Public character profiles

** I couldn't see Willow in particular enrolling Chaeli and then convieniently forgetting about her poverty-striken family, so figure that she (or someone else connected to the situation) would have seen to it that they were taken care of.

Although the Scooby Gang joked that he wore tweed diapers as a child, Giles was in fact a rebellious youth, rejecting his responsibility as a Watcher and dropping out of Oxford University, where he was studying history, when he was twenty-one. During this time, Giles claimed to be a founding member of Pink Floyd in order to impress girls, and may have delved into criminal activity (he remarks that hot-wiring a car is "like riding a bloody bicycle"). He is a talented singer and guitar player.

He began to explore dark magics and befriended a group of young people who delved into the dark arts for fun or money: Ethan Rayne, Philip Henry, Dierdre Page, Thomas Sutcliff, and Randall. Giles gained the nickname "Ripper" during this time. Together, the group summoned a particularly grotesque demon called Eyghon, who would eventually murder Randall. Following Randall's death, Ethan and the others failed to exorcise Eyghon, and Giles accepted his destiny of becoming a Watcher. Before becoming a fully-fledged Watcher, he also worked as the curator of a British museum.

At the behest of the Watchers' Council, Giles travels to Sunnydale, California, and worked as the librarian at the local high school. There he met Buffy Summers, whom he began training. The library sat right above the Hellmouth.

He was a father figure to Buffy and an advisor to her friends Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg. He makes a "weird cluck-cluck sound with his tongue" when he is angry but "too English to say anything".

He admits to being technophobic, a fact which often brought him into conflict with technopagan and computer science teacher, Jenny Calendar. However, after Jenny aided him in casting the demon Moloch out of the Internet, the pair reached an understanding and began a romantic relationship.

Giles felt betrayed when Jenny revealed she was actually a member of the Kalderash gypsy clan, sent to keep an eye on Buffy's relationship with the Angel. When Angel lost his soul and murdered Jenny, leaving her corpse for Giles to find in his apartment, Giles sought revenge by burning down Angelus' home. Angelus later kidnapped and tortured him, and Drusilla hypnotized him into thinking she was Jenny, so he would reveal how to awake Acathla.

Giles briefly served as Watcher for Kendra's replacement Slayer, Faith Lehane.

In a battle with the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale, Giles pressed the trigger which destroys the Mayor and Sunnydale High, putting himself out of a job.

When Ethan Rayne cast a spell on Giles which turned him into a Fyarl demon, he had to enlist Spike's help to escape the Initiative and Buffy, who believed him to be a demon who murdered Giles. However, Buffy later realized from his eyes and "annoyed" expression that he was in fact Giles, and Ethan was taken into custody by the Initiative. In order to defeat the cyber-demonoid Adam, Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles cast a spell to combine their strength. Giles provided the "mind", and Buffy is able to defeat Adam.

When the owner of The Magic Box is killed by vampires, Giles was convinced by the shop's high profit margins to buy it, and he hired Anya as his overtly enthusiastic assistant. Buffy discovered that her sister, Dawn Summers, was actually the Key; mystical energy in human form to protect it from the hell-god Glory. Buffy initially confided only in Giles about Dawn's true nature, and he decided to contact the Watchers' Council for more information about Glory. Quentin Travers blackmailed Buffy into obeying the Council's demands, and he threatened to have Giles deported if she did not comply. Buffy stood up to the Council, informing them that they will release all information concerning Glory to them, and will re-instate Giles as her official Watcher, to be paid retroactively from the month he was fired. Travers reluctantly agreed, and left.

It was revealed that Glory shared her body with an innocent human male called Ben, and could be killed if Ben died. In the final battle against Glory, Buffy decided to spare Ben's life, but Giles was less merciful. Explaining that Buffy is a hero and therefore different from them, he suffocated Ben with his bare hands.

Several months after Buffy's death, Giles decided to return to England. On the very day he left, Willow, Xander, Anya and Tara resurrected Buffy, and he came back as soon as he heard of this. Despite being overjoyed to have Buffy back, he was furious at Willow for invoking such dark magic, and angrily dismissed her as "a rank, arrogant amateur." As Buffy begins to over-rely on Giles for financial and emotional support, he decides that his presence is preventing her assuming responsibility for her own life. He leaves again for his native England, moving to a place near Bath, where he works with a powerful local coven.

A few months later, Tara was killed by a stray bullet as Warren Mears attacked Buffy. Willow, still recovering from an addiction to dark magic, suffered a relapse, killed Warren, and attempted to kill his former partners in crime, before resolving to end humanity's pain (and her own) by destroying the world. Hearing about a dark power rising in Sunnydale, Giles teleported back there, wielding great magical power borrowed from the Devon Coven. As Dark Willow boasted of her indestructibility, Giles knocked her to the floor with a blast of magic energy, stating "I'd like to test that theory". Knowing that Willow is too strong, he tricked her into draining him of his magicks, which brought him near death. It also allowed Xander to reason with Willow as the good magic brought out her natural love and compassion, eating away at the evil within her. Giles returned to England with Willow for her rehabilitation. A few months later, he brought Potential Slayers to Sunnydale to protect them from the First Evil and its Bringers. Giles had removed a few volumes from the headquarters of the Watchers' Council.

Giles later lost Buffy's trust somewhat when he took part in a scheme with Robin Wood to kill Spike.

He now is head of the Slayer School in Cleveland, and is working to reform the Watchers' Council, wanting to change a lot of the outdated training methods.