In the article “Bibliographic Good vs. Evil,” GraceAnne A. DeCandido discuses the pertinence of Giles’ profession as a librarian. In class we have conventionally described Buffy’s watcher as bringing “old world” influences into the Southern California town of Sunnydale. DeCandido appropriately encapsulates our sentiments: “Giles is icon and image for us; in him we see our quotidian struggles to provide the right information and the right data resolved into a cosmic drama with the forces of darkness” (DeCandido, 45). What sets Giles apart is his penchant to research thoroughly before fighting a force of evil. Buffy may have the physical force to conquer the bad, but the empirical knowledge that Giles gathers for her is arguably as powerful of a weapon that Buffy can extract from her arsenal.
In Stoker’s Dracula, Van Helsing plays a similar role to Giles in “Buffy.” Van Helsing realizes that wooden stakes and swords will not be enough to ultimately vanquish Dracula. The group’s success relies on amassing information. Van Helsing travels back and forth between Amsterdam and London in order to gather empirical data that he hopes will lead to the demise of Dracula. Although Giles does not have to take an international train ride to gather information for Buffy, the tedious nature of research, especially to those who grew up accustomed to the facility with which information can be gathered using “new world technology”, can arguably be considered as difficult to perform as the train ride. In Dracula, it is the younger generation that is more inclined to pick up weapons without data. They crave immediate satisfaction. Van Helsing is the older force that advocates for the necessity of empirical data. Giles and Van Helsing are also akin in their advocacy for research. DeCandido remarks: “the plodding nature of research cannot be eliminated, even by brilliance and magic, even when we might not want to know what it is we are seeking. It is Giles’ particular gift to cast a glamour over the kind of dogged reference we practice daily. He invests the methodical search for the fact that will solve the problem at hand with a kind of fierce joy, but he never underestimates its cost in time or care” (DeCandido, 45).
The importance behind a matrimony of the “old world” knowledge that Giles exemplifies, and “new world” technology, is represented in the episode “Hush.” When all of Sunnydale loses their ability to speak, “new world” technologies are initially shown to fail. When Riley boards an elevator that requires a voice recognition code, his refusal to take the “old world” stairs almost leads to his death. One might infer that Whedon is suggesting that all “new world” technologies will be trumped by those of the “old world.” However, Whedon refutes the possibility of this analysis in the next scene when Maggie, uses the “new world” computer in order to assign tasks to the military members.
Giles seeks to find the answer to the mysterious “laryngitis” by looking in a book of fairytales. Due to his “dogged” research, he is able to find the answers. However, Giles does not have the capacity to fight as Buffy does. Without the younger generation’s physical strength to apply the research, Giles’ knowledge might be rendered futile. One of the final scenes of the episode demonstrates the importance of combining the “old world” technologies with the new. In this scene, Buffy represents the “old world” with her crossbow, while Riley uses the “new” technology to fight the gentleman. However, without the marriage of the two forces, the gentleman would have prevailed. In Dracula, without Jonathan Harker and Quincy Morris to put Van Helsing’s research into action, Dracula would not have been turned to dust.
Article Summary: The article was written by a librarian who argued that Giles’ role as a librarian had “done more for the image of the profession than anything in the last 50 years” (DeCandido, 44). I wanted to write about the importance of combining old world and new world knowledge to achieve greatness and conquer evil. DeCandido’s article was a perfect source in that she argued that Giles’ insistence upon researching information before fighting evil was necessary to Buffy and the Scooby gang. However, without Buffy’s corporeal strength and the Scooby gang’s knowledge of the new world technology, the computer, both of which make Giles wary, his research would be pointless.
Work Cited:
DeCandido, GraceAnn A. "Bibliographic Good vs. Evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
." American Libraries Sept. 1999: 44-47. JSTOR. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
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