Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 2 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

While the chapter is focused on Claire learning a lot of what we already know thanks to the first Voyager chapter, there is some foreshadowing within this. After all, there’s still a story of how Jamie managed to survive after Culloden considering the wound we know he had. There’s far more of Claire, Brianna, and Roger to learn.

There’s also an element of foreshadowing of Claire going back to the past. She has this hope that he’s alive and that she could get back to him at some point. She just needs to know where he is. That’s all to come very soon.

That’s the only foreshadowing I see right now. Maybe I’ll look back on the chapter and realize there’s more. I will admit that it’s been some time since I’ve read Voyager but not long since I’ve watched Outlander Season 3. Things can get jumbled up or forgotten about.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

This chapter isn’t used too much in the show when it comes to word-for-word breakdown. However, it is used in general. After all, we need to see Claire, Brianna, and Roger start the search for Jamie through historical records.

There are a few reasons to adapt this chapter loosely. The first is due to time. There wasn’t enough time to break up the search the way it happened throughout the book. The search needed to take place in one episode, giving Claire and Brianna a chance to learn more but potentially not get all the answers they needed. Covering details that we already knew through Jamie’s part of the story wouldn’t make much sense for a TV show. We can assume it happened off-screen.

The episode also took place later in the season. We saw the search happen in Outlander Season 3, Episode 4. The first three episodes looked back at Claire’s life with Frank across the 20 years.

In a way, this isn’t surprising. Rather than drag out the search across multiple episodes, it was a chance to get to know various characters who would be important at later points. It was a chance to say goodbye to Frank and see Brianna grow up. We needed this to get a fully picture of Claire’s overall story.

The book has the opportunity to go back and forth in the storytelling. Claire can catch Jamie up with various things that happened when she goes back to the past. Using flashbacks doesn’t work as well for TV shows, so telling the story in chronological order works better.

What did you see when reading Outlander Book 3, Chapter 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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