Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 44 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

While this chapter pushes the plot forward considerably, there is some smaller foreshadowing in all this. The biggest is about Young Ian.

At first, only Lizzie comes to tell Jamie what she thinks she knows. Young Ian turns up afterward, and silently. Jamie notes that he’s as silent as the Indians. It’s clear that Young Ian is picking up a lot from the Tuscarora people. There’s more of his story with the Native Americans to come.

Another bit of foreshadowing is Brianna not mentioning Roger. We’ve heard Claire’s theories in the previous chapter and now we hear Jamie’s theories. We don’t have Brianna’s reasons for it right now, and we find out later that she’s worried the baby isn’t Roger’s after all. She was raped, but not by Roger. By Stephen Bonnet.

Adapting the Drums of Autumn chapter

For the most part, Jamie learning about Roger being in the neighborhood was used in the same way. Lizzie told the story she thought she knew. When you only look at this from Lizzie’s point of view, it’s very easy to see how she could make this mistake.

The book and show did things slightly differently, but at the same time, it was still an honest mistake from assumptions. (And Brianna did not owe anyone the story of what happened to her.)

There was no way of avoiding this part of the chapter. It’s the bit that continues Roger’s story as he’s sold to the Native Americans. It leads to Jamie and Claire heading out to get Roger back and leads to Young Ian being adopted into one of the tribes.

I think the show did an excellent job with this particular moment, too. We got a clear look at what Lizzie saw. Take out everything else you know about Roger, Brianna, Bonnet, etc, and just put yourself in Lizzie’s shoes. Of course she was going to make that mistake, and Brianna’s silence seemed to make her believe that her assumptions were true.

We got to see the fear during Outlander Season 4, Episode 9. We got to see how sure she was about who Roger was. The show’s adaptation of this chapter was just right to give us all the different people that went into this huge mistake that had some devastating and difficult consequences.

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

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