Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 39 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

This chapter doesn’t really involve foreshadowing in the standard sense. It’s a major moment that pushes the plot forward. Jamie and Claire will now need to go on a voyage to get Young Ian back.

The only thing to keep in mind that will take time to explain is why Young Ian was even taken. Who does the ship belong to? Where is the ship going? Some of the questions will be answered quickly so Claire and Jamie know where they’re going to next, but others won’t be answered until later in the story.

Voyager Chapter 39 foreshadows a little, though. It focuses on Jamie’s wish to be at Lallybroch with Claire. His focus is still to build a home with her. While it won’t be in Scotland, this wish is going to eventually come true. They just need to get over this latest hurdle and everything that’s still to come in this novel.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

Voyager Chapter 39 was partly adapted for Outlander Season 3, Episode 8. We got the part overlooking the water as Young Ian swam out to the island. On the show, he was picked up on the island and the Frasers got ready to save him. In the book, there was another discussion afterward bringing the two together.

From a TV perspective, ending with Claire still frosty with Jamie and just seeing Young Ian taken worked out well. It was a cliffhanger needed to push us into the next episode, to give us a need to watch the next episode. Would Claire reconnect with Jamie? Where was Young Ian being taken? What would the Frasers do next?

The show didn’t have the time to offer the conversation between the Frasers to help them reconnect. It didn’t have time to give some of the conversations from the previous chapter, allowing Claire to understand more of what life was like for Jamie while she was gone.

On Outlander Season 3, Episode 8, Claire realized that the fairytale she possibly didn’t realize she had wasn’t working out. Jamie had a life for 20 years without her around and she couldn’t just pop back into his life like nothing had happened. She wasn’t sure if she had a place in his life now.

In the TV show, we needed that. There needed to be time for Claire to work through her feelings and for the two of them to reconnect. They weren’t just going to pick up like nothing had happened. The book afforded more time before this point in the story simply because the book isn’t on the clock like the show is.

As a show-first fan, the TV show worked. I like the chapter, but that wouldn’t work for the TV show. The way the writers handled it all made perfect sense to me at the time of watching, so no complaints here!

What did you spot while reading Voyager Chapter 39? Let us know in the comments below.

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