Rupert Giles

Rupert Giles is a central character featured in the WB Network/United Paramount Network television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was played by actor Anthony Stewart Head. He appeared in 123 out of 145 aired episodes of the series. Beginning with season six, Giles was removed from teh opening credit sequence, with the foreshadowing of his character leaving Sunnydale following the the musical episode "Once More With Feeling". Although no longer a regular cast member, Giles continued to make regular guest appearances in the series. Giles was a regularly featured supporting character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight comic book series which, according to Joss Whedon, is an official canonical part of Buffy continuity. Giles was killed off during the last major story-arc of the series "Last Gleaming" by Twilight, who was revealed to be Angel gone evil again.

The character of Rupert Giles is presented as a Watcher - an occult scholar who belongs to an august body of like-minded individuals known as the Watcher Council. He is charged with training Slayers, educating them in the realms of the supernatural and preparing them for their ongoing battle against the forces of evil. Giles' first Slayer was California high school teenager Buffy Summers.

Biography
Giles had been working as a curator of a British museum, possibly even "The British Museum" when the Watcher Council assigned him a new Slayer. They sent him to Sunnydale, California where he assumed the position of school librarian at Sunnydale High School. They informed him that a new Slayer named Buffy Summers had recently enrolled at the school and that he was to serve as her mentor. It worked to his benefit that students rarely came into the library. This allowed him to stock the shelves with his own private collection of occult-related books, including a heavy tome known as the Book of Thoth. Giles was very excited to meet Buffy, but was disheartened when he discovered how little interest the girl had in slaying vampires. He expressed the importance of her duties to her, enforcing the notion that she required extensive training in order to battle the forces of evil. There was more to fear in Sunnydale than just vampires. Through the Book of Thoth, Giles learned that the school was situated over top a Hellmouth - a mystical gateway to the nether-realms and it was the existence of this supernatural aperture that drew so many vampires and demons to Sunnydale. Buffy soon came to respect Giles' position and could not deny the fact that Sunnydale was overflowing with various monsters and evil entities. Though she never lost her verve, Buffy labored intensely under Giles' watchful eye, honing her skills and powers.

Notes & Trivia



 * The name Rupert Giles was developed by story editor/writer Matt Kiene. He named him after a Professor Giles that Matt studied under at Georgetown University.


 * Actor Anthony Stewart Head coached co-star James Marsters on how to properly speak with a British accent.


 * Its been implied that Giles may have once had a fling with Buffy's mother Joyce Summers. The two became romantically close to one another while under the influence of tainted chocolate bars.


 * Has a tattoo on his inner left forearm.