Why Outlander Season 7 changed Jamie’s injury
When Jamie is saved from the battlefield in the books, his finger is amputated. Outlander Season 7 didn’t include that, and Matt B. Roberts explains why.
Not everything from the Outlander books is included in the series. We saw that happen in the Outlander Season 7A finale, after Claire gets Jamie from the battlefield. While missing elements out is disappointing for many book fans, there are times that skipping moments makes a lot of sense for the TV series.
Matt B. Roberts talked about skipping out Jamie’s finger amputation in the official podcast. There’s a very good reason for skipping over it. And it’s not like the amputated finger ends up playing a huge role in storylines later in the books.
Why Claire didn’t amputate Jamie’s finger in Outlander Season 7
One thing that is worth remembering is that the damage to Jamie’s hand in the first season of Outlander wasn’t as extensive as it was in the books. Jamie has some problems with his hand after the events with Black Jack Randall at Wentworth Prison in the books, and they arguably lead to Jamie needing to have his finger amputated by Claire after the First Battle of Saratoga.
In the series, Jamie’s hand is pretty much fully healed. There are many reasons to do this, especially when it’s not much of a problem for the overall storyline to skip it.
With the amputation, it came down to time. Roberts shared that there wasn’t the time to really show the process of the amputation and the healing. There was a time jump to bring us both battles of Saratoga before the first half of the season ended.
We could also see that the graphics would also be a costly problem. When the amputation doesn’t create a huge issue to future storylines—like skipping over Ian Murray’s or Fergus’s amputations would—then there’s no need to worry about the greenscreening of the finger out all the time. Sam Heughan already needs the most time in the makeup chair, especially when there are scenes for his back to be on show. Does he really need something else that needs doing?
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