Final Droughtlander Saturday Update (a Spanking Is Discussed)

Hey folks!

We are less than a week to go til the end of Droughtlander and the airing of episode nine in the States. It’s been a long haul and we’ve gotten through it all together. I hope I’ve given you all a few laughs during that time, and made the wait a little more bearable with the memes and videos. I had high hopes to do more and fell a little short of my promises when this hiatus started and I’m sorry but usually life happens and with the holidays and other stuff I just didn’t get around to doing some of the things I wanted to do. So sorry. (Damn computer’s S key went wonky and had to get a new one which meant working extra hours)

It’s been a while since I updated the blog with anything Outlander related so I’m going to start there first. There are some things coming up that I think I need to get out of the way in the upcoming episodes because there’s going to be some dark things happening in episode nine. Namely, the spanking.

Fans of the books will know this scene and it is one that turns a lot of people off of the book for the obvious reason of Domestic abuse. Many classify this incident in the books as that and I’m not going to disagree with that. However, allow me to show you another side of it.

First, I am not condoning any type of violence against women at all. Twentieth century relationships are far different than two hundred years ago. The way men and women behave toward one another now is totally different when comparing modern day civilization to eighteenth century male dominated Scottish society. When Diana Gabaldon wrote this scene she gave Jamie Fraser a good reason to do what he did. I’ll break that down for you.

We know that Jamie loves Claire with all his heart. He never wants to hurt her. And he explains that at the beginning, when he says he has to do what he has to. He is a man in a male dominated culture. He is doing this to her to make her understand that life here is dangerous. No matter where she came from, she is now in a different situation and time. Life is dangerous. When he asks her to stay with Willie he is expecting her to do just that. He came back and she wasn’t there, and so he had to risk his life, and those of his companions, just to find her and rescue her. He also had to take another life. This is something he didn’t want to do. Claire, in her short sightedness has risked everyone’s life, not just hers and Jamie’s.

Like a wayward child, she has to be punished for this, in the eyes of her eighteenth century husband and his family. He doesn’t want to do this, but he must in order to save face. If he doesn’t he loses credibility and respect among his clansmen. No amount of her saying she understands and won’t do it again will dissuade him from this course of action. He HAS to administer punishment like a father on a wayward child. This is also the only thing he knows from having gone through it himself as a youngster growing up under his father at Lallybroch.

Once he does it, he gets down on one knee and swears and oath that he will never do it again. This doesn’t sound like abuse, it sounds like someone who has serious regrets about what he had to do. In domestic abuse situations, the man always says he won’t do it again, but within a certain amount of time it happens again. The cycle repeats itself. In the case of Jamie and Claire, it never does again, in any of the seven books that follow.

Once again, I don’t condone violence against anyone. Any rational caring parent hates like hell to spank or punish their children. It hurt us as much as it does them, but it is necessary to protect them from repeating some of the same boneheaded things they do. So that’s my take on it, and I hope you understand where I’m coming from on this. It’s an important scene, and bonds them together because at the end of it she understands he does love her and wants to protect her. It also grounds her in her new time. Gone is the twentieth century, you are definitely not in Kansas anymore hon, and you had better start acting like it, which she does. Going forward she does a lot to save the life of the man she loves and respects, because he has done the same for her.

Sorry this one wasn’t much on the funny, I kind of wanted to get it out of the way before my episode nine recap because I’m sure there’s going to be some good material in that episode coming up and I didn’t want to bore you with this in the middle of that post. I tend to think when I go on about at topic like this in the middle, it breaks up the flow. When the recap is posted, I will reference this in a link so you may peruse at your leisure should you wish. Thanks for reading, and I will see you with a brand new recap next Sunday.

JP