I think "remove the special powers that an eighteen-year-old expects to have and trap her with a vampire" is always gonna be a betrayal, yeah. It's Just Not Right.

"remove the special powers that an eighteen-year-old expects to have and trap her with a vampire" is always gonna be a betrayal,

What makes it a betrayal and not a test, as you've described it?

I bet Kendra didn't/wouldn't feel betrayed.

ita, yeah, that's what I was getting at (thanks!). Buffy considered it a betrayal because she looked up to him as a companion and father figure, not just as a guide and trainer. But I never thought of it that way. It's another part of her training, and it forced her to come up with a way to defeat a vampire that didn't involve beating him up and staking him; that's got to be a valuable lesson learned.

I do think, in the end, that Giles felt he had betrayed her, but again, I think that's got much more to do with his fatherly feelings towards her. I don't think the test is inherently a betrayal, and I don't think he saw it that way initially.

I actually never saw that moment in Becoming as inspired primarily by spite (and if I did, I would have to violently dislike Xander, so I'm glad I don't). I think Xander didn't like Angel, and understandably liked Angelus even less, and thought Buffy ought to kill Angelus promptly without dilly-dallying around wondering if Willow would be able to resoul him. There was an extremely short timeframe to work within regarding not ending the world, and I think Xander was right not to risk Buffy getting sentimental.

I'm going to agree with Katie here. I've always been in the minority in my opinion of that scene. I see the exchange as Xander seeing that Buffy has set herself for the task, and at the last moment has the maturity to not tell her there is some hope for Angel's soul to be restored. Sure, it does fit in with his dislike of Angel/Angelus, but it has always felt at least somewhat of an inner struggle was going on inside him. If he didn't want to tell her, why bother saying anything? Why not just have Xander say "Kick his ass" for his ownself?

Telling Buffy at that moment may have slowed her down, made her cautious. Once the portal was opened, she had no choice. Sure his motives may not have been pure, but I think he was being Zeppo!Xander.

I remember being briefly horrified by the way Giles behaved in "Helpless," but the episode hit my too-goofy meter. "On the off chance that a Slayer survives this long, let's give her a test that will probably kill her! Brilliant!" So I just kind of ignore it. Like Gunn selling his soul for a truck, y'know? Their behavior makes no sense, but neither does the situation, so I can't really incorporate it into how I view the characters.

Whereas Xander lying to Buffy seemed totally in-character. Whether it was the right or wrong thing to do was never a big concern for me. I believed he'd do that.

Slayers have seemed very disposable, which is odd considering the amount of effort involved in each one. But the commodity-nature displayed in Helpless didn't seem too off to me.

Gunn and the soul and the truck? I got nothing.

I suppose helping the built-in expiration date along makes more sense in the context of it being a way to get rid of Slayers who are growing more independent with age and more sure of their own power. Hence, less likely to blindly follow Watchers' orders. The ones who survive the test are presumably capable enough to be extra-valuable assets to the Council. And also, they've had a demonstration that the Watchers have a means to take away their power if they get too uppity.

Oh, it's probably in character for the Council, in retrospect. But I think that was our first exposure to them (?), so I was full of "Huh?" To be fair, I don't think I've watched it straight through since it aired; I remember thinking something like, "Wow, Giles is a jerk! Oh wait, they're all crazy. Okay, never mind."

Actually I think that episode did inspire a friend to come up with a brilliant theory about how the Watchers were going to be the Big Bad in S4. If that had happened, it probably would have helped because then "Helpless" would have been foreshadowing.

In completely unrelated news I saw about the last five minutes of "Harm's Way" this morning -- so. much. fun.

From USA Weekend Magazine:

James Marsters, so great in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," is now on "Smallville." Anything else?

He's shopping a TV pilot about "a conflicted hero who attacks with chains and razors." Marsters, 43, admits that as a kid, "superpower and the whole proving yourself physically and fighting was very interesting to me." Does his Brainiac intrigue his son, 9? Not at all, says the divorced Marsters. "It's more important I know the rules of Yu-Gi-Oh! and how to throw a Frisbee."