Outlander Book Club: Lord John and the Succubus Chapter 7 breakdown

We finally get answers about the succubus in Lord John and the Succubus Chapter 7. Here's our breakdown of the chapter.
Outlander Season 4 -- Courtesy of Aimee Spinks/STARZ
Outlander Season 4 -- Courtesy of Aimee Spinks/STARZ /
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As Lord John and the Succubus starts to come to an end, we get a few answers. The first is how and why the rumors of the succubus started. That all comes to light in the new chapter.

It only comes to light because John decides to get away from Schloss and goes to the bridge to see the men guarding it. He wants to see Franz, the young boy who kept hearing a child’s cry. That boy isn’t there, so John goes out in search for him.

That leads to John finding others and getting the truth about the succubus. No, there isn’t a mythological creature killing people!

Breaking down Lord John and the Succubus Chapter 7

John heads to the bridge. When he gets there, he finds out that Franz isn’t around. The soldiers think he ran off back home, but that’s not something John believes. He decides to go in search of Franz across the bridge, looking out for gypsy wagons along the way.

John starts to see things in the trees, and he starts to hear the sound of a child crying. Then he ses a badger’s den, but something doesn’t look right. It turns out that Franz is trapped there with a broken leg. Franz is able to share how he went in search for the crying child and came across a white skull and other bones at the base of the bridge. He then came across English and Austrian soldiers and ran away, getting trapped in the badger’s den.

With recent combat in the area, John does need to check on that. He then finds Dundas and a corporal as the only two left alive in their survey party. Dundas explains that the French are responsible for the succubus. Women agents would sleep with the soldiers and give them opium. This would force them to have vivid dreams of a succubus so that they would panic. The idea was that the French would weaken the soldiers so that they could win in an attack.

Now it all makes sense. Ruysdale was so focused on the French that he overlooked the Austrians. John has to leave to warn Sir Peter about the ambush.

We continue to see the type of man John is. He doesn’t take everything at face value. He knows that there is more, and he runs on gut instinct a lot. If it wasn’t for him, Dundas and Franz would have been left for dead and the Austrians would have been able to attack.

Could this chapter be used in a TV series adaptation

Yes, this chapter would need to be used if this book was turned into an episode for a TV series. It brings us the details of the succubus and why all the soldiers are in such a panic about it. While we still don’t have the details of the murders, we have enough to know that the succubus isn’t real.

This also continues to show us the type of man John is. We’d need to see this sort of development as it will be important for other books that could end up being adapted. John is a capable soldier and spy. He is smart and quick-thinking, and he doesn’t give in to peer pressure when it comes to the ways of thinking.

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