Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 39 breakdown

Foreshadowing within the Outlander chapter

While tending to Alex, there’s a moment that foreshadows the full story about Frank. Claire mentions how Alex looks like Frank for a second. We know that Alex Randall is actually Frank’s direct ancestor. Claire has never even considered that this could be the case, but the clue is right here.

It’s not the first time Alex has been described as having a look of Frank. When Claire first saw him, she thought he was Black Jack Randall because he looked so much like Frank. The clues have always been in the books.

There is also the foreshadowing of why everything is lost in the end. The Jacobite men need to return home to farm. They need something for when all this is done. There’s also disagreement within the clans, which leads to some leaving and some staying. It’s all doomed for failure.

Adapting the Dragonfly in Amber chapter

While this chapter was used, it wasn’t in the way it was written in the book. In fact, it’s not Charles who sends Jamie to Lord Lovat. That’s where Jamie heads first, before joining Charles’s army. Jamie knows that he needs some good men to follow him.

From a TV show point of view, it did make a little more sense to do it this way. In a book, it’s possible to take a couple of breathers from all the action. In a TV show, the action continually needs to build. Putting the Lord Lovat section at first to then just focus on the battles and the rest of the main storylines helped with the flow.

As for the Randall storyline, it did make a lot more sense for time to have Claire find Mary in Edinburgh and then head off to help Alex. Everything quickly falls into place, instead of initially treating Alex, heading off to Lord Lovat, and then later returning to deal with everything.

It really does come from the differences between books and TV shows and the way they have to play out. Remember that the TV show had to work for show-first or show-only fans as well as the book fans.

I don’t feel anything is missing in the TV show by switching things around. Since I watched the show first, I actually enjoyed the way everything played out, keeping the Randall storyline contained to just one episode.

What did you notice while reading Outlander Book 2, Chapter 39? Share in the comments below.

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