From Parade:
In the back half of part 1 of season 7 of Outlander, the focus of the story will shift slightly – don’t worry, Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitríona Balfe) will still be there – to include some newer cast members: Jamie’s illegitimate son William (Charles Vandervaart), who was raised by Lord John Grey (David Berry), and Quaker brother and sister Denzell (Joey Phillips) and Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small) Hunter.
We first meet Denzell and Rachel when Young Ian (John Bell) brings William to Denzell for medical care – Denzell is a doctor – when an infection is raging through William’s body, and, happily, Denzell is one of the better doctors of his time, and he is able to save William’s life and limb.
Once William is well enough to travel, the trio begins their journey: William to return to the British army, Denzell and Rachel to find the Continental Army, where Denzell is hoping to offer his services as a doctor.
(…)
“I don’t see how one can avoid comparing him to Jamie, given the circumstances,” New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon shares exclusively with Parade. “But the resemblances are clear: not only his impressive size and physique, but also his personal attributes: good sense of humor, physical courage (he leaps up and kills the bad guy to save Denzell from being killed), and thoughtfulness –not only his care for the Hunters’ well-being, but his genuine shock at having killed a man, and his attempt to come to terms with it, rather than pushing it under the rug.”
Still, one can wonder, how much is nature versus nurture?
“Jamie shares some of those traits with Lord John—particularly thoughtfulness, generosity and physical courage (though the show doesn’t let him show that until much later),” she says.
And not only does William save the Hunters from death, when they do finally part, he is generous to a fault, gifting them with all the money he has on his person.
“We might consider William’s generosity with money as being due more to Lord John than to Jamie; being raised as a member of the British aristocracy and having a LOT of inherited property and money probably makes it easier to share your wealth, as you’re pretty sure you’ll have more of it,” Diana adds. “Still, Jamie is always generous with what he has, so we can’t really distinguish generosity as belonging more to one father than the other.”
Read the full interview here
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