Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 23 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

There is a little foreshadowing, and it all comes in the conversation with Monsieur Forez. There’s such a focus on the detailed description of a traitor’s death and whether it could connect to Jamie that nobody seems to listen to the warning he seems to give to Claire.

When Claire mentions she has no friends in England anymore, he mentions that she has friends in the right places in Paris.

We know that Claire is called La Dame Blanche. That name is going to get back to the King, and he is a suspicious person. Later, Claire is called upon to see into the souls of two men—the Comte and Master Raymond.

Is it possible that Forez is warning Claire that some may view her as a dark witch? Maybe her friends in the right places have helped prevent the King’s dangerous suspicions of her. But that could come back to her in the future.

Adapting the Dragonfly in Amber chapter

Some of this chapter was used for the show, but not exactly. It’s all about the way to prevent the Comte’s and Charles’s business from working out.

In the series, Jamie is pulled into the business, too. Charles trusts him to sell the port at a good profit. Instead of setting up the situation on the ship traveling with the port, Jamie is able to set up another plot. It all leads to a highway robbery that is staged, with Murtagh doing the robbing.

This would have been for a couple of reasons: time and money. There’s no way there was enough time to add in the full storyline involving Murtagh traveling to Portugal. Yet, it would make for some great one-episode drama, so it needed to be included in some way. At the same time, the cost would have been too much to manage it all.

Sticking with a highway robbery made a lot more sense for the sake of the show. It certainly didn’t take away from the outcome. The idea was simply to prevent Charles from getting the money to repay the loan and get his ships to Scotland.

The rest of the chapter wasn’t used. It wasn’t really needed for the bulk of the story, so would have been cut due to time.

What did you notice when reading Outlander Book 2, Chapter 23? Share in the comments below.

Like Claire and Jamie on Facebook for the latest Outlander Book Club chapter and more.