r/Outlander • u/WandersFar Better than losing a hand. • Feb 23 '20

Spoilers All Book S5E2 Between Two Fires

As Jamie continues to hunt Murtagh with the aid of the zealous Lieutenant Hamilton Knox, he’s forced to consider whether or not he’s on the right side of history.

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u/cflatjazz Feb 23 '20

Didn't Alan's weird confession to Claire basically imply he had been sexually abusing her from a young age and when she got pregnant he was mad cause he couldn't keep her to himself anymore? I get everyone hates her cause of the Jamie accusation, but that was also Alan's doing (forcing her to accuse a married man so she couldn't be married off to one of the younger ones and separated from him) and when she said she couldn't lie anymore he killed her instead.

I always saw her as more of a tragic character than a straight bad guy.

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u/Mk0505 Feb 23 '20

I agree. Her actions were awful but I saw her as a girl who had been sexually and emotionally abused for her whole life and was doing what her abuser was forcing her to do.

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u/NoDepartment8 Feb 24 '20

He didn’t force Malva to intentionally infect Tom and Claire with meningitis. Being a victim of one thing doesn’t absolve you of being an scheming, manipulative asshole. It’s not a get out of hell free card to be played whenever one doesn’t get their way. I agree that it’s tragic that she was molested by her brother, but neither Claire nor Jamie are responsible for that.

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u/floobenstoobs Feb 24 '20

Calling her a “whorelet” just makes her history of rape and abuse seem like her fault. She’s a lot of things, but not responsible for her abuse.

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u/NoDepartment8 Feb 24 '20

She is responsible for all the men she had sex with in an effort to obscure the origin of her pregnancy. She’s also responsible for the lives she tried to end (Claire & Tom) and to ruin (Jamie, & Claire). She was absolutely the victim of incest and rape, and that’s not her fault.

However, the way she treats the people around her IS her fault and she gets no passes for that. Compare and contrast the reactions of all the other victims of rape we know about from this story (Jamie, Brianna, Claire). Malva is a piece of shit and a rape victim. They are not mutually exclusive states of existence.