On this planet of the present, Giles is a Watcher, a elaborate identify for Buffy’s assigned guardian, the individual meant to teach and practice her in all of the methods of being a Slayer. A prim, tweed-wearing librarian, the character leans into all of Head’s inherent Britishness: A dry remark, a pointed eyeroll. Giles initially appears to be one thing of a relic, the onscreen stand-in for an rigid, incessantly archaic system that refuses to see the ladies they practice as something greater than an obligation to be managed or a weapon to be solid. However that was by no means who Giles was, as a result of Head’s emotionally advanced efficiency all the time centered the character’s most human traits. A mentor who sees Buffy as an individual, not merely as a Slayer, he comes to like her for all of the issues that make her herself, not the supernatural skills that make her distinctive.
Sure, Giles is a succesful mentor, a strolling library of vampire enjoyable info and deep-cut supernatural lore who helps Buffy and her pals resolve a myriad of harmful issues. However in contrast to many basic authority figures within the style house, he isn’t overly stoic, inflexible, or eliminated. For all his magic and historic data, Giles doesn’t all the time have all of the solutions, and should discover his personal option to navigate love, loss, and failure in a lot the identical approach Buffy and her pals do. (Simply with much less homework and/or extracurricular actions.)
Humanized by his ex-rebel with a darkish magic previous and susceptible in a approach that few males on TV throughout this time interval have been allowed to be, Giles incessantly second-guesses himself, acts selfishly, and makes errors, typically all inside the identical episode. But he’s additionally Buffy’s staunchest supporter and advocate, not solely ready to die for her (season 1’s “Prophecy Woman”), however kill for her if want be (season 5’s “The Reward”). And Head makes all of it look easy, deftly shifting between real sincerity, fierce protectiveness, and the biting humor that gave him most of the present’s most memorable one-liners.
Buffy’s precise dad, Hank Summers, solely seems a handful of occasions on the present — and a kind of episodes takes place in an alternate actuality and subsequently doesn’t actually matter — so it is smart that Giles finally turns into a kind of surrogate stand-in, each a father determine and a trusted confidante who pushes the Slayer to develop into her finest self with out asking her to sacrifice the spirit that makes her so particular. It’s evident from very early on that Buffy is crucial individual in Giles’ life, and their relationship finally varieties the emotional coronary heart of the present. Say what you need in regards to the (nonetheless ongoing!) debate about who Buffy ought to have ended up with romantically — Group Angel, for the file, but it surely actually doesn’t matter — her most necessary relationship was all the time the one she shared together with her Watcher, and the nice and cozy, lived-in chemistry between Head and Gellar carried over into each interplay between the pair, whether or not it was Giles making a idiot of himself for Buffy’s profit or refusing to guage her for making the identical form of reckless teenage selections he as soon as did.
In some ways, Anthony Head didn’t simply play a father determine to Buffy Summers on TV; he stuffed an analogous function within the hearts of most of the impressionable younger nerds watching alongside at residence throughout Buffy’s heyday. Don’t all of us nonetheless want we had a Giles in our personal lives — fiercely protecting, affected person, endlessly loving and dependable, most particularly if and after we most likely don’t deserve it? Now we have the actor who introduced him to life to thank for that, and the efficiency helped educate us stand in opposition to the forces of darkness within the first place.
