#thank you buffy in lie to me for that wisdom nugget

[ssaalexblake]

and i do think there should have been waaaaaaay more tension from Dawn aimed at Giles. Dawn gets abandoned by her father and realistically will have as many issues from that as Buffy did, except Buffy who is already supernaturally special and older and cooler than her actually gets another built in father figure actively Because of that specialness and Dawn is... Nobody again. And then Joyce dies. And then Buffy. And Dawn's not worth sticking around for when Buffy ain't there, anyway. Never mind that he Did actually look after her and know her just to up and leave like Hank did, except this time it's not a 'he abandoned us both' it's an 'i just don't mean anything and you did'. And yes it does bother me that he left Dawn in the care of four incompetents (in regards to childcare, they Suck, I am still angry at them all), a reprogrammed sexbot, and Spike. As another adult, i am judging the fuck out of this guy.

(I am aware he later leaves Buffy, but Dawn doesn't exactly know that's going to happen at that point.)

There is a Reason a vengeance demon ends up in that house and the roots of this problem reach far and wide and Giles never gets namechecked in this all and really Should be, because if the writer's had spent a second of thought on this, i'm pretty sure the logical conclusion would be him playing a hell of a role in the birth of Dawn's issues.

He did not Have to stick around, he didn't Have to have any kind of relationship with Dawn, but realistically that would have made her both hate him and desperately strive for his approval at the same time.

Basically I think that narratively Giles is kind of Dawn's deadbeat dad, and that they should have actually explored that.