Comments on: On Outlander season 3, Jamie, Lord John Grey, male friendship, and complications

By: Meredith

Meredith — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:04:00 +0000

I don’t think that John married Isobel just because it was a chance to stay close to Jamie. Obviously, that’s a part of it, but it’s not the only reason. 1. It is a widely held belief back then, that if you get a girl pregnant and make her into a mother, you should marry them. Well, John sent Jamie to Helwater, accidentally introducing him to Geneva and accidentally creating William. Isabel was made into a mother because of those events. Events that John set in motion. So John was taking responsibility for a baby he accidentally created. He married the woman he made into a mother. 2. Obviously, William grew up knowing and loving Lord John since he was a baby. Is it so unheard of to believe that John felt paternal towards the boy? 3. In that era, men and women married in three different way. Either they fell in love, they married a friend or they were married off to a stranger. Ideally, you get to marry someone you fell for, but if you don’t have a sweetheart, than marrying a friend is preferably than being married to a stranger. Isabel watched what happened to her older sister. Geneva was married to a man four times her age who was obviously abusive towards Geneva. Isabel didn’t want to suffer Geneva’s fate. And I think John (whatever his felling toward her) didn’t want to see her married off to a stranger either. He’d known Isobel all her life. And in the absence of romantic love, friendship isn’t a bad foundation for a marriage. 4. Gay men married women back then. If Lord John stayed a bachelor for life, people would have started gossiping about him and he would have been discovered. And just being a homosexual in that era was a capital offence. So John needed a wife. Isabel needed a husband. And William needed a father who could raise him. Al sound reasons. Keeping Jamie’s friendship was just an added bonus.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 23:42:00 +0000

Does anyone else find the name of Jamie’s son ‘William,’ symbolic? Jamie’s deceased brother is named William. And John’s middle name happens to be William. The Dunsany grandparents obviously named the baby, but ‘William’ is a name either John and Jamie would have chosen, had it been up to them. I don’t think that the name was randomly chosen by Diana Gabaldon. She chose the name ‘William,’ because he really is both Jamie’s son and John’s son.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Tue, 08 Aug 2017 23:34:00 +0000

I very much enjoy the relationship between Jamie and John for the same reason I enjoy Claire and Frank. It’s a strange parallel, but both Frank and John have much in common. They both fall in love with people who can’t love them back. They both took on the role of fatherhood to keep their loved one close. And both Frank and John remind Claire and Jamie of Black Jack Randall. I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s the truth. Does anyone else believe that Claire pushed Frank away (in part) because he looked like Black Jack and had the same last name? Yes, Claire was married for a number of years to Frank, before she met Black Jack, but it can’t have been easy just seeing Frank anymore, without also thinking of Jack’s violence towards both Jamie and her. And John is nothing like Black Jack, but he has three things in common with him. He’s a redcoat officer, he’s Jamie’s jailer and he desires him. Those three things make Jamie associate the two together for years. That’s why Jamie pushed John away for so long. Because he wanted to vilify him. I know that the upcoming episode to reintroduce John Grey is called “All Debts Paid,” but because they be doing Jamie’s flashbacks as well as Claire, I wish the episode was titled “Unwelcome Allies.” because that’s what Frank and John are to them. At least for a while.

By: disqus_PXTzLZVYSU

disqus_PXTzLZVYSU — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 23:36:00 +0000

In reply to Avid Reader. It's funny but I always thought her reactions, even taking into account she is from a different era, to be way over the top. He is obviously no threat to her relationship but she is almost childishly jealous of their friendship and sees John as a rival. It annoys me no end and is not what I would have expected from Claire. So I actually feel quite the opposite to you. I think it's a bit much to assume every reader would agree with your view. The fabulous thing about reading books, and Outlander is a perfect example, is we all take away quite different things.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 23:30:00 +0000

I’m not worried I know Sam and David will do justice to this special friendship. It’s more about the writers and producers, I hope they took time to develop this unique bound between two men
First non readers will not especially understand it but the only watchers have to be deaf and blind not to have heard about LJG ;)
I’m impatient to see Jamie and Claire reunion of course, like Brianna and Roger. But John is such a wonderful man I’m eager to see him brought to life by David Berry, he does such a great job already in A Place to Call Home. We’re very lucky to have this addition to the show!

By: Matt Carter

Matt Carter — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 04:59:00 +0000

In reply to Cynthia. I hope they will! I never want to get my hopes up TOO high, but they certainly have plenty of ground to cover.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 00:16:00 +0000

I look forward to this friendship, and I think how it plays out over the series is part of the charm of it to me. Of course, after what happens in Echo in the Bone and the repercussions of that throughout MOBY I’m especially interested how it plays out in the series (I’m being optimistic that STARZ will indeed renew each year for each book – I can’t imagine they won’t).

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:23:00 +0000

In reply to Avid Reader.

Maybe. There are myriads of women in the world who react in myriads different ways to the same of similiar things. Claire doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve unlike her husband. She covers a lot of her feelings with snarky humor and strong attitude. Yet she loves very deeply IMO. Her firstborn, Faith’s death for example, she is unable to speak about her calmly even 20 or 30 years after that tragedy.
I guess it’s the case of two people reading the same text differently. Personally, I was always surprised how many and complex emotions Claire’s narration touches upon and how honest she is with herself. Like when Lord John visited Ridge in book 4. It was everyting from her feeling hurt upon seeing how Jamie quietly cherished William, feeling despair over not being able to present Brianna to him, jealous over the emotional bond between Jamie&LJG she could not be a part of, and remembering feeling betrayed by Frank despite of not really being jealous of him and “his” women.
But she doesn’t voice most of those things, she keeps them to herself. Some other women would react differently, I suppose.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:00:00 +0000

Jamie and Lord John are my two most favorite characters in the Outlander universe. I love the purity and loyalty of LJ’s love for Jamie and, despite Jamie’s shortcomings in certain ways when it comes to responding to those feelings, I love the respect and admiration Jamie has for LJ. They have an incredibly complicated relationship but one that is fundamental to both of their lives. I can’t wait to see it acted out on screen. I hope they do it justice.

By: Avid Reader

Avid Reader — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 19:01:00 +0000

In reply to Sara. I have re-read the books in light of the television series and each and every time I re-read the scenes on which I am basing my comments it is so clear to me that she could be saying, feeling, thinking, reacting so much more...maybe it is the cool doctor in her that keeps her unnervingly tempered