It’s hard to know where to begin, except to apologize to my readers about stopping the recaps halfway through the first season of Blood of My Blood. Life became busy and complicated and the world is becoming increasingly scary…it was difficult to find the words for the emotions I felt in watching this show.
But emotions I had plenty, because the show is excellent and deliberate and sweet and thoughtful. It broadens and enriches our known Outlander universe and it is exciting to watch because in many ways its story and characters are relatively unknown. For a fandom that has undoubtedly read and reread the Outlander series many times, a show such as Blood of My Blood is delightful in its surprise.
So, I thought I’d touch on it a bit before the Outlander final season premiere which…(checks watch) drops at midnight tonight. No time like the last minute, eh? Better late than never. Or, in the case of time travel…there is perhaps no such thing as too late?
Much of Outlander deals in themes of free will versus predetermination. Indeed, there are entire episodes that address that very topic…the third episode of the fifth season is actually titled “Free Will” (my recap of that episode is here). In a world of time traveling our characters constantly question how much of their lives are determined by a future that already exists. Can we stop Culloden? Can I save my parents from conflagration? Can we save the lives of those we know are destined to die?
How much, in that same regard, are our pasts malleable? Can we travel back in time to right a wrong? Can we shape the future if we shape our past? How do we make amends in a world shaped by our ancestors?
Time travel is indeed at the heart of Blood of My Blood, but it is the metaphorical time travel that centers this show. That is, how much are we shaped by generational trauma and generational love? Some parents are capable of great cruelty, while others are the embodiment of unconditional love. Much of the first season of this show addresses how capable we are of breaking cycles…either set forth for us by our parents or by the time in which live. Brian is a man determined to be different from his father. Ellen is a woman fighting for independence from her brothers. Henry is haunted by the horrors of war, determined to find peace in a world blown apart. Julia longs to break educational barriers imposed on women of her generation. Abuse, oppression, war, sexism…these are the generational forces that either bind us or motivate us to greatness.
Like Outlander, Blood of My Blood views love as an overarching power. Love, both shows argue, spans centuries and distance. If we are lost we look for love to guide us. If we are stumbling we look for love to break our fall. It’s a comforting thought, isn’t it? That if we suddenly found ourselves in a century that was not our own we might seek out our family to find our way home?
Our world changed dramatically in the twentieth century. Although Julia and Brian came from a world of airplanes and mass warfare and telephones and radios, they were born into a world that still used horses for transportation. Their childhoods were likely lit by candlelight, and so their experiences in the 1700s are not entirely foreign.
Might Ellen and Brian find the world so changed if they were capable of traveling to the future? Perhaps not as much as we might think. Man is as capable as ever of cruelty. The evils whims of a few powerful people still shape the lives of many. As it was true in the eighteenth century it is true in the twentieth…as it is true in the twenty-first.
So where does that leave us on the eve of the Outlander premiere? Moreover, where does that leave us in our current, real-life world? To be honest it’s often hard to say. When I look up and beyond my home and family and friends it seems the world is teetering on the brink of something large and scary. In such times we might wish for time travelers to visit and offer words of reassurance that we might see the other side of this uncertain time.
But perhaps visitors are not needed. When we look at the stars we are seeing light that has already traveled through time. When we look at our loved ones we see all the reassurances that we may ever need. When we look at our own actions we know we have the power to change the future.
Outlander is may things to many people, and this final season is guaranteed to break my heart. So let us carry forth what Diana Gabaldon has embodied in her characters: determination, thoughtfulness, bravery, and love. Always love.
Slà inte.
Outcandour 