Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 49 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

While Captain Leonard wishes he hadn’t made the report, he has. And he does view Jamie as a criminal who will be hanged. This is foreshadowing for toward the end of Voyager.

Captain Leonard doesn’t give up too easily. Plus, as a young captain, and really an acting captain still at this point, he needs to prove himself. Capturing someone wanted for sedition and smuggling will do well for him, especially a man who is also a pardoned Jacobite traitor.

This isn’t over, even though Claire has jumped off the boat.

Adapting the Voyager chapter

While the chapter had to be used on Outlander Season 3, Episode 10, it wasn’t used exactly. The biggest change was Claire and Annkeja being allowed off the boat with the watering party. They were there to feed the goats and get more grass.

This gave Claire a chance to escape. For TV shows, this was important. There was that sense of hope that she would get away, and then we saw her hopes thwarted by Captain Leonard doing his rounds.

TV shows are different to chapters in novels, especially when there’s a mixture of book-first and show-first/show-only fans. They need to build up to something dramatic, which this episode did with Claire attempting to escape on the island instead of a conversation happening on the ship. Hope sunk only for the ending of the episode to make us need to move onto the next episode.

The mainmast breaking wasn’t included. It wasn’t really necessary for the story. We could believe that the ship would pass islands that have people, and that’s something Annekja would know. It all led to Claire jumping into the water below, hoping not to drown.

What did you spot while reading Voyager Chapter 49? Let us know in the comments below.

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