Watcher: Choice or Chosen?

The Chosen

The Chosen

Time is all around
Joined
Dec 29, 2006
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Sineya
From what I can remember, I can't remember if this was ever stated on the show(s). Was Giles CHOSEN to be a Watcher, or could he have made the decision to do something else, like be a florist or something?

???
 
His dad sort of forced him to. I'm not sure about other people, if they tend to choose it or if they're forced into it.
 
I was always under the impression that it either ran in the family (Giles and his father and Grandmother, Wesley and his father) or they were 'selected' from elite schools. Like, the ones who showed the most promise were taken out from certain schools they 'monitored', asked if they wanted to transfer to a 'specialist' school. The ones who passed all their tests went onto the Watcher's Academy, the ones who didn't went back to normal school.
 
Angelic Slayer
Angelic Slayer
I saw it the same way. The Slayer is such a secret, I doubt anyone would know about watchers to "want to be one"
here's the quote from 'never kill a boy on the first date', if it helps:

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.
Click to expand...
 
And then he told us in "The Dark Age" that his Ripper thing was when he ran away from Watcher School.
 
L
Lindsey McDonald
I don't know why, but "Watcher School" makes me laugh! Possibly because I'm imagining hundreds of tiny 5 year old Giles and Wesleys running around wearing glasses and tweed.
Hmmm...I think it's less 'No choice' than a Slayer but I think it is that same amount of destiny involved. If you are meant to be a Watcher then it is a Watcher you shall be.
I mean the way Giles ran away from his destiny can be compared to Buffy in the time between Becoming and Anne. Both ran away from their calling only to find they had no choice but to return to it.
Also in The Dark Age Willow Xander and Buffy have a discussion about Giles being a Watcher and Willow asked 'How do you think he does it?' and Buffy replies solemnly, and empathically, 'I don't think he has a choice'.
 
I think it is both. For people like Giles and Wesley, they were obviously chosen to be Watchers due to their family lineage. But I think someone like Mrs. Post, it was choice.
 
I think it's like becoming a lawyer. yeah, you can decide that you want to be a lawyer, or you can be forced into it because your father is a lawyer, his father was a lawyer and his father was a lawyer and so on. In Giles and Wesley's case, they came from a long line of "lawyers." But I don't think that every watcher is decided on heritage.
 
I kinda think of the council like a fraternity, only with tweed.

Generations of your family can be in the fraternity, which means you get to be in the fraternity. Or if you find out about the fraternity some how, there's a hazing process to getting in, but you'll never been a high up on the foodchain as someone who was born into it.

It's gotta be though, I mean, how else can you fund and manage a world wide organisation that fights demons while still seeming respectable?
 
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