Y'all's bad taste in romance is ruining things again.
I'm gonna say my piece as clearly and unapologetically as possible. I'm not a big-big fan of romance as a genre. I like romantic subplots when they're well done, or I like BIG STAKES time period romances, cause Brazilian telenovelas ruined me as a teenager (looking at you Martin and Maria das Dores). There's almost no in between.
Then there's Outlander. Say what you want and I am aware of Gabaldon's obsession with SA and stuff. But it's an odd, powerful, all encompassing romance. I think it is super unique. Y'all's romantasies don't hold a candle to Outlander's power, Outlander's characters and Outlander's way of using sex scenes. You don't want to be Claire Fraser, cause you know you can't replace her in Jamie's life. Even when it's written in first person, you can't self insert, cause she's alive, and she's too towering to be moved to make space for little you. And I think that's amazing writing in the genre. She's not a new adult, she's a woman. Jamie is not some brooding dark daddy, he actually has a personality besides smirking and leaning on things. He's naturally cool. Both of them are, so much so that they keep you engaged in their romance when they're much older than fifty. No 19 yo Dragonrider will ever be as cool as a highlander and his doctor wife.
And then Blood of my Blood happens. And it happens without Gabaldon's pen to support it.
The casting is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. I believe every single one of them to be the younger versions, or the parents of everybody. Brian's actor even did his homework: there are a lot of Jamie's quirks in his father's younger self.
The writing on the other hand... It's very weak. And it's as tropey as nowadays romance novels popular on TikTok go. Ellen McKenzie stepped out of some novel where "she's not like other girls". Her father treated her like a son, ok? She doesn't want to marry, ok? She falls in instalove with grandiose unearned love declarations, ok?
I don't hate her, nor her ridiculously square-faced lover. I just think she's not well written, she's made to appeal to an audience that's making romance become silly again. Silly as "scapist women's opium" silly. Not only the actress' accent is inconsistent (she has other actoral virtues, chemistry in spite of everything is one of them); her writing is inconsistent as well. You're told for the first two episodes that she has enjoyed a lot of freedom throughout her life, because she was her father's favorite. Now I just watched her saying she has never had a free choice ever in her life, before choosing Brian.
Ok I used a lot of words to say as much as many people are saying: this instalove feels unearned and we, as an audience, are having trouble rooting for them, unless we become fans of "just silly romance" against the backdrop of gorgeous cinematography.
Claire's parents' romance on the other hand is super earned, but the writers did commit another mortal sin of fated lovers instalove with them. I can buy the way they fell in love, but I hated the way they met in person for the first time. Until now, it has been the only sin in their love story though. We're all rooting for them.
And those are my thoughts about Blood of my Blood. I still like it and it's characters, but these TikTok popular romantic tropes are a poor replacement for Gabaldon's pen. I thought there was going to be only one bed at any moment.
