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Talk Time - Parenthood in BtVS
Just a few thoughts on the father-child relationship between Giles and Buffy in the episode Helpless. |
As Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a series about growing up, numerous episodes that deal with the relationship between daughters/sons and their parents have aired. The Dark Age, Ted, Band Candy or Lies my Parents Told Me come to mind, parenthood is portrayed in Joyce and Giles´relationship to our heroine, offering a great variety of material to the writers.
I won´t go into detail here about the development of these relationships over the course of 144 episodes, instead we take a very short look at 3x12 Helpless, serving as an example of how parenthood in BtVS is portrayed.
I hope you all remember the synopsis, unfortunately there´s no detailed episode guide available on this page (yet).
Buffy feels betrayed by Giles. What´s Cordelia doin´there anyway? Well, she´s a regular, so I guess she had to be in this ep at some point... ;)
Giles has to decide weather he wants to serve as a substitute father for Buffy, Buffy herself on the other hand swaps roles with her mother.
At the beginning of Helpless, Buffy must face a great deal of disappointment provided by her natural father Hank, who is obviously not willing to take time to visit The Ice Princess with his daughter on her birthday. Seeking for comfort, the Slayer turns to her surrogate father Giles, who also has to deal with authority figures: The head of the Watchers Council, Quentin Travers, has come to town asking him to betray his protege and secretly inject Buffy an organic compound that weakens her.
Due to this secret agreement with Mr Travers, Giles ignores Buffys pleas for help and comfort.
Helpless takes place on Buffy´s 18th birthday, the day she comes of age. This leads to an absurd situation: Exactly on the day when Buffy enters adulthood, her strengh as a Slayer, normally the reason for her to act like a grown-up, is taken away from her. Yet, at the same time, Buffy is forced to adopt a parental role, as she has to save her own mother from psychotic vampire Zachary Kralik.
Kralik on the other hand, has his own way to deal with his parents: He killed his mother.
We have seen role reversal of parents and their children on BtVS before (The Dark Age or Band Candy), and again, the teenager has to adopt an adult role in order to succeed in repelling an enemy. Giles on the other Hand accepts his role as a surrogate father for Buffy.
Buffy is confronted with countless pictures of her mother.
These were just a few thoughts on the issue of parenthood in Helpless, now it´s your turn: What´s your own relationship to your parents like? Any other thoughts on this episode or others concerning the representation of parenthood in BtVS?
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