Outlander: Waiting for April [SPOILERS: First Season]

[Zorral]

It sounds as though season 1 concludes before the book does. But as I'm not going to be able to see it until the second half is out on dvd, I'm not sure I'm judging correctly from what you all have been describing. :)

[Le Cygne]

Still haven't caught the last episode, but am loving the second half of the season...

[Martini Sigil]

This show is really well done.... from soup to nuts... the locations are spectacular, and really, the whole show is dependent upon Claire & Jamie' s chemistry... and they pull it off like they're in love off the set.......

[Raksha 2014]

I've been enjoying the TV series. I've already read all the books; I have them on my Kindle.

In my opinion, the first book (what we're seeing on TV now) was the best; but I think the others might do better as TV adaptions than as novels. I'm already wondering how the TV writers and directors will handle the second novel, which is very different from the first (especially in its approach to the storytelling; it's not a straight-up linear narrative).

[Astromech]

Well, that was a slightly disturbing season finale.

First time I've ever the seen the show give a viewer discretion warning

[Martini Sigil]

Holy shit.... that was one brutal hour of television, right there.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Shock! value of the year award goes to Ronald Moore. Congrats Starz hope you're proud of yourselves.

[Crixus]

That's how you handle rape in a story. Devastating and hard to watch, yet imo depicted with the gravity such a trauma deserves. Especially in terms of the aftermath: you don't just blithely move on (yes, I'm referring to GoT :P)

Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies were absolutely brilliant, as was Balfe (she always is).

[Jack Bauer 24]

That's how you handle rape in a story. Devastating and hard to watch, yet imo depicted with the gravity such a trauma deserves. Especially in terms of the aftermath: you don't just blithely move on (yes, I'm referring to GoT :P)

Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies were absolutely brilliant, as was Balfe (she always is).

No. It was handled terribly here. I know a bunch of people who won't be watching Season 2.

[Zorral]

No. It was handled terribly here. I know a bunch of people who won't be watching Season 2.

Not everyone sees this episode this way.

To quote from the link:

It is startling and upsetting to watch Jamie’s abuse not merely because it’s rape — though that is awful, we have seen rape before — but because it’s the rape of a good guy. That is almost without parallel in pop culture. The last time I saw treatment so graphic and brutal was probably American History X, and there the violence was visited upon a Nazi in prison. No wonder Jamie wonders whether he can survive; there is very little pop-cultural precedent for his situation.

Jamie does come out the other side of his trauma, eventually, with Claire’s determined and passionate help. She refuses to see him as less than who he is simply because of what he was been through. They weep together, but she does not pity him; he does not disgust her. Together, they re-frame what happened: He is not a victim; he is a survivor. And so he can go on.

It is a very strong statement, perhaps a paradigm-shifting one for television. A man is no less a man, and a person is no less a person, for having gone through something terrible.

Once Jamie decides to live, he has the others help him cut out Randall’s brand from his skin, and he, Claire, and Murtagh book passage on a ship to France. Out on the water, it is Claire who is hanging over the railing looking green. When Jamie ribs her about this, a little, she tells him that what’s plaguing her isn’t seasickness. Jamie is going to be a father. Oh, and the two of them have to try to change the future so as to avert various disasters of Scottish history. Jamie embraces Claire and laughs, a man with a destiny, looking, once again, young and strong and whole, and ready for season two

Moore talks about writing this episode here.

A quote from the link:

That tenderness, after all that pain, leads Jamie to experience a moment of, shall we say, release. This, perhaps more than the rape, contributes to Jamie blaming himself, and his subsequent sense of self-loathing. "The shock that you enjoyed it, what does that say about you?" Moore said. "It's a tremendous amount of psychological pressure — what he thinks about himself, what he thinks about himself as a man, how does he think it's impacted his relationship with Claire. What are you supposed to do in this circumstances?"

Evidently not everyone see this as Moore hoped, but evidently there are a number of viewers who did see, react and feel as Moore hoped and intended.

[Le Cygne]

That's how you handle rape in a story. Devastating and hard to watch, yet imo depicted with the gravity such a trauma deserves. Especially in terms of the aftermath: you don't just blithely move on (yes, I'm referring to GoT :P)

Sam Heughan and Tobias Menzies were absolutely brilliant, as was Balfe (she always is).

This. There are ways to tell stories. Also this was in the source material, they didn't just add it, or swap out characters like they are interchangeable.

[MoIaF]

Just watched it.

It was a very good episode and I thought they handled the citation well. It was of course hard to watch as it is with anyone being hurt the way Jaime was but I didn't feel it was gratuitous, graphic yes, but not gratuitous.

It was also good that they address the aftermath of such a trauma, I thought it was very realistic although the whole thing with the oil and the fighting from Claire was a bit much. Though I know that part is based on the source material.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the season as a whole and look forward to watching season 2.

[BearQueen87]

No. It was handled terribly here. I know a bunch of people who won't be watching Season 2.

How exactly was it handled terribly? Outlander dealt not only with a rape that was really a season in the making, part of a narrative that has been ongoing for some time, but actually went to the next logical step to show how the survivor has to negotiate their own life now that they are living post-rape (something TV neglects to do...a lot). Jamie did not simply get up, kiss Claire, and move on with his life, sound of body and sound of because everything was okay now that he was away from Black Jack. It showed how people who actually go through something as harrowing and traumatizing as rape feel after their sexual assault. Maybe instead of just saying it was handled terribly, you unpack that statement and say WHY (and not just because someone brought up GoT and compared the two and your first instinct seems to be defending GoT at all costs)

In other news:

I haven't popped into this thread all season but in brief, this opening season was just phenomenal from start to finish. All the actors (especially Heughan, Balfe, and Menzies) have been stunning to watch. The rich depiction of life in the Scottish highlands, the costumes, the narrative that wavers from intense to light just when the audience needs it...all fantastic. Can't wait for S2.

[Zorral]

This. There are ways to tell stories. Also this was in the source material, they didn't just add it, or swap out characters like they are interchangeable.

Exactly. The emotional and psychic dimensions of this terrible trauma for Jamie, in an era when there was no language or medical terms to describe what happened to him -- in fact there are hardly are even today --

and how Claire sets about attempting to heal him of the horror, or at least get him to move on, when all he wants is to die, and she dispairs that she can help him -- for me, in the novel, this was brilliant.It particularly was so because it included the spiritual assistance, which ultimately, in one way or another, is all any of us can draw upon when dealing with such horrors, whether as subject or healer. It also makes everything that has happened between Claire and Jamie essential too.

[Zorral]

People seem to object to this portrayal of rape and torture as making it "all good" somehow, because

Jamie has these moments in which his prolonged breakage by Randall moved him to 'love' his torturer. But that is the very brilliance of this whole arc: those who object to this haven't read the accounts of torturers' methodology and the results by those who have been subjected to this prolonged breaking, or even the Patty Hearst story. This phenomenon isn't fiction, but a real thing. It is employed deliberately, and even the Inquisition knew the process way back when.

Which, though not as successfully worked out in terms of the novel, still rather impresses me, as the Church, which knows these methods, is a large part here, of helping Claire be Jamie's healer.

.

And yah, a mere assertion this material was badly handled is meaningless. One must give the points as to how and why it was badly handled. Because, really, this sort of thing happens with torture and prolonged sexual violation as part of the torture.

[Jack Bauer 24]

People seem to object to this portrayal of rape and torture as making it "all good" somehow, because

Jamie has these moments in which his prolonged breakage by Randall moved him to 'love' his torturer. But that is the very brilliance of this whole arc: those who object to this haven't read the accounts of torturers' methodology and the results by those who have been subjected to this prolonged breaking, or even the Patty Hearst story. This phenomenon isn't fiction, but a real thing. It is employed deliberately, and even the Inquisition knew the process way back when.

Which, though not as successfully worked out in terms of the novel, still rather impresses me, as the Church, which knows these methods, is a large part here, of helping Claire be Jamie's healer.

.

And yah, a mere assertion this material was badly handled is meaningless. One must give the points as to how and why it was badly handled. Because, really, this sort of thing happens with torture and prolonged sexual violation as part of the torture.

The scenes were way overdone and did not have to go on as long or have as many as they did. Especially the scene with Jaime being ass raped. Give me a break.

The Outlander forum is up in arms and tons of people won't be back for Season 2.

Lets not forget the ridiculous fact that

Jaime wants to kill himself and then 10 minutes later is sailing to France in a complete 180 state of mind. They should have built that up longer then they did.

[BearQueen87]

1.The scenes were way overdone and did not have to go on as long or have as many as they did. Especially the scene with Jaime being ass raped. Give me a break. The Outlander forum is up in arms and tons of people won't be back for Season 2.

2.Lets not forget the ridiculous fact that Jaime wants to kill himself and then 10 minutes later is sailing to France in a complete 180 state of mind. They should have built that up longer then they did.

1. You mean because the scenes were brutal and harsh and uncomfortable? Like actual rape is? That's what you're gripping about? That it was realistic and true to how traumatizing actual sexual assault is? The camera and story didn't just allude to it and leave the horror of it to the side, instead it challenged the viewer to watch the horror unfold because, lo and behold, rape is harrowing.

2. Except not. Jamie had to go to France, there was no question that they needed to escape. There was no choice in the matter. And if you think his mind was 180 changed, then I suggest you watch that final scene again and keep an eye on Heughan's face because as he's hugging Claire you can see that while he claims he's happy, Jamie is obviously not quite sure how he feels. The cutting out of the brand was used to show that he's going to survive but this is just the first part of survival. He's not suddenly "all better."

[Astromech]

Quick question:

How long was the recovery in the books? I know Moore was saying that Jamie's "recovery" takes place in France in the books, but how long of a period was it? My one issue with the episode is that it seemed like a relatively fast recovery in the episode. But then, I have no idea how long they were in the monastery for.

[Jack Bauer 24]

http://www.tv.com/m/shows/outlander/community/post/outlander-season-1-finale-episode-16-to-ransom-a-mans-soul-review-143296513855/

Great review from a book reader.

WE GET IT, OUTLANDER! VERY BAD THINGS HAPPENED! BUT SEEING THE DETAILS OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN REAL TIME IS NOT WHAT WE SIGNED ON FOR! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SING US A SONG ABOUT A LASS THAT'S NOW GONE! INSTEAD YOU SANG US A SONG ABOUT INCREDIBLY GRAPHIC SEXUAL ASSAULT.

"As it was, Jamie and Claire sort of hugged it out, then he cut his brand off, and then they got on a boat, and then Claire was like Were okay right? Also Im pregnant.

"Sing me a song of a series that was way loyal to the book in the respect of showing every painful detail of graphic rape, and then scrapped its canon ending! Ugh."

[Zorral]

Alas, the above isn't coherent, well-argued and outlined, or even particularly factual.

This reviewer -- who admires how this horror was handled, also provides a coherent criticism of the episode in its other aspects here -- quote from the link:

But as I observed above, “To Ransom A Man’s Soul” is otherwise a fairly sloppy season finale. It’s true to the source material, but also exposes how flimsy the source material is, in this instance — the action moves from bloodied despair in a prison cell, in first scene, to optimism and freedom above a ship bound for France, in the last. From end to end the episode rushes through a lot of disjointed storytelling — not only is Jamie tortured and then begins to recover from torture, but Claire is pregnant, there’s that surgery, she confesses her past of time travel to a monk, and in what is perhaps the craziest kicker, Claire manages to revive Jamie’s will to live by getting them both high on opium and making him relive his trauma, through her. It’s kind of like makeshift, drug-induced regression therapy — and about as risky and reliable as that sounds. Because this is a story about 1743, we’re not going to get careful grief counseling. Not even Claire, trained as a war nurse in 1945, has ever heard the term post-traumatic stress disorder.

And the sloppiness of the episode exposes the biggest question at the heart of this debate: What’s the value of this scene? What makes this story worth telling? Whose vision is being honored? Whose reaction are the storytellers seeking? And maybe most importantly — is any of that worth watching unmitigated brutality? These are questions that lie with the audience, not the creators. What I’ve learned over the past few weeks in attempting to write about rape on TV is that most audience members have a visceral reaction to seeing something so brutal on television. A type of violence as horrible as rape is the type of thing that defies textual analysis or multiple interpretations. I have no clear answers, just a lot of conflicting information. And no desire whatsoever to watch that episode again.i

This reviewers questions and criticisms mirror mine, as I increasing inquire of myself, other viewers and the entertainment industries responsible: why is it this story of unspeakable horror and violence degrading and humiliating human bodies and souls always the one chosen to tell and dramatize, when there are so many other stories to tell? Or, are there no other stories to tell in this age of snark, degradation, downward mobility, climate change and violence of the faceless corporation and state against anyone it chooses?

It's like the question I kept asking the characters, writers and producer of Ex Machina: "Why are you doing this?

I much admired Ex Machina. However, if AI is ultimately this big a threat to the human race, why choose to race to create that reasoning, free will capacity in our machines? Nobody asked that question even once, except in the context, that it makes the person who does it "like a god." But human beings with free will and all the other abilities of a distinct personhood, destroyed god quite some time ago, as our machines managed to do so much of what we used to beg god to do. So of course a thinking, free-willed machine will destroy the creators of itself too. So -- why?