The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood
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Wolf’s Brother (aka Okwaho’kenha)—The Mohawk name given to Ian Murray when he was adopted into the Mohawk tribe; he washed himself free of his white blood to become one of the Kahnyen’kehaka, the Guardians of the Western Gate. [Fiery Cross, Ashes, Echo]
Wolverhampton, Mr.—A settler near Fraser’s Ridge, he lives alone, but when a self-amputation of toes damaged in a woodcutting incident fails, he walks seven miles to his nearest neighbor, who then bundles him onto a mule to transport to Claire for further treatment. [Ashes]
Woodbine, Jethro, Corporal—With Dunning’s Rangers. Corporal Woodbine and his men take custody of Lord John Grey following his fight with Jamie Fraser outside Philadelphia and turn him over to Colonel Watson Smith. [MOBY]
Woodcock, Mrs. Mercy—A free black woman whose home in Philadelphia has been commandeered by the British and where wounded Henry Grey lies waiting for either medical assistance or death from his wounds. Claire provides the assistance, performing a dangerous but successful intestinal resection and saving Henry’s life. Mercy, whose husband, Walter, is off fighting in the Continental army, nurses Henry devotedly and they fall in love. When last seen (by Claire), Walter Woodcock appeared to be on the point of death, but his fate is unknown, preventing Henry Grey and Mercy Woodcock from following their hearts. [Echo, MOBY]
Woodcock, Walter—A prisoner from the Ticonderoga evacuation and one of the few free black men who fought there, Walter is also a recent amputee, whom Claire tries to help. He is married to Mercy Woodcock, the Philadelphia free woman in whose house the British soldier Henry Grey lies, gravely wounded. [Echo, MOBY]
Woodford, Alfred; Lord Enderby—Caroline Woodford’s irate brother, who believes that Lord John has disgraced his sister by fighting a duel over her honor and basically demands that Hal do something about it—namely, have Lord John marry Caroline. [CA]
Woodford, Captain—A British officer, unrelated to Caroline or Lord Enderby, encamped on the island in the St. Lawrence River where Lord John is deposited. [CA]
Woodford, Caroline—A female acquaintance of Lord John’s family and a good friend, she is bright, pretty, capable of writing witty and clever poetry, and given to mad escapades, such as being shocked by an electric eel—the event that results in Lord John fighting a duel for her honor. To avoid a forced marriage over the scandal of the duel, Lord John is assigned to duty in Canada until the Woodford matter calms. [CA, SP]
Woodford, Simon—Caroline Woodford’s uncle, he shares her interests in natural history and is the one who escorts her to the Joffreys’ electric-eel party. [CA]
x Woodmason, Charles, Mr.—(ca. 1720–1776) A South Carolina planter turned Anglican itinerant minister and fierce supporter of the Regulator movement, he preached against the evangelical movement throughout the colonies and the “infestations” of the backcountry religions, such as the New Lights, Baptists, Moravians, and Methodists. [Fiery Cross]
Woodsworth, Peleg, Reverend—Captain of the Sixteenth Pennsylvania militia. His men discover Lord John following his escape from Captain Smith and, taking him for an escaped prisoner from the British army, free him from his fetters and induct him into the American militia. [MOBY]
Woolam, Charlotte—An attractive and very devout young Quaker woman and sister to Richard Woolam of Woolam’s Mill; when Jem hears the term “harlot” from Jamie, he mistakes it for the young woman’s name. [Ashes]
Woolam, Richard—A Quaker resident of Woolam’s Mill, and brother to Charlotte. [Ashes]
Worplesdon, Lord—A literary reference to the Earl of Worpledon, from the popular “Jeeves” stories by British author P. G. Wodehouse (one of my five literary role models). [PM]
Wright, Hosea—A Cape Fear merchant, banker, and business associate of the smuggler Stephen Bonnet. Wright also owns warehouses in Edenton and Plymouth, as well as a plantation called Four Chimneys, located near Phillip Wylie’s plantation; to complicate things further, he is a friend to the governor. [Fiery Cross]
Wulfie—A soldier in the Prussian artillery who jokingly accuses Samson and another young soldier of having a romantic meeting near the river. [SU]
Wurm, Herman—Formerly Hermione Kuykendall, now bodyguard/bouncer for Mrs. Sylvie and her brothel. [MOBY]
Wurm, Trask—Formerly Ermintrude Kuykendall, now bodyguard/bouncer for Mrs. Sylvie and her brothel. [MOBY]
Wylie, Phillip—Co-owner of a Portsmouth, Virginia, warehouse rumored to store goods smuggled by Stephen Bonnet. Wylie, an accomplished flirt, emboldened pursuer of older women (mainly Claire), and horseman of some esteem, is the owner of Lucas, a beautiful Friesian stallion that he loses to Jamie in a card game; Jamie’s participation in the game is due to his fierce jealousy of the attention paid by young Wylie to Claire. [Fiery Cross, Ashes]
X
Xenokratides, Aristopolous—Patriarch of the Stokes family, he was a Greek sailor who jumped ship in London, married a local girl, and took his wife’s last name to blend into the English citizenship. [PM]
Y
Yarnell, Corporal—An enlisted man in William’s regiment on Long Island when William becomes lost in the fog. [Echo]
Yeksa’a—Mohawk for “little girl,” she was Ian’s daughter with Emily; although unnamed by the Mohawk because she was stillborn, Ian calls her Iseabaìl. When Ian finally returns to Lallybroch for his father’s death, he finds that his parents have placed a memorial stone for his daughter, bearing only the word “Yeksa’a,” as his parents didn’t know at the time what the child’s name was. Brianna finds the stone in the twentieth century, with only a faded name beginning with “Y.” [Ashes, Echo]
Z
Zenn, Abram—The ship’s boy on board the American privateer the Asp. He helps Claire and Jamie when they are taken aboard the Asp after their second ship attack in twenty-four hours. [Echo]
x zu Egkh und Hungerbach, Joseph—(unknown) A wealthy Austrian baron and head of the family residing near Graz, famous for its red Schilcher wine; his heir (fictitious), Reinhardt Mayrhofer, resides in London. [PM]
* * *
1 The Comte St. Germain was indeed a real historical person, but his origins, reputation, and activities are sufficiently mysterious as to admit of a good deal of novelistic license.
PART FOUR
SEX AND VIOLENCE
SPANKING, BEATING, FLOGGING, AND OTHER INTERESTING TOPICS INVOLVING PHYSICAL INTERACTIONS OF A NON-CONSENSUAL SORT
s I’ve said, everyone responds to a book (or film) in a different way, depending on a lot of different factors. I’ve had any number of people write to tell me that at first reading they thought “X” about some element of one or more of my books, but upon reading it again five years later they saw things in quite a different way—or saw things that they hadn’t noticed at all the first time.
Expanding that idea from individuals to a larger society, I think the same thing happens.
With regard to the spanking scene in Outlander, I’ve had very distinct waves of outrage/sensitivity/protest from readers. Right after the book came out, there were two or three years where any mention of it would start a huge fight on certain online sites (especially the romance sites on GEnie. These particular fights normally escalated into whether Outlander was or wasn’t a romance, with people being bent out of shape on both sides). Then, for about five years…almost nothing.
The book went on selling—I knew that much from the royalty statements—but protest about the spanking scene was limited to the very occasional single letter from a reader, mostly someone who obviously had either completely misread the passage (I had one very distraught and outraged young man who was convinced that Claire had been beaten raw and bloody over her entire body, he having evidently not noticed her tendency to hyperbole and having interpreted her beaten within an inch of my life in a way rather at odds with her subsequent behavior and descriptions) or who very plainly had personal issues with the subject that had nothing to do with the story as such. Virtually no public controversy at all.
Then we had another l
ittle blip of messages that would incite public discussions: “But he’s the hero. A hero would never do that!” Calm for several years, back again with a wave of accusations that my writing such a scene was immoral and irresponsible, as it would obviously
(My impolitic response to that was to note that any woman capable of reaching such a conclusion on the basis of a historical novel was plainly too dumb to read one of my books. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never once heard from or about any woman who did think that. On the contrary: I’ve often had a woman step briefly into such a discussion to say that she was a survivor of domestic abuse and that this particular scene was clearly not that. Also usually adding that she had enjoyed the scene itself.)
Calm for a number of years…and so on. I don’t know what’s caused the present blip—perhaps it’s just that the notion of seeing this scene played out onscreen in the Starz TV series has incited the imagination of people who did have a sensitivity to it, or perhaps it’s an extension of the not-quite-current media hysteria over domestic violence among professional athletes.
Mind, I’m by no means saying the latter issue doesn’t exist—plainly it does. But a) it existed for a long time before the media decided to take notice, and b) I mention that because of the accompanying word-choice phenomenon. To wit, the athlete who (and I quote) “beat his four-year old son with a tree branch!” Same verbiage used by every single newscaster and media host. Because, of course, the word “switch” sounds so much less like something everyone should be Horrified about.
Now, frankly, I don’t think that people who see the episode in which this scene occurs have a negative reaction to it. Quite the opposite: the writer, director, and actors succeeded brilliantly in capturing the exact spirit of the original—it’s slightly menacing, very funny, and mildly erotic (the dialogue is all straight out of the book); he’s plainly not “beating” her, and the completely contradictory (and completely understandable) positions of both Jamie and Claire are crystal clear.
The TV version has a considerable advantage in this respect, in that it can easily accommodate both viewpoints, whereas the book was limited only to Claire’s perceptions. On the other hand, I do figure that any number of people who merely hear about it will be jumping up and down without bothering to ask questions or (heaven forbid) actually read or watch it.
This is kind of tedious but probably okay in the long run. I certainly didn’t write the scene with the intent of making something controversial—but it’s perfectly true that controversy sells.
Anent the types of controversy, one that’s cropped up only in the most recent round of Concern is the notion that Jamie was trying to “break” Claire (whether in body or spirit) by taking a strap to her bottom.
Well, the bottom line, and the reason why the scene is able to play out as it does, is that he didn’t try to “break” her. He wasn’t trying to damage her, nor was he in a fury himself. Certainly he could have, but he was entirely in control and doing exactly what he meant to do: punish her, in exactly the same way he’d been punished himself, as a child and obnoxious pre-teen—and to precisely the same ends.
Jamie’s father wasn’t trying to break his spirit, let alone his body, by thrashing him; he was trying to compel the kid’s attention and suggest (strongly) that he start complying with the social order, for the benefit of everybody, not least Jamie himself.
To Jamie—and everyone else around him—that’s the point of punishing someone. It’s not revenge and it’s not anger; it’s not meant to crush someone, either physically or spiritually. It’s to preserve order and keep the offender within the safety of the group.
People (from North America and Western Europe) in the early twenty-first century do not, by and large, value order. (Turn on the TV and watch for fifteen minutes…. ) People in earlier times—including the earlier part of the twentieth century, which is where Claire comes from—did, from necessity. The only hope of survival in a harsh environment, with recurrent threats from other groups, was to stick together. People could NOT go off and do their own thing without endangering themselves and (possibly) the group they belonged to.
This idea just doesn’t penetrate for someone born after 1965, say—because they’ve never seen necessity of that sort.
I’m reminded here of one of my book-tour stops, in Traverse City, Michigan. After the very long evening, I was invited to have supper with some of the organizers, and we went to a casual restaurant downtown, where we were joined by a couple of other people, including a very interesting gentleman, also an author, but principally a speaker. I forget the details of his profession, but he was a fascinating man—had been a Marine in his earlier life, lived all over the world—and we had a lot of good talk about wars, history, etc. He was somewhat older than I am, probably in his late sixties or early seventies, but in good shape.
It was late, as I say—the restaurant had kept their kitchen open specifically for us, and we’d eaten hasty hamburgers and salads—and when we set out to walk back to the hotel, the only people on the streets were ones hanging around in front of bars. As we approached one such group, we could see them looking at us with interest, glancing away and shoving one another, talking loudly and generally behaving in a way that, had I been alone, would have made me turn around and go around the block to avoid them.
The ex-Marine—business suit, tie, and all—instantly stepped to the front of our little group and said calmly, “Let me go first. Keep behind me and stay close.” Which, I assure you, we all did. (The group included two other men, who instantly did as he said, too—but they flanked the three women, without a thought.) Our little gang arrowed through the larger group, who gave way with no more than the odd vulgar shout, and we made it to the end of the block and turned for our hotel without incident.
Vide, a group with good social order, approaching a random assemblage with the potential for unpleasantness, if not violence, and thus emerging with no harm done to anyone.
Jamie wouldn’t have articulated it to himself (let alone Claire) in that way, but that’s exactly what he’s doing and why.
And going on from there to a further note on group dynamics: As Jamie tells Claire, very carefully and explicitly, her crime was not that she didn’t follow his orders (though she should have, by the custom of the day) but that she put “all the men” in danger by not doing so. And she did. Many of them might have been killed or taken prisoner, to say nothing of what would have happened to Jamie himself (and he says nothing about that during his explanations in the televised version; he mentions it very briefly in the book version).
He does tell her what would have happened to a man who’d done what she’d done—severe physical punishment, if not death. The Highlanders are a tight-knit group, who depend on the group for safety. To that end, they have customs and traditions that enforce and preserve the order and cohesion of the group.
Claire is, by virtue of her marriage to Jamie, a member of that group, and—so far as they’re concerned—needs very badly to be informed of How Things Work. It’s Jamie’s duty to do this—and had he declined to do it, very likely Dougal or one of the other men would have, probably publicly.
Now, a subsidiary concern that’s sometimes raised is that Jamie admits to having enjoyed punishing her. One person in an online forum raised this issue, to which I replied as follows:
He enjoyed it (in part) because she’d just put him through HELL for the previous twenty-four hours.
Aside from being (he thought—and with complete justice, as she didn’t/couldn’t tell him why she’d wandered off) irresponsible, disobedient (and not just willful—she deliberately did what he’d told her not to do, and it wasn’t an unreasonable order under the circumstances), and featherheaded (why would anyone think it was a good idea to wander around alone, with redcoats and deserters in the vicinity? And Jamie and C
laire have just had their deadly encounter with British army deserters), she doesn’t realize that she nearly got a large number of men killed in rescuing her and doesn’t express any remorse over what she’s done.
She also scared the crap out of him; he knew what Randall might/would do to her and that there was every likelihood that he, Jamie, would never see her again.1
In addition to this, she’s put him in the position of being responsible for administering justice and bringing her back into social acceptability within the group. He’s a brand-new husband, and suddenly he has to do this semi-public and somewhat embarrassing thing, because it’s his duty to bring his wife back in line
Add in his personal history with Black Jack Randall (whom he’s just come face-to-face with and alerted to his presence, causing ongoing danger to him and everyone with him) and the fact that he had to take her out of Fort William, with its memories of his own imprisonment, grief, pain, and rage, and…
You wonder that he enjoys smacking her bottom? The man’s forbearing, but he’s not a saint.
“DON’T YOU THINK THAT’S A LITTLE RAPEY?”
During the press blitz surrounding release of the first season of the Outlander TV show, I traveled for a week with Ron Moore and several of the principal cast members, doing two premieres and a solid week of interviews. Some of these were panel-type appearances, where everyone was involved, some were solo interviews, and quite a few were paired interviews—Ron and I handling a video interview together, while Sam Heughan (Jamie) and Caitriona Balfe (Claire) did the same at a roundtable filled with journalists, and vice versa.