Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 117 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with everyone gathered to watch Bonnet being led out to the pole where he will be tied to. His execution is by drowning, and it’s something that we know he will be terrified of facing.

Brianna and Roger are there. They don’t get to hear anything that’s being said at the pole because of the crowd jeering. Roger notes that there’s a journalist so anything that Bonnet says will be in the papers.

This is when we find out what Bree wants to do. She wants to kill Bonnet herself. She made him a promise not to let him die by drowning, and she wants to live up to that promise. It doesn’t matter that she didn’t want to kill him on Ocracoke. This is different—like her father, she is a woman of her word. I think if it wasn’t death by drowning, Bree wouldn’t have bothered wanting to kill him herself.

Roger offers to do it, but Bree refuses to let that happen. Roger is going to become a minister so it would be wrong. She also doesn’t see how her killing Bonnet is murder. I will still say that it is murder, but I can understand her motivations behind her thoughts.

It’s Jamie who ends up taking Brianna out to the pole so that she can kill Bonnet. She does it with a pistol to the head, telling him to “go with God” afterward. It’s a touching moment, but not one that I think shows she cares about Bonnet. She simply cares about the promise she made him, and she’s past the hatred she felt after he raped her.