Sophus Animus

by Fleur

Since more or less the first episode I saw ("Welcome to the Hellmouth", because I don't count that time I accidentally saw and hated "Forever" several years ago), I've absolutely adored the friendship between Xander and Giles in Buffy. It's no secret at all that I'm a very focused Xander/Giles shipper, and I'm hoping this essay at least begins to explain why.

I'm going to talk about the way their relationship shifts and changes from S1 to S7, and talk in a little more depth about different aspects of it. Sound daunting? Yeah, it does to me, too. Let's get started.

In Season One, the grounds are more or less set for the way Giles and Xander interact. Their friendship is quieter than what either of them have with the girls, but there is, I think, a mutual respect of sorts. In "The Puppet Show", Xander's the one who actually saves Giles' life, though of course, it's never really commented on. And of course, there's the fact Giles keeps Xander's secret from "The Pack". Their relationship here is never particularly focused on, but it's in the background.

Season Two, things change a lot. This is the season that people, for some reason, use as their mainline for how Xander and Giles treat each other - that is, it sees Giles doing a lot of snapping at Xander. But there's definitely more to it than that.

From the first episode, we see Xander treating Giles on more of an even level than an authority figure - his notorious nicknames begin in earnest.

XANDER: (coming down the stairs, in greeting) Yo, G-Man, what's up?
GILES: Nice to see you. Don't ever call me that.

This is something that continues through the early seasons, particularly in "Surprise". Xander makes fun of Giles a fair amount of the time, which is something we see him do to Cordelia and Anya, as well, if you want to go down that path.

In a more your-mileage-may-very sort of aspect, their relationship in Season Two can also be seen by looking at Xander's various facial expressions. Though it's certainly more open to interpretation, Xander appears to be jealous - protective of Giles? - a lot of the time Jenny's onscreen. As well as this, he does the fairly infamous kicked-puppy expression whenever Giles snaps at him. (Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and What's My Line, for example.)

As soon as Jenny dies, Xander more or less goes in to bat for Giles, defending his vendetta against Angelus. In fact, it could be said that he defends it longer than Giles himself does, because when it comes to curing Angelus, in "Becoming, Part One":

GILES: Curing Angel seems to have been Jenny's last wish.
XANDER: Yeah? Well, Jenny's dead.

That sparks the the only actual snapping match between the two of them (the closest Xander comes to lashing out at Giles like that is during his "those of us who were born with human feelings" line, and that's with far less anger behind it. Xander goes on to say, more or less, that Angelus doesn't deserved to be cured because he's a murderer. Giles doesn't say anything.

In "Becoming, Part Two", of course, Xander gets Giles out of the mansion. This would be one of the moments I consider to be very strong in regards to the Xander/Giles evidence, and it's rather a heartbreaking moment.

XANDER: Can you walk?
GILES: You're not real.
XANDER: Sure, I'm real.
GILES: It's a trick. They get inside my head, make me see things I want.
XANDER: Then why would they make you see me?
GILES: ... you're right. Let's go.

Giles' first reaction is that after Drusilla made him see Jenny, they would make him see Xander. Note, "make me see things I want", not "make me see things I want to see". Semantics-quibbling, sure, but it was a great moment. And, IMHO, Xander interprets it exactly that way as well.

So in Season Two the relationship between them matures a fair bit, ending on this note, and the insinuation at the end of the episode that Xander's been looking after Giles, and the two of them went back to the mansion to check on Acathla.

Early in Season Three ("Beauty and the Beasts") sees one of the last time Giles actually snaps at Xander - for sleeping on Oz-watching duty. From here, though, Xander and Giles' relationship changes a lot this season.

In "Revelations", it's shown that Giles actually expects Xander to do as much work as the rest of them, though Xander, naturally, doesn't react particularly well.

GILES: Oh, this is intolerable. There's not a word here about Lagos or the glove. We don't have time for this near-missing. Just find out all you can about the demon, its strengths, its weaknesses, its places of origin, and most importantly (points at Xander with his glasses), what it plans to do with this blasted glove.
XANDER: ... hey, you're not the Watcher of me.
GILES: Then go home. But if you choose to stay, then work.

Later in Revelations, you can plainly see how much Xander cares about Giles from his panic when he finds him on the floor of the office, and while Faith storms off to get revenge, Xander - who doesn't even jump to the Angel-did-this conclusions, stays because "Giles could die".

In "Consequences", we first see that Giles knows how to comfort Xander. When Buffy not-so-kindly informs him that Faith considers the guys she sleeps with "a joke", Giles quickly jumps in (oh so flustered!) to ask Xander for help with research. Considering this comes only two episodes after "The Zeppo", an episode about Xander feeling like he contributes nothing, this is exactly what Xander needs.

In "Graduation Day", we first begin to see that Giles is really valuing Xander as an equal when it comes to researching. (We also see Xander acting as Buffy's Watcher, in a way, when he talks to her about killing Faith.) They're together for the "we're gonna need a bigger boat" moment, and then at the start of Graduation Day Part Two, where Xander brings Giles coffee, they talk, and then get down to researching. Interestingly, Xander also mentions cricket - and the look of "... is that right?" on his face suggests, to me, that he's only just learned about it. Now that's a fic that someone needs to write.

So by the end of Season Three, we have Giles considering Xander as an equal, more or less, while Xander's considered Giles that way since Season Two.

In Season Four, the split in the Scoobies puts Giles and Xander together fairly often. In "The Harsh Light of Day", we see that Giles, along the lines of what he did in Consequences, has offered the unemployed-and-paying-rent-Xander a job helping him to shelve his books. We also see Giles, in the words of Television Without Pity, acting like a "jealous boyfriend" when Anya comes by to talk to Xander.

In "Beer Bad", the boys have progressed to married-couple bickering, while we also see Xander joking about Giles' past when others take it Oh So Seriously:

GILES: I can't believe you served Buffy that beer.
XANDER: I didn't know it was evil.
GILES: But you knew it was beer.
XANDER: Well excuse Mr "I spent the sixties in an electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove".
GILES: It was the early seventies, and you should know better.
XANDER: I'm not the dad of her.

Their two-vs-the-other-two continues through "The Initiative", which a lot of people consider to be the most Giles/Xandery episode in the history of ever. He's a British ex-Watcher, he's a teenager living in his parents' basement, together they fight crime! Etcetera. Personally, my favourite part of this episode comes when they're in the basement, and Giles is standing in the background reading one of Xander's comics. And, of course, Xander's mother:

XANDER: Whoever these guys trained with, I'm sure they're not ready to deal with--
JESSICA: Xander!
XANDER: ... yes, Mom!
JESSICA: I made up a nice fruit punch for you and your friend. Would you boys like some?
GILES: ... is it, ah, raspberry fruit punch?

The rest of the season is utterly strewn with Xander/Giles moments - in "Doomed", one of my favourites is when Giles is admitting that the demons finding the Word of Valios is his own fault. Xander's sitting beside him on the couch, with one hand rubbing his back, and the other resting on Giles' knee. In "A New Man", when Giles wakes up as a demon, he first goes to Xander for help. In "This Year's Girl", as anyone hanging around my livejournal will know, Giles folds Xander's underwear.

So Season Four is, overall, a season where Xander and Giles are equals, and more than that, quite good friends.

Now for "Restless". Ah, Restless. Beginning of several hundred thousand interpretations, and here's a little bit of mine.

SPIKE: Giles here is gonna teach me to be a Watcher. Says I got the stuff.
GILES: Spike's like a son to me.
XANDER: That's good. I was into that for a while, but... I got other stuff going on.

To me, that's driving home the point about the end of Season Three. Xander was, at the time, very much a Watcher-type person, and Giles valued him as such. However, between Seasons Three and Four, everything began to go downhill for him. He went through jobs, the girls abandoned him, he lost his sense of self-worth. Not a Xander/Giles note as such, but something I thought was quite neat.

Later in Xander's own dream, he finds Giles, eating an apple. Of course, biblically, an apple represents temptation, so there could be something to be said there. (The something may be that I'm an overanalysing idiot. Yay!)

Speaking of idiots, in French, Giles calls Xander an idiot. Remember in "Some Assembly Required"? Being called an idiot kinda turns Xander on?

And then, of course, Giles and Anya each take one of Xander's arms to pull him down the hall. Giles and Anya pulling Xander in different directions?

In Giles' dream, the Xander/Giles subtext continues. For one, Xander still has his injury from his own dream - the only one in the entire episode who keeps it in somebody else's dream. And then, when Anya's on stage (emphasis mine):

XANDER: Got the sucking chest wound swingin'. I promised Anya I'd be there for her big night. Now I'll probably be pushing up daisies, in the sense of being in the ground underneath them and fertilizing the soil with decomposition.
GILES: She's doing quite well.
WILLOW: (to Giles) Do you know this is your fault?

In my way of thinking, Xander's line here is talking about the wedding. Foreshadowing for the fact he's going to leave her at the altar, and that he's going to be heartbroken - or that Anya will return to vengeance, and kill him. And then Willow says that it's Giles' fault. In my opinion, another utterly blatant piece of Xander/Giles.

In Season Five, Giles' respect for Xander grows. He compliments him on how competent he seems now, and how good he is at his new job. And then of course, in The Gift, it's once again driven home how similar the two are, though I'll discuss that later.

Season Six, of course, sees Giles being quite absent for a lot of the time. It's notable that Giles doesn't attend the wedding - there's no canonical reason given. The reason I tend to use in fiction is that it would have been far too hard to see Buffy (and the others) and leave again. And the wedding falls apart, which could be, as Willow predicted, Giles' fault for not being there.

Then Giles comes back and Willow drains his power, Xander saves the world, and Giles knows. The smile on his face when he says that Xander saved them all is just a lovely thing to behold.

In Season Seven, we have Giles acting strangely in order to be a mislead of the First. (Did anyone actually buy that?) But after that, there's some lovely Xander/Giles bits. In "The Killer In Me", Xander looks absolutely devastated when he thinks that Giles has been killed - unsurprisingly, but there are people out there who refuse to believe that Xander cares about Giles in the least. And of course, we hear from Dawn that Giles reacted to Xander's eye loss with a joke - which is a very Xandery reaction in itself. In "Chosen", there's the game of Dungeons and Dragons, which brings to mind that comic reading right back during "The Initiative".

And of course, there's Giles' snapping in "First Date" - not just at Xander but at all of them, reacting badly to Xander joking about his orientation. Oh, Giles.

So over seven seasons, Xander and Giles' relationship grows and changes a lot, and I believe by the end, they've finally settled into being equals.

One major part of Xander and Giles' relationship in canon is the physical aspect. The two of them seem to have no personal space issues whatsoever. It's impossible, of course, to list every instance of this in canon, but there's many. The clap on the shoulder in "The Pack", through standing too close at the end of "Becoming Part Two", in Giles' apartment in "Revelations". In "Doppelgangland", Xander touches Giles' lower back after the latter hugs Willow, and his hand remains there until the shot changes. Giles touches Xander's chest in congratulations in "Graduation Day Part Two", they sit far too close together at the end of "Beer Bad". In "The Weight of the World", Xander even helps Giles to put his jacket on. These sorts of moments are absolutely *continual*, and it's quite obvious.

Of course, there are also a lot of similarities between the two of them. I've already mentioned, several times, the hints of Xander as a Watcher, and that's another essay for another time. But they also often take one side against the girls (particularly on the issue of Angel(us) - Revelations, Graduation Day Part Two, etcetera) - and, of course, as I've mentioned many times, during "The Gift". Xander's the first to suggest killing Ben, though he then goes back on it - while Giles is the one to do it. In Seasons Six and Seven, when Giles is absent, in many ways Xander seems to take on his roles - the patriach of the Summers family, and right down to little aspects like driving slowly.

And then there's what I consider to be allusions. In "The Initiative", Xander is shown as a joking reflection of Ethan, in a way:

GILES: Once again, I'd say that you and I will not be needed to help Buffy.
XANDER: Really?
GILES: Really.
XANDER: Well, how about this? We whip out the ouija board, light a few candles, summon some ancient, unstoppable evil. Mayhem, mayhem, mayhem. We show up and kick its ass.
GILES: Wee bit unethical.

It seems that most people consider Giles/Ethan as a backstory to be quite canonical, and with that in mind, Xander's reflection of him is rather nifty. And, of course, with Season Four's Magic = Gay Sex! metaphor, it's quite a nice one. (And Xander being reflected from one of Giles' partners is also rather nice - he's got the same dark eyes / dark hair thing that Jenny, Olivia and Ms French - who he was at least attracted to in passing - did. Xander's quite Giles' type.)

Another allusion that I, personally, love, is during Season Five's "I Was Made To Love You".

TARA: Do you have any books on robots?
GILES: Oh, yes, dozens. There's an enormous amount of research we should do before -- no, I'm lying, I haven't got squat. I just like to see Xander squirm.
XANDER: Funny. Charming and funny.

Compare this to Jenny and Giles during "The Dark Age":

JENNY: I'm lying, Rupert. The book's fine.I just love to see you squirm.
GILES: Yes, well, I, uh... trust I gave good... squirm.

With Jenny and Giles it was rather obviously a sexual allusion, so for the Xander/Giles line to mirror it just seems right. And Xander called Giles charming and funny, however sarcastically. Any surprise that it's another of my top canon moments?

The bottom line is, I find it very hard to believe when people say that Giles never cared about Xander (or Xander about Giles) anywhere in canon. I really hope this essay showed at least *some* of the background I draw on when I think about shipping these two, because I think there's a lot that somehow goes entirely un-noticed.

Thanks for reading.



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