Spike could break them apart in Yoko Factor and it's why the characters have made the mistakes they've made in Season 6. Xander fails Anya because he lacks the heart to go through with it. Willow gives into black magic due to a lack of spirit to control and balance it. Giles leaves because he no longer trusts his ability to guide them, he believes he led Buffy to her death. Just as he believes he failed them all in his dream. The irony is that by leaving, he puts them in more danger than if he stayed. By not guiding them, by not trusting his ability to act as a guide and losing focus - they drift into danger. As Willow states: "Rupert. (Giles turns to look at her) You've gotta focus. You must have some kind of explanation. If we don't know what we're fighting, I don't think we stand a chance." We need your guidance. And Giles responds by immediately setting them to work, taking charge and doing his gig all that the same time. Off course the overload results in feedback and he has to literally crawl through the wardrobe to untangle the wires.
Two wardrobe references in Giles' dream: "chronicles" - does this refer to the Chronicles of Narnia? Or just a coincidence? The fact that he tells Willow to look through the "Chronicles" makes me wonder; it seems to be a reference back to the end of Willow's dream. First we had Willow climb through the curtains, then Xander, now Giles is crawling through curtains, only to run into the first slayer. Unlike Willow and Xander, he immediately knows who she is. He believes he can fight her, forgetting that she is more than he is. She has to be. She can't just rely on her mind or her heart or her spirit, she has to rely on all three. Just as Willard in the Heart of Darkness had to in order to complete his journey intact. Or if you prefer, Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ has to in order to defeat the Wicked Witch and return home.
Perhaps Giles' realization of this at the tail end of his dream, explains why he gathers up the courage to try and leave in Buffy vs. Dracula, only to be dissuaded by Buffy's uncertainty about her slayer powers. And finally does leave in Season 6, first after Buffy dies and a second time after Buffy returns from the dead. Giles may believe that he is standing in the way of Buffy becoming as powerful as the first slayer. But, as his dream suggests, he is forgetting something. Willow and Xander sitting on his couch wounded. The two disciples he initiated into his and Buffy's world and like the skipper in Apocalypse Now has some responsibility for, they are under his command, not Buffy's. By leaving them - is he placing them in jeopardy? Is he responsible for what happens to Xander and Willow - like they suggest in his dream? Giles realizes this in his dream and attempts to help them. But what happens? The first slayer slices out his intellect. Is she reclaiming it for herself? Or is she echoing Giles' fears? That if he stays he will have no intellect and if he goes Xander and Willow may pay the price? His dream suggests they'll pay it regardless. They are adults after all - should he be held responsible for them all their lives? They do have parents who can do that. He is just their teacher and his staying merely holds them back.
Sometimes the best way to guide someone is simply to leave. The mother bird has to kick her babies out of the nest so they can learn how to fly. The first slayer had no watcher and apparently did very well - as is suggested in Giles' dream. In Apocalypse Now, Willard must complete his journey and fight Kurtz on his own. And in the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard must leave before Dorothy can find her way home. The same can be said of Buffy and Giles. But first Giles has to make up his mind and follow what it says, which he does more or less in Season 6 with mixed results.
End Part III. (Next Part IV: Buffy's Dream- Using your hands)
Thanks for reading. Hope it made sense and adds to the discussion. Looking forward to comments as always.
;-) shadowkat
