Interesting comments by Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon posted some very interesting comments on Facebook and Twitter last night, explaining what she meant when she told Sam Heughan (in the very first OUTLANDER panel discussion back in January 2014), “I trust you’ll take this in the spirit intended, Sheugs--but I really want to see you raped and tortured.”

I remember Diana's original comments on that panel discussion very well indeed, and I understood what she meant at the time, but I'm glad she posted this explanation for the benefit of people who may have missed it, or not understood why she said what she did.

Some of you may recall that my comments after that panel discussion in 2014 inadvertently inspired what Diana referred to as the "Necessary (Horrible) Thing" in WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD. <g> (Hint: see chapter 133.) What I was thinking at the time was very much along the same lines as what Diana said here:

the reason why Bad Things happen to people in my books is [....] to reveal the true nature and deep character of the person to whom the bad thing happens—in a way that you simply don’t get when a person is responding to the normal vicissitudes of life.

This is something that took me a long time to understand. Actually, no, that's not accurate. It took me a long time, and multiple re-reads/re-listens, to be able to see past my own very intense emotional response to these traumatic events (Wentworth, or J&C's separation in DRAGONFLY, or Roger's hanging), to view the story with enough objectivity that I could even begin to consider why Diana Gabaldon would put her characters through such ordeals.

It's not an easy thing to come to terms with, as a reader, especially when you've become so invested in the characters that you think of them as real people. <g> And I think the TV viewers who have not read the books will be in for one hell of a shock, to put it mildly. I'm really looking forward to seeing their reaction.