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Outlander: Would Claire have gone through the stones had Frank never existed?

ByAlexandria Ingham|

Photo credit: Outlander/Starz Image acquired via Starz Media Room

On May 2 in Outlander history, Claire went through the stones for the very first time. Would that have happened had Frank never existed?

Today is the day that Claire Randall went through the stones for the first time. At least, it is in the books. Outlander the TV series opted for a Halloween period, but either way, my current thoughts remain the same.

While rewatching Outlander Season 2 (I do an episode of Season 1 and Season 2 a week based on when the episodes originally aired), I thought about the discussion of Frank possibly not being born. Had Black Jack Randall actually been the direct ancestor, Jamie’s duel could have meant Frank would never have been born.

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Had that happened, what would have happened to Claire? The reason she was in Scotland in the first place was because she was on her second honeymoon with Frank. Had she never married Frank, she wouldn’t have had a reason to be in the Highlands on May 2, 1946 (1945 in one version).

Just because someone has the time-traveling gene doesn’t mean they’ve used it. There will have been some of Claire’s ancestors who have never used it. There’s a theory that Fergus has the time-traveling gene, but he’s not been through the stones. So, there’s no guarantee that Claire would have eventually gone through time.

And if she had, she wouldn’t have necessarily gone through the Highlands and to Claire’s time? Something that hasn’t been focused on in the show but is used in the books is the idea that there needs to be something on the other side to root a person to it. Claire fell to 1743 because she had Frank’s ancestor on her mind and would have been thinking of everything she heard about Culloden.

Without Frank, she would have been thinking of someone else and another time. There’s a chance she would have never found Jamie. And without Claire, Jamie would have most definitely been dead.

As much as some fans really dislike and even hate Frank, there’s no doubt that he had an important role in bringing Claire and Jamie together. Of course, in the end, he wasn’t a direct descendant of Black Jack Randall. But Claire believed that up until she found out his brother Alex Randall was the father of Mary’s baby, so it’s not surprising we believed that for a long time.

What do you think about the journey through the stones? How would things have been different had Frank not been around? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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