The Journals of Rupert Giles Volume 1

THE JOURNALS OF RUPERT GILES, VOL. 1

By Nancy Holder, based upon teleplays “Helpless” by David Fury, “A New Man” by Jane Espenson, and “Blood Ties” by Steven S. DeKnight (2002)

RATING: 4/5 Stakes

SETTING: Seasons Three, Four, and Five

CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, Angel, Oz, Joyce, Cordelia, Anya, Spike, Tara, Dawn, Riley, Ethan Rayne, Quentin Travers, Blair, Hobson, Kralik, Professor Walsh, Glory, Ben, Jinx

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Krathalal (demon)

BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: “Buffy Summers is hip, modern, and pop culture savvy. Rupert Giles, her Watcher, is a stuffy Brit whose idea of bliss is a good book and a strong cup of tea. Odd as the duo may be, though, they have managed to avert their fair share of apocalypses. Plural. One thing they can’t seem to conquer, however, is Buffy’s bad birthday luck. At eighteen, Buffy is subjected to a Watcher’s Council Cruciamentum, a test of her own non-physical wiles--and of Giles’s attitude toward both his charge and his calling, as well. And when the Slayerettes throw a surprise party for Buffy’s big 1-9, Giles finds himself feeling useless and out-of-the-loop-y. But it is at the Slayer’s twentieth birthday gathering that both Buffy and Giles are forced to re-examine the nature of blood ties and the definition of family--or risk losing a mutual loved one more important to them--and the fate of the word--than either ever imagined. . . .”

REVIEWVolume One of the Journals of Rupert Giles contains perhaps the cleverest framing sequence of any Buffy novelization to date. On the day of Buffy’s twentieth birthday, after Dawn has discovered that she is the Key that Glory is looking for, Giles is heartsick to think about how much pain and suffering his Slayer has endured over the past years. He decides to make a deal with the devil (or at least a demon named Krathalal): in exchange for his own blood, he wants Krathalal to protect Buffy from harm. After limiting the bargain to last only until Buffy’s next birthday, the demon decides to test how far Giles is willing to go to protect his ward. Krathalal forces Giles to read to him, from his Watcher’s Diary, the events that took place on Buffy’s eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth birthdays. In other words, Giles is forced to re-live the pain he has, to some degree, caused his own Slayer.

The first episode adapted in the novelization fits the framing sequence perfectly. In “Helpless”, Giles reluctantly agrees to take part in an ancient Watcher’s Council tradition: he must secretly drug Buffy to render her “normal” and then lock her in a house with a frenzied, insane vampire named Kralik. Of course, things never go as planned: Kralik escapes early and kidnaps Joyce, and Buffy discovers Giles complicity in the whole affair. The episode is one of the best portrayals of Buffy and Giles’ relationship, and seeing Buffy glare at Giles for betraying her, the same way she did at Jenny Calendar in Season Two, is both shocking and believable.

“A New Man” was one of the show’s periodic light episodes. The irascible Ethan Rayne comes to Sunnydale and manages to turn his friend and rival into a seven-foot tall horned demon. Although played mostly for laughs once the transformation starts, there are some poignant moments at the beginning of the episode where Giles suddenly starts to feel his age at Buffy’s birthday party, and later when he and Ethan reflect back upon their lives and what they’ve done with them.

Season Five episode “Blood Ties” is really more a story about Dawn than it is about Giles. After breaking into the Magick Box and stealing Giles’ journal, Dawn discovers that she is the cosmic Key that Glory has been hunting for all of this time. What does it mean to find out you’ve only really existed for six months? That you’re a bundle of energy shaped by monks into the form of a teenage girl? Dawn, not surprisingly, does not deal with the revelation well. One scene in particular from the episode has always stuck in my mind as one of the most stunning (and creepy) moments in Buffy history: Dawn appears in the hallway, holding a knife, blood dripping down from her arms and wrists where she has cut herself. “Is this blood?” she chokes out, “Am I real? Am I anything?” A very strong episode, even if Giles is not central to the plot.

Although it’s hard to separate out the actual episodes and the novelizations in my mind, Nancy Holder sticks to the scripts closely and uses good interior thoughts to flesh out the characters’ actions; apart from annoying spelling and punctuation errors (though far less noticeable than in the Chosen novelization), this is a strong adaptation of two excellent episodes and one good episode. The birthday theme and the framing sequence combine to make this one of the better Buffy novelizations out there.