Something I will never get over is how Giles just leaves.
He confronts Willow about her magic use after raising Buffy from the dead, and being a young cocky person she ignores him. Then when Tabula rasa comes around and she’s really amped up her magic abuse and has actually started to hurt those around her, he just goes. Sure he’s leaving because he thinks Buffy relies on him too much and she needs to be independent (which is a whole other issues itself. she’s barely into her 20s, has lost her mom, and now has to single parent her little sister on top of the saving the world stuff. Not to mention the dragged out of heaven of it all.)
He just watches Willow start down the same path he spend his youth lost on. And he just leaves. In his youth he was a bright young man with a future, then he was Ripper, a trouble maker who abused magics and rebelled and had dangerous demon possession orgies.
She looked up to him. She trusted him. And he left. She was young and stupid and cocky and so much like a young Giles. Giles had been there. He had acted out and hit rock bottom. He knows what it's like, and he just leaves. He’s been there, he knows how bad it can get and he still goes back to England.
I think Giles does see a lot of himself in Willow and realizes that he should have been there for her. And that’s a big part of the reason he takes her to England for rehabilitation. After everything that happened in his youth he had a chance and was able to turn his life around and name a real meaningful difference in the world. He had to give the same chance to Will.
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