Parisian sacrifice

By Valérie Gay-Corajoud  

What a pain in this first part of season 2 of Outlander !!
Whenever I look at her (it's the fourth time), I can not help thinking that Claire and Jamie are sacrificing once again their personal happiness for the cause.
They would have so much to build yet, one with the other! for each other: Work on Jamie's trauma, soothe her anger and pain! Accompany Claire during her pregnancy, soothe the doubt that overwhelms her not to be a good mother! Enjoy their couple simply! take time for them, finally safe from the British threat!
But no, they are heroes, and heroes are not allowed to rest.
Besides, they say it, and we feel it ... they have nothing to do with luxury, comfort, tranquility. They were more comfortable on the stone and in the middle of Scottish heather! They preferred to gallop under the drizzle than to be transhipped in the middle of Paris by carrioles brinquebalantes! They preferred the sometimes heavy company of their highlander comrades in arms to that, futile and indecent, of the Parisian court!

I have never suffered so much for them as by noting their estrangement during this French stay.
Jamie is torn between the Paris brothel and his chess games with Duverney, not to mention the wine trade that he promised to grow during his cousin Jared's absence.
And Claire, mistress of a big house for the first time, unable to not offer her medical skills for the poor, forgetting her physical fatigue due to her pregnancy by devoting herself to the hospital of angels. Taking on her the distance of a traumatized husband who refuses his bed.

They were closer in Scotland, even when one or the other was held prisoner, even when Claire was on the road with Murtagh in search of her missing love.
This distance is the ultimate price to be paid to merge among this people ignorant of trouble that is preparing, to deceive the Jacobites to better assist them, to save a people who do not know yet that it is lost.

What I also see is how Claire, despite this costly sacrifice, remains incredibly benevolent towards women who have nothing to do with her. Louise de Rohan and her little heart problems, Marie Hawkins and her unbearable naivety! to Suzette to whom she allows tumults with Murtagh without having to take the risk of an unwanted pregnancy.
It's the same for Jamie, hurt, exhausted, traumatized ... who supports the unbearable Charles Stuart! Who befriends Joseph Duverney the friendly although fickle finance minister.
Claire and Jamie never lose their humanity, even during the dramatic events they face regularly. And the bias of Diana, respected by the writers, is not to forget the value of the lives they live with, the people they meet.
Why save the story, if we do not start by loving the people who are part of it!

But of course, the price to pay will be too expensive. Losing Faith will be the ultimate sacrifice on this painful journey.
A heavy tribute for wanting to deceive the fate of the world and change the course of history.

This first part of the second season is not my favorite, far from it ... and sometimes I have to stop myself from jumping one or two passages (but I'm too purist to do it) ... Yet it is essential in the articulation of the story and tells us a lot about the strength of character of our two heroes, and even more, about the strength of the links they have woven.