Old grievances made new: Giles and Faith

Taake

Taake

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Black Thorn
This has been discussed before but after recently watching a Buffy season 3 reaction + reading the thread on Giles as a good father figure for Buffy, I simply must vent again…

Why - WHY - does Giles the Watcher take no responsibility for underaged Slayer Faith? He happily lets her live alone in a cheap motel, even though, she is legally a child no? Under his charge, no? (Until Wesley at least)

Even Spike gets to move in with Giles for a time. So why does this grown man, with a task from the Council, not look after this child?

Is his favoritism for Buffy so strong that he is willing to overlook a minor in need? The comics eventually pair the two, but I can’t remember much of that plotline. And by then Faith is obviously an adult.

Joyce, who has no responsibility shows more concern, and sure she has a clear parallell in Buffy so makes sense.

But considering the history of the Slayers, and the fair commonality of Slayer/Watcher living together, why does Giles seem so apathetic about Faith?

Is it because a Watcher is only supposed to have one Slayer? And get emotionally invest in two?

I have a fever and can’t sleep and these thoughts decided to haunt me. What say you all to the season 3 Giles and Faith situation?
 
This has always bugged me! It really makes Giles look bad! I even think that to a certain extent Joyce should have done more, too. Like, the fact that two adults saw this underage girl living in this crappy motel and did nothing? Say what you will about the Mayor, but it's kind of ironic that the first thing he did for Faith was move her to safer and much more comfortable accommodation. I mean, no wonder she became so attached to him!

Unfortunately I think this is one of those aspects which comes down to the way the writers wanted to portray Faith, as much more of a loose canon with no personal ties. If Giles or Joyce had intervened, Faith might never have turned evil, as she would have been given a better sense of security and, even more importantly, would have felt wanted and like people cared for her.

As much as Faith absolutely needs to take responsibility for her actions in the later half of the season, it is not at all hard to see what drove her to bond so deeply with the Mayor, as he was truly the very first adult in her life to show her care, affection and trust.
 
Yes, I think it has more to do with driving the plot. As soon as you have anyone else caring about Faith, and it would be easy, and in character, for both Giles and Joyce to do so - especially if the chemistry between Buffy and Faith leads Buffy to push them to help her "friend" (girlfriend) - then she is much less likely to spiral and fall in with the Mayor. Just a little bit of extra concern would at least have resulted in her being treated better following the deputy mayor's accidental killing, and might even have stopped it from happening in the first place.
 
How much leverage does Giles actually have with Faith? We know Buffy survived three months with minimal adult supervision with a bad part of LA. We know Faith is known for her walkabouts, and her boys. It's entirely possible she shacked up with a few guys, or hung out with a couple touring bands et al. Also, we don't know her age. She could be lying about that as well. Remember how much effort it took to get her to show up at Christmas Dinner?

Plus, we all knew girls like that in high school. Too pretty for her own good, fell in with older boys, had access to sex, drugs and couch surfing, really bad home life et al.

So, headcanon. Giles probably tried, was either rebuffed or burned, and was constantly being lied to by a known liar and manipulator. Watchers are no doubt taught not to get to emotionally invested in a wild Slayer, as she won't last that long. So, it was probably a situation where he thought the ball was in her court, but he didn't understand how low the level of trust was with Faith.

But I do agree with your basic premise, it should have been directly addressed by the script.
 
I agree with the in-story point of it all. On re-watch it just feels like it would have been nice, as @AlphaFoxtrot mentioned, we might have gotten to see snippets of Giles trying.

It took effort to get her to come to Buffy’s house for Christmas (Well, it took an invite initially rebuffed), but we don’t see Giles even worrying or thinking about where Faith is at or her living situation.

Which makes it seem like no one cares, which is pretty shitty. Again, especially Giles and Wes as watchers. It is literally their job to look after Slayers. The others have their own lives to consider.
 
What was Faith's age in season 3? I always felt like she was older than Buffy. Like she may have been called at 17, but she was 18 at the time she came to Sunnydale. She appeared more mature. In her first appearance, as she's taking a tour of the school with Willow and Xander, she says "If I had friends like you... well, I still would have dropped out, but I'd have felt sad about it". In most US schools, you have to be at least 17 to drop out of school. I believe it's a federal law that says children under 17 have to attend school.

So, if she was called later, she very well could be an "adult" in the eyes of the law, which is why Giles wasn't as concerned about her well-being. I know it's still rather terrible that he let her stay in a sleazy motel, but it's not like he had extra room at his flat (it's a one-bedroom), and ultimately it should be the Council paying for Faith's lodging, not Giles.

And to his credit, he took on the task of training her, even though she wasn't technically his responsibility. The Council should have sent another watcher to train her, and they did nothing. He at least included Faith in slayer training with Buffy.

Ultimately, however, he was already in charge of Buffy, and by default: Willow, Xander, Oz and Cordelia. I don't know if he had the capacity to add a young adult slayer to his plate, and he did the best he could. And, let's remember, Faith, herself, was closed off. She put effort into being slayer besties with Buffy, at first, but she didn't let people in. Giles trained her, but she clearly has issues with men, and there wasn't much he could do to break past her walls.

Even after her accidental slaying of the Deputy Mayor, he tried to work by compassion, making Faith feel like she was being heard, and not informing the Council of her mistake. Wesley is the one who turned that situation into a huge issue. But the council also sent her an incompetent (at the time) watcher to look over her (and Buffy), who had no field experience, and was heavily reliant on the recently dismissed watcher as mentor and advisor. Wesley made a brash decision that ultimately cost the whole team an ally and turned her into an enemy.
 
Cohen said:
What was Faith's age in season 3? I always felt like she was older than Buffy. Like she may have been called at 17, but she was 18 at the time she came to Sunnydale. She appeared more mature. In her first appearance, as she's taking a tour of the school with Willow and Xander, she says "If I had friends like you... well, I still would have dropped out, but I'd have felt sad about it". In most US schools, you have to be at least 17 to drop out of school. I believe it's a federal law that says children under 17 have to attend school.
Click to expand...

Everything I have come across seems to suggest she was about a year younger than Buffy. But I am not sure if that was ever mentioned in the show.
 
Plasma
Plasma
YOUNGER???
I remember 16 being the age in the late '00s. I was part of Generations X-Y boundary, where dropping out of High school was still a viable, albeit ill-advised career move in the late 90s. Indeed, the stats say 11% to 6% today. Although, I suspect that has less to do with progress, and more to do with whom wasn't having children in the mid-00s.
 
@Plasma Maybe Faith was... precocious? Precocious, yes, let's go with that.

It is really hard to judge the age of a lot of the characters going by appearance. I mean, Charisma is practically the same age as Robia! SMG and Michelle were the only ones who were teens at any point when their characters were supposed to be.

@Cohen Ah, so she was younger than SMG then!
 
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Cohen
Cohen
Eliza was 18 when she played Faith.
To Giles’s credit, I think there’s a lot of contributing factors.
  1. The conclusion of Season 2 left a lot of problems for the Scooby gang to resolve or deal with. It’s worth noting that at this point, Giles is dealing with the intense trauma of having Jenny murdered and posed in his bed by someone that he had considered a friend/ally beforehand. Oh, and he was also tortured for hours at the hands of Angelus and Drusilla, the details of which we never really find out (thankfully). There’s a lot of PTSD there I’m sure and a lot of personal problems for him to deal with.
  2. Buffy ran away and left everyone to clean up the mess of Season 2. Giles and the Scoobies have been swamped trying to keep the Hellmouth dealt with so as not to lead to the end of the world. This adds a potential additional level of him feeling as though he somehow went “wrong” with Buffy.
  3. He discovers that his torturer and the murderer of his love is not only alive, but being aided and abetted by the one person whose job it is to kill such creatures. There is a severe break in trust.
  4. Add on to all of this that the last time a second slayer showed up, she was murdered in Giles’s own library. His sanctum sanctorum!
I would actually almost argue that there is a background plot of Giles dealing with his own perceived failure or the fallibility of the council. He is Buffy’s Watcher and yet everything that has happened since he has assumed the position has ended poorly, whether that be in the death of Buffy herself or of trusted allies in the fight against evil. I think another element that contributes to all of this is one that isn’t really considered a big deal: Gwendolyn Post.

Post was a Watcher whom he trusted because “hey this is all how this works, so I trust the system.” Turns out that Post not only betrayed them all, but almost killed the Slayer and caused massive issues for the group in the long term in regards to her treatment of Faith. Now, not only is Giles’s own teaching of Buffy thrown into question, but we also have a potential corruption of the Council itself. Add on to that point the episode Helpless, wherein adhering to Council regulations almost gets Buffy slaughtered like a lamb and it’s no wonder Giles doesn’t do anything with Faith.

The man has so much on his plate in Season 3 to begin with, let alone the increasingly apparent failure of the organization he works for and believes in, and his obligations to his post are gradually abandoned in favor of being what he feels he needs to be in order to actually help Buffy succeed: a father.

When you look at it that way, Faith’s abandonment and alienation makes more sense. He doesn’t care for her like Buffy because he simply doesn’t have the capacity at the moment to do so, and any “job obligations” to take care of someone who is seemingly independent begin to wane when the failings of the Council become more and more apparent.
 
I don't think Giles was ever that guy even for Buffy- he definitely loved Buffy as a daughter but we never saw him fully step into the role of a father to her imo. This becomes clear once Joyce dies/in season 6- Buffy is 20/21 and has a house but is clearly struggling and if Hank was around and cared he wouldn't do what Giles did, he would probably take responsibilty for Dawn and the house. So that's my standards for a father and I don't think Giles met that standard for Buffy.
So taking that into account I don't think about how Giles did nothing for Faith that often nowadays because he didn't even personally care for Faith.
 
Season 6 &7 Giles is a different animal from S1-5. There are situations in your twenties where the safety net of parents and mentors may not be there for you, and there are situations where parents need to stand down and let the baby bird leave the nest before she can fly, and Giles becoming more distant from the Gang does reflect that. But, that needed to feel like it was happening organically, not because Giles felt like a College Junior wasn't growing up fast enough.
 
I think you raise some interesting questions. I think Faith was supposed to be only 15 when she showed up in Sunnydale. The actress Eliza Dushku was born in 1980 so she's about 3 years younger than Buffy who was about 18 at the time. So yes in the real world some adults should be concerned about Faith and see so that she doesn't live alone. But that's not how things works in the Buffyverse!

I think Giles isn't supposed to feel a father's love for the child. (Buffy) He is not supposed to be emotionally invested in his slayers. It's breaking the rules.
It was established in "Helpless" when Buffy had to be tested in time for her 18th birthday. I think that is also the reason why they replaced Giles as Buffy's watcher with Wesley.

Also let's face it the Watcher's Council doesn't care about the girls being underaged since they are most likely not expected to live until adult age. They are just a means to an end. Their mission is to slay as many vampires as possible and if they die doing that, so be it! 🙁
 
What’s really frustrating to me is Giles is an adult who went down a similar path as Faith in his youth. He might have legitimately been able to reach her if he tried, especially considering Faith’s desperate need for approval from an authority figure, but he just didn’t. Buffy who was very ill equipped tried to pick up his slack in Consequences and that was just disgraceful.
 
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