Mary Rowlandson's attitude towards her captors is-as one would imagine-that they are savage heathens that are manipulated/placed in her life by God to test her faith and allow her to grow as a person and learn more about herself. She believed that there was a good reason for every violent or cruel act that took place during her captivity, as is evident in the Third Remove:
"I then remembered how careless I had been of God's holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God's sight; which lay so close unto my spirit, that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever. Yet the Lord still showed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as He wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other."
While whatever acts of aggression, selfishness, or cruelty the Amerindians committed against Rowlandson may have had a brief immediate effect of bruising her spirit/faith, she-conversely-seems to strengthen spiritually throughout the period of captivity. Even following the death of her six-year-old child, her faith is also evident in the Third Remove:
"I have thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to me in preserving me in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life. "
Rowlandson encountered a [very] pregnant captive that told Mary of her plan to run away. The level of Rowlandson's faith in God is illustrated by her reaction to the mother-to-be's plan to escape, as well as the outcome of the pregnant captive's behaviour. When told of this dangerous escape plan by the fellow captive, rather than bluntly warn the mother of the flaws in her plan (such as the fact that she probably would not make it on foot to the nearest English camp) Rowlandson read her Psalm 27:
"Wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine Heart, wait I say on the Lord." (End of Third Remove)
While this Psalm may have done the trick to settle Rowlandson's nerves, it seemingly gave the mother-to-be less comfort, as is illustrated by her repeated requests to her captors to return home. Her repeated requests cause the Amerindians to gather "a great company together about her and stripped her naked, and set her in the midst of them, and when they had sung and danced about her (in their hellish manner) as long as they pleased they knocked her on head, and the child in her arms with her. When they had done that they made a fire and put them both into it, and told the other children that were with them that if they attempted to go home, they would serve them in like manner." Had the Psalm verse been enough for this woman, perhaps she and her child would have survived. After witnessing violent mutilations and murders and the displacement of her family, Rowlandson returns to her Bible to provide her with comforting verses. Her Christian position is her backbone throughout the journey.
Initially, she tried her best to avoid the food and general lifestyle of her "heathen" captors, but eventually hunger became a significant concern, and she began to adapt to their way of life without losing her faith in God. Rather than noticing Rowlandson feeling sympathetic toward her captors, I would call it more of a growing understanding of their way of life. She began playing by their rules of behaviour, eating their food, and generally acclimating herself to the savage environment. The blurring of the lines between Christians and the Amerindians appears in the Sixteenth Remove:
" My heart skipped within me, thinking they had been Englishmen at the first sight of them, for they were dressed in English apparel, with hats, white neckcloths, and sashes about their waists; and ribbons upon their shoulders; but when they came near, there was a vast difference between the lovely faces of Christians, and foul looks of those heathens, which much damped my spirit again."
The distinguishing factors of a people (i.e. dress) become more apparent to Rowlandson throughout her captivity, but so is her relentless faith in God. Because of this faith, I do believe Rowlandson believed herself to be saved. The key message of Rowlandson's journey can be summed up by the well-known phrase "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
The idea you present here of the two extremes of Puritan settlers and savage natives approaching a sort of bizarre medium place is very interesting. While on the surface level the events of the narrative are set against a backdrop of “good versus evil” really that dichotomy is completely misapplied in this case. While Mary and her captors are on opposite sides of a conflict, they are moving towards being more and more difficult to distinguish, as shown when Mary mistakes the approaching Amerindians as Englishmen based on their garb. In a way, one can imagine this as a precursor to a very American process of cross-cultural exchange, in line with the classic “Melting Pot” analogy. Your photo of Daenarys from Game of Thrones fits this idea really well, though of course she ends up becoming the leader of the culture in which she was initially an outsider. The idea of social/personal evolution through incorporation of outsider aspects is an interesting one that Rowlandson adopts almost subconsciously, all in the name of survival.
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