Hurt people hurt people. It’s a common phrase that comes up a lot, and we’ve seen it come true many a time in Outlander throughout the seasons. It happens again in Outlander: Blood of My Blood with Davina Porter, but we also see that people can change.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Outlander: Blood of My Blood season 1, episode 6.
When Davina first started to help Julia, she was kind, but she was also someone Julia couldn’t trust. Things took a turn when Julia did what she needed to do to protect her unborn child. Whether out of fear or jealousy, Davina started plotting against Julia, and it all came to a head in Outlander: Blood of My Blood season 1, episode 6.
Davina Porter saw Julia shamed in Outlander: Blood of My Blood
At first, the women gathered to help Julia through her childbirth. After all, she was bringing a prophesied king into the world, and the women were happy about that. Things changed when Davina pointed out that Julia had gone against her suggestions to stay away from Simon Fraser. She shared that not only did Julia seduce Simon, but that she also tried to seduce her son, Brian.
Naturally, the women believed Davina, and they turned against Julia. Davina rallied them along, as we got flashbacks of how Davina was raped and humiliated by women like the ones humiliating and shaming Julia.
It wouldn’t have mattered who Julia was, whether she was a Sassenach or a Scottish woman. Davina would have turned against her. Hurt people hurt people, and that’s exactly what she was doing.
Davina proves that people can change if they want
Outlander: Blood of My Blood has set up Davina as an excellent conflicting character. She’s one of those that you can somewhat understand considering the time period. She found safety in Castle Leathers due to bringing Simon a son, but she didn’t get the freedom or the future that she may have hoped for. After all, Brian didn’t turn out to be the prophesied King of Scotland.
As Simon talked of marrying Julia to make who he considers his son a legitimate child, Davina shows a mixture of jealousy and fear. What will happen to her and Brian with this boy who comes along? It’s no wonder that she wanted Julia to tell the truth about the real father of her baby.
Yet, Davina realized that she was wrong to do this. She did what she could to protect her own son, and now she could see that Julia was doing the same. A mother’s love is deep, and women will do whatever they can to protect their offspring. There are stories of women being able to move cars off their children because they turn out to be true.
And with that, we see that while hurt people hurt people, they can also change. They don’t need to keep living this cycle of hurt and pain. With some hope, Davina will continue to be a friend to Julia in the way that Claire found friends in Mrs. Fitz, Jenny, and even Geillis at one point in the story. It all depends on the mess that Simon now creates with this boy he believes to be his son.
Outlander: Blood of My Blood airs on Fridays on STARZ.