What did Joyce mean?

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paks

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When in the ep Anne she told Giles that she blamed him, after he told her not to blame herself for Buffy running away. I have always wondered about this line, as I thought she was throwing all of the blame for Buffy running away on Giles. But I am not sure that is the case. So I would love to hear all of your theories about what she meant.
 
She says something like, "You had this secret relationship with her and I didn't know." I think she meant that Giles represented slaying and the whole gig, so to her, if Giles had just left her alone and not have approached her as her watcher, she wouldn't have gotten caught up with the whole thing including Angel. Here she is very ignorant of the situation, she has no idea how lenient Giles is with her and that slaying and the occult isn't this black and white thing. It is her destinny, and Joyce had yet to really accept that about Buffy. So it was easier to just blame Giles for the whole business and "dragging" Buffy into the occult.

It's late, I hope that made sense.
 
I think Abby pretty much covered it... I think she blamed Giles for Buffy being the slayer... Joyce knew Buffy running away had something to do with her position as slayer and therefore she blamed Giles.
 
I'm think she felt so bad and that there was more she could have done herself so she needed to make herself feel better by putting the blame on someone else and poor Giles was perfect because he was her Watcher, as Abby said he roped her into Slaying again so he was an easy one to blame.
 
I thought she was pretty clear about meaning that she thought Giles put too much pressure on her with her Slayer duties, and thinking that her Slayer duties drove her over the edge.
 
I agree with what has been said so far, but I also think lashing out at Giles was Joyce's way of coping with all her own pain and concerns about her own parenting abilities. Blaming Giles was easier than looking at her own shortcomings as a mother.
 
Joyce knew that she was the reason Buffy left. She told her that if she walked out the door, she wasn't to come back, and Joyce feels incredibly guilty about that. So she needed to force the blame onto someone else, and Giles was the easiest person, because he knew about Buffy's life, but Joyce felt like Giles helped Buffy hide that part of her life from Joyce, even though Joyce had no real idea of what Buffy's like actually consisted of.

Also, if we think about it, although it was never mentioned at the time, Joyce had Buffy sectioned because Buffy told her vampires were real and that she was Chosen to fight them. She thought her daughter was crazy so she had her put into an institution. I imagine the guilt Joyce was feeling was unbareble and she needed someone else to blame besides herself. Willow, Xander and Cordelia were kids, Angel was in a hell dimension, so Giles was the only one she could blame.
 
I think that Joyce was confused. She blamed herself for telling Buffy not to come back, but she thought "how could this be my fault, i haven't encouraged this slaying!"
And she blamed Giles, because Giles was buffy's watcher, and he was in charge of all her slaying. She thought that if Giles had never encouraged her slaying, buffy would still be there.
 
I always got the impression that when Joyce says "You had this secret relationship with her behind my back" she was implying that Buffy's reasons for leaving were attached to her "Slaying Life", in which Giles was the "Parent" and that he should have foreseen Buffy's unhappiness and prevented her running away. And thus implying that she wasn't to blame for Buffy being gone.

She needed someone to blame and Giles was the best choice.
 
Though we didn't find out until later that Buffy had undergone psychological treatment previously because of the "imaginary" monsters and vampires that she kept seeing and dreaming about. With that in mind, I would think that she was blaming Giles for exploiting those fantasies, building on them, and using them as some kind of method for dragging Buffy into the Slayer's world. We know, now, that it was exactly the opposite. The Slayer isn't something that Buffy, or any other Chosen One, either does by choice or is recruited into. It's something that they simply are, as integral as their eye color or skin tone. Joyce had no way of understanding that at the time, and, frankly, I seriously doubt that she ever fully grasped the fact. At the very best, I think that she just decided to support her daughter in whatever she chose as her life's work.
 
I really thought she was very straight forward in what she meant. She was blaming Giles for having a secret relationship and encouraging her to fight these demons and vampires. I didn't agree with her though, I just felt she was blaming Giles because she wasn't as involved in her own daughters life as she should have been.
 
I've always thought it was she blamed him because he supported her being the Slayer and ricking her life all the time. Now she's lost her daughter and here's someone who pushed Buffy to have to make these hard decisions.
 
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