Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 13 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

There is a lot happening within this chapter, and a lot of it builds the plot for the next few chapters and even sets things up for slightly later in the story. Think of this as a little like Young Ian being kidnapped during Voyager or Mary’s rape in Paris in Dragonfly in Amber.

There is a little bit of foreshadowing, though. Myers has mentioned that the Native American tribe would take Pollyanne in. What he doesn’t fully explain is that the tribes started adopting people into their tribes because of dwindling numbers. It was a matter of survival.

We’ll get a moment like it in the future. After all, Young Ian proves that he belongs with the Native Americans.

There is also a mention of Claire failing to save people. She feels that weight that even though she couldn’t do anything, she still feels like she should have done more. To me, this foreshadows that there is more to come from her healing abilities. She’s just not there yet.

Adapting the Drums of Autumn chapter

Let’s talk the adaptation, or should I say the lack of adaptation? Outlander Season 4 used the talk about owning slaves, but slightly differently. Jamie talked to Campbell about freeing slaves, and it was through this that he and we found out the truth.

I did prefer seeing this conversation play out. If you’ve read these posts long enough, you know I’m not a fan of Jamie telling Claire something that someone else has told him.

But that’s just a minor change that suits the format needed for telling stories on the TV. There’s a much larger change to this story. Outlander Season 4 completely cut out the murder storyline. Instead, we got the storyline of Claire trying to save Rufus.

The more I think about limitations in TV, the more I think about the change to the story. It’s not necessarily the writers thinking they can tell a “better” storyline. It’s more that they need to find ways to save money, and one way to do that is to not have multiple sets.

To do the murder storyline, the sawmill would have been needed. Then there would have been the need for the town and more actors for this storyline. And let’s not forget that this isn’t just a one-episode storyline.

Looking at it from purely the angle of keeping cost and time to a minimum, it did make sense to cut out this storyline. That doesn’t mean I like Claire’s White Savior moment (although there are some parts of the story that I do like), but I can remain objective about it.

What did you spot while reading Drums of Autumn Chapter 13? Let us know in the comments below.

Like Claire and Jamie on Facebook for the latest from the Outlander Book Club and much more.