Now some of you might remember that I’ve been doing random Buffy the Vampire Slayer live tweets after I polled our readers to see what show they wanted me to start binge watching. Now I’ve already watched all of Buffy, but rewatching it gives me a chance to look back at some of my favorite parts of the series. I just finished episode 8 of season 2, The Dark Age, and I got to thinking about how much I wish there had been more Ethan and Giles.

This is the second episode with Ethan in it during the second season. He first appears in one of my absolute favorite episodes, Halloween. After turning all of Sunnydale topsy turvy with magic, Ethan finds himself having to deal with an irate Giles, who beats the crap out of him until he reveals how to break the spell. Ethan is able to escape, but he isn’t gone long. In The Dark Age people Giles was friends with during college are being hunted by a demon that they had previously summoned. This is when we learn just what Giles was up to when he went by the name Ripper, well at least sort of.

Giles tells Buffy about the demon and how he was involved in dark magic with some very bad people, but those are the only details we get. The animosity Giles has for Ethan hints at him not wanting to deal with his past or really have to think about it ever again. Ethan just throws a wrench into all of his avoidance and forces him to think about who he used to be when he was Ripper. One of the things I really wish we had been able to see over the course of the Buffy television series would have been a lot more of Giles leather jacketed, pre-tweed jackets life.

We know he was involved in dangerous magic and it would have been amazing to see some of the things he had summoned and just how much like Ethan Ripper might have been. I feel like some of Giles’ extreme stuffiness comes from him trying to maintain control of himself and not be drawn into things that he can’t control. This is a bit spoilery, but later when Willow gets involved with magic we learn that it has a drug like effect on those who use it a great deal. I wonder if magic affected Giles a bit like it did Willow and if he has to repress his draw toward the ancient and unknown.

I’m sure there is plenty of fanfiction about young Giles, which I should totally check out, but I wish there had been more within the show. If you want to join in on the live tweets you can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes. They are pretty late at night normally, but I give at least an hour or so warning before I start. You can also find The Nerdy Girl Express on Twitter, @thenerdygirlexp.

I also have a blog, kleffnotes.wordpress.com, a YouTube channel, and I run The Nerdy Girl Express Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp.