Tabula rasa.

[prillalar]

This is the best I've got for Buffy icons any more. I watched Tabula Rasa tonight. It's the BtVS S6 episode where Willow's spell causes them to all lose their memories.

I love this ep and mostly because of the Giles/Anya interaction. I'd been shipping them for a year before it aired and when I saw them, kiss, I almost fell off the couch. I still feel that way whenever I watch it.

As the episode progresses, they all begin to fall into their usual patterns and relationships, based on what they feel, not what they know. Spike and Buffy fight vampires together, Buffy and Dawn realise they are sisters. Willow and Xander figure they are dating but soon Willow realises she prefers Tara.

And all through this, Giles and Anya are together, bickering with a heat Anya and Xander never, ever have, fighting, breaking their "engagement", and making up with a big dramatic kiss that lasts until the moment the spell is broken.

They were so meant to be.

Everything ends on a sad, sad note, Giles flying away, Tara packing and leaving, Buffy and Spike kissing at the Bronze -- and yes, it's not a happy kiss -- but nothing can spoil my golden glow.

A question that has plagued me for years: Amnesiac!Giles says of Spike, "You do inspire a particular feeling of familiarity and disappointment." Why disappointment?

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Why disappointment?

'Cause nobody's staked him yet?

[prillalar]

Very possibly. :) I think I've been looking for some deeper, more complex emotional reason that may not be even there.

*comes out of btvs retirement*

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I thought because he told Spike in 'A New Man' (iirc) that he might have a higher purpose, which S4!Spike rejected, and whether or not he then adopted (*flashbacks of old btvs wanks over Spike's redemption or lack thereof and it's motivations*) said higher purpose; Giles pretty much had given up faith in him, by then. (See 'Lies My Parents Told Me', etc.)

Or it could be a one-line joke like shikishi suggests, in which case I am a prat.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, I just finished watching that episode, after being seized with a passion for OMWF, and am now watching "Smashed." And I ship Giles/Anya so hard, especially in that episode -- they totally should have gone that route in the finale, rather than the horrible end they did give Anya.

[prillalar]

Oh, your icon! See, I've wondered if that scene, even though it was in Xander's dream, ties in with Giles and Spike here in TR. The suit is much the same.

And I ship Giles/Anya so hard, especially in that episode -- they totally should have gone that route in the finale, rather than the horrible end they did give Anya.

Oh, yes, exactly! It felt like a cheap death to me, like they started at the top and said, okay, who's the most important character we can kill off randomly? Buffy? No. Willow? No. Xander? Giles? Dawn? No. Okay, Anya it is!

And Giles/Anya is hot like liquid hot magma.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think Anya's death was payback for "Selfless". Inhuman monsters Anya and Spike both get killed and thereby redeemed (at least on Buffy -- not going into Spike on AtS here) for their evil acts.

The humans are the only ones left standing at the end, no matter what evils they may have committed.

Anya's reversion to demon status and subsequent evil acts conveniently erase the previous three years of humanity and decent behavior, just as Spike's soul can't save him from the flames.

Or something. That's my theory, anyway. I think the conversation Anya and Andrew have while picking up medical supplies, in an ep near the end of S7, is fairly illuminating on this point.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I thought Marti Noxon or one of the writers said the age difference was 'gross' (like, wtf, there's 200 or so years between Buffy/Angel. And they were far grosser.)

[zauberer-sirin.livejournal.com]

a lot of cool people ship Giles/Anya. maybe because thay are cool and yes they have this incredible chemistry. i don´t ship them but i can totally see the point. I love "Tabula Rasa" but it´s hard to for me to watch again, because aw, the pain, the leaving, the "Giles, please don´t go!" on my part.

i have the urge to get my Buffy dvds out now, but i have to leave for college in half an hour, how sad.

[shikishi.livejournal.com]

I believe it is a play on the traditional "guilt tripping" Dad rol, myself.

Huh. Giles/Anya was never a pairing I looked at, mainly because of Anya and the fact I simply could not get over my annoyance with her hair.

I have no James Marsters icons left, or else I would use one. :)

[1sands-of-time1.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Giles totally wants a son. And Spike is just punk enough to Giles's (reactionary to his own wild youth) Britishness to make a great cliche`. And Joss loved fucking with cliches. You know it.

And I am on Uni compy in the Math lab, or I would use my Giles "Bitch, please" icon. Because Giles would so totally say that if given the chance.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Seriously, Giles/Anya is a wonderful idea that should have happened. Especially after Xander ditched her at the alter, the jerk. (Don't get me wrong, I love Xander. But, jeez.)

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Amnesiac!Giles says of Spike, "You do inspire a particular feeling of familiarity and disappointment." Why disappointment?

I have always assumed Joss is picking at the scabs of his daddy issues, again.