Outlander Character Meta: Jamie Fraser
Before the Outlander TV adaptation, there never seemed to be much of an online fandom for the series. I suspect that’s to a large part due to the fact that series has been around for several decades and the average book fan has been around equally long, while the general age on tumblr is about 20-ish. It probably doesn’t help that the characters are over 40 for most of the books.
Additionally, I suspect that most fans are avid romance novel readers and see the series in this light, while I got into it for the gleeful deconstruction of the most egregious romance novel tropes and stayed for the writing, historical trivia, and delightful sense of humour.
Apart from that, I hail from a different corner of the internet altogether, and from my fandom friends who are interested in Outlander at all, I gather that most have only read the Lord John books - which I will readily admit are much better written (plot-, cohesion- and non-cheesiness-wise), but it still makes me sad, because I love Claire, for all her faults, and feel everyone who steers clear of her books is missing out.
(So I should probably clarify right from the start: I? Am an OT3 shipper. John/Jamie/Claire all the way, baby! If the books don’t end, well, not necessarily in a three-way marriage, since I can’t really see John living in the countryside indefinitely, as little as I can see Jamie and Claire embracing the urban high society lifestyle more than occasionally, then at least in an amiable poly arrangement, which includes at least one full-fledged threesome and the assurance of frequent mutual visits for follow-up, I will be very displeased indeed. - Hush now, don’t ruin my happy place. *pins up I WANT TO BELIEVE poster*)
But when it comes to Jamie Fraser, personally or as a character, reactions seem strongly divided: the majority of fans cream their knickers over him like he is the dreamiest dreamboat since Brad Pitt donned a miniskirt and marched on Troy. (Or possibly way before that, depending how much your taste in men hinges on an attractive set of legs.) The remaining side seems one more blog post away from declaring him the abusive antichrist on a horse.
I must say it feels pretty lonely out here in the middle ground.
Do I get where the hate is coming from? Oh, absolutely! From a feminist perspective, Jamie Fraser makes me go “Oh no, you didn’t,” practically every other page. It’s not a stretch to say that he is an entitled chauvinist with control issues and a martyr complex. He seems fairly convinced that women are illogical creatures who need to be saved from themselves and the world in general at every turn. Honour over common sense is a given as well.
But at the same time, I get where he is coming from. From the frame of reference he was born and raised in, it makes perfect sense. Most women in his day and age have no social or economic power to speak of. They actually do need protection. Every bit of propaganda, from high philosophy to folk wisdom, he has been bombarded with all his life tell him that women are irrational and mentally inferior. And don’t forget he is Catholic: he may not personally believe all women are evil and out to corrupt men and need a strict hand to keep them decent, but the subconscious acceptance that plenty of people see it that way and no one contradicts them would definitely be a factor in his thinking.
As for the controlling and the martyrdom… Well he was raised to be a leader, son of a nobleman, and spends half his life a soldier. That will install a certain mentality. He makes decisions for people because that’s what he was brought up to do. The same with the emphasis on honour: in a pre-modern world with no centralised system of justice, reputation is a means of social control and sanction, and, pre-emptively, self-censure. Nowadays it may be out of place and counterproductive in many regards, but within its temporal context, an honour-based system has more advantages than drawbacks.
All of this combines to Jamie being a paragon of what is known as “positive/beneficial machismo” (seriously, read up on it; the ‘good vs bad machismo’ dichotomy explains so many phenomena in patriarchal cultures, its amazing). It’s still machismo and as such gross, but he tries to be the best man he can within the sociological framework he is given. It does not occur to him that there may be an alternative framework with which to orient himself. And who can blame him? We all are products of our time and circumstances.
I’d go so far as to say that, coming from this background, Jamie is, after some initial difficulty and with occasional hang-ups, actually quite progressive: he lets his wife work and takes her occupation seriously; he marries a woman who doesn’t follow any of the standards of subjugation he is used to and would be unmarriageable in the eyes of most of his contemporaries (remember, when they meet she is The Mysterious Stranger, quite possibly a witch or an enemy spy, people frequently compare her demeanour to that of a drill sergeant, she has seen far more of the world than he has, and she constantly interrupts men’s conversations to make her opinion known); he marries a friend and keeps treating her as a friend for the rest of their life, along with and on top of any other relationship they have; he listens to his wife’s advice and mostly follows it; he trusts her with his life, and to fend for herself if he is not around. He doesn’t just save her, they save each other, and he never resents that. All these things should be taken for granted, yes, but how many men, even today, do you know for whom they are not? Far too many, I’m guessing. Also, you have to respect a man whose affectionate nickname for his wife freely translates to “the bloody Saxon invader”. (In usage, it certainly comes much closer than the mere “outlander”.)
Another thing people - not without reason - blame Jamie for is his treatment of John. And ho boy, there are some gems there. But if you pay close attention to when the worst ones occur, they suddenly come off as a lot less abusive. Let’s see, the times Jamie has come close to physically harming John, from the top of my head:
- Ardsmuir. What happened before? John came on to him. Not aggressively, but I’m 100 % certain it came as a shock to Jamie, especially from someone he had built a tentative trust with. Add a few other details: the setting is a prison and the man across from him is a pretty Englishman with power over his life and death. John didn’t do anything overly wrong… Except make sexual overtures to someone under his power - oh wait. And he didn’t mean it that way, but combined with Jamie’s history? It’s a pretty terrifying moment, and I would certainly have reacted worse than Jamie in that situation, let me tell you that much.
- Second time: in the barn in (I think it was) Brotherhood. What happened before Jamie almost punches John’s face to a bloody pulp? Oh right! They talk about sex. Oh, and John tells him, “I could make you scream.” Let that sink in. Does John know Jamie has been raped at this point? No. Jamie’s reaction is actually what clues him in. It’s still not the kosherest thing to say to anyone, especially someone you have power over. (And let’s be real, Jamie may be the physically stronger one of the two, but that is where his power begins and ends. He harms John? He’s a dead man. John harms him? Too bad, no one cares, he’s an outlaw with a price on his head.) Even in the most beneficial interpretation of the words possible, I still understand why Jamie freaked the hell out. Added to, again, the history with Jack Randall, I would have understood an even harsher reaction.
- Third time, most recently in the forest in Heart’s Blood. Ostensibly due to jealousy over John sleeping with Claire. Actually, not so much. It’s not even subtext: several places in the book debunk that; hell, Claire herself does. Not to mention that, at first Jamie is duly pissed, but in a calm way, and mostly just curious about the details. Then what is the reason he suddenly loses his shit? I’ll hazard a guess and say “rape trigger”. Because what John tells him is “I slept with you by way of sleeping with your wife” and the fact that Jamie wasn’t actually present almost makes it worse, because even if it was a fantasy, telling someone to their face that you have sex with them in your head, even if it’s something they’ve had a few decades to suspect privately, is still a major violation of boundaries. And Jamie is far from over Jack Randall: he still has PTSD-induced nightmares every so often. This, again, is text. Under these circumstances, Jamie actually deals quite well. Is he being a bad friend beating John and leaving him with the rebels? Yes, no doubt about it. Is he being entirely unreasonable? I don’t think so. Every time these moments happen, they are if not panic, then acute fear reactions, and fear isn’t rational. He knows John is not a rapist, but he’s got every instinct screaming at him anyway. The main reason he comes off as the bad guy to the reader more often than not is that he has a habit of turning fear into aggression. It’s a common coping mechanism.
Additionally we have the non-sexual conflict between them: the Ardsmuir treasure hunt and the search for the Irish conspirators have John taking advantage of Jamie. John is a good man, but he is hardly a poor, innocent puppy. And I think you do John an injustice if you think he can’t stand up for himself. He does occasionally come off as a bit of a doormat when it comes to Jamie, but if you think about it, he can afford to be tolerant, seeing as he is the one in a position of power most of the time: at worst their balance shifts to uneasy equality. We only tend to sympathise more strongly with John because we’re treated to a front-row seat to his feelings more often. (When the POV shifts, Jamie’s feelings are a lot more repressed and convoluted.) And around Jamie? John feels helpless, even while he is the one technically in a position of power. (The scene in the forest is the exception, in that Jamie is actually the one unambiguously in control for once, being the kidnapper and the one with the gun.) John doesn’t feel like he’s in power, social realities aside, simply because where their relationship (or lack thereof) is concerned, he has laid any and all decisions in Jamie’s hands. Love will do that to you. Jamie, in turn, doesn’t know and can’t trust what exactly is going on in John’s head, but what he is very aware of, is that he constantly has to assert himself or risk losing his remaining self-respect.
Well, that already brings us to the next part. Until now, this has been a treatise on why I can’t hate Jamie despite his character flaws and problematic moments. (Having said that, he would still be far too infuriating for me to live with.) But why do I find him interesting as a character?
Well, first of all, he also has a good many traits that should endear him to the fangirl community at large: he’s intelligent, an avid reader. He adores books so much, you could practically consider him an honorary fangirl. (Though, the French novels he and John so avidly discuss? Those were basically the 18th century equivalent of today’s telenovelas or romantic movies - considered trashy, over-emotional entertainment for women. It amuses me to no end that of all the possible things for them bond over, this incredibly campy hobby is one of the main ones.) He’s also a huge geek, who’ll read Latin and Greek for fun, and makes random historical and mythological references, and speaks several other languages as well. He also loves chess, and animals, especially horses, and is great with children. (I know I’m the exception, but men who are good with children do absolutely nothing for me. However, men who are good with horses? Sign me up!)
But personally, I mostly like him because he is constantly struggling with himself, and that’s something I sympathise with immensely.
We have a man, quite modern and educated, who nonetheless grew up within the demands and strictures of an archaic honour culture. (And let me tell you, John, Jamie and the 18th century concept of honour would be an essay of its own. Because when it comes to capturing that aspect of the zeitgeist? Gabaldon is nothing less than a genius.) He is torn between honour and religion, reason and superstition, peace and war, his feelings and society’s expectations, fear and overcompensation...
He’s also an introvert, who, through long and bitter education, accepted that he is expected to be an extrovert, and rocks the role - up to a point. But even when he is commanding an army, you call always tell he’d rather grab his wife and build a(nother) house in the woods and then not talk to anyone else for a few months. And there is that adorable scene is Scottish Prisoner where John and Jamie both try to hide from the world in the same garden shed… I just find that really relatable.
Also, he knows how to be alone. He lived in a cave for years with only books for company and while he didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have, he doesn’t seem to mind overmuch, either. He’s very self-sufficient, emotionally and otherwise, so that when he does let people into his life, you know he genuinely wants them there (or at least willingly accepts responsibility for them), rather than following any sort of mindless herd instinct.
He’s also someone prone to getting lost in his head and after much thinking coming up with decisions and interpretations that make sense only to him and strike everyone else as vaguely irrational, simply because the world according to Jamie is a really complicated, conflicted place and making any decision at all is walking through a minefield. He overthinks practically everything he does and can’t accept easy answers.
Additionally, he has massive issues when it comes to gender identity and sexuality - and small wonder:
He grew up with a certain ideal of manliness and a larger-than life father figure that he feels he has to try and live up to. Unfortunately, neither his life circumstances, nor his personality are well-suited to it. (In some ways, his personality is, if by nature or conditioning is hard to say, but he is good at many aspects of leadership, for example. Just not all aspects, and I think he feels that keenly.) A lot of his blustering, possessive behaviour is actually protective behaviour, dialled up to 11, because that’s what he has had beaten into him as his duty. I have always found it very telling that the people he is closest to are the only people not constantly in need of his protection: John and Claire. Claire spent 20 years without him and did just fine, and for all his rhetoric of shielding her with his life, Jamie knows that. When it comes to strength of character and determination, Claire is miles ahead of him. John, more often than not, is actually the one protecting Jamie (when he’s not accidentally terrifying him), and Jamie lets him. And they are the only two people with whom his protectiveness is mutual. Jamie will protect Claire from Randall by marrying her, but she breaks him out of prison. John will fight a duel for him, but afterwards Jamie will be the one to carry him home. He doesn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone else. (I like the similarities between both relationships very much, can you tell?) With everyone else, he can’t let himself be the one to be protected. He’s too proud for that, and he lacks the necessary trust, and it conflicts too much with his pater familias sense of self.
When it comes to sex, Jamie’s experiences are consistently coded as feminine within the narrative: he goes to his marriage bed a virgin, he is constantly sexually objectified by people, in every single relationship he has, he is the one being pursued, not the one with the agency. (From rather mild examples like John and Laoghaire, who limit themselves to offering and mostly passive pining, over serious coercion, like Geneva employs, to outright rape, as threatened by the duke of Sandringham and eventually committed by Jack Randall, we find the full spectrum of Jamie being the object of other people’s interest and agency.) Even with Claire, with whom he has the most balanced relationship, he is not only her pupil at first, but also plays the role of her damsel in distress. In a brilliant reversal of gender roles, Claire is Jack’s enemy, Jamie his victim. And when it comes to the initial rivalry between John and Claire, we again have Jamie as the object, their Helen, if you will, rather than an active participant in the conflict. Same with the even earlier dynamic between Claire and Laoghaire. Jamie always gets to have an opinion, sure, but it’s never what decides the conflict. Not even once. John and Claire also very much bury the hatchet in their own time, and for their own reasons, rather than due to any diplomacy on Jamie’s part.
When it comes to sexual orientation, as I said many times before, I can’t help but read Jamie as a mostly-repressed bisexual. His words and internal narration often clash with what he actually does (not just in this regard) and he will occasionally, in a weak moment, confess things to Claire (or to himself) that make me go aha, told you so. Other hints quietly slip past the mental self-censure if he’s not paying careful attention. It’s swimming somewhere on the edge between text and subtext, sure, but there is no way to deny it completely. And it hurts, because while he could probably have overcome the anti-LGBT social conditioning of his era with the right encouragement, Jack Randall fucked that up. (Not for good, I keep hoping, but definitely for a long time.)
So while all of this doesn’t excuse Jamie’s frequent asshole behaviour and often fucked-up attitudes, I hope it at least explains it in some ways, and also explains why I still find him compelling and relatable in spite of it.
Additionally, I suspect that most fans are avid romance novel readers and see the series in this light, while I got into it for the gleeful deconstruction of the most egregious romance novel tropes and stayed for the writing, historical trivia, and delightful sense of humour.
Apart from that, I hail from a different corner of the internet altogether, and from my fandom friends who are interested in Outlander at all, I gather that most have only read the Lord John books - which I will readily admit are much better written (plot-, cohesion- and non-cheesiness-wise), but it still makes me sad, because I love Claire, for all her faults, and feel everyone who steers clear of her books is missing out.
(So I should probably clarify right from the start: I? Am an OT3 shipper. John/Jamie/Claire all the way, baby! If the books don’t end, well, not necessarily in a three-way marriage, since I can’t really see John living in the countryside indefinitely, as little as I can see Jamie and Claire embracing the urban high society lifestyle more than occasionally, then at least in an amiable poly arrangement, which includes at least one full-fledged threesome and the assurance of frequent mutual visits for follow-up, I will be very displeased indeed. - Hush now, don’t ruin my happy place. *pins up I WANT TO BELIEVE poster*)
But when it comes to Jamie Fraser, personally or as a character, reactions seem strongly divided: the majority of fans cream their knickers over him like he is the dreamiest dreamboat since Brad Pitt donned a miniskirt and marched on Troy. (Or possibly way before that, depending how much your taste in men hinges on an attractive set of legs.) The remaining side seems one more blog post away from declaring him the abusive antichrist on a horse.
I must say it feels pretty lonely out here in the middle ground.
Do I get where the hate is coming from? Oh, absolutely! From a feminist perspective, Jamie Fraser makes me go “Oh no, you didn’t,” practically every other page. It’s not a stretch to say that he is an entitled chauvinist with control issues and a martyr complex. He seems fairly convinced that women are illogical creatures who need to be saved from themselves and the world in general at every turn. Honour over common sense is a given as well.
But at the same time, I get where he is coming from. From the frame of reference he was born and raised in, it makes perfect sense. Most women in his day and age have no social or economic power to speak of. They actually do need protection. Every bit of propaganda, from high philosophy to folk wisdom, he has been bombarded with all his life tell him that women are irrational and mentally inferior. And don’t forget he is Catholic: he may not personally believe all women are evil and out to corrupt men and need a strict hand to keep them decent, but the subconscious acceptance that plenty of people see it that way and no one contradicts them would definitely be a factor in his thinking.
As for the controlling and the martyrdom… Well he was raised to be a leader, son of a nobleman, and spends half his life a soldier. That will install a certain mentality. He makes decisions for people because that’s what he was brought up to do. The same with the emphasis on honour: in a pre-modern world with no centralised system of justice, reputation is a means of social control and sanction, and, pre-emptively, self-censure. Nowadays it may be out of place and counterproductive in many regards, but within its temporal context, an honour-based system has more advantages than drawbacks.
All of this combines to Jamie being a paragon of what is known as “positive/beneficial machismo” (seriously, read up on it; the ‘good vs bad machismo’ dichotomy explains so many phenomena in patriarchal cultures, its amazing). It’s still machismo and as such gross, but he tries to be the best man he can within the sociological framework he is given. It does not occur to him that there may be an alternative framework with which to orient himself. And who can blame him? We all are products of our time and circumstances.
I’d go so far as to say that, coming from this background, Jamie is, after some initial difficulty and with occasional hang-ups, actually quite progressive: he lets his wife work and takes her occupation seriously; he marries a woman who doesn’t follow any of the standards of subjugation he is used to and would be unmarriageable in the eyes of most of his contemporaries (remember, when they meet she is The Mysterious Stranger, quite possibly a witch or an enemy spy, people frequently compare her demeanour to that of a drill sergeant, she has seen far more of the world than he has, and she constantly interrupts men’s conversations to make her opinion known); he marries a friend and keeps treating her as a friend for the rest of their life, along with and on top of any other relationship they have; he listens to his wife’s advice and mostly follows it; he trusts her with his life, and to fend for herself if he is not around. He doesn’t just save her, they save each other, and he never resents that. All these things should be taken for granted, yes, but how many men, even today, do you know for whom they are not? Far too many, I’m guessing. Also, you have to respect a man whose affectionate nickname for his wife freely translates to “the bloody Saxon invader”. (In usage, it certainly comes much closer than the mere “outlander”.)
Another thing people - not without reason - blame Jamie for is his treatment of John. And ho boy, there are some gems there. But if you pay close attention to when the worst ones occur, they suddenly come off as a lot less abusive. Let’s see, the times Jamie has come close to physically harming John, from the top of my head:
- Ardsmuir. What happened before? John came on to him. Not aggressively, but I’m 100 % certain it came as a shock to Jamie, especially from someone he had built a tentative trust with. Add a few other details: the setting is a prison and the man across from him is a pretty Englishman with power over his life and death. John didn’t do anything overly wrong… Except make sexual overtures to someone under his power - oh wait. And he didn’t mean it that way, but combined with Jamie’s history? It’s a pretty terrifying moment, and I would certainly have reacted worse than Jamie in that situation, let me tell you that much.
- Second time: in the barn in (I think it was) Brotherhood. What happened before Jamie almost punches John’s face to a bloody pulp? Oh right! They talk about sex. Oh, and John tells him, “I could make you scream.” Let that sink in. Does John know Jamie has been raped at this point? No. Jamie’s reaction is actually what clues him in. It’s still not the kosherest thing to say to anyone, especially someone you have power over. (And let’s be real, Jamie may be the physically stronger one of the two, but that is where his power begins and ends. He harms John? He’s a dead man. John harms him? Too bad, no one cares, he’s an outlaw with a price on his head.) Even in the most beneficial interpretation of the words possible, I still understand why Jamie freaked the hell out. Added to, again, the history with Jack Randall, I would have understood an even harsher reaction.
- Third time, most recently in the forest in Heart’s Blood. Ostensibly due to jealousy over John sleeping with Claire. Actually, not so much. It’s not even subtext: several places in the book debunk that; hell, Claire herself does. Not to mention that, at first Jamie is duly pissed, but in a calm way, and mostly just curious about the details. Then what is the reason he suddenly loses his shit? I’ll hazard a guess and say “rape trigger”. Because what John tells him is “I slept with you by way of sleeping with your wife” and the fact that Jamie wasn’t actually present almost makes it worse, because even if it was a fantasy, telling someone to their face that you have sex with them in your head, even if it’s something they’ve had a few decades to suspect privately, is still a major violation of boundaries. And Jamie is far from over Jack Randall: he still has PTSD-induced nightmares every so often. This, again, is text. Under these circumstances, Jamie actually deals quite well. Is he being a bad friend beating John and leaving him with the rebels? Yes, no doubt about it. Is he being entirely unreasonable? I don’t think so. Every time these moments happen, they are if not panic, then acute fear reactions, and fear isn’t rational. He knows John is not a rapist, but he’s got every instinct screaming at him anyway. The main reason he comes off as the bad guy to the reader more often than not is that he has a habit of turning fear into aggression. It’s a common coping mechanism.
Additionally we have the non-sexual conflict between them: the Ardsmuir treasure hunt and the search for the Irish conspirators have John taking advantage of Jamie. John is a good man, but he is hardly a poor, innocent puppy. And I think you do John an injustice if you think he can’t stand up for himself. He does occasionally come off as a bit of a doormat when it comes to Jamie, but if you think about it, he can afford to be tolerant, seeing as he is the one in a position of power most of the time: at worst their balance shifts to uneasy equality. We only tend to sympathise more strongly with John because we’re treated to a front-row seat to his feelings more often. (When the POV shifts, Jamie’s feelings are a lot more repressed and convoluted.) And around Jamie? John feels helpless, even while he is the one technically in a position of power. (The scene in the forest is the exception, in that Jamie is actually the one unambiguously in control for once, being the kidnapper and the one with the gun.) John doesn’t feel like he’s in power, social realities aside, simply because where their relationship (or lack thereof) is concerned, he has laid any and all decisions in Jamie’s hands. Love will do that to you. Jamie, in turn, doesn’t know and can’t trust what exactly is going on in John’s head, but what he is very aware of, is that he constantly has to assert himself or risk losing his remaining self-respect.
Well, that already brings us to the next part. Until now, this has been a treatise on why I can’t hate Jamie despite his character flaws and problematic moments. (Having said that, he would still be far too infuriating for me to live with.) But why do I find him interesting as a character?
Well, first of all, he also has a good many traits that should endear him to the fangirl community at large: he’s intelligent, an avid reader. He adores books so much, you could practically consider him an honorary fangirl. (Though, the French novels he and John so avidly discuss? Those were basically the 18th century equivalent of today’s telenovelas or romantic movies - considered trashy, over-emotional entertainment for women. It amuses me to no end that of all the possible things for them bond over, this incredibly campy hobby is one of the main ones.) He’s also a huge geek, who’ll read Latin and Greek for fun, and makes random historical and mythological references, and speaks several other languages as well. He also loves chess, and animals, especially horses, and is great with children. (I know I’m the exception, but men who are good with children do absolutely nothing for me. However, men who are good with horses? Sign me up!)
But personally, I mostly like him because he is constantly struggling with himself, and that’s something I sympathise with immensely.
We have a man, quite modern and educated, who nonetheless grew up within the demands and strictures of an archaic honour culture. (And let me tell you, John, Jamie and the 18th century concept of honour would be an essay of its own. Because when it comes to capturing that aspect of the zeitgeist? Gabaldon is nothing less than a genius.) He is torn between honour and religion, reason and superstition, peace and war, his feelings and society’s expectations, fear and overcompensation...
He’s also an introvert, who, through long and bitter education, accepted that he is expected to be an extrovert, and rocks the role - up to a point. But even when he is commanding an army, you call always tell he’d rather grab his wife and build a(nother) house in the woods and then not talk to anyone else for a few months. And there is that adorable scene is Scottish Prisoner where John and Jamie both try to hide from the world in the same garden shed… I just find that really relatable.
Also, he knows how to be alone. He lived in a cave for years with only books for company and while he didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have, he doesn’t seem to mind overmuch, either. He’s very self-sufficient, emotionally and otherwise, so that when he does let people into his life, you know he genuinely wants them there (or at least willingly accepts responsibility for them), rather than following any sort of mindless herd instinct.
He’s also someone prone to getting lost in his head and after much thinking coming up with decisions and interpretations that make sense only to him and strike everyone else as vaguely irrational, simply because the world according to Jamie is a really complicated, conflicted place and making any decision at all is walking through a minefield. He overthinks practically everything he does and can’t accept easy answers.
Additionally, he has massive issues when it comes to gender identity and sexuality - and small wonder:
He grew up with a certain ideal of manliness and a larger-than life father figure that he feels he has to try and live up to. Unfortunately, neither his life circumstances, nor his personality are well-suited to it. (In some ways, his personality is, if by nature or conditioning is hard to say, but he is good at many aspects of leadership, for example. Just not all aspects, and I think he feels that keenly.) A lot of his blustering, possessive behaviour is actually protective behaviour, dialled up to 11, because that’s what he has had beaten into him as his duty. I have always found it very telling that the people he is closest to are the only people not constantly in need of his protection: John and Claire. Claire spent 20 years without him and did just fine, and for all his rhetoric of shielding her with his life, Jamie knows that. When it comes to strength of character and determination, Claire is miles ahead of him. John, more often than not, is actually the one protecting Jamie (when he’s not accidentally terrifying him), and Jamie lets him. And they are the only two people with whom his protectiveness is mutual. Jamie will protect Claire from Randall by marrying her, but she breaks him out of prison. John will fight a duel for him, but afterwards Jamie will be the one to carry him home. He doesn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone else. (I like the similarities between both relationships very much, can you tell?) With everyone else, he can’t let himself be the one to be protected. He’s too proud for that, and he lacks the necessary trust, and it conflicts too much with his pater familias sense of self.
When it comes to sex, Jamie’s experiences are consistently coded as feminine within the narrative: he goes to his marriage bed a virgin, he is constantly sexually objectified by people, in every single relationship he has, he is the one being pursued, not the one with the agency. (From rather mild examples like John and Laoghaire, who limit themselves to offering and mostly passive pining, over serious coercion, like Geneva employs, to outright rape, as threatened by the duke of Sandringham and eventually committed by Jack Randall, we find the full spectrum of Jamie being the object of other people’s interest and agency.) Even with Claire, with whom he has the most balanced relationship, he is not only her pupil at first, but also plays the role of her damsel in distress. In a brilliant reversal of gender roles, Claire is Jack’s enemy, Jamie his victim. And when it comes to the initial rivalry between John and Claire, we again have Jamie as the object, their Helen, if you will, rather than an active participant in the conflict. Same with the even earlier dynamic between Claire and Laoghaire. Jamie always gets to have an opinion, sure, but it’s never what decides the conflict. Not even once. John and Claire also very much bury the hatchet in their own time, and for their own reasons, rather than due to any diplomacy on Jamie’s part.
When it comes to sexual orientation, as I said many times before, I can’t help but read Jamie as a mostly-repressed bisexual. His words and internal narration often clash with what he actually does (not just in this regard) and he will occasionally, in a weak moment, confess things to Claire (or to himself) that make me go aha, told you so. Other hints quietly slip past the mental self-censure if he’s not paying careful attention. It’s swimming somewhere on the edge between text and subtext, sure, but there is no way to deny it completely. And it hurts, because while he could probably have overcome the anti-LGBT social conditioning of his era with the right encouragement, Jack Randall fucked that up. (Not for good, I keep hoping, but definitely for a long time.)
So while all of this doesn’t excuse Jamie’s frequent asshole behaviour and often fucked-up attitudes, I hope it at least explains it in some ways, and also explains why I still find him compelling and relatable in spite of it.