Themes

** I will be speaking on sexual assault and violence in this section of the review **

** contains spoilers**

Violence, Sex(Gender/Act), and Justice

There are so many morally grey characters in this series.

None of them are inherently bad, they’ve just made some type of deep peace with choosing the routes only a few will benefit from. However, we see that some of them do resent the choices they make and wish that they didn’t have to make these decisions. It just made them all the more complex. It was nice to not have so many black and white characters when it comes to conflict and justice. Many are loud, crude, and prone to violence. This book is no stranger toeing the line between violence and justice. Physical violence and sexual violence are incredibly prevalent in this novel. I think every 10 chapters there’s some type of threat of sexual violence or violence maybe.

I didn’t really think about it until I was talking with a friend about this book and she mentioned that there’s SA in it. Unfortunately, it did feel like there were too many rapey people. It felt like 2 out of 5 men that we met were either threatening to assault someone or actively doing it.

A lesson or will was always trying to be imparted whenever any violence was happening. Sex was seen as a tool/act to use against women and men. You would think because it’s a war that most of the men would be on the receiving end of the violence but it was mostly women with the exception of Jamie. Ever since Claire toppled through the stones she was faced with the fear of assault. Literally not 5 minutes into being in the past we see Randall trying to assault her. After she meets the McDougal men the threat of rape is mentioned yet again. Punishment for sex is violence as we see with Laoghaire when her father suspected her sleeping with other men. We see many unwanted advances of men towards Claire, many of them using their power to overwhelm her in some way. When Claire and Jamie are making love in some field and they get ambushed by men who also try and assault Claire. Jamie’s sister even was a victim. Most women that we meet in this novel and Jamie are victims of violence and this author kinda likes making it that way.

When I started reading Jamie’s assault scene, I had to put it down. It was only once, but enough time for me to gather what I was about to read.

We never really see anyone become successful in their attempts at penetrative assault. The closest we get is when Randall is about to assault Claire before Jamie comes to save her. Those other instances felt like threats, we don’t have that moment of dread, that split second feeling that we get of realization that you are in fact going to be assaulted. The immediate loss of power, the pit in your stomach that seems to sink so low that if you tried to pick it up it would fall even deeper. The shoulder sagging defeat that’s so heavy it drags you to despair despite feeling like you’re frozen in place. I can pinpoint that exact moment when I knew that there was no way out of this for Jamie. I had never read a sexual assault of a man. I am well aware that men are often victims of sexual assault, it’s just something I’ve never seen. I think Sarah J Maas did try to shine some light on that with Rhysand but I truthfully feel like she was using that as a plot device, she never meant to do anything more with it and I don’t think she ever did. I do think both of these authors have the tendency to do this, I just hope this author knows what they’re doing and has a plan. Still, I found that assault scene was hard to read. It happens off page but throughout the entire time reading, I was thinking about Jamie and what he was going through. Imaging what things Randall had in store for him. It made me kinda sick. I thought for a moment that Jamie was going to get saved so that he wouldn’t have to go through this, that was the precedent for every single encounter since the start of the book, but the more I read, the more I realized that this was inevitable and that that nigga was the most heinous villain.

Men do lots of things when they’re jealous of women. Like fuck their boyfriends figuratively by dick riding or sometimes even physically.

Maybe it’s because I’m not good at detecting jealously in my own life but I literally didn’t see that Randall was jealous of Claire until Jamie told her. I guess there were some passages where I was side eyeing him but I didn’t think Randall had wanted Jamie in that way that badly. Up until that revelation from Jamie, you see most of Randall’s victims have been women. Once you learn about Jamie’s cell mate and how he passed, you can kind of start putting the pieces together. Randall is the best kind of monster. He’s able to weaponize his insecurities so well and hurt others immensely in the process. He’s still able to hold on to his power despite in the moment of assault trying to appear human and offer small acts of kindness. He’s relentless in his pursuit. He seem to care about the war in this book, we only see him care about his relentless pursuit of the one thing he can’t have.

We do eventually get details of Randall’s assault on Jamie. You learn that Randall is a jealous sadist. As much as he acted as though he was sorry, he immensely enjoyed the harm that he was inflicting. If there was any real doubt or guilt, he wouldn’t have went through with it. But he did. Exposing himself as jealous of Claire and how Jamie freely gives himself to her. Jamie has never come freely to Randall. The hunt for Jamie was probably the most exciting thing for him. He was the one that got away. The one that defied him. He could see that people were willing to defy him over Jamie. Jamie was the embodiment of Scottish pride and grit. It was the one thing the English couldn’t break despite how many men they killed. But he did manage to break Jamie but by overpowering him in the most underhanded way. Taking his pride as a man. By devaluing his masculinity would render Jamie a shell of himself. All that Jamie is is a man. It’s all that he has. Where he draws his strength from. Chipping at that even a little is debilitating, Randall tried to destroy him. He nearly succeeded. We saw Jamie pulling away from Claire, from all that he loved. He lost his resolve to fight and to express himself. It was painful to watch a character become a shell of themselves.

I had never thought about how much sexual violence takes place during war. I knew it happens but it’s the part of war that they gloss over in the history books. They only speak on it briefly and leave you to fill in the blanks. Often what you imagine does not even come close to the evil that is enacted on people/objects one doesn’t have respect for or see as lesser.

Sex has always been a tool and we see that tool on full display in this novel. Was it fun to read? Absolutely not. Did I feel it took away from the story, sometimes the only time I felt like it wasn’t needed was when Claire and Jamie had sex in the field and were found by bandits. Clearly only there to cause conflict between Claire and Jamie that we learn is surprisingly an issue. We are trying to be lead to believe that because of the time period and war that that it’s an okay tool to use.

Everything is on the table when you don’t see people as human or see them as deserving of punishment. The sexual violence or violence in general was seen as punishment in some way. For example, Claire often defies the men she is with, therefore they use violence to punish her. We can see that when Jamie has to beat her. Although they both do not want to do this act, it is carried out nonetheless. I couldn’t really understand why violence had to be used in this instance just to prove a point. It feels like the only reason why this scene was put there was to remind us that pain makes people listen but not in the ways that are healthy. Claire understood why the men were upset because Jamie talked with her and communicated, yet he still chose to beat her to appease the men below. It was stupid. I did not pity Jamie in that moment. He is normally so headstrong and defiant that I thought he would’ve tried to stage something to spare Claire. But he didn’t. He choose to listen to whims of other men and what they believe people should listen to. Pain makes people listen, but it doesn’t help them understand. It makes them afraid and easier to control.

We can see this taking place with Randall. Randall mainly did it to maintain control. He used fear to keep men in line and from crossing him. He used sex because he knew that people shamed and shunned it and it was easy to break them this way. He used their own body against them which in turn caused more shame. We could see from Jamie’s encounter that he felt like his own body betrayed him because Randall used Claire and knew that his body would respond to her. Your body is all that you have under your control and when it responds to acts that you gave no consent to, it fucks with you. It makes you question the things that you want and if you wanted those things to happen in that moment. Just because the body does what it’s supposed to supposed to do when aroused does not mean that you wanted those things to happen and we see Jamie struggle with that.

I feel like I’ve talked a lot about the sexual violence in this book because we don’t really see a lot of physical violence it seems. I think there are like maybe 10 physical fight scenes. I tried to google it but there’s no good answer out there. I just thought that because there was a war taking place that I would’ve perhaps seen more of that war. Like they’re on the road and run for what feels like the majority of this book and we hardly get any battles. We get fight scenes but I feel like they’re mostly from the side plots. I just feel like don’t set the tone as a war fantasy if you’re not really going to include much of the war.

I think the main physical violence encounter that stuck with me was the witch trials of Gellis and Claire. I lowkey don’t really even care that Claire was there because plot I knew she would be fine. She like always gets out of trouble even if it looks super serious.

I thought they had a nice dynamic. I enjoyed learning about the “superstitious” side of the world and we got to see that with Gellis. I enjoy anything with witches in it. So I was stoked when I saw that we were actually going have a legit witch. At least she seemed like one. She was definitely one in the eyes of the townspeople. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to test her as a witch sooner.

I’m not exactly pleased with her character arc. Half the important women that we meet are pregnant except Claire for like 95% of the book and the big breasted housemaid( I forgot her name). I was not happy that Gellis was pregnant when the witch trial takes place. It just pisses me off. She was honestly one of the cooler characters and you toss a baby at her. It just didn’t seem like in her character to want to have children. She never expressed any sentiments or wants about having any kids and that is what is decided for her. I hate that shit. Niggas will throw a baby at anything. I almost foamed at the mouth when I was reading that revelation. It would’ve been nice to have her around more and do more witchy things. I don’t like that that the author doesn’t do more with those elements. That literally is the whimsy in this book and she’s not doing a good job of maintaining that throughout the book. It almost feels like an afterthought.

I feel like their relationship was the closest thing we had to actually to witnessing a successful female friendship in this book. There were like none.

Claire is friends with all men and I hated that. Like I don’t care what these are men are doing. They’re being shady, sticking their dicks in places they don’t belong, and fighting in a war. Why couldn’t I see what the woman were up to? It’s like the women in the story only existed to have sex with the men and get pregnant and do menial shit. They literally don’t do shit else.

So I was excited that Gellis was a female character with some potential. And then she gets sacrificed for Claire. Like it’s so dumb. I don’t get why this author couldn’t just let that witch shit marinate a little bit until it was ready to fall off the bone with suspicion that couldn’t be ignored. Gellis could’ve been so useful and she was wasted to advance the plot. It’s exactly what Naruto did with Neji and I hated it.

I think that’s the reason why this act of violence stuck out to me so much. This whole trial was started because of Collum and Dougal. Women are always having to sacrifice themselves due to things that men have started. It’s crazy because the author isn’t even trying to make this point with her death; she did it for shock value and plot advancement. Just to advance the relationship of Claire and Jamie. It’s dumb. I hate when female characters get treated as expendable.

I think the last thing I want to touch on with this section is violence and justice. I think I tried to touch on this a bit when speaking on Jamie beating Claire. I’m not a fan of this scene. There is no justice in this scene, only a tradition being passed down.

If I’ve learned anything from corporeal punishment as a child was that causing trauma is not a valid response to learning a lesson. What about pain is supposed to make me comprehend the weight of my actions? Why should my physical pain equal to the pain and shame I feel for being wrong? I know why it is, it just sucks. Jamie even contemplated this after he beat up that kid’s dad for beating on him. I wasn’t upset in this instance. I think abusers need to get a proper one two combo.

That situation wasn’t the situation I was describing earlier with Claire and Jamie.

I stated earlier that he choose to beat her. He knew she understood and even made it seem like things were fine and that he understood and then he beat her. When I received my belt whoopings as a child, I remember how it felt to be lulled into that false sense of security, that telling the truth wouldn’t hurt you. It is a harsh lesson that parents try to teach their child, that telling the truth can get you in trouble, but I also don’ t think it should result in pain of the physical kind. Jamie treated Claire like my parents treated younger me. I hated to see it. It was painful to relive the moment of trust breaking in that way.

I’ve read criticisms of Jamie being a man of the past, this is the 18th century, and women had no consent/rights. I see this and I raise you, ” Jamie is a very progressive man of his time and it just feels so not like his character”.

It just doesn’t make sense on why he agreed to do this. The situation she put them in was dangerous and stupid. I thought she understood the reasons on why she put their lives in danger, why have him use violence to hammer the point home. I understand the time and I’m not expecting to not see behavior of the time in action, but why make him incredibly progressive for his time? Why make him nicer and different from all the other men every single time when he could use violence or any other tactic but have him backtrack this time? This could’ve been the perfect moment to instead, when she gets back to the castle, strip her of her role or even try and give Claire the punishment Laoghire was going to have. I just feel like is it unlike Jamie’s character that we know of so far to cause Claire pain in that way. Maybe I read the scene wrong and didn’t understand the stakes.

Even then beating aside, I just feel like it was a cop out way to solve resolve the tension from her decision. It didn’t really add anything to the story or for either characters involved. Unless I missed a chapter on Claire saying it changed her life, I see it as a useless act of violence.

I understand that not everything is black and white. Sometimes pain can lead to justice, that’s why some revenge can end up painful in the physical sense, especially if there was physical altercations involved. But it shouldn’t be the route for all justice. Sometimes you don’t feel better afterwards. I wish we would’ve seen Jamie open up about that more after the beating. If he had guilt, it would’ve been a great time to show it to her. The men letting her walk a little slowly because of her sore ass was not acknowledgement enough. This is lowkey a fake feminist book to me cause she goes on about how woman are supposed to do x,y,z but like doesn’t educate them or anything. I hate that shit.

Anyway I think it was executed at like a 5/10. I don’t think she handled these topics as well as they could’ve been.

Healing/Healing Methods specially using religion/Guilt

Healing is spiritual as much as it is physical.

The author tried to do some healing of the major wounds characters suffered. We kind of only see that through Claire and Jamie. Claire struggles with the fact that she loves Jamie and Frank and is married to both of them. Frank is alive but in a different time. With Jamie it is a myriad of things. He feels responsible for the assault he believed took place on his sister Jenny, for his father’s death, and being sexually assaulted by Jonathan Randall.

We go down two paths in route for healing but all roads lead back to God and the occult it seems.

With Claire, we watch her fight her attraction to young Jamie since they met. While she tries to deny it, we as readers know this is a romance book and can spot a friends to lover troupe. She mends his ailments. Automatically we kind of see her as someone who can heal Jamie. I think the only thing I can try and applaud this author for is not making Jamie Claire’s antidote so to speak. I don’t think Jamie heals her in that way. I would say that maybe he makes her feel more alive and attended to.

She continues to heal Jamie and others physically but ignores the mental and emotional pain she has because she can’t talk to anyone about it. She like barely talks to herself about it in depth at least. We see her miss Frank but I feel like she didn’t miss him enough lmao. She didn’t long for him enough for my taste. We don’t really see this emotional turmoil she’s dealing with come to head until she has to get married to Jamie, the fight at Castle Leoch, and when she is at the stones trying to choose between Jamie and Frank.

In the first instance, we see her drink her feelings away and not really confront them. She knows she needs to do this in order to maintain her safety in this time but she is filled with guilt as she sees herself still married to Frank. While technically she is, he also doesn’t exist yet as she is literally face to face with his long lost ancestor. I’m sure if she looked hard enough she could see Frank swimming in his nutsack. I just feel like having them getting married in the same church Frank and Claire got hitched should’ve caused more turmoil than did it. I’m surprised she didn’t run away.

Anyway, I hated that all we got to see was her drink her feelings away, when I feel like this was the perfect time to really showcase and tell the reader how much she really loved Frank. I feel like even when Jamie and Claire were talking after the wedding about themselves, we should’ve heard that conversation about Frank. We only get so much page time with him and it almost doesn’t even feel like a fair fight between Jamie and Frank. She doesn’t hype up Frank at all which lets me know that the author wants to her own character(Jamie). She like didn’t even try to hide it.

When Jamie and Claire had their big blowout when they returned home from collecting funds, it was set up to be a build up of tension, but it didn’t really give that.

Claire is clearly ignoring her feelings when it comes to Jamie. Everyone can see that they are attracted to each other but her. I just feel like if the author gave more insight to Claire and Frank’s relationship, this scene would’ve hit more. The tension was just right and it was ruined because Gabaldon chose to prioritize the relationship she actually gave a shit about. Claire was obviously stupid mad jealous and worked herself into a frenzy. I’ve been there, it sucks. It sucks even more when you’re not honest with yourself. There is a severe lack of real bitch to real bitch communication. Homegirl cannot keep it real with herself and went into avoidant mode.

Jamie seemed very understanding that he couldn’t replace Frank, hell I don’t even think he was trying to. I feel like he did try to communicate that or show that to her but Claire was wrapped up in her guilt. While Jamie’s sentiment of trying to show her how he felt through trying to put her through the mattress was… an offer lmao, I feel like it just wasn’t the time to offer that. That’s just another instance of the author trying to throw sex in the mix when there doesn’t really need to be.

Honestly now that I look at it, the conversation does more for Jamie’s healing than it did for Claire. Eventually, towards the end of their argument, Jamie produces a ring for Claire and she has to decide if she wants to wear it. She does but I’m low-key unsure why she takes the ring even though she can’t admit to herself that she loves him or is in love with him. This scene is only important because Jamie needs to give her a ring and we need to show that Claire feels more for Jamie than she lets on. And then he puts her through a mattress all night long.

The last instance of Claire struggling with her decision and guilt would be when Jamie dropped her off at the stones basically forcing her to choose. Which good on him, someone needed to make her do something.

This scene would’ve have been everything that it was trying to be if we had been shown more of how much Claire loves Frank. She misses home and its modern comforts but she does not miss Frank if you ask me. This scene should’ve been emotionally charged because it was the moment we had been waiting for, but it kinda fell flat. The book was dick sucking Jamie for like 500 pages while barely having memories of Frank. Of course we knew who she was going to choose.

While Claire healed Jamie’s bodily wounds, Jamie’s heart and soul had wounds that needed tending. Those wounds are much harder to heal as we all know. After one is assaulted, in order to heal from such an earth shattering, self dehumanizing ordeal, one must find themselves again. Your whole sense of self is gone. You lived your entire life before thinking that you were strong and that there was no one in this world could bring you down or take you down. You were graced to never see the real evil that lurks in the hearts of people who survive on taking advantage of others. And then you meet this evil and are faced with the realization that sometimes you are not stronger than that evil. That evil is sometimes more cunning, more alluring, and more selfish than you ever realized. That your strongest was not enough even though you were doing all you could. It’s enough to change someone entirely. It’s a tough change to watch in anyone.

Watching Claire try and heal Jamie’s more emotional wounds was interesting. It is not hard to support victims or at least it shouldn’t be. I can understand confusion in wondering how to do so but offering your support should never be hard. I could sense this frustration in Claire in trying to be there for Jamie. While she does continuously offer her love and support, you can see her worry and frustration at Jamie pushing her away and pulling away. During the assault, Randall made sure to use Jamie’s love for Claire against him in a way that would make him scared of her. Having your close relationships twisted during moments of assault is heartbreaking so one could understand why Jamie pushed Claire away. Whether she knew it or not, she was a reminder of what was done to him. Randall had associated Claire in the assault on purpose. He knew that would break their bond and him in the process.

The healing method that Claire used to try and heal Jamie was incredibly confusing to read. Maybe I was reading too fast so it wasn’t making sense but it felt incredibly jumbled. I tried looking around for someone to explain how she “healed” him but that scene also confuses others as well. From my understanding, Claire lit some lavender and opium to put Jamie in a state to remind him of BJR and the night of his abuse and then changed her voice to match his. Made him relive his trauma, somehow sounded like his mom, and then they were able to have sex again. I know she cut him as well.

I’m not a therapist by any means. I understand that therapists might put their patients back into a the moment of their trauma so they can get to the root. At least that sounds like something they would do. I’m just not sure how that was able to bring him back to himself. I read that giving Jamie the opportunity to fight back in that situation is what helped him. While I can understand, I just can’t wrap my head around it for some reason. It’s a very unorthodox method for the time, but it gave Jamie power back.

I think what really trips me up how Claire came to that conclusion to help him. Maybe it’s the religious factor that I’m not understanding. I know that she had taken Jamie’s soul back from BJR when she went to the chapel. How did she get that? Through his love?

We see both Jamie and Claire both come to terms with their guilt through religious means. Claire turned towards a religious figure to talk about her loving two different men from different times and Jamie overcoming his assault. While I’m not incredibly religious, I can understand turning to something greater to help work through problems. I feel like everyone is looking for a nonjudgmental source and what better way is the cosmic unknown. It was nice to read even if it was a bit confusing.

• Book Reviews