Editing Rupert Giles (section)

===Character history===
Rupert Edmund Giles (most frequently called ''Giles'') was born circa 1955 in England. His family has worked within the [[Watchers' Council|Council of Watchers]] for at least three generations; both his father and grandmother, Edna Giles (''née'' Fairweather), were also [[Watcher (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Watchers]]. As a child, Giles dreamt of being either "a fighter pilot or possibly a grocer", but he soon learned that being a Watcher is a [[Wiktionary:Vocation|calling]], much as being a [[Slayer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Slayer]] is, and Rupert's father explained his destiny to him when he was ten years old (revealed in "[[Never Kill a Boy on the First Date]]").

Although the Scooby Gang later joked that he wore tweed nappies as a child, Giles was in fact a rebellious youth, rejecting his responsibility as a Watcher and dropping out of [[Oxford University]], where he was studying history, when he was twenty-one. During this time, Giles claimed to be a founding member of [[Pink Floyd]] in order to impress girls (although since Pink Floyd was founded in 1965, when Giles would have been around ten years old, it was not a particularly credible claim), and may have delved into criminal activity (he [[Dead Man's Party (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|remarks]] that hot-wiring a car is "like riding a bloody bicycle", and [[Band Candy|a psychologically younger]] Giles has no qualms about breaking into a clothing store and attacking a police officer). He is a talented singer and guitar player (as Head is in real life) which the gang discovered, to their astonishment, when they saw him singing "[[Behind Blue Eyes]]" by The Who in "[[Where the Wild Things Are (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)|Where the Wild Things Are]]". Spike also saw him singing "[[Free Bird]]" by Lynyrd Skynyrd in "[[The Yoko Factor]]".

He began to explore dark magic and befriended a group of young people who delved into the dark arts for fun or money: [[Ethan Rayne]], Philip Henry, Dierdre Page, Thomas Sutcliff, and Randall. Giles gained the nickname "Ripper" during this time. Together, the group summoned a demon called Eyghon, who would possess and eventually destroy Randall.
Following Randall's death, Ethan and the others failed to exorcise Eyghon, and Giles accepted his destiny of becoming a Watcher. Before becoming a fully-fledged Watcher, he also worked as "the curator of a British museum, maybe ''the'' [[British Museum]]" as Willow says ("[[Welcome to the Hellmouth]]"), although, given the context, she may well have been repeating a rumor that was going around the school.