#The Fiery Cross

[transparentdreamruins]

Jamie & Claire

"I love you, a nighean donn. I have loved ye from the moment I saw ye, I will love ye 'til time itself is done, & so long as you are by my side, I am well pleased with the world." ~The Fiery Cross

[themusicsweetly]

“I have lived through war and lost much. I know what's worth the fight, and what is not. Honor and courage are matters of the bone, and what a man will kill for he will sometimes die for, too... For the sake of love alone I would walk through fire again.”

—The Fiery Cross

[gotham-ruaidh]

“You didn‘t ask what I want done with my body.”

I‘d meant it at least half in jest, to lighten his mood, but his fingers curled so abruptly over mine that I gasped.

“No,” he said softly. “And I never will.” He wasn‘t looking at me but at the whiteness before us. “I canna think of ye dead, Claire. Anything else—but not that. I can‘t.”

-- An Echo In The Bone

----------------------------------------

I was so happy to see this small scene come to life in 7x03.

And it got me thinking.

Why can't Jamie bear to think of Claire dead?

Besides the obvious - that she's his heart, a part of him, the pain of it could very well kill him...

I think it comes down to the fact that he saw how his mother's death absolutely crushed - in many ways destroyed - his father.

Brian Fraser obviously lived for many years after he lost Ellen MacKenzie Fraser - but of course he wasn't the same man.

Jamie was old enough when his mother died to see this, and to remember it.

It's why he says to Claire in The Fiery Cross:

“To see the years touch ye gives me joy, Sassenach,” he whispered, “—for it means that ye live.”

[samsheughan]

“I have lived through war and lost much. I know what's worth the fight and what is not. Honor and courage are matters of the bone. And what a man will kill for, he'll sometimes die for, too. A man's life springs from a woman's bones, and in her life is his honor Christened. For the sake of love alone would I walk through fire again.”

[semper-legens]

98. The Fiery Cross, by Diana Gabaldon

Owned?: No, library Page count: 1412 My summary: 1771, North Carolina. While revolution brews in the air, the inhabitants of Fraser's Ridge settle into their homes and lives. Forewarning of what's to come will prepare the Frasers and MacKenzies for the future, but they have other problems on the rise. Trouble is sparking in the colonies, and as the leader of his community, Jamie Fraser is called to lead his men into battle. Will their family ever find peace - or will war and strife and bitter conflict tear them apart once more? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Ah, Outlander. I blame this series for why I haven't read nearly as many books as I usually do this year - just look at that page count! The books are daunting in their size, and yet, here just past the halfway mark of the series, I think they're pretty well-paced. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of lingering around gossiping with other women or doing the washing or setting up Claire's surgery, but I think the books do an excellent job both of showing the domestic lives of our characters, and of giving breaks in the action, establishing and renewing the status quo, and doing the vital character work needed for a series like this. Sure, the book was a long one, but I always felt the pull to come back and immerse myself in its world and in its story. And while, as in previous volumes of Outlander, I've had some issues with certain aspects of how Gabaldon represents the past, I'm still overall enjoying it and glad that I've stuck with it this long! I can't write about everything that happens in this book, obviously, but here's some of my broad talking points.

Claire and Jamie continue to be a really good team. They work together excellently within their roles as healer and leader respectively. We also have another stable, settled relationship in Brianna and Roger, who get married at the start of this book and raise their son to a toddler throughout the book. Although it's still unknown whether young Jemmy is biologically Roger's kid or the child of Stephen Bonnet, who raped Brianna in the last book, Roger doesn't take any of the opportunities offered to find out. (Claire can test Jemmy's blood to see what type it is, which wouldn't confirm if he was Roger's, but could definitely confirm if he was Bonnet's depending on what the result was.) It's some nice character work, it shows that Roger ultimately wants to raise this kid as his own regardless of the biology, and though he thinks about the idea of having a kid that's definitely biologically his, he respects Brianna's choice early in the book to not have any more children for now.

Speaking of which, Brianna and Claire have some frank discussions about preventing pregnancy in this kind of time period, which is interesting! Brianna is worried about giving birth again without proper hospital care, and Claire warns her that abstinence is the only true preventative - abortificents available in this time period could cause just as many issues as childbirth. It's a very frank and unjudgemental discussion, and refreshing to see! So, too, is Claire's going through menopause throughout the book. It's not something often spoken of in fiction like this, so kudos there! Overall, I really like that this time, we don't have any will-they-won't-they kind of romantic intrigue. It's a personal preference, but I much prefer the domesticity of Claire and Jamie and Brianna and Roger's relationships as depicted here to the passionate young lovers of earlier books. Still, I gotta once again give praise to how all of the characters are allowed to have sexualities and be sexual without narrative judgement.

Claire is an inventor of sorts in this one. She's manufacturing crude penicillin, and has created a microscope that allows her to identify it properly. It's not at the standard of modern penicillin, and she can't inject it, but it helps patients throughout her practice. Claire's doctor skills have been her main strength throughout the novels, and I really appreciate that she's allowed to innovate and invent like this. She's blending both the archetypes of male and female medical professionals - the caring role stereotypical to a female doctor, the innovation stereotypical to a male doctor. And there's a realism to the production of penicillin, too. One patient dies of a suspected allergy to penicillin, which Claire deeply regrets, and it's not a foolproof treatment. But she's doing her best to do well by her patients, and that has to be commended.

I do have some things to say about how these books treat gender, though. Jamie and Roger are consistently depicted as being big, brawny, buff men willing to do rugged outdoor work like hunting and trapping, while Brianna and Claire live in more of a domestic sphere. Jamie and Roger are physically hurt more than Claire and Brianna, with Jamie covered in scars and Roger going through injury after injury (he's almost hanged to death in this one!). I don't remember an instance where the women are physically harmed in the same way. However, I don't mean to imply that Claire and Brianna are weak characters, or that they're never allowed to do what might stereotypically be called 'men's work'. Brianna is a better hunter than Roger, for example, and Claire's work is very bloody, plus she ends up killing a buffalo. I suspect a hint of romanticism is taking place here (I've never been a straight woman, but shirtless scarred Scotsmen with rippling muscles sounds like the sort of thing Gabaldon might be into) and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just that an element of the stereotypical starts creeping in here and there, and it's very noticable. And again, some of it is due to the setting and to the fact that, enlightened though they may be, most of the characters are from the 1770s or 1960s. It's just worth noting as something I've seen creeping in here and there; the men are Rugged, the women are Harried and Domestic.

And finally, some of my major continuing criticisms. Gabaldon keeps dropping the ball when it comes to race. It's notable that, with five books in the series so far, and three of them fully or partially set in the American colonies, there's very few main characters of colour. The best there are Jamie's aunt Jocasta's slaves, Ulysses and Phaedra, but they don't get a lot of focus beyond their role serving Jocasta. We've seen Native Americans, we've seen a man from China, we've seen enslaved and free black people, but we seen them mostly in passing - none of them join the main cast. I don't think this is a conscious bias on Gabaldon's part, but it could very well be an unconscious one. Claire's friendship with a Native medicine woman happened largely off-screen, so to speak, as did Jamie and Ian's hunting parties with Native people. Roger, in this one, is saved from the fire by a group of Maroons (escaped slaves), but they're portrayed as intimidating, and the only member of their group to speak or get focus is a white woman that Claire and Jamie previously met. Ian living with Native people is likewise portrayed as a sad thing (though mostly for Ian's separation to his family than anything else) and while Claire and Brianna refuse to be enslavers, they aren't really doing much for the enslaved people whose labour they utilise when visiting Jocasta. Claire does attempt to help Phaedra's mother Betty who takes ill, but it ends up smacking of white-saviourism more than anything.

Again, I don't think this is something Gabaldon is doing consciously - and in fairness, there's a lot of positives to how she portrays people of colour! Ulysses, Phaedra, and the Native people Claire and Jamie interact with are portrayed with as much humanity and character as the minor white characters, and while the white characters are often racist in their thoughts and beliefs, the Native communities that we see are shown to be villages and towns the same as the white towns. At one point a local Native community asks for Jamie's help hunting a bear, and they work together well. I just think that Gabaldon could have put a little more thought into how she was portraying the non-white characters. Narratively, it's fine if these white characters from the 1700s are somewhat racist. But when the narrative itself is upholding stereotypes of the intimidating and dangerous Maroons, the savage Native people, the docile enslaved people, that's when eyebrows need to be raised, and I don't think that Gabaldon did enough to subvert these stereotypes when they arose in her story. I think that these books could have benefited from more major black or Native characters, and perhaps some consultation from black or Native historians. It's close to being better, and that's the frustrating and disappointing part about it.

Next, a she-wolf of Pompeii walks the streets.

[catmint1]

"When the day shall come, that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'—ye'll ken it was because I didna have time."

—Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross

[brian-in-finance]

Outlander Watch S05E06 Better To Marry Than Burn

Connecting The 🟡 Dots

🟡 ⚜️👑 Season Five to One to Seven

The Show

The soldier looks to see that the Dragoon Lieutenant is heading back to his horse. As Morna walks back to the carriage, her SHOE gets stuck in the MUD.

The soldier bends down to help her -- as he does, he spies something STRAPPED UNDERNEATH THE CARRIAGE: a WOODEN BOX….

He’s slid the box out from its fastenings and has opened it to reveal BARS OF GOLD. He holds one up, engraved with a FLEUR DE LIS.

Official Script S05E6 Better To Marry Than Burn

Gifs: @lochiels

The Book

It was a company of English soldiers, Cumberland’s men. Arriving too late to join in the victory at Culloden, they were inflamed by news of it—but frustrated at not sharing in the battle, and only too ready to wreak what vengeance they could on fleeing Highlanders.

Always a quick thinker, Hector had sunk back in the corner of the coach at sight of them, his head bent and a shawl pulled over it, pretending to be an aged crone, sunk in sleep. Following his hissed instructions, Jocasta had leaned out of the window, prepared to pose as a respectable lady traveling with her daughter and mother.

The soldiers had not waited to hear her speech. One yanked open the door of the coach, and dragged her out. Morna, panicked, had leapt out after her, trying to pull her mother away from the soldier. Another man had grabbed the girl, and dragged her back, so that he stood between Jocasta and the coach.

“Another minute, and they meant to have ‘Grannie’ out on the ground as well—and then they would find the gold, and it would be all up wi’ all of us.”

A pistol shot startled all of them into momentary immobility. Leaning from the coach’s open door, Hector had fired at the soldier holding Morna—but it was dusk and the light was poor; perhaps the horses had moved, jostling the coach. The shot struck Morna in the head.

“I ran to her,” Jocasta said. Her voice was hoarse, her throat gone dry and thick. “I ran to her, but Hector jumped out and seized me. The soldiers were all standing, staring with the shock. He dragged me back, into the coach, and shouted to the groom to drive, drive on!”

She licked her lips and swallowed, once.“‘She is dead,’ he said to me. Over and over, ‘She is dead, you cannot help,’ he said, and held me tight when I would have thrown myself from the coach in my despair.”

The Fiery Cross, Chapter 53

🟡 ⚜️ 👑

The Show

My father was a Fraser. A younger half-brother to the present master... Colum and Dougal... my mother was Ellen, the elder sister of Colum and Dougal. Colum wished my mother to marry Malcolm Grant. — Jamie Fraser

Transcript S01E07 The Wedding

Instagram S01E07 The Wedding

The Book

“Oh, aye. Ellen was the eldest o’ the six MacKenzie bairns—a year or two older than Colum, and the apple of auld Jacob’s eye. That’s why she’d gone so long unwed; wouldna ha’ aught to do wi’ John Cameron or Malcolm Grant, or any of the others she might have gone to, and her father wouldna force her against her will.”

When old Jacob died, though, Colum had less patience with his sister’s foibles. Struggling desperately to consolidate his shaky hold on the clan, he had sought an alliance with Munro to the north, or Grant to the south. Both clans had young chieftains, who would make useful brothers-in-law. Young Jocasta, only fifteen, had obligingly accepted the suit of John Cameron, and gone north. Ellen, on the verge of spinsterhood at twenty-two, had been a good deal less cooperative. — Old Alec

Outlander/Cross Stitch, Chapter 24

🟡 ⚜️ 👑

The Show

There were three of us when the gold came ashore from France. Dougal MacKenzie took one-third and Hector Cameron another. I was the third man, tacksman to Malcolm Grant, who sent me… But it came too late to make a difference to the cause. So Grant used it for the good of the clan. I dinna know what Dougal did with his, but Hector Cameron, he fled. He was a traitor. And his wife wi' him. I only had to set eyes on River Run to see where the gold had been spent. But not all of it. — Arch Bug

Transcript S07E03 Death Be Not Proud

IMDb S07E03 Death Be Not Proud

The Book

“Ye were the third man, were ye not?” Jamie asked, disregarding this. “When the gold was brought ashore from France. Dougal MacKenzie took one-third, and Hector Cameron another. I couldna say what Dougal did with his—gave it to Charles Stuart, most likely, and may God have mercy on his soul for that. You were tacksman to Malcolm Grant; he sent ye, did he not? You took one-third of the gold on his behalf. Did ye give it to him?”

Arch nodded, slowly.

“It was given in trust,” he said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and spat, the mucus tinged with black. “To me, and then to the Grant—who should have given it in turn to the King’s son.”

“Did he?” Jamie asked, interested. “Or did he think, like Hector Cameron, that it was too late?”

It had been; the cause was already lost at that point—no gold could have made a difference. Arch’s lips pressed so tightly together as almost to be invisible.

“He did what he did,” he said shortly. “What he thought right. That money was spent for the welfare of the clan. But Hector Cameron was a traitor, and his wife with him.”

A Breath Of Snow And Ashes, Chapter 124

🟡 ⚜️ 👑

Remember Ellen Fraser’s connection to the third man?

[buffysummers]

Just finished the 5th outlander book (the fiery cross) and tbh I really loved it? I wasn’t expecting to like it that much bc I have often heard people say it’s their least favorite (or one of their least favorite) books out of the 9 books. People either say it’s boring or they say they quit reading the series during it. I think that the 5th season of the show leaves out a lot of really good stuff but I also do respect some of the changes they made.

I seriously can’t wait to start the next book! I heard particularly good things about it (and book 8!)

[ursulanoodles]

“I like ye fat, Sassenach,” he said softly. “Fat and juicy as a plump wee hen. I like it fine.”

-Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross

[smdesserts]

claire is so unserious💀 “oh, really?” has got to be the FUNNIEST way to respond to someone telling you they want to die LMAO

[for-my-reading-pleasure]

Fucking Roger and your over familiarity with people who don’t know they are your great great… grand mother. Don’t kiss people who aren’t yours to kiss and don’t want your kiss. What the hell is your problem?!?

[first--lines]

I woke to the patter of rain on canvas, with the feel of my first husband's kiss on my lips. I blinked, disoriented, and by reflex put my fingers to my mouth. To keep the feeling, or to hide it? I wondered, even as I did so.

  —  The Fiery Cross (Diana Gabaldon)

[gotham-ruaidh]

I was chatting yesterday with the lovely @lady-o-ren about this post, where I talk about Jamie's violent inner self and how his love for Claire redeems him from that violence. Saves him from sin. Absolves him in the eyes of God.

@lady-o-ren pointed out that Jamie is quite self-aware of his inner violent self - a self that only Claire's love for him (and his love for Claire) keeps in check. He fears this inner self - he knows it is nothing but destructive.

And, Jamie himself says this to Claire several times in the Books - which is something I hadn't remembered! Producing the quotes here:

In Voyager Ch 54 where Jamie sorta talks about it. It's after Claire's been stitched up by Yi Tien Cho and he's telling her about Culloden and Murtagh dying. "I could feel it there, a hot red thing in my chest and belly, and … I gave myself to it,” he ended simply."

In Fiery Cross Ch 17 is where Jamie talks about being in a mob. “I didn’t think you would. Can’t see you as part of a mob.” He kissed her ear, not to reply directly. He could see himself as part of a mob, all too easily. That was what frightened him. He knew much too well the strength of it. And then as the scene goes on he says - “Nothing will harm ye while there is breath in my body, a nighean donn. Nothing.” “I know. "

Thank you, @lady-o-ren, for such astute observations! xo

[sassunachs]

What follows is my number one favorite passage from the entire #Outlander bookseries. It's not really a spoiler but if you have not read #TheFieryCross yet, and don't want to read ahead, please feel free to scroll past this. This sweet little passage is about Jamie giving a bouquet (which has poison ivy in it) to Claire. He isn't aware of the poison ivy. She naturally is. "Welcome home," he said, and held out the small bouquet of leaves and twigs. "Oh," she said. She looked at the bits of leaf and stick again, and then at him, and the corners of her mouth trembled, as though she might laugh or cry, but wasn't sure which. She reached then, and took the plants from him, her fingers small and cold as they brushed his hand. "Oh, Jamie - they're wonderful." She came up on her toes and kissed him. He felt pleasantly foolish, and foolishly pleased with himself. The taste of her was still on his mouth. "Sorcha", he whispered and realized that he had called her so a moment before. Now, that was odd; no wonder she had been surprised. It was her name in Gaelic, but he never called her by it. He liked the strangeness of her, the Englishness. She was his Claire, his Sassenach. And yet in the moment when she passed him, she was Sorcha. Not only "Claire", it meant -- but light. He breathed deep, contented. ~ The Fiery Cross, #DianaGabaldon 📷Engels Ronny

[fieriframes]

[I will forgive you. Days in my life. Are numbered and so rare. Holding pain. Is not living in truth.]

[catmint1]

Money might not buy happiness, I reflected, but it was a useful commodity, nonetheless.

—Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross