Too close to his slayer?

[Chasing Cordy]

I'm not too keen to the whole slayer myth and the Buffy-World, but it seems that Giles has this huge closeness to Buffy that borders on the "so wrong" level. At least up to the popular musical episode.

I don't think a watcher is supposed to be that close to his slayer, but maybe that's his style and approach.

While I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I do know that it's not right. The question is when did this transformation from "watcher" to "father figure" take place? This clearly is not normal.
Then you have the Wesley/Cordelia thing from season III and into Angel's series...

(and I like both sets of characters, so I'm not beating them up).

 

[The Arcane]

What you need to appreciate is that nothing about Buffy was particularly normal for a slayer. She may have struggled to make it all work but she had a close group of friends, she had a school and college life, she had an attitude towards slaying that was entirely unique in it's approach.

Giles clearly tried to establish the usual Watcher/slayer relationship early on in the show but eventually just accepted that Buffy would not respond to the usual rules and regulations. Once he allowed himself to become closer to Buffy as a friend then it was only natural that the two natures of his relationship with her, as Watcher and as a friend, would combine into that of a father figure. Especially as her true father was not around to fill that role.

Obviously this was not acceptable to the Council, as seen by Giles' firing in Helpless and the comments made by Quentin Travers, but it was far from being anything "wrong" in my mind. Simply a natural progression of the relationship shared by Buffy and Giles.

Not sure where you are coming from with the Wesley/Cordy thing though. What does that have to do with anything?

 

[Wicked]

I think although the council considered it "wrong", it was a very healthy relationship. Buffy actually listened to Giles and respected his opinion. I think its unnatural and wrong for them to spend all that time together and not be close. Giles helped Buffy more because she loved him like a father. She treated him like one (most of the time anyway) and that made her a better slayer. When wes was her watcher, she went against everything he said and look what happened.

well, you get the point.

 

[eponinethen]

One of the reasons this show is about Buffy and not one of the other slayers, is because Buffy wasn't like other slayers (as The Watcher pointed out), and I'm sure it was unusual to have such a close relationship to your watcher.. but I just love that part, and it wouldn't be BtVS without that..