Sin Eater, Jamie Dutton

Here’s the thing, no one is all good or all bad. I’ve been working up to writing about a particular character for a while now, wanting to do her justice but not quite finding the right words, right perspective, right anything…how do you articulate something not everyone is going to relate to? In recent months the narrative of the ‘plight of the eldest daughter’ has been gaining traction and with that, for me, comes the concept of modern day sin eaters. I’ve been musing with characters that fit the role of ‘sin eaters’ and although equipped with lips of war, Beth Dutton is not that. Yellowstone’s Jamie Dutton is.

In the ancient Near East, scribes were our modern day version of lawyers. Burdened with knowledge and charged with facilitating the continuation of tradition, Jamie Dutton, the second son (or so he thinks), is the lawyer of the family, the saving grace to his siblings and father on more than one occasion. Yet, is arguably the most hated of the Dutton offspring. But how do you not hate the scapegoat charged with the sin you can no longer bare to carry? How do you not pray for the slaughter of something that reminds you of all your mistakes and ugly doings? How do you not come to detest the very thing you swore to destroy?

The problem with a family so powerful and enmeshed like the Duttons is that the second someone – Jamie – does anything that doesn’t directly serve the family campaign, he is deigned selfish and later-still evil. Jamie tried to establish himself as an entity with an identity that went beyond the Yellowstone Ranch. At the end of the first season Jamie declares “the only way to protect my father’s legacy is to destroy the man”, professing that despite what his kin may think, he has the continuation of their name in mind. However, the viewer, myself included speculates whether that is just the excuse he is using to free himself from the guilt of wanting something for himself, power for himself. ‘Speculates’ is being generous because at the this point we were all sold on the powerhouse that was John Dutton, the force that was Beth and charm of Kaycee and so we were all too happy to condemn him at the first sign of trouble. But bare with me because I want to go beyond this arguably obvious villain narrative and explore what Jamie Dutton had to become in order to survive.

Now arguably to find sympathy for him we need to put blinders on when it comes to the other, beloved characters – so this is really an exercise in compassion and objectivity. He did not get to claim the trauma of watching his mother die, but he still lost his mother. When the responsibility of Beth’s pregnancy fell on his shoulders, he did what he thought was best. He carried the weight of the dozens of bodies that lay at the bottom of the ravine, aka the train and station and moreover, became an expert in the law and how to utilize it to suit his father’s wants and needs. No thanks except the possibility of maybe inheriting the empire (of dirt?) one day – but maybe not, because despite all that, he was never the favourite. Jamie didn’t have a choice in many of his defining moments, and sadly most of the time, those moments forced him to do bad things. But isn’t that the way of sin eaters? Taking on the sins so others don’t have to? Jamie’s assumption of responsibility was the result of an innocent egocentric child who didn’t understand the magnitude of burden he was taking on. And when it comes down to it, the rest of the Dutton clan want nothing to do with Jamie’s sins, for they probably don’t even understand where they put theirs to begin with.

So, the thing they don’t tell you is no one is all bad or all good. Good people do bad things and bad people can do good things, it’s just up to you to decide which way round you want it. But either way, and this is really the key, guilt does not purify. A hand that beats is no better than the hand that beats but feels guilty about it.