Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 63 breakdown

Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter

Throughout the chapter, there are mentions of Roger. Claire keeps looking at the trees where Roger went through, and it’s clear that she’s worried. Roger isn’t back yet. Surely he should be.

This is clear foreshadowing that something is about to go wrong. Roger isn’t going to make it back. Brianna even points out that a flag of truce isn’t going to matter if Roger is on the side of the enemy when the battle starts. Roger is going to get mistaken for a Regulator, and it isn’t going to end well.

Adapting The Fiery Cross chapter

The show opted to have the Battle of Alamance in the history books. Instead of Brianna only riding out to help with the medical knowledge, she rides out with a warning. This is all going to end in bloodshed.

I liked this way of combining the story of Roger heading across to the Regulators with the warning. For a TV series, it made sense to combine these moments. It offered up another question as to whether history could be changed. Culloden wasn’t prevented, but that doesn’t mean Claire doesn’t think other history can’t be changed.

Giving Brianna this big reason to ride out also made sense. Up to this point in the story, we’d seen just how fiercely protective and worried she was about Jemmy. Would she have left him just because she wanted to help with the medical treatment of injured men? It probably wouldn’t have made sense for the show, and to be honest, we don’t really know her well enough in the books to question her actions there. Giving Brianna the historical knowledge to see what was coming did make a lot of sense as she would try to protect the people she loved.

What did you spot while reading The Fiery Cross Chapter 63? Let us know in the comments below.

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