is a
Fictional Character created by
Joss Whedon for the television program,
Buffy The Vampire Slayer . The character is portrayed by
Anthony Stewart Head .
Rupert Giles was born in 1954 into an upper-class family in London, England. They have worked within the , Philip Henry, Diedre Page, Thomas Sutcliff and Randall. Together, they summoned a particularly grostesque demon called
Eyghon , who would eventually murder Randall. Rupert gained the nickname "Ripper" during this time. The past would later come back to haunt him in the second season episode, ''The Dark Age''. During this time, Ripper employed tales of demons and dark magics, and also claimed to be a founding member of
Pink Floyd in order to impress girls.
Following the death of Randall after Ripper, Ethan and the others failed to exorcise Eyghon, Rupert accepted his destiny of becoming a Watcher. According to the comic "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles", his mentor was Archibald Lassiter. He also became "the curator of a British museum, maybe ''the''
British Museum " as Willow says (''
Welcome To The Hellmouth '').
At the behest of the Watchers' Council, he traveled to
Sunnydale ,
California and worked as the librarian at the local high school. There he met the current slayer,
Buffy Summers , whom he began training. The library, a sort of command center for the gang, sat right above the
Hellmouth .
As the
Watcher ,
Librarian and general authority figure, Giles often delivered
Exposition . He was a father figure to Buffy and an advisor to her friends
Xander and
Willow . His character was often portrayed as somewhat of a "
Straight Man " and his "stuffy" Oxford sensibility served as counterpoint to the stereotypical Southern Californian characters and setting. He would make a "weird cluck-cluck sound with his tongue" when he is angry but "too English to say anything" (''
Faith, Hope, & Trick '').
Giles shared with
Kendra (season two) an appreciation for the obscure text and served as
Faith 's watcher for a few weeks (season three). After pressing the trigger that destroyed Sunnydale High and put him out of his job, Giles spent months unemployed before buying the local magic shop,
The Magic Box , after its last owner was murdered. He brought up the difficult idea of killing Dawn when the group labored to find a way to defeat Glory, and when Buffy spared Ben's life, Giles decided he could not give Glory the chance to return. Telling Ben that Buffy was different from them, he suffocated Ben with his bare hands.
After Buffy sacrificed herself to save the world, Giles decided to return to England. On the very day he left, her friends resurrected Buffy. When he learned of this, Giles returned, but soon decided that his presence was preventing Buffy from assuming responsibility for her own life. He left again for his native England, moving to a place near
Bath , where he worked with a powerful local coven.
A few months later, Willow's girlfriend
Tara was killed by a stray bullet as
Warren Mears attacked the Slayer. 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 by destroying the Earth. Giles teleported back to Sunnydale, wielding great magical power borrowed from the Coven. Knowing that Willow was too strong, Giles tricked her into draining him of his magics, which brought him near death. It also allowed Xander to reason with her as the good magic brought out her natural love and compassion, eating away at the evil energy.
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. He had removed a few volumes from the headquarters of the
Watchers' Council , which was soon afterward destroyed by agents of the First Evil. After the First's plan was foiled by the destruction of the Hellmouth and of Sunnydale, Giles traveled to Europe with Buffy and presumably began rebuilding the Watcher's Council.
Shortly after Anthony Stewart Head's departure from the series, there was talk of a spinoff series from ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' for the
BBC entitled ''
Ripper ''. As of 2004, the project is dead. But in 2005 Joss Whedon said he was still trying to get it off the ground, but the ground is sticky.
Giles has immense knowledge of demonology and slayer combat (including at least a theoretical knowledge of
Jujitsu and
Aikido ), mainly due to his training as a Watcher. He dabbled in dark magics as a youth, and his interest in witchcraft and sorcery has endured into his adult life, though his natural aptitude for it is only moderate (much less than that of
Willow or
Amy ). He is fluent in several
Language s, including
Latin , ancient
Greek ,
German (''
Gingerbread ''),
Sumerian and possibly
Gaelic (''
Fear Itself ''), but weak in
Mandarin and
Cantonese (''
First Date '').
Rupert was briefly transformed into a Fyarl demon (''
A New Man ''). In that form he had superhuman strength and resistance to injury, and could shoot a powerful binding mucus from his nose. He could also only speak the language of Fyarl demons (which
Spike luckily understood) and had a powerful rage which he suppressed with difficulty.
Giles was briefly granted the combined powers of a coven, which he used to bind the powers of Willow when she had gone mad from grief and rage.
- - A computer teacher at Sunnydale High, Jenny was a techno-pagan. Giles saw her at first as a symbol of the encroachment of sterile technology into the organic world of books, but they grew closer after cooperating to defeat the demon Moloch ('' I, Robot... You, Jane ''). When Angel lost his soul in the second season, Jenny was found to be part of the gypsy clan who had cursed him with a human soul in 1898. She had been sent to Sunnydale to keep an eye on him, not knowing about the loophole in the curse that cost Angel his soul. Angry at not being told the truth, Giles initially joined Buffy in ostracizing Jenny. They eventually reconciled, but Jenny was soon murdered by Angelus ('' Passion ''), devastating Rupert.
- - In the season two finale, the vampiric seer tricked a kidnapped Giles into seeing Ms. Calendar. They shared a prolonged kiss as she extracted the information that would open a demonic portal vortex.
- - As Sunnydale came under the influence of charmed chocolate ('' Band Candy ''), Giles reverted to his rebellious teenage persona, Ripper. He copulated twice with Joyce Summers on the hood of a police car. They were too embarrassed afterwards to be romantically involved again.
- - Whilst unemployed during the fourth season, Giles saw this "old friend," a black English woman with whom he seemed to share a sex-based relationship. She may have known him since the 70s, as he had once claimed to her he had been in Pink Floyd. She was last seen in 'Hush,' scared by monsters she finally saw with her eyes.
- - Giles hired the ex-demon as a clerk in his magic shop. He became a silent partner after deciding to return to England. When the gang lost their memories to a spell ('' Tabula Rasa ''), Anya and Giles believed that they were engaged. They shared a kiss while being amnesic.
Rupert Giles has appeared in:
; '''', he disappeared from the opening credits. He appeared in 121 episodes overall, including guest appearances in the following:
