Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 30 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

There’s one bit of traditional foreshadowing that I see in this chapter. It’s all about Young Ian’s talk of transportation. Young Ian wants to see the world, and we know eventually he, Jamie, Claire, and others end up in the Colonies. Young Ian doesn’t want to head back to Scotland and manages to make a life in the Colonies.

Young Ian also shows that he’s a capable young man. While naive at times, he also understands the danger around him. He knows that he needs to risk his own life to protect others, and he’s willing to do that. We see this later. He’s willing to sacrifice himself for Roger when it comes to the trade with the Natives.

Of course, there’s the situation at the location. Someone has betrayed Jamie, and that’s to come up soon. We all know who it is now, but it’s something for Jamie to figure out in the chapters to come.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

This chapter wasn’t used in the TV show. While it was a great chance to get to know Young Ian a little more in the book, I didn’t feel it was missing in the show. The benefit of the show is that we got some time with Young Ian and Fergus. We saw that naivety and youth, but also the man that he wants to become. It’s the benefit of not being pigeonholed into just Claire’s point of view.

While there is the exciseman storyline and the guy who works for the Crown in both book and show, the TV show opted to have the guy escape from the print shop fire so he could turn up on the ship to Jamaica later. It combined multiple parts into two separate sections of the TV show, and it worked from a TV show perspective.

I never felt like anything was missing or needed extra explanation or drama at this point in the story in the show.

I do enjoy the chapter in the books for something extra. Something I don’t like is when a TV show is exactly like the book. I want something different otherwise I don’t see the point in reliving the exact same story all over again. But that is a personal choice with so much content out there in the world. (It’s also why I don’t rewatch or reread a lot.)

Okay, I said this would be short but I had a lot more to breakdown than I thought I would!

What did you get from reading Voyager Chapter 30? Share in the comments below.

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