You might already know that my husband was a college football coach.  We chased his coaching dreams for 30 years and our longevity at each institution averaged around five. Every time we moved, I packed up my accumulated knowledge and experience and went hunting for a new job. One of those job hunts found me employed in a Ohio prison.  I was part of a team of four people who created and ran a program for alcohol and drug addicted felons. The program was confrontational and encouraged introspection and personal responsibility.  One of the therapeutic exercises the inmates, who volunteered for the program, completed was a two page autobiography.  It didn’t take reading more than a couple of paragraphs to understand that prison seemed like a logical “the end” to these stories. The dysfunction these individuals lived with was staggering. Their homes and lives were broken by neglect, abuse, violence, and addiction.  I came to understand that “normal” was a relative term.  If all you’ve ever known is the a fore mentioned dysfunction you adjust to it. You cope with it. You survive it.  Some folks actually survive and thrive, but others have less success. What they survive and how they survive often leaves them broken and dysfunctional and the cycle is then perpetuated. Broken people often break other people with their needs and desires.

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While thinking about the upcoming season finale of Outlander on Starz, I wondered what these men and Jack Randall might have in common.  We don’t, in fact, know if Black Jack grew up with dysfunction.  Only Diana truly knows and she has chosen not to reveal Jack’s back story to us. One of the few things we know about this villain is that he actively seeks out ways to harm others to satisfy his own twisted desires and needs.  What we do not know are his true motives for his actions. In the books, Diana hints at his damaged past and even allows the reader to approach something akin to pity for him when he cries for “Alex” to love him (who Alex is remains a mystery) and when he is grieved by his younger brother’s death, but it is never enough to balance what is seen as at the least sadistic or maybe sociopathic behavior. Jack always has the ability to choose between inflicting tremendous harm or not doing so and chooses harm.

I was curious about sadism and the role dysfunction might play in its development.  So,  I read some research. The pieces I read suggest this type perversion is often rooted in a person’s childhood experiences. Things “learned” in childhood are often “hard-wired” in our brains in a way unlike any knowledge we gain as adults. I read that many personality disorders and unhealthy coping skills are indeed learned as children in a dysfunctional environment.  I found the early attempts to identify the roots of this particular behavior almost laughable; the theories based on teething and potty training come to mind.   It seems we have recognized the behavior for a very long time, but the “why” of someone becoming sadistic is still a bit of a puzzle.

The term “sadism” is derived from early 19th century French medical literature and in connection with the novels of the Marquis de Sade that depicted scenes of torture, cruelty and killing for erotic purposes. Sadism was defined as:

“The experience of sexual, pleasurable sensations (including orgasm) produced by acts of cruelty, bodily punishment afflicted on one’s person or when witnessed in others, be they animals or human beings. It may also consist of an innate desire to humiliate, hurt, wound or even destroy others in order, thereby, to create sexual pleasure in ones self” Krafft-Ebing, 1886.

This definition hasn’t changed much over the years. In 1977, Erich Fromm, a German social psychologist and psychoanalyst suggests the “core of sadism” is:

“the passion to have absolute and unrestricted control over living beings, … whether an animal, child, a man or a woman. To force someone to endure pain or humiliation without being able to defend himself is one of the manifestations of absolute control, but it is by no means the only one. The person who has complete control over another living being makes this being into his thing, his property, while he becomes the other being’s god”

Both of these definitions fit Jack’s fascination with Jamie.  He couldn’t break him and as Jamie suggested, it seems he did “haunt” BJR’s sadistic dreams.

With the advent of the brain scan there is research that suggests that brain damage might contribute to sadistic behavior. However, even these studies leave doubt as some subjects who engaged in sadistic behavior had evidence of brain damage while others did not.  More recent psychological research suggests that sadism is a spectrum of behaviors and often is overlapped by other personality disorders. I found it interesting that internet trolls and school yard bullies found a place on the sadistic scale. Jack seems to fit these recent theories of overlapping personality disorders.  If I was able to ‘diagnose” Jack, I would say he belonged with a group of people who suffer from what has been identified as “The Dark Triad” of personality disorders; narcissism, Machiavellianism (not officially recognized as a personality disorder), and psychopathy.

• Narcissistic people display grandiosity, pride, egotism and have a lack of empathy.
• Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation, exploitation and a disregard for morality.
• Psychopathy includes antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.

This combination is considered malevolent and we were witness to that malevolence in Wentworth prison. I was  somehow under the mistaken impression that this behavior was the result of the inability to feel, but after my reading, I came to realize that it is just the opposite. Jack knows what people are feeling when he perpetrates his will on their lives and it feeds his own feelings. His victims feelings are of import to him in so far as they serve his needs…their needs are of no import.

Even with knowing that Jack’s issues are probably rooted in childhood and then shaped by war, we find it hard to make any excuses for behavior that can rightly be called evil. He ruins people for pleasure and KNOWS he is culpable. “I dwell in darkness and darkness is where I’ll remain”….” Do you think I cannot control the darkness within me?”

Jamie because of his own inner strength, morality, goodness, and ability to love has become the object of Jack’s dark desires. When Jamie gives Jack his coerced “permission”, his compliance is being assured with a threat to his wife’s life. He believes he has only a few hours to live and needs to know his wife is safe. His love for Claire was the only thing that would have made him offer Jack what he wanted. Jack’s chillingly saying, “Shall we begin?” as if he hasn’t already made Jamie suffer more than any man should have to bear made my skin crawl. Jamie naively believed that he would be able to remain unaffected by Black Jack Randall’s actions.  He knew there would be pain involved and he would feel repulsed, but he believed he could remain emotionally distant.  His illusions are shattered within minutes.  He is tortured mentally, physically, and sexually.  Black Jack will not be satisfied until he has broken him. In Outlander’s final episode, we will see a broken man do everything he can to break the spirit of another man. And,…the worst of all things that Jamie could imagine will happen…he will live.

The light at the end of this episode is Claire and her love for Jamie. Claire is a person who is empathic and compassionate, but as ruthless as the situation requires. What she does instinctively to save Jamie is miraculous. Jamie made good on his promise to protect her with his body and in her own way, Claire will protect Jamie with hers. The one thing Jack was not able to destroy was the love between these two people and the lengths they will go to keep each other safe from harm. Claire will go into hell to get Jamie back.

Although we would never want what happens to Jamie to happen to anyone, in a way, Wentworth shaped the man Jamie later becomes. Jamie comes to understand himself in a way very few of us can. He will be scarred by his experiences and yet some how be more whole than he was before. With Claire’s help his spirit will fight its way out of the darkness and he will be the stronger for it.

This Saturday we will witness what evil can do and…what love can do. It is my hope that this wonderful story of hope and survival, the strength of the human spirit and… of a committed love will give someone the courage to tell their story and others the courage to love enough and long enough to help.