Claire's in Danger — perhaps from an unexpected quarter

[Dorothy]

Claire, Claire, Claire! Will you ever learn to LISTEN when someone warns you of danger? I guess you won’t and that’s one reason we love you.

However, I see some danger ahead. Yes, BJR is trouble with a capital T. But you’ve got another man who’s got you in his sights, and you need to stay on your game.

Dougal worries me. I LOVE what the Series is doing with him. He’s both more present and more clearly defined in the Series than he was in the book. Terry has given us some insight into him with her discussions of his costuming. This is one smart, compelling, interesting man.

What’s got me worried is his interaction with Claire towards the end of The Wedding. Yes, he made a drunken pass at her in The Gathering, but I saw that as more of a general, opportunistic event. She happened to be in the wrong place (though, thank goodness, he was there to chase off the other clansmen.) But his approach to her in The Wedding is specific and menacing.

Earlier in The Wedding, the interaction between Dougal and Jamie when Jamie comes down for the food set off my warning bells. Claire’s done what Dougal wanted. She’s not only saved herself, she’s saved Dougal from getting in a world of hurt with BJR over his Jacobite fundraising. Claire knows a great deal, and she’s kept her mouth shut under circumstances that would make most other people fold. He KNOWS Claire’s a danger if she were to tell the English what she knows. But is Dougal grateful to claire? Hardly. Why the hostility towards her when he tells Jamie not to be too keen to return to his bride? And why the hostility to Jamie with the remark about the “fillies in the stable”? Is he jealous of Jamie?

Then we have the scene where Dougal offers to help Claire “sample other pleasures”. Frightening. Claire is damned if she does, and in hot water if she doesn’t. Dougal is not just one of the guys. He’s not a stranger. He’s Jamie’s uncle, and his maternal uncle at that. He has a special relationship to Jamie, albeit a very complicated one. He’s supposed to love Jamie, and have some sort of protective feelings toward Jamie. But Dougal’s approach to Claire is downright menacing. What if Jamie were to find out about it? We have to think Jamie would take some action, if only to take Claire away from Castle Leoch.

I am looking forward to seeing how this business with Dougal plays out through the rest of the season.

************* Spoiler Alert ************
I chortled when, in the church with Willie and the priest, Dougal says, “It’s colder than a witch’s tit in here!” I shouted at my TV, “Well, Dougal, if anyone knows the temperature of that particular appendage, it’s you!”

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[Dorothy]

I forgot to mention one important difference between Book Dougal and Series Dougal — in the book Dougal is married and has four daughters. In the Series we haven’t heard about a wife. And Caire thinks Dougal is unmarried since, at the end of The Garrison Commander, she thinks Dougal wants her to marry him, himself.

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