Buffy/Giles

:For the non-romantic relationship see Buffy & Giles.
Buffy/Giles is a noncanonical het pairing between Buffy Summers and her Watcher, Rupert Giles, from the tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Very much a marmite pairing, it's perhaps the most popular pairing for Giles.
==Nomenclature==
The pairing name is usually given Buffy first (unusually for a het pairing), and is only very rarely smooshed. The most common abbreviation is B/G; shippers are sometimes referred to as "BeeGees".
 
==Canon==
Buffy & Giles have a close relationship in canon, with Giles not only leading & teaching Buffy, but also acting as her mentor & father figure in place of the absent Hank. He has a (temporary) canonical liaison with her mother Joyce under one of those pesky revert-to-teenhood spells. In later seasons, their relationship becomes more equal, after he's fired as her Watcher, and particularly after her mother's death when they end up sharing parental-type responsibility for her younger sister, Dawn. Giles appears to (platonically) love Buffy (his worst nightmare is her being turned into a vampire) and she, at least in early seasons, clearly relies on him, respects him & trusts him.
Later seasons were not kind to the pairing. Giles's decision in S6 "Tabula Rasa" to leave Buffy and return to England when she's clearly in need of support was not popular among his fans, and the ensuing rift was never completely healed in canon.
==Fannish Opinion==
==Fandom==
Buffy/Giles is probably the most popular pairing for Giles.The Giles Writer's Zone: Guide to Giles Shipper Fiction (accessed 16 September 2014) Though never as prevalent as Buffy/Angel or Buffy/Spike, it was a fairly common alternative pairing in the mid-seasons of the show.To the extent that the 18,177 works at Archive of Our Own as of 15 September 2014 are representative of the fandom, there are 2293 works tagged Spike/Buffy, 849 Angel/Buffy, 476 Giles/Buffy & 441 Faith/Buffy Jedi Penguin states the ship set sail after the third season episode "The Prom", which first aired in 1999.
Some fans shipped the two in a purely gen relationship, and they and many others found the pairing a squick for various reasons including the age difference, Buffy being underage (she's 16 when they meet), Giles being Buffy's teacher, immediate superior in what amounts to a war-zone & especially her father figure, and the canonical relationship between Giles and her mother. Jedi Penguin, in her 2004 Shipper's Manifesto essay, calls it probably the most reviled pairing in the Buffyverse, adding I'm not sure that there is a single BGer out there who hasn't received at least one ship-based flame by a reviewer who never bothered to read the fic in question. She devotes much of the manifesto to refuting the But he’s her dad! argument.ship-manifesto: The Perfect Thing: Buffy/Giles from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (accessed 15 September 2014)
Other fans found it a turn on for much the same reasons, plus Giles' all-round hotness, the Little Black (Leather) Dress qualities of Ripper-Giles & their perceived onscreen chemistry.Creator Joss Whedon is said to have acknowledged this from the incident in the first episode where Giles leans over Buffy's shoulder in the Bronze; see ship-manifesto: The Perfect Thing: Buffy/Giles from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (accessed 15 September 2014) Adherents of the pairing stress that Buffy's two canonical vampire boyfriends are both a century or more older than Giles. As Buffy became more experienced in sex & life, the pairing became less transgressive, and possibly less popular, though the Spuffy bus had a tendency to squash other het pairings in the later fandom. Post-"Tabula Rasa" the pairing became more difficult to justify from canon. The uptick of popularity of teacher–pupil ships in the Harry Potter fandom after the release of the first film in 2001 might also have contributed to a change in the way the pairing was considered.
==Fanworks & Tropes==
The Buffy/Giles pairing has spawned fic in a multitude of different genres, from angst to erotica, romance to comedy, to adventure and drama, according to The Giles Writer's Zone. Relatively few works are set before Buffy's 18th birthday.At least in 2004; Jedi Penguin ascribes this both to lack of Buffy/Giles shipping before the third season episode "The Prom" and to many lists not accepting underage stories Common tropes include variants on Magic Made Them Do It, including sex magic, especially when set early enough that Buffy is a virgin, and Green Card marriage of convenience stories. Some stories explore the mystical bond between Slayer and Watcher, often giving it a sexual dimension. There are a few Ripper AUs. 
In erotic stories, Giles is usually an accomplished, indefatigable lover – building on the famous "stevedore" comment from Joyce – and sometimes reverts to a Ripper-like personality in sexual situations. Much is made of Slayer abilities in bed, as well as the abundant canonical evidence for Slayers being sexually voracious.
Stories written or set after "Tabula Rasa" often major on explaining Giles's abandonment of Buffy; and those written or set after Spike & Buffy canonically become lovers often bash Spike. Fans of the pairing tend to ignore the show's final season.
==Notable Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
* Passage by WorstWitch. Credited as being the first Buffy/Giles fic; underage, virgin-Buffy, first time, set after season 1 (1997)
* Alternative Lifestyle by A.C. Chapin. Set in an alternate dimension with Ripper-Giles and a dark-Buffy (1999)
* The Transformations Trilogy, by Kris Walberg. Long series, set post-season 3 (~2001)
* Death Brings Clarity series by J.K. Philips. Post-Gift AU series (2001–2)
*Electra by Kate Bolin. Giles/Buffy. Giles and Buffy deal with the Joyce's death. Words: about 500. (2001)
*Friends and Lovers by Rari Coss. AU season 2 onwards, where Buffy kills Angelus before he kills Jenny (~2002)
* Destination Unknown by Yahtzee. Futurefic, set after season 6; also Angel/Cordelia (2002)
* rough replacements by august. Apocafic; also Giles/OFC (2004)
* The Apocalypse Stone by antennapedia. Sex magic, virgin-Buffy, set during season 2 (2012)
* Eat, Drink, Watcher, Slayer by Ruth. Rare piece set in season 7, with an outsider viewpoint from a Vietnamese potential OC (undated)
*blindr dot com, or, the importance of coconut-milk lattes to long-term success by Antennapedia. Giles/Buffy, Coffee Shop AU. Giles owns a third-wave coffee shop and bean roastery. His loyal staff thinks he should start dating again. He thinks it would be a disaster. He's right. Words: about 6 400. (2015)
*Bookends by il-mio-capitano. Giles/Buffy, post-series AU. Giles is trying to build a new life... Words: about 58 000. (2016)
===Meta===
*The Perfect Thing: Buffy/Giles from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Jedi Penguin in The Shipper's Manifesto (2004)
*Buffy and Giles: Not So Opposites Attract. by Gileswench (~2005)
==Archives, Fansites & Communities==
===Archives===
*The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive (link): ~800 stories (last updated 2007)
*Destiny Awaits: long offline in 2005
*The New Buffy/Giles Relationshippers: moderated by Solo84; long offline in 2005, but incorporated into The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive
*Oakpark Street (link via WBM): small archive; now offline
===Fansites===
*Falling: the Buffy/Giles fanlisting
*The LIST (link via WBM): a B/G 'Shipper site, including a list of links to online sites of Buffy/Giles authors (offline)
===LiveJournals===
*allthejellies: LiveJournal comm (still active as of 2014)
*bgficarchive: LJ associated with The Buffy/Giles Fanfiction Archive
*bg_requests: fic-finding LJ community (still active as of 2014)
*buffy_giles: LJ comm (still sporadically active as of 2014)
*watcherjournals: LJ comm (still active as of 2014)
===YahooGroups===
*Together_BG: (offline)
==Recs & Resources==
*BTVS: Giles/Buffy request post at the_rec_room LJ comm (2011)
*Buffy/Giles: recs by Doyle at Ice Cream for Freaks
*Buffy/Giles fanfic recommendations. ^__^ by dying_dreams: fanfiction & vid recs, author list, links (2005)
*Buffy/Giles recs by Astolat (2003)
*Fanfic Recs. at fuckyeahbuffygiles Tumblr
*Giles fanfiction sites compiled by Antennapedia; links list with Buffy/Giles slant, including author recs
*Giles/Buffy Authors: links to Buffy/Giles authors at the Of Demons & Destiny Giles archive
*Giles/Buffy recs at giles_fic_recs LJ comm
*Gileswench's Recs: mainly Buffy/Giles
*My top five Giles/Buffy stories by Antennapedia (2006)
==References==
<references>
Category:Het Pairings
Category:Buffyverse Relationships