Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 34 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

There is a lot going on in this chapter that has a knock-on effect on the future storyline. The marriage to Laoghaire is voided by Claire being back. Jamie and Claire are still married, making Jamie a bigamist without intending to. That is certainly going to have a knock-on effect when you consider it was Laoghaire he married.

It all leads to why Young Ian is kidnapped, why everyone needs to sail to Jamaica for him.

But it’s not really foreshadowing. It’s just setting up the plot to continue it, to give everyone a realistic reason to head to the West Indies and then end up in the Colonies. Otherwise, why would they have left Scotland?

Adapting the Voyager chapter

Let’s take a look into the adaptation of the Voyager chapter. We didn’t get the full exposition of Claire’s thoughts in the show as we do in the book. That’s not surprising.

While I know a lot of fans love the voiceovers, they don’t work for me. I prefer to see something on the screen play out instead of hearing about it. I don’t need to be told something, I want to be shown it. And this is where the adaptation plays a part.

Instead of hearing Claire’s thoughts, she mentions that she’s leaving. Why stay when Jamie has Laoghaire? This doesn’t get resolved. Just like in the books, Jenny throws water over the two of them as they get passionate.

Claire starts to pull away, and we see that up until the time on the ship. It needs to happen over the course of a couple of episodes—and actually, it’s not that long when it goes from about the mid-point of Outlander Season 3, Episode 8, and ends toward the end of Episode 9. But we need to see it.

Claire had this romantic, fairy tale view of what it would be like to return to Jamie, and that didn’t happen. Jamie had a life. He got remarried. He tried to move on without Claire. She wasn’t the only one who got to do all that. And now she’s realizing what it all means. It was important to see it all play out, and those feelings take time to play out when there isn’t the voiceover.

What did you spot while reading Voyager Chapter 34? Let us know in the comments below.

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