Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 7 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

Most of the chapter is about setting up events for later in the story. It’s about plot development rather than foreshadowing moments. However, there is some foreshadowing in Drums of Autumn Chapter 7.

It all starts with the dinner. Stanhope talks about something that put him off his food, and we know there’s a certain surgery that will happen at a dinner. I do get the feeling that this dinner foreshadowed that happening.

There is also the mention of the gravestone in Scotland. There is foreshadowing that the two will get back to Scotland at some point, even if it’s just temporary, and that this gravestone will come up again. Of course, we know who really put that gravestone there, but I do wonder if it foreshadows how the books will eventually come to an end. I know that’s not something we want to consider.

Adapting the Drums of Autumn chapter

This chapter was adapting for Outlander Season 4. It needed to be. After all, Claire and Jamie needed to get money from their ruby to be able to travel to River Run.

We get the full dinner scene, although some of the conversations are slightly different. We also get the moment between Jamie and Governor Tryon with the land grant. Claire doesn’t eavesdrop on this conversation. The benefit of the TV show is that it can be just left to Jamie’s point of view instead of constantly needing Claire around to show us something.

It’s the conversation afterward that changes slightly. Claire brings up the fact that the Revolutionary War is coming. Jamie already has an idea of what Tryon wants, and Claire points out that they will be on the wrong side of history. It foreshadows things to come (in both the books and likely the show).

I watched the episode before getting to this point in the story, so I was surprised that Claire didn’t bring up the Revolutionary War in the books. I thought it would have been something on her mind, especially with conversations of Culloden. I get that she probably wouldn’t have known too much about the Regulators, but they’re not too far away in the timeline for the Revolutionary War.

What did you spot while reading Drums of Autumn Chapter 7? Let us know in the comments below.

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