Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 16 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

This is a goodbye with Willie, but it’s clear that the boy is going to show up again. We get this sense that the two are intertwined, there will always be a way it will happen.

It all comes back to Lord John Grey. There’s that foreshadowing of their friendship striking up again. There’s a chance for John to be a part of Willie’s life and get messages to Jamie. Of course, that’s not exactly how it all plays out. There are a lot of other details and steps to take, but it all links up to Drums of Autumn with Willie’s return.

There’s also that foreshadow of Jamie and Claire reconnecting. After almost 20 years so far, Jamie hasn’t forgotten Claire. He’s never lost his love for her. Likewise, Claire hasn’t lost it for him. They can find their way back to each other.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

This is one of those chapters that was used heavily for the Outlander TV series but was also adapted heavily at the same time.

We’ll start with the biggest adaptation, and that’s the use of Lord John Grey. It’s only in this chapter that John and Jamie strike up their half-friendship again, and it’s because Jamie has figured out that John is the reason Jamie is at Helwater and not in the Colonies.

In the TV show, we see more of their friendship. This was important for the show. We’ve had a chance in the books to see the story of John’s point of view, and there’s been time for Jamie to figure out the truth about John and his stepfather. The show didn’t have that time, but John would be important later in the story. We needed time to see John and Jamie together.

The show also included the moment at the end of Jamie offering his body to John in exchange for raising Willie. That’s when John tells Jamie that he is to marry Isobel. We see the connections put in place for later in the story, but don’t find out about them until later chapters in the book. It just helped to keep things contained to the individual episode on the TV show, and we got to see the honorable man that John was.

The scenes with Willie were mostly the same. The biggest change was Jamie looking in the carriage at his reflection, which is when we know Jamie realizes that Willie does look like him. We need that to jump to that conclusion since we don’t get Jamie’s voiceover to tell us what he’s thinking.

Overall, the episode brought all the important moments from the chapter and more.

What did you see when reading Voyager Chapter 16? Share in the comments below.

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