Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 16 breakdown

Foreshadowing within the Outlander chapter

This is a chapter that has a little bit of foreshadowing. The use of the skulls and the Cabalistic symbols makes it clear that there is more to Master Raymond than initially meets the eye. He’s got a lot of secrets.

I’d love to have a Master Raymond novella sometime in the future, a little like the Lord John Grey books. “The Space Between” gives us a little look into who Master Raymond is, but it’s clear that there is so much more. This chapter in Dragonfly in Amber just screams it.

Another element of foreshadowing is that of the baby. Claire and Jamie fear that Claire is having a miscarriage. She dreams that she’s giving birth to a snake instead of a baby. In a way, I view this a little as the snake being the placenta. Claire can’t get the snake’s head out of her, which links to the placenta being stuck inside. It’s only Master Raymond who can save her.

Then there’s the white-stone necklace, Comte St. Germain, and the thoughts of murder. It’s clear that this stone will come into play at some point.

Using the Dragonfly in Amber chapter in the series

This chapter was certainly adapted to fit the time constraints of the episode. It’s an important part after all for various character development.

The use of the bitter cascara leads to Claire going back to Master Raymond. We need to see this relationship develop more. There’s still more to come in the book, and it’s an important one to understand why Master Raymond would risk so much to get to Claire in the hospital when she is dying from childbed fever. We also have the situation with the Comte St. Germain.

For the sake of timing, Claire was overcome with the bitter cascara while Jamie played Duverney at chess. It wasn’t as serious as the book, which is possibly a downside to the series but it suited the need to play everything out relatively quickly.

The dream could have been extremely difficult to pull off on the TV series, especially depending on the budget size. The way the show did it was just right to keep the pace of the episode, and we all knew who was behind it.

What did you get while reading Outlander Book 2, Chapter 16? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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