I agree that Giles doesn't necessarily want Willow to stand trial (or at least, that's the impression I got from the fic) -- but, on some level, he thinks that is how the world works, and he also knows why the world tends to work like that.
I think that the other subtext I was feeling is that Giles defending Willow at her trial and publicly admitting he did wrong would be a form of redemption for him -- and the fact that the Coven has already outpaced him means he doesn't get to play the benevolent part he's worked hard to envision for himself. Maybe it'd even be a way to show Willow that he's not the hypocrite she said he was in Grave. But Willow (and Buffy) will love him for who he is regardless.
ETA: I don't know if you know mefistopheles/Mark Field, but he's been doing episode analyses over at unpaidsophistry.blogspot.ca. I had occasion to quote you today about Willow, and there was some discussion of Giles in OMWF, who I think reads to me like he is on that knife edge still -- he's right that Buffy needs to make her own mistakes, but wrong that life should be treated like a Cruciamentum which he kind of does there. But I think that saying Giles is unequivocally wrong to leave Buffy (which neither he nor I say, but which many fans do) is not quite right, either.
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Date: 2012-10-18 05:46 pm (UTC)I think that the other subtext I was feeling is that Giles defending Willow at her trial and publicly admitting he did wrong would be a form of redemption for him -- and the fact that the Coven has already outpaced him means he doesn't get to play the benevolent part he's worked hard to envision for himself. Maybe it'd even be a way to show Willow that he's not the hypocrite she said he was in Grave. But Willow (and Buffy) will love him for who he is regardless.
ETA: I don't know if you know mefistopheles/Mark Field, but he's been doing episode analyses over at unpaidsophistry.blogspot.ca. I had occasion to quote you today about Willow, and there was some discussion of Giles in OMWF, who I think reads to me like he is on that knife edge still -- he's right that Buffy needs to make her own mistakes, but wrong that life should be treated like a Cruciamentum which he kind of does there. But I think that saying Giles is unequivocally wrong to leave Buffy (which neither he nor I say, but which many fans do) is not quite right, either.