S04.E06: Blood of My Blood

[taanja]

On 12/10/2018 at 7:39 PM, nodorothyparker said:

Am I really the only one here who had grandparents who had outhouses?  The board with the seat hole usually either lifted off entirely or was hinged because country people sometimes threw their trash down the hole too or dumped the occasional bucket of lye or lime in to help with the smell.  Taking the top off would definitively give you a hole big enough for a kid to fall in.  Not that it really matters all that much since the show decided to skip it entirely.

For me -- not my grandparents-- I spent my honeymoon in a cabin on Flathead Lake in Montana -- only had a outhouse (no indoor plumbing/running water) and I have friends who still have a cabin in the north woods (Minnesota) Pup-Pups cabin -- still to this day only an outhouse (no indoor plumbing) Anyway-- I am familiar with outhouses both inside and out and didn't question the falling in part at all!!!

The sign below still hangs on the wall of Pup-Pups cabin--- can you decipher?

Saville der dago, Toussin buses inaro, Nojo demis trux, Summit cousin, Summit dux?

Edited December 12, 2018 by taanja
added more words

[Pingaponga]

I'm torn about the inclusion of the rebellious feelings among the Scottish immigrants.  It's not mentioned in the book at all.  This is the most recent book I have read (I'll read the next book once this season has ended), and I'm assuming the American Revolution becomes a big part of the story.  But as it isn't in the book this season is based on, why mention it in what seems to be a significant way?

On the other hand, I'm Canadian, and my knowledge of the American Revolution is very limited.  Until the past couple of episodes, I thought the Regulators were tax collectors and supporters of the British.  So I appreciate the fact that I'm learning stuff.  And I've recently learned that I have American ancestry going back to the early 1700s, if not the mid 1600s.  I have at least one ancestor from New York who fought with the Americans and after the war moved to Ohio. So I'm finding the talk of taxes and anger quite interesting and informative on a personal level.

[toolazy]

16 minutes ago, Pingaponga said:

I'm torn about the inclusion of the rebellious feelings among the Scottish immigrants.  It's not mentioned in the book at all.  This is the most recent book I have read (I'll read the next book once this season has ended), and I'm assuming the American Revolution becomes a big part of the story.  But as it isn't in the book this season is based on, why mention it in what seems to be a significant way?

On the other hand, I'm Canadian, and my knowledge of the American Revolution is very limited.  Until the past couple of episodes, I thought the Regulators were tax collectors and supporters of the British.  So I appreciate the fact that I'm learning stuff.  And I've recently learned that I have American ancestry going back to the early 1700s, if not the mid 1600s.  I have at least one ancestor from New York who fought with the Americans and after the war moved to Ohio. So I'm finding the talk of taxes and anger quite interesting and informative on a personal level.

The weird thing is that a lot of the Scottish immigrants were loyalists.  I think the show is taking liberties with history here by making it seem like a more widespread situation than it was. But who knows, really? A lot of our information is coming from Murtagh, who is a bit of an unreliable narrator due to his strongly-held opinions on the subject.  Although I guess there is the bit about not being able to find settlers.  I dunno, I'm really not a fan of this particular story line.

 

Also, a "palace"? Really?  Do we have palaces in the US? Have we ever? Did royal governors live in palaces? That word just really strikes my brain wrong. 

Edited December 13, 2018 by toolazy

[Scarlett45]

22 minutes ago, toolazy said:

Also, a "palace"? Really?  Do we have palaces in the US? Have we ever? Did royal governors live in palaces? That word just really strikes my brain wrong. 

Well it wasn’t the USA yet. Likely “palace” was the most appropriate word for an ornate house in which a member of government lived. Was “mansion” in use then? Also it could’ve been a figure of speech.  

[nodorothyparker]

1 hour ago, Pingaponga said:

I'm torn about the inclusion of the rebellious feelings among the Scottish immigrants.  It's not mentioned in the book at all.  This is the most recent book I have read (I'll read the next book once this season has ended), and I'm assuming the American Revolution becomes a big part of the story.  But as it isn't in the book this season is based on, why mention it in what seems to be a significant way?

It actually becomes more and more of a significant plot point in the next two books leading up to the revolution itself as a lot of the issues there are in the same ballpark as those that will lead to the better known violence breaking out farther north.   As the recipient of that enormous land grant they keep mentioning, Jamie agreed to basically be a British enforcer to quell any unrest, which would put him and Murtagh on opposite sides of what's coming.  In the books, we don't really get any major characters or POVs on that side of it until fairly late and then it's still mostly tertiary characters.  It doesn't help that while Claire knows the revolution is coming, yet again she doesn't know any of the specifics beyond what they teach in school that's mostly Boston and Philadelphia centric.  From that they know that at some unspecified point in the future Jamie will have to switch sides, but there's always a sense that Claire like a lot of people who only casually read history doesn't realize there were years of buildup and skirmishing before the real war kicked off and independence was declared, and Jamie isn't just going to be able to sit it out until then.  A lot of Americans probably couldn't tell you much about the Regulators either.

There were tons of Scots on both sides of the revolution, thanks in part to what the British had done to Scotland.  Many, like Jocasta, will end up being loyalists but there will be plenty on the other side as well.

The word "palace" didn't really bother me because right now we're still firmly in the "make the world England" phase of colonialism and it's a word they would have used where we would probably have called it a mansion.

[morgan]

Palace seemed fine to me.  Having visited colonial Williamsburg and the Governor’s Palace there, i assume it was the normal term.

I also don’t have a problem with the seeds of the Revolution showing up now.  They were definitely building over years prior to the war.   

Google is my friend!  Apparently the Governor’s palace in New Bern is a real thing, you can even take tours!

Edited December 13, 2018 by morgan

[toolazy]

8 minutes ago, morgan said:

Palace seemed fine to me.  Having visited colonial Williamsburg and the Governor’s Palace there, i assume it was the normal term.

I also don’t have a problem with the seeds of the Revolution showing up now.  They were definitely building over years prior to the war.   

Google is my friend!  Apparently the Governor’s palace in New Bern is a real thing, you can even take tours!

Okay, I sit corrected.  If that's what they called them, that's what they called them. Still sounds weird to me, though. 

[Nidratime]

Yes, the Governor's Palace was a real thing:

https://www.tryonpalace.org/governors-palace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryon_Palace

[toolazy]

2 hours ago, Nidratime said:

Yes, the Governor's Palace was a real thing:

https://www.tryonpalace.org/governors-palace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryon_Palace

Sweet, thanks.

[rxpert14]

9 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

Well it wasn’t the USA yet. Likely “palace” was the most appropriate word for an ornate house in which a member of government lived. Was “mansion” in use then? Also it could’ve been a figure of speech.  

Tryon Palace is still standing in New Bern, NC, having recently survived Hurricane Florence. While not what we think of today as a "palace", it is quite the tourist attraction and the interior is quite lavish. Many school-age kids in NC are unable to escape a field trip there at some point in their life, including myself.

[Scarlett45]

1 hour ago, rxpert14 said:

Tryon Palace is still standing in New Bern, NC, having recently survived Hurricane Florence. While not what we think of today as a "palace", it is quite the tourist attraction and the interior is quite lavish. Many school-age kids in NC are unable to escape a field trip there at some point in their life, including myself.

Thank you!

[Haleth]

One of the reasons Jamie and Claire moved way the heck into the mountains, days from civilization, was to stay out of the way of the Revolution.  Claire hoped they'd be too remote for the  war to touch them.  But this being Jamie and Claire, of course they end up right in the thick of it.

Tryon Palace looks very similar to the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg.  

 

17 hours ago, taanja said:

Saville der dago, Toussin buses inaro, Nojo demis trux, Summit cousin, Summit dux?

O Sybilli, si ergo!  Fortibus es in ero.  O nobili, demis trux.  Sevatis enim causen dux.  (Latin class with Mr Pollard, circa 1974.)

[sas616]

15 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

Well it wasn’t the USA yet. Likely “palace” was the most appropriate word for an ornate house in which a member of government lived. Was “mansion” in use then? Also it could’ve been a figure of speech.  

Well, there's the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, VA.  It's pretty ornate with beautiful gardens and I imagine back in the 1760's, the colonists were not pleased about it.  

 

Shoot I should have read all the posts before posting since Williamsburg was already mentions.   And darn if Tyron's Palace doesn't look VERY similar.

Edited December 13, 2018 by sas616

[Nidratime]

They probably bought prefab palace kits from Palaces R Us! ;-)

[taanja]

9 hours ago, Haleth said:

One of the reasons Jamie and Claire moved way the heck into the mountains, days from civilization, was to stay out of the way of the Revolution.  Claire hoped they'd be too remote for the  war to touch them.  But this being Jamie and Claire, of course they end up right in the thick of it.

Tryon Palace looks very similar to the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg.  

 

O Sybilli, si ergo!  Fortibus es in ero.  O nobili, demis trux.  Sevatis enim causen dux.  (Latin class with Mr Pollard, circa 1974.)

Haha! We say it in a Norwegian accent! 

[ruby24]

I don't know if the actor's doing it on purpose, but John's accent doesn't always sound strictly English to me. I feel like it slips sometimes, but I'm not sure what to. It almost sounds like vaguely Irish or something. Which is weird, cause I know David Berry is Australian.

[ruby24]

That bathtub dialogue about the rain/kisses was super cheesy, I thought. I kinda cringed. I can't remember if those were lines from the book, but I hope not.

[pootlus]

On 13/12/2018 at 12:05 PM, nodorothyparker said:

In the books, we don't really get any major characters or POVs on that side of it until fairly late and then it's still mostly tertiary characters.

I really lost the thread of that plot in the books, which is why I thought it was a really smart move to have Murtagh be a regulator rather than introduce new characters who won't have any connection with the audience.

1 hour ago, ruby24 said:

That bathtub dialogue about the rain/kisses was super cheesy, I thought. I kinda cringed. I can't remember if those were lines from the book, but I hope not.

Hated that scene.  To be honest, the Jamie/Claire sexy bits are the least interesting part of the show for me.

[Ziggy]

On 12/11/2018 at 3:22 PM, nodorothyparker said:

That's a later book retelling and one that's always felt like Jamie retconning to cast the whole thing in a more favorable light.  Or it could just be yet another instance of Gabaldon rewriting the details of her own story to fit the chapter she was writing that particular day. 

It does come up later, but I never looked at it as "retconning."  Diana does this all the time ... giving the reader more information about events that happened books ago.

This "test" stems from Jamie confusing homosexuality with pedophilia (possibly not uncommon in the 18th century).  In his mind, if Lord John accepts Jamie's offer, he might try to do something to Willie.  Jamie couldn't live with himself if he knowingly left Willie in the hands of a pedophile.  Since Lord John did not accept Jamie's offer, Jamie felt safe leaving Helwater.

[Scarlett45]

22 hours ago, Ziggy said:

This "test" stems from Jamie confusing homosexuality with pedophilia (possibly not uncommon in the 18th century).  In his mind, if Lord John accepts Jamie's offer, he might try to do something to Willie.  Jamie couldn't live with himself if he knowingly left Willie in the hands of a pedophile.  Since Lord John did not accept Jamie's offer, Jamie felt safe leaving Helwater.

I didn’t take it so much as Jaime equating pedophila with homosexuality, but as Jaime equating being a sexual predator towards an underling to possible pedophilia or “grooming” as we would call it in 2018. Of course I could be wrong (more knowledgeable people please comment), but I interpreted that because Lord John didn’t take Jaime up on his offer, (because he knew Jaime was straight and wasn’t actually interested in him sexually) he would not try to groom Willie sexually (even as an adult)- basically that Lord John wasn’t interested in sexually cohesive relationships. Which Jaime should’ve known given that he was Lord John’s prisoner and Lord John never did/said anything after the first pass BUT it was 18th century. He still knew Lord John was gay. 

 

Now that I’ve typed this out maybe we are agreeing with each other- not that Jaime thinks Lord John is no longer gay (and thus not a pedophile, equating the two) but that he thinks there is a correlation (gay men are more likely to be pedophiles)- AH. 

[WatchrTina]

On 12/13/2018 at 10:16 PM, Ziggy said:

It does come up later, but I never looked at it as "retconning."  Diana does this all the time ... giving the reader more information about events that happened books ago.

I hold the opposite opinion.  I have long believed that Jamie's claim (in a later book) that his offer was a "test" WAS retconning by Diana.  I think that when Diana first wrote the scene where Jamie offers himself to John what she wrote is exactly what she meant. No subtext.  She wrote Jamie offering himself as a bribe to get John to look after Willie (since Jamie was leaving.)  He knew John wanted him and his body was the only thing he had to bargain with so he offered it -- for the sake of his son. We, the readers, could understand what a big deal that was, given all that Jamie had been through.  And then Diana wrote one of Lord John's greatest moments when he honorably declines the offer.  

I don't believe for a minute that Diana's original plan was to show us Jamie "testing" John and that she secretly knew he was planning to kill John if he took Jamie up on the offer -- believing that by doing so he would be protecting Willie from a sexual predator.  I also don't think Diana was much bothered by the people who got their knickers in a twist over that scene, saying that "their" Jamie would NEVER make that offer!  No, I think she ret-conned that scene because there were readers who decided that Jamie's offer meant he was bi-sexual.  That is NOT the impression she was trying to give so I think she had Jamie later SAY he was testing John to put that bi-sexual speculation to rest. But I remain convinced that Jamie, as originally written, WOULD have let John have his way if he thought it would ensure that his son was looked after.  That John said "no" to a bona fide offer is, I think, one of the reasons that their friendship is so strong. I also believe John when he says he would have been greatly offended by Jamie's offer, did he not know the depth of feeling (Jamie's love for Willie) from which it sprang.  Remember these guys nearly came to blows over this topic in one of the Lord John novels (Jamie ends up punching the wall, missing John's face by inches.) Jamie's position on homosexuality is quite unambiguous in those novels. After reading those novels and watching the Jamie/John relationship evolve over time, I find it hard to accept the notion that Jamie would "test" John after all that.  But, your milage may vary.

Meanwhile, back on the topic of THIS episode, can I just say again how lucky we are in the casting of David Berry as Lord John?  The scenes between him and Cait were just crackling good. It's funny because I'm sitting here writing and speculating about what Jamie was really thinking and feeling when he made that offer to John and Claire must be going through the same speculative psychoanalysis in HER mind in this episode when SHE hears about that offer.

Edited December 16, 2018 by WatchrTina

[Ziggy]

20 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

I didn’t take it so much as Jaime equating pedophila with homosexuality, but as Jaime equating being a sexual predator towards an underling to possible pedophilia or “grooming” as we would call it in 2018. Of course I could be wrong (more knowledgeable people please comment), but I interpreted that because Lord John didn’t take Jaime up on his offer, (because he knew Jaime was straight and wasn’t actually interested in him sexually) he would not try to groom Willie sexually (even as an adult)- basically that Lord John wasn’t interested in sexually cohesive relationships. Which Jaime should’ve known given that he was Lord John’s prisoner and Lord John never did/said anything after the first pass BUT it was 18th century. He still knew Lord John was gay. 

 

Now that I’ve typed this out maybe we are agreeing with each other- not that Jaime thinks Lord John is no longer gay (and thus not a pedophile, equating the two) but that he thinks there is a correlation (gay men are more likely to be pedophiles)- AH. 

I think you said that much better than I did, but that's the gist of what I was trying to say.

[Cdh20]

Can I just say that I am enjoying reading everyone’s interpretations on character’s motivations. I wonder how much of our own experiences, good & bad (or fantasies) play into how we read/view each person. In one of the most controversial things Jamie did- come home with bite marks- a friend with a no good cheating husband was barely able to forgive him, but my husband said “ Jamie would never cheat on Claire” very matter of factly!

I get a chance in real life to discus the show with many friends/family/clients, but only a handful of book readers, & it’s not the differences from book to screen that make me read the book threads( I think I like the show better- *ducks*) it’s that you sometimes feel you know these characters more personally. Thank you!

[WatchrTina]

On 12/13/2018 at 8:36 PM, ruby24 said:

That bathtub dialogue about the rain/kisses was super cheesy, I thought. I kinda cringed. I can't remember if those were lines from the book, but I hope not.

I cringed too and I don't recall those lines from the book.  On the other hand I watched the episode yesterday with the sound turned off so that I could listen along to the podcast and I have to say that while the dialog was bad, the visuals are amazing.  That scene is visually gorgeous and very sexy.  Bravo to the set decorators, lighting designers, the actors and the director.  The writers, however, dropped the ball.

[AuntieMame]

This is the main thing that Outlander gets right imo, the portrait of the mystery of sexual passion. I could wish that mystery was better explored, but that is what is really sold and the actors playing Jaime and Claire capture that magic. My issue is that the books are touted as more than romantic fantasy.