Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 48 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

There isn’t much in the way of foreshadowing in this chapter. We finally get to find out that Lord John Grey was the passenger everyone was worried about, but that’s about it. However, it’s clear that Lord John is going to show up again. Even if we didn’t have chapters from his POV earlier in the novel, we’d know he would become a bigger part in Voyager.

After all, Lord John is heading to Jamaica. Claire and Jamie are heading to Jamaica. It’s only a matter of time before everyone is connected.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

This chapter was partly adapted, but there were some substantial elements changed for the sake of a TV show. The TV show offered a much bigger role to Elias Pound. We got to know him more, even hearing the story of his mother and the rabbit’s foot he has for luck.

Claire makes a connection with him that she doesn’t in the novel, and this is important for a TV show. Also, we make a connection with Elias in the show, something that we don’t get to do in the book because we only see what Claire is willing to tell us.

We view shows from the third person rather than the first person in the books. Side characters need to be developed more, otherwise, there would be a lot of (valid) complaints about one-dimensional characters. But when we form a connection with the characters as the audience, we also feel their losses.

On Outlander Season 3, Episode 10, Claire did find a way to stop the infection. Once she found the source, it was easier to prevent others from catching the disease, which meant higher spirits. However, there would always be one last victim. To add more emotion to the story, the series made Elias Pound the last victim, and it was heartbreaking.

This was necessary for the end of the episode, which saw Claire jump off the boat. We needed to know that her work was done on the ship before she jumped. As a doctor, she would have wanted to know her work was done. So, I do appreciate the way the TV show handled it and found it a stronger part of the story than Voyager‘s story.

The biggest change was the lack of Lord John Grey. The show didn’t have him on the ship at all, and that would have been due to lack of time. It was easier just to have the big surprise of Lord John in Jamaica in Episode 12.

What did you spot while reading Voyager Chapter 48? Let us know in the comments below.

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