The Books vs. The Show: Comparisons, Speculation, and Snark

[katville]

Refinery 29 is where I got the 4 year age difference info: Link.

[toolazy]

When trying to figure out ages and relative ages in the books, it's best not to try to be too exact.  DG is TERRIBLE at dates - she even admits it.  There are numerous time-related continuity issues, particularly in the later books.  I've learned to just accept whatever is in front of me and not torture myself trying to reconcile everything. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

30 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

I thought there was 8 years between them. Isn't Jamie 20 and Claire 28 when we first meet them?

 

No. Jamie is 23 to Claire's 28. And from what I can recall, Jamie is early to mid-fifties and Claire is approaching 60 in the last buik.

Or what @Grashka said.??

Edited September 25, 2017 by GHScorpiosRule

[Petunia846]

On 9/25/2017 at 3:03 PM, Hyla said:

What I would really like to read and am having trouble finding is an article or discussion about how the male point of view has altered Outlander. How a series written by a woman, with a female protagonist and supported by a majority female readership lost out to a male producer, male writers and male viewers who identified and sympathized with him rather than Claire.

Totally agree, and it's something I notice in every episode. There seem to be very few scenes now that look at the "modern" time line from Claire's POV. The most egregious to me was the end of last season when Claire is back from the past and almost every scene is from Frank's POV instead of our actual protagonist reacting to one of the most traumatic events of her whole life.

[nodorothyparker]

2 hours ago, Petunia846 said:

How a series written by a woman, with a female protagonist and supported by a majority female readership lost out to a male producer, male writers and male viewers who identified and sympathized with him rather than Claire.

The very much increased Frank POV and casting Frank in a more sympathetic light is definitely the big difference I point to as well.  I know a fair argument can be made that that's the sort of thing that happens when you put a character on screen as opposed to only seeing him on the page through Claire's POV and us never quite knowing how reliable a narrator she is in situations where she clearly has her own biases and resentments.  And books vs TV adaptations, blah blah blah, and I do think those are all fair considerations.  I will say it's been rather interesting to me watching my own husband and other husbands I know who are watching, none of whom have read the books, leap to identify with Frank and take Frank's side while side eyeing Claire and I do wonder how much of that would have happened anyway had Frank's role not been so expanded.

IIRC, I wasn't alone in complaining about the season 2 premier at the time where Claire has been through this hugely traumatic loss even before you get to the time travel element of it and all the loss and disorientation that must accompany that and instead of focusing on that so much of it was shot through Frank's pain at having to watch her grieve.  Tobias Menzies sold it well as he always does, but it still bugged.

[GHScorpiosRule]

9 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

I will say it's been rather interesting to me watching my own husband and other husbands I know who are watching, none of whom have read the books, leap to identify with Frank and take Frank's side while side eyeing Claire and I do wonder how much of that would have happened anyway had Frank's role not been so expanded.

I still maintain it would have been possible to show more of Frank's ugly side to make it more even-handed. And I know I'm sounding like a broken record but, the writers, and especially Ron, seem so in love with Tobias Menzies, that it came off to me as them not willing to have the "good" Randall have any similarities with his evuhl, motherfuckingmurderingsociopathicRAPING Ancestor, Black Jack, because...reasons. Frank did not want to take Bree away to show her more of England or to spend more time with her, or that maybe she might like attending Oxford. It was spelled out, in dialogue why he was taking her away. And speaking for myself, I was Daddy's little girl, but that didn't mean I had a distant relationship with my mother, as I've read some seem to think the two are mutually exclusive.  I just felt closer to my father, because for the first year of my life, he was in India, and I was in the states, and after he came to us, we were connected. But I still love my mom, I just wasn't as close with her. But, Frank's gone. I hope. For the rest of this season and next. Menzies is good, but he ain't no DanielFucking!Day-Lewis!

Bree didn't give me the impression she resented Claire or that they didn't have a loving relationship. Either last season or in the buiks. Of course Bree would get angry when she learned Frank wasn't her biological father--she adored him and loved him, and he her. But Claire also loved Bree, and aside from looking just like Jamie, she also exhibited the same quirks or personality traits. I never got the sense that Claire couldn't love Bree because she reminded him so much of Jamie and she couldn't handle that. And this is why I think the glossing over some of Frank's darker side was not only a disservice to Claire in the show, but also to the unsullied viewers, because they're not getting the whole picture.

[toolazy]

The good news is that Frank is dead and we won't have to do much talking about him going forward.  There aren't words for how tired I am about of talking and reading about Frank and their marriage.  That horse is seriously dead.

[Nidratime]

Amen.

[WatchrTina]

I woke up thinking about the show and I want to applaud a clever bit of book-vs-show slight of hand that they pulled off.  In the books we meet "William Grey" in book 1 but by book 3 that same character's name has, curiously, changed to John Grey.  I've constructed a whole in-book theory for why that happened involving some of the stuff we later learn from the Lord John novels but it's all fan-wank.  The truth of the matter is that Diana decided to have the young man from Book 1 play a major role in the long-term story but by then she really wanted to use the name "William" for Jamie's son by Geneva, so she just changed the name of the dude from Book 1 to "John William Grey" and then never referred to his middle name again.  You hand-wave right past it in the book -- you're too caught up in the drama between the two men at Ardsmuir to focus on that inconsistency.

But in the show they use that naming inconsistency not as a problem but as a plot point.  It serves to help us understand why Jamie (who thinks John looks familiar when he first glimpses him) doesn't realize who he is right away (Grey being a fairly common surname.)  Then we viewers (and John) are left in the dark as to the fact that Jamie DOES figure it out during their first formal meeting.  That bit of subterfuge by Jamie (and the writers) makes for a very satisfying moment when Jamie revels that he remembers "John William Gray" (who John's brother, Lord Melton named in the first episode of the season to a semi-delirious Jamie) and the manner of their first meeting (complete with flash-backs for the viewers to make sure they make the connection.)

Well done show, well done.

Edited September 29, 2017 by WatchrTina

[Summer]

I just read on Facebook that there is an uproar on Twitter amongst the fandom about speculation that the "special friend" that Lord John lost at Culloden is Black Jack and non book readers are melting down.    Many fans pointed  it out to Diana to which she has responded no, absolutely not.  

At first I thought the notion was absurd, too, but then I could see how a completely unspoiled, no idea what's coming next, non book reader COULD think that.  

[DittyDotDot]

2 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

I woke up thinking about the show and I want to applaud a clever bit of book-vs-show slight of hand that they pulled off.  In the books we meet "William Grey" in book 1 but by book 3 that same character's name has, curiously, changed to John Grey.  I've constructed a whole in-book theory for why that happened involving some of the stuff we later learn from the Lord John novels but it's all fan-wank.  The truth of the matter is that Diana decided to have the young man from Book 1 play a major role in the long-term story but by then she really wanted to use the name "William" for Jamie's son by Geneva, so she just changed the name of the dude from Book 1 to "John William Grey" and then never referred to his middle name again.  You hand-wave right past it in the book -- you're too caught up in the drama between the two men at Ardsmuir to focus on that inconsistency.

But in the show they use that naming inconsistency not as a problem but as a plot point.  It serves to help us understand why Jamie (who thinks John looks familiar when he first glimpses him) doesn't realize who he is right away (Grey being a fairly common surname.)  Then we viewers (and John) are left in the dark as to the fact that Jamie DOES figure it out during their first formal meeting.  That bit of subterfuge by Jamie (and the writers) makes for a very satisfying moment when Jamie revels that he remembers "John William Gray" (who Hal named in the first episode to a semi-delirious Jamie) and the manner of their first meeting (complete with flash-backs for the viewers to make sure they make the connection.)

Well done show, well done.

Even though I'm sure you're right about why Diana changed his name, there is a reason why John stops going by his middle name in the books, as I recall. There was some sort of scandal John was in the middle of that Hal managed to get covered up and as I recall that's when John started using his first name as a way to distance himself from that scandal. I believe there's even a vague mention of it when we first meet John in Voyager.

[WatchrTina]

Yeah, like I said I have a whole fan-wank around the name thing.  I think young John goes by "William" when he's in Hal's regiment because Hal doesn't want to use John's proper title (LORD John, which he's entitled to as the son of a Duke) because Hal is, at that time, refusing to go by the highest title he inherited from their father (Duke of Pardloe) due to the scandal surrounding the late Duke's death.  John refuses to be addressed as just plain John so they compromise and he goes by his middle name while serving in Hal's regiment.

That's not in the books, it's just what I cooked up.  In reality I think Diana decided she liked the name "Lord John", realized that John's father needed to be Duke for that to be legit (the son of an Earl is Viscount <something>, not Lord <insert first name> like the son of a Duke), and thus the whole scandal around John's father's death was born.

Edited September 29, 2017 by WatchrTina

[WatchrTina]

9 hours ago, Summer said:

I just read on Facebook that there is an uproar on Twitter amongst the fandom about speculation that the "special friend" that Lord John lost at Culloden is Black Jack and non book readers are melting down.

Oh brother.  We SAW the end of Black Jack Randall.  We saw him fall.  Do they really think that John Grey turned up on the battlefield (off camera in episode 1), saw his "special friend" alive (lying across Jamie's body) and just left him there to die in a pile of rebel Scots -- dragged away by an unfeeling bother.  Seriously?

That being said, I do think it was a mistake in the show for John not to name his friend (it's Hector in the books).  When Jamie finally names Claire, it would have been nice if John had named Hector and if you had gotten the sense that it was the first time John had said the name in a very long while.  But perhaps they didn't want to diminish the significance of Jamie naming Claire for the first time in the whole season.

Edited September 29, 2017 by WatchrTina

[DittyDotDot]

16 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

Yeah, like I said I have a whole fan-wank around the name thing.  I think young John goes by "William" when he's in Hal's regiment because Hal doesn't want to use John's proper title (LORD John, which he's entitled to as the son of a Duke) because Hal is, at that time, refusing to go by the highest title he inherited from their father (Duke of Pardloe) due to the scandal surrounding the late Duke's death.  John refuses to be addressed as just plain John so they compromise and he goes by his middle name while serving in Hal's regiment.

That's not in the books, it's just what I cooked up.  In reality I think Diana decided she liked the name "Lord John", realized that John's father needed to be Duke for that to be legit (the son of an Earl is Viscount <something>, not Lord <insert first name> like the son of a Duke), and thus the whole scandal around John's father's death was born.

But, I do think there is a stated reason in the books, even if it is just to cover up that Diana wanted the same character, but didn't want so many Willie's running around. I believe I remember when we first meet John in Voyager he's lamenting--in his mind--his being posted to Ardsmuir was punishment due to some scandal--which is delved into more in one of the novellas--and as I recall it's stated he also had to stop using his middle name as a way to distance himself from that scandal. 

I'd need to reread Voyager, but I'm almost positive it's in there as a way to let the readers know this is the same kid we met in the woods in Dragonfly in Amber.

Edited September 29, 2017 by DittyDotDot

[WatchrTina]

The scandal that gets John assigned to Ardsmuir is completely unrelated to the scandal that causes his brother Hal to forgo the title of Duke (for a while.)  John gets sent to Ardsmuir due to something HE does.  There's a novella about it.  His father's scandal happened years earlier, while John was child.

But yeah, it's clear to the readers of book 3 that Lord John Grey is the kid we met in book 1.  There is just no explanation offered in that book as to why his "first" name has changed from William to John.

Edited September 29, 2017 by WatchrTina

[DittyDotDot]

1 hour ago, WatchrTina said:

The scandal that get's John assigned to Ardsmuir is completely unrelated to the scandal that causes his brother Hal to forge the title of Duke (for a while.)  John gets sent to Ardsmuir due to something HE does.  There's a novella about it.  His father's scandal happened years earlier, while John was child.

Yes, I'm aware John gets posted to Ardsmuir due to something HE does. That's what I'm talking about.

I have a distinct memory of John thinking of why he was sent to Ardmuir--he was in disgrace due to a scandal with George Everett--and also thinking that's why he started using his first name in lieu of his middle one. I realize now that there were probably just too many Willies, but at the time I read Voyager, I thought it might of been purposeful to tie to how Jamie would also use his different names a few times to remake himself while also being able to distance himself from the stigma the previous name had for some people. Which is what I understood John was basically doing. 

Edited September 29, 2017 by DittyDotDot

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 hour ago, Summer said:

I just read on Facebook that there is an uproar on Twitter amongst the fandom about speculation that the "special friend" that Lord John lost at Culloden is Black Jack and non book readers are melting down.    Many fans pointed  it out to Diana to which she has responded no, absolutely not.  

At first I thought the notion was absurd, too, but then I could see how a completely unspoiled, no idea what's coming next, non book reader COULD think that.  

Egads.  Just coming out of lurking in this thread to say that I'm a non book reader and I NEVER thought this.  

[nodorothyparker]

1 hour ago, Grashka said:

*it will probably go down as one of my favourite non-book readers' theories, right there with Brianna being Claire's and King Louis' child*

I was rather partial to the one last season after the Faith episode where we got our first glimpse of young unnamed Brianna that Gellis must be Jamie and Claire's daughter and they didn't realize it because of the time travel element.

[GHScorpiosRule]

2 minutes ago, Grashka said:

That was the fun one...altough fueled by show!Geillis being a readhead unlike book! one.

Ewwwwww, I already see that episode 4 is THE episode this season to avoid twitter/tumblr completly, as just now there is a huge conniption over Geneva&Jamie, Geneva&Jamie being "romanticized" and Geneva&Jamie being a slap on the face of fandom by STARZ, Ron, Maril and all the saints. In other words:

 

????????????????

[nodorothyparker]

Because I'm old enough that tumblr often makes my head hurt, how are Geneva and Jamie being "romanticized" or any sort of slap in the face by the show?  It's in the damn book.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

Because I'm old enough that tumblr often makes my head hurt, how are Geneva and Jamie being "romanticized" or any sort of slap in the face by the show?  It's in the damn book.

My suspicion is that the show might cut out the part where Geneva tells Jamie she changed her mind-when it was too late for him to stop. Even though from the preview, one is aware that the part where she blackmailed him into relieving her of her virginity-which is in the buik-made it into the show. I'm staying away from all social media except this site because I do NOT want to have to read how Jamie raped that spoiled bratty twat.???

Edited September 29, 2017 by GHScorpiosRule

[nodorothyparker]

So the fact that she wears clothes of the period, also has dark hair, and he's not throwing up while doing it?  That's really ... something.

[nodorothyparker]

I'll admit I am kind of fascinated by the notion that we would just have to see the conception sex of children of a married couple who we can presume are doing it even if it isn't specifically shown.  The bastard conception (which should really probably be a band name), on the other hand, does have to be acknowledged or it becomes a "wait, when the the hell did that happen?" kind of thing.

[DittyDotDot]

1 minute ago, nodorothyparker said:

The bastard conception (which should really probably be a band name)

::snort:: I so wish I had a garage band now!! ;)

[Haleth]

At least the rabid viewers will stop being  mad at Claire for being mean to Frank.  They can now be mad at Jamie for being unfaithful to his wife.  The one who disappeared and he thought he'd never see again.

[toolazy]

19 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

My suspicion is that the show might cut out the part where Geneva tells Jamie she changed her mind-when it was too late for him to stop.

Oh Jesus Maria.  I'd forgotten all about that and I hope with every fiber of my being that the showrunners eliminate that because oh my god, the internet will be uninhabitable. 

[WatchrTina]

19 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

The bastard conception (which should really probably be a band name)

Oh we SO have to use that as the unofficial name for this episode going forward.  Hee!

I don't do Instagram and I'm careful what I read on Twitter so I haven't seen the premature righteous indignation reactions to the Jamie/Geneva scenes in the previews, but what I'm reading here makes me laugh.

As background, I have been DREADING this episode because I suspect that if there is so much as a whiff of Geneva having last-minute, wait-this-hurts, second-thoughts and Jamie doesn't LEAP out of bed the moment she issues the safe-word "stop" the social justice warriors are going to call Jamie a rapist.  (To be clear -- IMHO Geneva commits both blackmail and statutory rape in that scene by exploiting her position to force a prisoner into unwanted sexual contact.  The fact that he's good at it doesn't make her less guilty.  The fact that he ignores her last-minute "Ow that hurts after all, you should stop" command does not magically alter the power dynamic in that room.  He's still a prisoner, she still has all the power.  So SHE is the rapist.  Can you tell I'm girding my loins for battle on this point?)

So I will find it flat-out hysterical if they side-step that whole issue by never having Geneva say the magic word ("stop") and instead make it clear that, while it was momentarily painful for her, and while Jamie is really angry and humiliated at having been blackmailed into the situation, the sex is actually pretty hot.  I'm gonna just LOVE that scene.  Jamie is my home-boy, my fictional boyfriend, one of my favorite book characters EVER.  I hope he IS depicted as having some moments of physical pleasure during the "Bastard Conception." That won't take away from my understanding of the emotional toll that that episode takes on him nor will it in any way diminish my belief in the depth of his love for Claire or his still-raw grief at their separation.  Bring it on!

ETA:  Ooooh I've just had a thought.  We saw in episode 302 that Claire keeps her eyes closed during sex with Frank and he eventually figures out that it's because she's thinking of Jamie.  Jamie kept his eyes closed when he kissed Mary McNab for the same reason.  I wonder if we'll see Geneva notice that Jamie has his eyes closed during the act itself -- or if we the viewers will get a flash of Jamie visualizing Claire in the same way that images of Jamie flashed before us when Claire was masterbaiting in 302?  If so, those images of Claire might placate those folks who are getting prematurely upset at the trailer scenes of Jamie's "unfaithfulness" with Geneva.

Edited September 30, 2017 by WatchrTina

[AD55]

I’ve been thinking about why the C20th story line is so much less compelling, I think in a nutshell it’s that Jamie’s narrative is about the challenges he meets and accepts post-Claire and Claire’s is mainly about how losing Jamie irrevocably blights her life. This is a huge problem, and it’s hard for me not to recognize sexism that is so ingrained the showrunners don’t even notice it. (Other people have made some of the following points, and I apologize for not acknowledging them, but I don't have time to reread all the threads.)

While Jamie is haunted by his memories of Claire, Claire is obsessed with Jamie’s absence.  In the first episode, we see that Jamie won’t let himself move on, but he eventually realizes he has something to live for. Claire is given something to live for as well—her daughter, her profession—but we’re mainly told about the important things in her life, or given a clip of Claire applauding at Bree’s graduation, rather than the writers showing how much these things mean to her. Jamie acts out of love for his family and the men at Ardsmuir (sp?), he forges new and strong connections—LJ, Willie, even Geneva. Heck, I had a better sense of the camaraderie between Jamie and the other grooms than I did between Claire and Joe. Claire encounters a shallow woman, part of a distasteful couple with whom she and Frank improbably make friends, rather than Claire forming bonds with other women who are frustrated with their roles—or at least are able to meet the Bechdel test. Come on showrunners, there were many, many interesting women in 1940s America. Claire didn't meet even one?

In simple terms, Claire’s story on the screen is about a woman whose life has apparently been sapped of meaning by the loss of Jamie, whereas Jamie’s is about a man who continues to have a deeply meaningful life in spite of bearing a wound that won’t ever entirely heal. Even Claire’s bond with her daughter is arrested, until they combine their efforts to find Jamie, whereas Jamie and Willie’s strong connection is fleshed out in just a few brief scenes.

It didn’t have to be this way. I haven’t read the books in a long time, but I recall getting a sense of Claire’s commitment to her patients, passion for medicine, and friendship with Joe. I don’t recall her relationship with Bree being as broken as it’s shown to be in the book.

I’ve tended to blame this on time constraints, but now I think that Claire is inexcusably being depicted, if not described, as a woman who can’t live a full life without the love of her life. Jamie’s strong relationship with LJ is revealed economically in a handful of brilliantly written scenes that are straight out of, or at least in the spirit of, the book. Instead of Joe and Claire meeting cute over a romance novel, when they are both already doctors, we are given that incredible scene of an African American man introducing himself to a white woman in a 1950s (?I’m not even sure what decade it is) public classroom with everyone staring at them. This is a very naïve portrayal of race relations that does the period as well as Claire and Joe wrong.

Claire often seems to be driven mainly by resentment. Instead of seeing her overcome sexism because she wants so much to be a doctor, we’re given the impression that she’s motivated by the a**holish behavior of a university professor. (I realize that it's meant to be the trigger rather than the main motivation, but show us, dammit!) We get that one scene of Claire meeting with a patient’s family, but it’s undercut by its being immediately followed by the drama of Frank’s death and yet another Claire speech that lets us know how Jamie’s absence has plagued her life. Again, it’s about her relationships with men. And when Joe Abernathy makes an important international call (which would have been pretty rare at the time, I believe) to discuss a patient, she’s almost dismissive and barely seems ambivalent because she’s put her own worthwhile life on hold to search for Jamie. Did that happen in the book?

I’ve been more sympathetic than many people to our getting a fleshed-out depiction of Claire’s marriage, but I’ve come round to the view that this has been done at the expense, almost the assassination, of Claire’s character. She’s a woman whose life is all about the men in her life. At each apparent achievement—her decision to enroll in med school, her graduation party, her compassion for her patients—her triumph is interrupted by a man.

Sorry to go on and one. This is the only explanation I can come up with to explain why I am less compelled watching an actor as brilliant as Catriona than I am Sam.

Edited October 1, 2017 by AD55

[AD55]

2 minutes ago, Grashka said:

No AD55, I don't recall anything like that in the book. I've not seen episode 4 yet so I cannot coment on its content but just based on episodes 1-3, I do think there is something wrong with the way Claire has been written in season 3 (altough episode 1 was probably the most true to her character IMO). I said similiar thing  - but much less eloquently than you - in episode 3 thread, that I don't think focusing solely on Claire's bitter marriage to Frank was the right idea and wondered why they don't show her relationship with Brianna and Joe. Heck, what about Brianna relationship with Frank? Book!Claire was battered by her separation from Jamie and she didn't feel a whole without him but when we met her in 1968 (both in DIA and Voyager) I got a strong sense of still vibrant, driven woman with mischevious sense of humor. I didn't get a sense of resentment and bitterness and I've been always emphasizing how much Claire differs from the heroines like Twilight's Bella Swan. Unlike the latter, Claire was never the one to "curl up and die" even in the wake of a huge loss. Of course, show!Claire doesn't LITERALLY curl up and die, but much of her force and independence seems to be stripped from her.

Which is a funny thing given the promo for this season, which put A LOT of emphasize on Claire being a badass and pioneer fighting patriarchy in 20th century while Jamie is a broken shell of a man in 18th century. I thought - great, here we go again. Wonder Woman Claire and helpless sad sack Jamie "insert eye roll". But so far, the above mentioned fight with patriarchy amounted to a couple of rather heavy handed lines  and Claire seems to be defined solely by her failed marriage to Frank and her lost marriage to Jamie. But Jamie - thanks the God! - seems to be trying to make the best of the worst circumstances, which is very true to the books *even though the show seems to abandon his faith and devotion to religion, or at least focus much less on it. It was one of the sources of his resilience and strenght in the books, but it's my only complain with season 3 portrayal so far*

Thanks, Grashka. I didn't think I remembered that scene in the book, which makes the choice to depict it even worse. And I now recall your comment--I just couldn't remember who said it. Sorry! I was also slower out of the gate than you and others in criticizing the emphasis on Claire's first marriage.

Re: Jamie's Catholicism, I'm glad they at least included the scene with Jamie and Willie. I hadn't thought about that, but you're right, his faith is one reason he doesn't allow himself to give in to despair, at least not permanently.

[Petunia846]

1 hour ago, AD55 said:

I’ve been thinking about why the C20th story line is so much less compelling, I think in a nutshell it’s that Jamie’s narrative is about the challenges he meets and accepts post-Claire and Claire’s is mainly about how losing Jamie irrevocably blights her life. This is a huge problem, and it’s hard for me not to recognize sexism that is so ingrained the showrunners don’t even notice it. (Other people have made some of the following points, and I apologize for not acknowledging them, but I don't have time to reread all the threads.)

While Jamie is haunted by his memories of Claire, Claire is obsessed with Jamie’s absence.  In the first episode, we see that Jamie won’t let himself move on, but he eventually realizes he has something to live for. Claire is given something to live for as well—her daughter, her profession—but we’re mainly told about the important things in her life, or given a clip of Claire applauding at Bree’s graduation, rather than the writers showing how much these things mean to her. Jamie acts out of love for his family and the men at Ardsmuir (sp?), he forges new and strong connections—LJ, Willie, even Geneva. Heck, I had a better sense of the camaraderie between Jamie and the other grooms than I did between Claire and Joe. Claire encounters a shallow woman, part of a distasteful couple with whom she and Frank improbably make friends, rather than Claire forming bonds with other women who are frustrated with their roles—or at least are able to meet the Bechdel test. Come on showrunners, there were many, many interesting women in 1940s America. Claire didn't meet even one?

In simple terms, Claire’s story on the screen is about a woman whose life has apparently been sapped of meaning by the loss of Jamie, whereas Jamie’s is about a man who continues to have a deeply meaningful life in spite of bearing a wound that won’t ever entirely heal. Even Claire’s bond with her daughter is arrested, until they combine their efforts to find Jamie, whereas Jamie and Willie’s strong connection is fleshed out in just a few brief scenes.

It didn’t have to be this way. I haven’t read the books in a long time, but I recall getting a sense of Claire’s commitment to her patients, passion for medicine, and friendship with Joe. I don’t recall her relationship with Bree being as broken as it’s shown to be in the book.

I’ve tended to blame this on time constraints, but now I think that Claire is inexcusably being depicted, if not described, as a woman who can’t live a full life without the love of her life. Jamie’s strong relationship with LJ is revealed economically in a handful of brilliantly written scenes that are straight out of, or at least in the spirit of, the book. Instead of Joe and Claire meeting cute over a romance novel, when they are both already doctors, we are given that incredible scene of an African American man introducing himself to a white woman in a 1950s (?I’m not even sure what decade it is) public classroom with everyone staring at them. This is a very naïve portrayal of race relations that does the period as well as Claire and Joe wrong.

Claire often seems to be driven mainly by resentment. Instead of seeing her overcome sexism because she wants so much to be a doctor, we’re given the impression that she’s motivated by the a**holish behavior of a university professor. (I realize that it's meant to be the trigger rather than the main motivation, but show us, dammit!) We get that one scene of Claire meeting with a patient’s family, but it’s undercut by its being immediately followed by the drama of Frank’s death and yet another Claire speech that lets us know how Jamie’s absence has plagued her life. Again, it’s about her relationships with men. And when Joe Abernathy makes an important international call (which would have been pretty rare at the time, I believe) to discuss a patient, she’s almost dismissive and barely seems ambivalent because she’s put her own worthwhile life on hold to search for Jamie. Did that happen in the book?

I’ve been more sympathetic than many people to our getting a fleshed-out depiction of Claire’s marriage, but I’ve come round to the view that this has been done at the expense, almost the assassination, of Claire’s character. She’s a woman whose life is all about the men in her life. At each apparent achievement—her decision to enroll in med school, her graduation party, her compassion for her patients—her triumph is interrupted by a man.

Sorry to go on and one. This is the only explanation I can come up with to explain why I am less compelled watching an actor as brilliant as Catriona than I am Sam.

But we had to get all the relevant Frank storyline in there!!1! </sarcasm>

You're so right about being interrupted by a man. Claire's storyline which is a first person POV in the book has been, at best, turned into an omniscient third POV, and at worst, in several scenes, turned into a first person POV for Frank. It's not entirely new to this season, but it has been worse lately. Claire has become basically a side character in the story of Outlander. Hopefully, when we get the reunion, we'll go back to getting more of her POV.

[WatchrTina]

Well, I enjoyed tonight's episode and was happy with the way they worked their way thought the complicated minefield that is John & Jamie's relationship.  But I have to say I feel a bit sorry for the non-readers because they have NO IDEA of the depth of that relationship.  If you've read the two Lord John novels that Jamie appears in (which are set during the Helwater years), tonight's cliff-notes version of all that passed between them is a bit sad.  In those books John & Jamie nearly come to blows.  In those books they spend prolonged periods of time in a state of absolute FURY at one another.  The friendship that we see in their parting scene in tonight's episode is hard-won over the years of Jamie's service at Helwater.  And even as solid as their friendship seems, Jamie still feels the need to "test" John one last time before entrusting his son into his care.  Diana reveals in a later book that if John had said yes to Jamie's offer of his body, then Jamie would have done "something" to ensure that John did not have access to his son.  And by "something" I mean I think Book!Jamie was contemplating murder.  So that friendship of John & Jamie's -- it's not unconditional.  We see that again in the latest book when they DO come to blows.  I just love their relationship.  it's so rich.  It's so flawed.  It's so entertaining.  I hope the TV-only folks are enjoying it too but they are only getting the cliff notes version of an epic tale.

Edited October 2, 2017 by WatchrTina

[nodorothyparker]

More and more I wish that when the adaption was decided on, they hadn't strictly limited themselves to one book = one season because that's where so many of the pacing problems seem to lie.  These past two episodes very easily could have been three or even four to give proper weight to the story of Jamie and John and the Helwater years.  Because as it is, show Jamie and John are so completely neutered down to one clumsy thoughtless pass at the prison and then, boom, instant best friends.  We've lost all the layered and complicated anger that John thinks he understands but doesn't really as he has no way of knowing that he's been unwittingly cast as a Black Jack surrogate in Jamie's mind and that Jamie is begrudgingly fighting that to see him for the person that he actually is.  Show John never has any sense of how much Jamie has thought about maybe killing him.   There's no sense of danger that the whole thing might very blow up, and almost does in one of the Lord John books, over a wrong word or look.  By the time they call each other friend and actually mean it by this point in the series, it feels truly earned.  The show version, in contrast, not so much.    Without all that subtext, the long-simmering fight in the last book is just about a drunken roll in the hay.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Voyager should have been an exeption--Ron and company should have negotiated for a longer season, since two novellas pretty much go hand in hand, with respect to the relationship between Jamie and Lord John.

[DittyDotDot]

5 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

More and more I wish that when the adaption was decided on, they hadn't strictly limited themselves to one book = one season because that's where so many of the pacing problems seem to lie. 

I agree with this so much. I think going forward, most the other books can probably be covered in one season, but Voyager in particular is a big one to try and get all the different emerging relationships and character growth over 20 years condensed into a few episodes. But, on the flip side, breaking Voyager into two seasons would either mean keeping Claire and Jamie apart for a whole season or telling most of it in flashbacks. Neither of those options are really very good either, IMO, although, I'd be fine with a season of Claire and Jamie apart, myself. 

Anyway, while I think S1 worked out okay for them, more or less, S2 could've used more breathing room too. So, yeah, I might not have placed that limitation on it all if it were me, but left it open to what the story needed.

[WatchrTina]

15 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

on the flip side, breaking Voyager into two seasons would either mean keeping Claire and Jamie apart for a whole season

This is the key point.  As much as I lament all that has been cut from Voyager (and I agree with nodorothyparker that the complex Jamie/John relationship is the biggest loss so far) I just can't envision a season of Outlander wherein Jamie and Claire are 200 years apart for most of the season.  I COULD imagine a season that ended with the decision to board a ship and chase after Ian (so we'd have a few episodes of Jamie & Claire, post-reunion) but then that would mean a whole season of high-jinks on the high-seas (the part of the book I've called "The French Farce") and I just can't imagine that either.

Thank goodness we still have the books.  

[AD55]

Lord John is in the running for my favorite character. I'm a sucker for his combination of self-deprecation, humor, generosity, and sense of honor. I know that The Scottish Prisoner, which I read, deals with the Helwater years. What's the other one? Given how much I love the character, it's odd that I have read only 1 of the LJ books. I am sometimes overwhelmed by the Gabaldon-verse, and can't keep it straight. The fact that a couple of the big books  bored me so much that I only skimread them, or even skipped huge swaths altogether, to get to the major plot points doesn't help. You miss a lot that way, but there are so many books I want to read before I die. I can't make myself slog through ones that are as frustrating to read as DG's occasionally are. (Just my opinion, of course.)

[WatchrTina]

AD55 I'm always afraid to name book titles for fear of getting them wrong but Diana's website helps keep everything straight.  Anyway the other novel in which Jamie makes a small appearance (John comes to him for advice because he's one of the few people in the world with whom John can speak candidly about being gay) is The Brotherhood of the Blade.  If I've got things straight it actually precedes the events of The Scottish Prisoner.  If you recall, Jamie and John on not on good terms at the start of that novel and the reason for their estrangement occurs in The Brotherhood of the Blade.

[AD55]

3 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

AD55 I'm always afraid to name book titles for fear of getting them wrong but Diana's website helps keep everything straight.  Anyway the other novel in which Jamie makes a small appearance (John comes to him for advice because he's one of the few people in the world with whom John can speak candidly about being gay) is The Brotherhood of the Blade.  If I've got things straight it actually precedes the events of The Scottish Prisoner.  If you recall, Jamie and John on not on good terms at the start of that novel and the reason for their estrangement occurs in The Brotherhood of the Blade.

Thank you! I'll head over to DG's website, but I'll probably start with Brotherhood of the Blade regardless of where it falls.

[GHScorpiosRule]

So I got season two on bluray and wast rewatching it last night after watching the most recent episode and I wonder if the show runners/writers have even realized what a disservice they've done to Claire. In the flash forward or whatever, where Bree is looking at a buik of birds, and Claire joins her...both Cait and the actress were able to convey the close relationship they had. Yeah, yeah, she was wee. BUT, the narrative this season has been, and shown in those flashes of milestones is that Claire was an absentee mother, who was in so much pain over Jamie's loss, that she couldn't even bother with the child that was the living reminder of him. Again, last season, when Bree was smiling in her sleep, you see Claire say (just as in the buik): "You're SO like him!" But because Frank must be shown to be the better parent, the more present parent, after all, he fell in love with Bree and never thought of her as anyone but his own! And Claire surely resented that! (insert sarcasm if not clear). 

[DittyDotDot]

9 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

So I got season two on bluray and wast rewatching it last night after watching the most recent episode and I wonder if the show runners/writers have even realized what a disservice they've done to Claire. In the flash forward or whatever, where Bree is looking at a buik of birds, and Claire joins her...both Cait and the actress were able to convey the close relationship they had. Yeah, yeah, she was wee. BUT, the narrative this season has been, and shown in those flashes of milestones is that Claire was an absentee mother, who was in so much pain over Jamie's loss, that she couldn't even bother with the child that was the living reminder of him. Again, last season, when Bree was smiling in her sleep, you see Claire say (just as in the buik): "You're SO like him!" But because Frank must be shown to be the better parent, the more present parent, after all, he fell in love with Bree and never thought of her as anyone but his own! And Claire surely resented that! (insert sarcasm if not clear). 

I actually think that's true to the books. I can't remember if it's Dragonfly in Amber or Voyager, but Claire mentions that even though she loved her, sh also sort of resented Brianna when she was little and Claire was still grieving. And, in the books, Frank takes on a lot of Brianna's care--she goes with him to his office quite a bit and such--when Claire goes to medical school. IMO, Claire and Brianna didn't have a close relationship until after everything was revealed, before that, they struggled quite a bit, IMO.

[GHScorpiosRule]

27 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

I actually think that's true to the books. I can't remember if it's Dragonfly in Amber or Voyager, but Claire mentions that even though she loved her, sh also sort of resented Brianna when she was little and Claire was still grieving. And, in the books, Frank takes on a lot of Brianna's care--she goes with him to his office quite a bit and such--when Claire goes to medical school. IMO, Claire and Brianna didn't have a close relationship until after everything was revealed, before that, they struggled quite a bit, IMO.

Okay, then I'm just going to nitpick and say that the writers should have shown...FRANK spending time with wee Bree last season!

[Haleth]

From the perspective of someone who has not read the Lord John books I can fully buy that Jamie and John became friends.  Of course I've read all the Outlander books and know how much of a presence John is in their lives, but I don't think non readers will think, without further exposition, that their friendship came out of nowhere. 

[FnkyChkn34]

To probably all of the show watchers, and many of the book readers (myself included), this is the saga of Jamie and Claire.  I want to see Jamie and Claire and want to see them back together, period.  I've never read the Lord John books and I have no desire to; if they had dragged out any of these first episodes any longer than they already have, I would be losing interest very quickly.  Lord John is not a favorite character of mine and I am bored senseless reading his parts in the books.  I have doubts that the show will last long enough for Jamie and John's relationship to matter much to the show.  But if it does, then they can do flashbacks or something else to flesh it out.

[toolazy]

1 hour ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

To probably all of the show watchers, and many of the book readers (myself included), this is the saga of Jamie and Claire.  I want to see Jamie and Claire and want to see them back together, period.  I've never read the Lord John books and I have no desire to; if they had dragged out any of these first episodes any longer than they already have, I would be losing interest very quickly.  Lord John is not a favorite character of mine and I am bored senseless reading his parts in the books.  I have doubts that the show will last long enough for Jamie and John's relationship to matter much to the show.  But if it does, then they can do flashbacks or something else to flesh it out.

The problem there is that you can't hang a 10-book series on two characters who interact only with each other.  The have to be other characters, the main characters have to have relationships and friendships with other people.  I can't imagine how boring the series would be without all of these other characters, many of whom are amazing in their own right.  

[FnkyChkn34]

39 minutes ago, toolazy said:

The problem there is that you can't hang a 10-book series on two characters who interact only with each other.  The have to be other characters, the main characters have to have relationships and friendships with other people.  I can't imagine how boring the series would be without all of these other characters, many of whom are amazing in their own right.  

Oh, definitely, but they already have/had Fergus, Jenny, Ian, their kids, Murtaugh, Dougal, Angus, Rupert, etc., etc.  And including John is fine, but we don't need multiple episodes just about him at this point in the story/show, as was suggested above.  Three to four episodes about just Jamie and John's friendship?  With the snoozefest that is the 20th century story?  Viewers would be leaving in droves, IMO.  I'd tune back in for the print shop and skip all of that, but that's just my opinion.

[theschnauzers]

Most viewers, if they’re watching Outlander are the type who can take subtleties and figure it out. So it is with Jamie and Lord John after these two episodes. 

There’s an Entertainment Weekly interview posted online with David Berry and ha mentions how he and Sam reworked the scene until they both felt the right nuisances were there. Give them the credit they deserve for that. 

[Nidratime]

Interesting article about the difference between the portrayal of Geneva and Jamie's little interlude in the book vs. the show and why the writers smartly changed it.

‘Outlander’ Gets Right What ‘Game of Thrones’ Got Wrong About Rape and Consent on TV

https://www.thedailybeast.com/outlander-gets-right-what-game-of-thrones-got-wrong-about-rape-and-consent-on-tv

[GHScorpiosRule]

24 minutes ago, Nidratime said:

Interesting article about the difference between the portrayal of Geneva and Jamie's little interlude in the book vs. the show and why the writers smartly changed it.

‘Outlander’ Gets Right What ‘Game of Thrones’ Got Wrong About Rape and Consent on TV

https://www.thedailybeast.com/outlander-gets-right-what-game-of-thrones-got-wrong-about-rape-and-consent-on-tv

I am not clicking on that link, I am NOT clicking on that link! Because I ken m'self, I just ken that I willna be able to resist NOT reading the comments, and I dinna want tae see people calling Jamie a rapist! Now the internet will be inhabitable!

[toolazy]

22 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I am not clicking on that link, I am NOT clicking on that link! Because I ken m'self, I just ken that I willna be able to resist NOT reading the comments, and I dinna want tae see people calling Jamie a rapist! Now the internet will be inhabitable!

If it makes you feel better, there aren't comments.  That said, it doesn't mean that there aren't things about that article that bug, particularly the fact that it fails to mention that it's Jamie who is unable to consent in those circumstances. 

[lianau]

15 hours ago, AD55 said:

Lord John is in the running for my favorite character. I'm a sucker for his combination of self-deprecation, humor, generosity, and sense of honor. I know that The Scottish Prisoner, which I read, deals with the Helwater years. What's the other one? Given how much I love the character, it's odd that I have read only 1 of the LJ books. I am sometimes overwhelmed by the Gabaldon-verse, and can't keep it straight. The fact that a couple of the big books  bored me so much that I only skimread them, or even skipped huge swaths altogether, to get to the major plot points doesn't help. You miss a lot that way, but there are so many books I want to read before I die. I can't make myself slog through ones that are as frustrating to read as DG's occasionally are. (Just my opinion, of course.)

Lord John is by far my favorite character and I just want him to be happy . 

 

12 hours ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

To probably all of the show watchers, and many of the book readers (myself included), this is the saga of Jamie and Claire.  I want to see Jamie and Claire and want to see them back together, period.  I've never read the Lord John books and I have no desire to; if they had dragged out any of these first episodes any longer than they already have, I would be losing interest very quickly.  Lord John is not a favorite character of mine and I am bored senseless reading his parts in the books.  I have doubts that the show will last long enough for Jamie and John's relationship to matter much to the show.  But if it does, then they can do flashbacks or something else to flesh it out.

I prefer the later books because I like my big family stories  and I enjoy having more characters to invest myself in . For example , I really like the relationship between Young Ian and William  or the development of Lizzie  (and the Beardsley twins )