It’s finally time to say goodbye to Stephen Bonnet in Outlander Book 6, Chapter 117
It’s taken two books to get to this point, but the permanent goodbye to Stephen Bonnet is finally here in Outlander Book 6, Chapter 117. It’s also a poetic way of doing things.
We knew from the previous chapter that Bree was up to something. She wanted to do something while Bonnet was being executed, but Roger didn’t know what it was. Well, she opens up about what she wants in this chapter, and we see her wishes happen.
Of course, Roger isn’t too happy about what Bree wants to do. He even offers to do it himself, but Bree won’t let him. She has to be the one to kill Bonnet.
One thing that I love about this chapter is that Bree believes she should live up to her word. She made a promise, and she is going to go through with that promise. She really is her father’s daughter.
We did see this chapter play out a little, and I’ll get to my thoughts on the way the series handled the adaptation in that section. As for foreshadowing, I don’t really see anything. I’ll get to that in the foreshadowing section of this post.
Let’s dive into A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 117.
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.
Foreshadowing in the Outlander chapter
There isn’t any foreshadowing that I see in this chapter. This is just one of those that is about wrapping up Stephen Bonnet’s storyline. We need to see that he really is dead, and now we get to see all the characters move forward from the pirate.
Adapting A Breath of Snow and Ashes chapter
The chapter was partly used in the TV series. We didn’t see Bree row out to Bonnet. Instead, she shot him from the bank with her musket. I guess there had always been foreshadowing of this as we saw that Bree was a great shot.
I didn’t mind the small changes. We got what was important: Bree shooting Bonnet. The show didn’t really go into Bree’s motivation, though. Roger wants to know if it was out of mercy or to make sure Bonnet was dead, and she doesn’t answer. I would have loved a “I made a promise” line to explain to the viewers that really she’s doing it to keep her word. As that’s what I feel this whole thing was about for her.
What I am glad is that the show still kept in that Bree is the one to kill Bonnet. Whether it was murder or not, she needed to do it and we needed to make sure he was definitely dead.
What did you spot while reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 117? Let us know in the comments below.
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