It’s easy to keep your mind off the grief during the day. However, Jamie finds that it comes back in Virgins section 10, as he looks up at the night sky.
We get a beautiful moment between friends in this section as well. All Jamie wants is to make sure his sister is protected, and Ian is the best person for that. While Ian says he won’t leave Jamie, we know that things change, and there is a good reason for that.
Breaking down Virgins section 10
This section starts with Ian offering to help Jamie kill Black Jack Randall. That’s certainly what would have happened had Ian not eventually lost his leg. I could just imagine an alternate universe where Ian was with Murtagh, Dougal, and the others when Claire came through the stones. So much would have been different for Jenny at Lallybroch.
Jamie doesn’t want Ian to join him in killing Randall just yet. What he wants is for Ian to head to Lallybroch to take care of Jenny, knowing that he can’t return to there just yet. There’s hope in his heart that one day he’ll be able to go back to there. However, Ian makes it clear that there are friends and tenants that will look after Jenny. Right now, Jamie needs Ian.
I love this friendship, but it also foreshadows change. Ian only leaves Jamie when he has to, because he’s no good without part of one of his legs. This leads to him doing as Jamie asked, looking after Jenny, even though Jamie doesn’t seem to know that this has happened at the time. I often wondered why Murtagh didn’t tell Jamie this.
As everyone goes silent, Jamie looks up at the night sky and thinks about his dad. He remembers the past when he was being fostered by Dougal as a teenager, and his dad told him that he and Jenny would also look up at the night sky and think of Jamie. Now, Jamie can’t think of Jenny and home, but he does think of his dad. As a tear slips down his face, he apologizes for his dad, asking where his dad is. It’s such a quiet but powerful moment of grief.
Could this section be used in a TV adaptation?
It’s another section in Virgins that we would need to see in the adaptation, as it continues to show us the type of bond that Ian and Jamie have. We need to see that Ian was ready to fight Randall and kill him, and we need to see that Ian never intended to go to Lallybroch and be with Jenny at first. However, Jamie seemed to always know that Ian was the man Jenny should have, and I don’t even think there was a mention of Ian from Jenny at the time.
What will be hard is showing just what Jamie is thinking, but we could get a great flashback of a younger Brian telling teenage Jamie about looking up at the night sky. This will tell us exactly what Jamie is doing.
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