Happy birthday, Stanley Weber: Remembering Comte St. Germain

We celebrate Stanley Weber’s birthday by looking back at his Outlander character

Stanley Weber is 34 today. We like to celebrate as many of the Outlander cast birthdays as possible through posts about their characters.

We haven’t seen Weber on the series since Outlander Season 2. He played Claire’s adversary, Comte St. Germain. He was certainly a man of mystery, but he was also a man used to getting whatever he wanted.

In the end, things worked out terribly wrong for him. At least, that’s something we’re led to believe. Before Claire got Jamie out of the Bastille, she had to do King Louis a favor. That meant figuring out who was the practitioner between the Comte and Master Raymond. With a slip of the hand, Raymond managed to put poison in the cup and the Comte was killed.

But there’s far more to this man than initially meets the eye. While not seen in the main books again, he is included in a short story by Diana Gabaldon. He’s also mentioned in a later book.

Let’s delve into Comte St. Germain.

An aristocratic man of his time

Comte St. Germain was definitely a man of his time. On top of that, he was an aristocratic man of his time. This was a man who loved the luxuries of life, and he was willing to do whatever it took to gain those luxuries.

He was even willing to kill for the luxuries. After Claire had told the harbormaster about Comte’s ship having smallpox victims on it, the ship was burned. The Comte lost everything on that ship, and it made him focus on Claire as an enemy. To get revenge, he bought what he believed to be poison from Master Raymond to kill Claire.

Of course, it didn’t work. It wasn’t real poison, but Claire was immediately worried about her life with the Comte around.

And it’s not like anyone could get rid of the Comte from the Frasers’ lives. Bonnie Prince Charlie wanted the Comte and Jamie to work together, which meant this man was always going to be around.

Yet, Claire never wanted to kill him. When it came to the opportunity of calling him a practitioner of the dark arts, she didn’t. Instead, she found a way to save both men—and it would have worked had it not been for Master Raymond’s actions.

Did Comte St. Germain really die?

This is where things get interesting. While in the main books, it seems like he’s still dead, the Comte appears in the short story The Space Between.

In this, he’s known as Paul Rakoczy. It turns out that Master Raymond saved the Comte’s life after that fateful day at the king’s court. After that, the Comte left Paris, but he returns in 1778.

It also turns out that the Comte is a time traveler, too. This is something the main books don’t go into. The show also never delved into this. It would be interesting to see if an Outlander miniseries could be developed with Stanley Weber reprising the role to tell the story of The Space Between. This would also allow Dominique Pinnon to return to the role of Master Raymond.

Future mentions of the Comte St. Germain in Outlander

While the Comte hasn’t returned to Outlander, there’s a chance his name could come up. He’s mentioned in Echo to the Bone, the seventh book in the series.

This is through a letter to Lord John Grey, where Percy Beauchamp shares that he believes Fergus is the son of Annalise Beauchamp and the Comte. Of course, there’s no proof of this. We don’t even know if the Comte would even admit to it. However, it opens up some major doors.

Let’s just consider the possibility that Fergus is the Comte’s son. This could mean that Fergus is also a time traveler, since we know that the Comte is. We’ve never seen Fergus around the stones or even that opal much. Could he be able to hear the buzz?

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An unforgettable performance

Regardless of what could come, we’ve got to praise Stanley Weber for his performance of the Comte St. Germain on Outlander Season 2. This was a character we loved to hate, although nothing on the level of Stephen Bonnet and Black Jack Randall.

He was a brilliantly portrayed adversary, but one that made me want to know more about him. Bravo!

Happy birthday, Stanley Weber.