Giles Killing Ben

[lee]

I agree. I don't think they knew Giles killed Ben either. And, I hope I don't sound too devil's advocate here, but Willow, Anya, and Giles all killed out of vengence. Giles might have been doing what he thought was right but there was still a lot of hatred and revenge behind that killing. Buffy was dead and he was mad about it. So, it's all sort of the same thing under different circumstances. And it's a little like "Daddy can kill people but he says 'do as I say, not as I do'" too.

[henzINNIT]

^ Buffy wasn't dead when Giles killed Ben, so his motives weren't especially vengeful.

[buffysmglover]

henz said:

^ Buffy wasn't dead when Giles killed Ben, so his motives weren't especially vengeful.

Henz is right

[lee]

Oh right... okay, but there was still a lot of other stuff for him to be tweaked about. lol.

[General Zod]

Did anyone evan know Giles killed him?

[matthewblake]

That's a good point! I can see Giles leaving something like that unsaid.

[emarie]

ladyparasyte said:

Ya know, I got to thinking about the whole Willow getting a hard time killing people and Anya killing people but it seems like no one ever gave Giles any crap for killing Ben. A human. A human that Buffy deliberately let live. Willow kills Warren and he takes her away to England to teach her how to control herself. Again...a lot of hypocrisy in this group.
Wow, I'm such a negative nellie lately.

While I feel that he did what he had to do I still felt it should have been addressed. It reminds me of OMWF when no one calls Xander on his spell which caused people to burn to death and almost got Dawn sent to hell. I like to see the cause and effects of things, you know?

If the Scoobies didn't know Ben was dead then that makes me wonder why they didn't look for him knowing that Glory could go after Dawn again or attack them.

[kittyfantastico]

Giles says something like "Buffy would never kill a person, not like us." It seems to imply that he knew Ben wasn't so innocent after all. I'm not sure how exactly Giles would know at that point, but Ben did summon the queller demon to kill people, and he also did decide to kill Dawn to save himself. I think Giles was saying that for that, and for the prevention of Glory's return, Ben had to die. If Ben was willing to kill Dawn to save himself, Giles was willing to kill Ben to save the world. Its not perfect but it was the best solution realistically possible.

I always wondered if Giles really knew exactly how innocent Ben was.

I agree that Warren deserved to die, but I still think it was wrong for Willow to do it and especially to do it like that. If she had just killed him because he was a clear danger to society and probably woudln't be easily held in a prison, that would be fine. But she was obviously losing herself in torturing him.

[zoelee]

Nov 16, 2007 11:01:10 GMT -5 Lukee said:

I think its totally different to Willow killing and i think Anya's killing is totally different to any of them.

Giles killed him because he was part Glory, she could come back at any time and kill them he had to do it for the world if not Buffy.

i agree, ben was part of glory as long as he was still alive, she was about, could come out again. giles knew that buffy couldnt kill him, so he did it for her. maybe he thought if she did she would go down the same path as faith did, he didnt want that.

[●B E N]

Giles did the right thing. Ben wasn't all that innocent. Glory was in him and sooner or later she would come after Buffy and Dawnie again... so go Giles.

The fact that he has killed someone does not change my view of Giles, after all he was sorta evil when he was Ripper...right? So yeah not too hard to think that he would kill someone to protect the ones he loves.

[XanderHarris]

Coming to think of it, Giles is very much alike Wesley concerning "making the tough decisions".
Both had (Wesley already in Pylea) had to, one way or the other, burden theirselves with actions and decisions the other characters couldn't have been able to bear.

I can't think of another person that would've been able to kill Ben (well, except of Spike, but I don't really count him to the good guys).

[wenxina]

Dec 28, 2008 15:45:35 GMT -5 XanderHarris said:

I can't think of another person that would've been able to kill Ben (well, except of Spike, but I don't really count him to the good guys).

Spike wouldn't have been able to do it without a MASSIVE migraine though, courtesy of the chip. Ben was still 100% human; that was the fun part about Glory's prison... she died when her "prison" did. Which means that the chip would still have kicked in with a vengeance.

[Saturn 5]

He did what he had to do and if he hadn't I think Xander would have. It's not so much killing Warren (or not if we're to believe the comics) that makes Willow need rehabilitation as the whole skinning him and trying to destroy the world concept?

[Nicholas]

Willow went off the deep end and let the dark magic inside her control herself, thus letting it consume her and kill Warren. Dont get me wrong, Willow obviously made the choice to kill him, but I believe that it was the magic that was helping to influence her actions. It was more like she sat back and watched the show when she could have stopped it at any time. On one hand, I can understand Willow killing Warren however, Warren didnt deserve to die. Like Buffy said, there are human laws for people like him and it is not their job to take lives into their hands. Willow going after Andrew and Jonathon, I can also understand because they were connected to Warren. They may not have had an actual hand in Tara's death, but they were side by side with Warren which led up to it. I think that Willow was too grief stricken with what she did and with Tara's death, that she just let it happen. She had no idea what she was doing, but at the same time aware of every moment.

Them trying to punish Anya for what she was understandable too. If we expect them to punish her for all her years of killing people while she was a vengeance demon, that would be understandable too, only if she was still a demon. Anya was then deemed powerless and human when her power center was destroyed. I think that her human soul, came back to her when she turned human. I dont really see her as showing remorse for what she did (well maybe a little in Hell's Bells) frankly because it was all she ever knew. She had been a vengeance demon and souless for such a long time, she had forgotten her own name. But when she was turned into a vengeance demon the second time, I think that her soul was still there, or even that she had been human for a while that she knew what she did was wrong. She clearly had a soul when she was a vengeance demon the second time around. But the fact is, she killed the frat boys while knowing what she was doing simply because she "clung to whatever came along". This makes you think about her possibly having a soul while being a vengeance demon the first time. Maybe because she was such an outcast and had no reason to value human life in the first place, when she was turned into a vengeance demon, it was comforting to her. She was punishing women who were wronged by men, just like her. She had the time to learn what was right from wrong once she was turned into a woman which she clearly did hence the remorse that she had when she killed the men in Selfless. but Buffy still had a right to try and kill her because she had the choice. She knew right from wrong and still did it.

Giles on the other hand, did what he knew was right. He knew that the world wasnt black and white and he knew that while Buffy may not be able to take a helpless human's life, he would do it if it meant saving the world and the people that he loved. He clearly states that if he didnt kill Ben, Glory would once again return and make Buffy pay for what she did. So, by killing Ben, Giles saved countless people and possibly the world. But then again, a good point to think about is if by S7 and beyond, would Buffy have made the same choice of killing Ben? Buffy says her views have changed by S7 and if she had to, she would sacrifice Dawn if it meant saving the world. So if faced with the same choice by S7's time, would she have killed Ben? I think, yes.

[Paul]

Jan 7, 2008 19:05:10 GMT -5 emarie said:

While I feel that he did what he had to do I still felt it should have been addressed. It reminds me of OMWF when no one calls Xander on his spell which caused people to burn to death and almost got Dawn sent to hell. I like to see the cause and effects of things, you know?

I believe they were going to have Giles admit to killing Ben in "Lies My Parents Told Me". It would have been in the graveyard scene where Giles was trying to convince Buffy that sacrificing Spike was for the greater good. He would have explained how he killed Ben as an example. But Joss vetoed it because he thought "it was two years ago, nobody cares about Ben anymore". Pity.

[Kara]

So I was having this conversation with Iceeh the other day and she reckons that Giles shouldn't have killed Ben because he was innocent. Well I, Kara disagree with that, as does Mike. We think Giles did what he had to do. Danner doesn't have an opinion about that because she's been talking to Trey alot lately...

[BenTaylor3907]

Giles killed Ben in order to stop Glorificus from resurfacing. That was a heroic move, in my opinion anyway. Willow killed Warren out of revenge for Tara's death. That was all anger. And as for Anya, she killed for... fun? To feel part of her Vengeance demon fold? Giles stayed calm and rationalized the situation before him. Besides, Ben wasn't that innocent. He was willing to bring hell on earth by sacrificing Dawn for crying out loud. He's obviously lost it. “Hmm... what should I do? Kill millions of people in order separate Glory and I? Or should I kill myself while simultaneously killing Glory and preventing hell on earth? I’ll go with option A!” Seriously, a total nut job.

[Nicholas]

See, I think what Ben did was given a lot of insight by Glory. Ben was human and never had anything that was truly his, and when Glory offered him a position at her side once she brought hell on earth, he caved to his simple human emotions. Self preservation. Ben didnt want to die. Now, Im not siding with him because I dont agree with the decision that he made, but I cant hate him either. Plus, I thought that it was made clear that Ben's thoughts and actions were being influenced by Glorys as well because as the ritual grew nearer and nearer, the facade was beginning to fade.

[BenTaylor3907]

Self preservation? He would have been fine if things stayed the way they were. Everyone has some kind of dysfunction. You know? Glorificus was just his extra baggage. Ben still new the difference between right and wrong. He would be killing millions of people by helping Glory succeed! Most humans have a conscience, this dude didn't care about anyone except for his greedy self. For shizzle my nizzle. Ya heard?

[wenxina]

No, Ben, he wouldn't have been "fine if things stayed the way they were". Glory was already getting stronger, manifesting more frequently. The downside of that for Glory of course was that Ben's human compassion was also bleeding into her own persona. However, if Glory won, if she managed to open the gates back home anyway, Ben dies. He didn't want to die, which doesn't make him right; it just makes him human. Glory offered him a chance to live (most probably a lie), if he helped her. Ben (character, not you) knows of the beast within him, and it's somewhat sweet irony that he wants to be a doctor and save lives. Up to the point where he makes that choice, Ben was a good guy who tried denying Glory her victory. He just succumbed to the inevitability of fighting a hellgod (yet again, human) at the end.