Here's a thought: Giles' and Willow's central internal conflicts over the series are very similar. They're both characters who think they know a great deal, who amass knowledge through studies, and end up having to learn how to unlearn and figure out instead. Their brains are full of a prioris that Must Not Be Challenged, unlike Buffy who tends to look at things fresh and then decide how she feels about them ("Note to self: religion freaky."). Giles and Willow deal with this in different ways - Giles more gradually and less drastically, but also far less in general; he never has his entire belief system shaken to its core the way Willow does several times.
Ooh, I like that, and it also hints at the fundamental difference between the abstraction people and the living-in-the-world thing that Buffy does easily. Giles and Willow's abstractions are different -- computers don't have smell, after all -- but they both have Ideas about the world that are more fundamentally ingrained and that are easier to deal with, and live within, for them than it is for Buffy who is always really a part of her surroundings. Well, not always -- because she also cuts herself off from them; but even then she is living in a different kind of present reality.
This isn't always a good thing for Buffy -- because Buffy lives very much in the Now and lives in the world, she accepts certain baseline facts about the social order that are not based on Ideas but realities. So there is a mild Cordelia side to her and some popular girl entitlement, as well as some majorly trusting her instincts as a slayer in ways that usually steer her right but occasionally lead her into fight-hunt-down mode (e.g. against Faith). She also doesn't really HAVE to present arguments for moral truths that she knows exists, so that when she has to be put in the position of communicating the things she's internalized over the years, she often falls short (e.g. her speeches to the Potentials which can never really get to the central issue). Buffy can find herself focusing on the necessity of Making Pie while Giles and Willow yell at each other over moral concepts that they've already decided well before the current Chumach situation has sprung up. But meanwhile, that means that Buffy never loses herself the way Willow does and Giles did in the past. She can never disconnect from her reality that strongly: she can only actually go far off course if something messes with her instincts as a person and a slayer, like Ted being a robot or Faith threatening her lover, or her having a vampire lover, or the Trio messing with her internals with demon poison putting her in a mental hospital. She is never so far away from where she actually is; emotionally she can be cut off, but intellectually I don't think she is that far away. She can't look Ben in the face and kill him when he's sitting there helpless. Willow and Giles can be intellectually miles from their reality, and can threaten to re-Key Dawn because energy is better than people or drug Buffy because Council Edict #1732. In a fundamental way, Buffy is Buffy, and while she changes over time, and makes big mistakes, she never...really flies out of orbit, the way Willow does and the way Giles flirts with.
I think Anya is another person who fits into this, though it's comical in the extreme with her: she seizes onto a few simple philosophies and then bases her identity around them (vengeance! communism! capitalism! marriage!) until she realizes that none of them, alone, actually work.
Apparently this alone got Really Long so another comment-reply forthcoming.
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Date: 2012-10-21 02:27 am (UTC)Ooh, I like that, and it also hints at the fundamental difference between the abstraction people and the living-in-the-world thing that Buffy does easily. Giles and Willow's abstractions are different -- computers don't have smell, after all -- but they both have Ideas about the world that are more fundamentally ingrained and that are easier to deal with, and live within, for them than it is for Buffy who is always really a part of her surroundings. Well, not always -- because she also cuts herself off from them; but even then she is living in a different kind of present reality.
This isn't always a good thing for Buffy -- because Buffy lives very much in the Now and lives in the world, she accepts certain baseline facts about the social order that are not based on Ideas but realities. So there is a mild Cordelia side to her and some popular girl entitlement, as well as some majorly trusting her instincts as a slayer in ways that usually steer her right but occasionally lead her into fight-hunt-down mode (e.g. against Faith). She also doesn't really HAVE to present arguments for moral truths that she knows exists, so that when she has to be put in the position of communicating the things she's internalized over the years, she often falls short (e.g. her speeches to the Potentials which can never really get to the central issue). Buffy can find herself focusing on the necessity of Making Pie while Giles and Willow yell at each other over moral concepts that they've already decided well before the current Chumach situation has sprung up. But meanwhile, that means that Buffy never loses herself the way Willow does and Giles did in the past. She can never disconnect from her reality that strongly: she can only actually go far off course if something messes with her instincts as a person and a slayer, like Ted being a robot or Faith threatening her lover, or her having a vampire lover, or the Trio messing with her internals with demon poison putting her in a mental hospital. She is never so far away from where she actually is; emotionally she can be cut off, but intellectually I don't think she is that far away. She can't look Ben in the face and kill him when he's sitting there helpless. Willow and Giles can be intellectually miles from their reality, and can threaten to re-Key Dawn because energy is better than people or drug Buffy because Council Edict #1732. In a fundamental way, Buffy is Buffy, and while she changes over time, and makes big mistakes, she never...really flies out of orbit, the way Willow does and the way Giles flirts with.
I think Anya is another person who fits into this, though it's comical in the extreme with her: she seizes onto a few simple philosophies and then bases her identity around them (vengeance! communism! capitalism! marriage!) until she realizes that none of them, alone, actually work.
Apparently this alone got Really Long so another comment-reply forthcoming.