S04.E10: The Deep Heart's Core

[gingerella]

19 minutes ago, Anothermi said:

This is becoming the big question. In the opening credits for this Season we saw men dressed in furs and skins piling stones in a circle around  a standing stone and then the ritual being enacted with the women dancing around the Standing Stone, fires lit at the base of all the stones (both the standing one and the piles) and the full moon. Claire gave us a voice over at that time:

CLAIRE: For centuries humans have held an endless fascination with circles, attributing meaning where they are found.

CLAIRE: From the eternal rotation of the planets around the sun to the movement of clock hands, to a simple wedding band. 

CLAIRE: And I more than most know full well just how a circle can affect one's life.  

Or death.

That last phrase "Or death."  was basically a segue to an empty noose and the lead in to the hanging of Hayes and the introduction of Bonnet. I'm failing to link that last bit with the rest of the voice over. Mostly because it doesn't really link the two events together in any clear way. It seemed to exist just to be a segue. 

But the voice over suggests a through-line between the time travel and the circles and the ancientness of the rituals.  I'm just not convinced the show or the books will satisfy our need-to-know how they come together. 

It's 10 episodes in and we finally get connected back to that New World Portal (as I've named it). The Standing Stone is there although the piled up pillars are stunted versions of what we first saw. But the power is still present.

I do hope we get answers to your questions.

@Anothermi, I love that you're always willing to re watch to grab dialogue, thank you fellow traveler! Your above post made me think about what ifs - what if the characters we know to be time travelers are descended from other time travelers, and that you have to be descended from one to pass it on to the next generation, but many folks wouldn't know they were time travelers because they either didn't live near any Stones OR they were never called BY the Stones. Which then led to me wondering why we've never seen a flashback within the episodes that would bring us the ancient people around the stones. In S01 we had the modern day women dancing round the Stones at Craig na Dun, but never ancient flashbacks, did we? And in S03, we had what I remember to be modern day tribal dancing around the area in front of the cave where the Pool was, which was in effect the transportation mechanism if I remember correctly. And now in S04, we have an ancient clip in the opening credits, but nothing within the actual episodes, other than so far Roger stumbling upon the Stones as he's being called to them. I wonder if the Mohawks stopped trailing him because they knew he was headed to the Stones and they are afraid of that area and stay away from it, sort of like not wanting to go north of the Wall in GoT?

Also, we still don't know if you go through one portal, like Craig na Dun, and you go to America, and then you go through the portal in NC, will you end up back in Craig na Dun or elsewhere? Do all portals lead you to the place you need to be, or do they all go to different places? They can't all go to Scotland, that makes no sense at all and seems totally random. This is why I never watch Dr. Who. I just get frustrated with this stuff and want answers, damn it!

But I digress...I have seen the author speak about her books here and there, and honestly? She's not very articulate when she's speaking about her own books. Perhaps it's because it's been literally decades since she wrote many of them, or maybe she's uncomfortable in public, but it always makes me feel like, "woman, if you cannot explain shit that you wrote, how are you writing this stuff and will we ever know the answers to important shit like, HELLO, Time Traveler details!"

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, Anothermi said:

But the voice over suggests a through-line between the time travel and the circles and the ancientness of the rituals.  I'm just not convinced the show or the books will satisfy our need-to-know how they come together. 

 

37 minutes ago, gingerella said:

But I digress...I have seen the author speak about her books here and there, and honestly? She's not very articulate when she's speaking about her own books. Perhaps it's because it's been literally decades since she wrote many of them, or maybe she's uncomfortable in public, but it always makes me feel like, "woman, if you cannot explain shit that you wrote, how are you writing this stuff and will we ever know the answers to important shit like, HELLO, Time Traveler details!"

I don't know anything about the books, but it really doesn't seem the writer or the showrunners are all that interested in the time travel aspect of the story beyond providing the premise or a mechanism to keep certain characters together or apart.  They throw us an occasional bone like with the stone circle in the Caribbean and now in North America, and some ancient ritual passed down through the ages with the housekeeper in Scotland, but it never seems to go anywhere.  It's all vague, but they have the characters so certain about what would happen when they "go through" the stones.  It's not like they are in the Back to the Future car, and they can input the exact year or anything.  

In addition to neglecting the sci-fi aspect, I'm also disappointed that they don't often focus on the culture-clash aspect of a 20th century person adjusting to life in the 18th century.  Roger and Brianna are now in the past, and they both supposedly love history, but they don't seem to show any passion or interest in living through history.  Roger's history background hasn't helped him at all.  The only person who seemed really animated about history was Frank in the pilot, but when Claire returned, they focused solely on the jealousy aspect and he seemed to have no curiosity about what Claire saw in the past, and he even burned the clothing.  

[Anothermi]

Yes, @Camera One.  That's what I'm seeing too. 

It's very frustrating—the time travel aspect—because there is just enough to get you interested but it goes nowhere. 

[gingerella]

Adding on to your time travel comments, WHY does nobody mention Brianna's American accent?!? Which nobody in the Colonied would have at this point?! They're all from England. Scotland, Ireland, maybe Germany but everyone IN the Colonies right now sounds like where they came from so how come nobody mentions this important and obvious aspect about Brianna????

[Anothermi]

23 minutes ago, gingerella said:

Adding on to your time travel comments, WHY does nobody mention Brianna's American accent?!? Which nobody in the Colonied would have at this point?! They're all from England. Scotland, Ireland, maybe Germany but everyone IN the Colonies right now sounds like where they came from so how come nobody mentions this important and obvious aspect about Brianna????

While I'm not that bothered by the plethora of accents that  pop up, I did find the question intriguing. For instance there has been quite a bit of discussion and debate regarding how George Washington would have sounded (by scholars). I found this quite interesting because it recognizes his parents were English, but that he would likely have adopted a speaking style that reflected his contemporaries in the Colonies:

Research offers many clues to how Washington sounded. As to the question of whether or not Washington had an English accent, there are many possibilities. Washington was born on February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland Count, Virginia. His parents, Augustine and Mary Ball Washington, were part of the gentry class and of English descent. Since the newly formed United States was physically separate from England, different dialects formed within the early colonies. Likely they would influence the accents of those around Washington in rural Virginia. Further, newer elements of the English language, adapting itself across the Atlantic, may not have made it to the areas with less contact to England. Washington’s accent may have been more influenced by the rural setting of his younger years than it was by his exposure to people with English accents. Considering all of this and his farmer upbringing, it is safe to speculate that Washington’s natural accent was, as Morse portrays it, predominantly American with a detectable English influence. 

Source:  https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/facts/washingtons-voice/   I'm sure there is a rabbit hole of other sources, but I'm not prepared to go there. 

Brianna has been introduced as coming from Boston (considered a big city back in the 1700s).  

This article https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/inno/stories/news/2012/02/28/pahk-the-cah-in-hahvahd-yahd-researchers-locate.html suggests that the accent that we most associate with Boston now (the dropped or added Rs) actually came into being back in the 1700s and was only later adopted by the English.  However, Brianna doesn't have either an English nor a Boston accent. 

Given that in the more remote areas of the Colonies there would be quite a variety of accents and less of an awareness of regional distinctions—unless the person was well travelled— most folks might just figure she talked funny and leave it at that. Language morphs over time. Within our lifetimes there has been a great deal of change and it reaches wider than regionally. 

It was reading that article about how George Washington might have sounded that led me to this laissez faire attitude. I used to think that the English accent would have been more robust at this point in the Colonies. Seems not.

[Cdh20]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

 

 

In addition to neglecting the sci-fi aspect, I'm also disappointed that they don't often focus on the culture-clash aspect of a 20th century person adjusting to life in the 18th century.  Roger and Brianna are now in the past, and they both supposedly love history, but they don't seem to show any passion or interest in living through history.  Roger's history background hasn't helped him at all.  The only person who seemed really animated about history was Frank in the pilot, but when Claire returned, they focused solely on the jealousy aspect and he seemed to have no curiosity about what Claire saw in the past, and he even burned the clothing.  

I  must agree that both Roger & Frank should be more fascinated with history. I guess Roger is too busy having a hard time just surviving, while living in history & Frank weirdly could not put aside his petty jealousy to even hear more about it! It appears that Frank did not believe Claire at first, but we know  eventually he did.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Cdh20

[SassAndSnacks]

On 10/9/2021 at 8:09 PM, Anothermi said:

To know that by that time, getting his honour back was nothing to Jamie in contrast to the devastation Culloden unleashed. Black Jack Randal was just another casualty to him in this telling.

 

16 hours ago, gingerella said:

I find it difficult to think that Jamie wouldn't feel relief at finally knowing he dealt BJR his last breath given when he'd done to Jamie.

 

14 hours ago, Anothermi said:

What was important to me in the above version is that it shows how Jamie felt about it after he survived Culloden.

Yes, you writing out the dialogue is so helpful in processing these feelings (my feelings, that is).  I agree that Jamie now has the great benefit of time to heal him, and not only just time, but the reunion with Claire and now his daughter.  I do think Jamie was relieved to have killed BJR.  Devastating as Culloden was to Jamie...ending the clans, his way of life, death of his men, etc...the worst loss that day was Claire, and I think that was the main agony he felt.  

 

On 10/9/2021 at 8:09 PM, Anothermi said:

The only other part I felt fell flat—and one the writer's gave Brianna—was the declaration that Jamie didn't get to be more angry/upset than she was. While it rings true as a feeling/reaction. It felt clunky to just say it.

Ugh, yes.  This was so awkward.  I'm guessing maybe it was her delivery, because I don't necessarily disagree with the words, per se, but it potency of it didn't feel right.  

[SassAndSnacks]

11 hours ago, Camera One said:

I don't know anything about the books, but it really doesn't seem the writer or the showrunners are all that interested in the time travel aspect of the story beyond providing the premise or a mechanism to keep certain characters together or apart.  ...

In addition to neglecting the sci-fi aspect, I'm also disappointed that they don't often focus on the culture-clash aspect of a 20th century person adjusting to life in the 18th century.  Roger and Brianna are now in the past, and they both supposedly love history, but they don't seem to show any passion or interest in living through history.  Roger's history background hasn't helped him at all. ... 

Breaking the No Book Talk rules here, but both the time travel and the culture shock are covered in much more detail in the source material.  Both are annoyingly glossed over in the show.  

[Noneofyourbusiness]

On 10/10/2021 at 9:06 PM, gingerella said:

And in S03, we had what I remember to be modern day tribal dancing around the area in front of the cave where the Pool was, which was in effect the transportation mechanism if I remember correctly.

The dancing was not modern-day, it was in the past. The people dancing were slaves on Jamaica near Gellis's estate. You remember correctly that the pool was the portal, though we didn't see anyone manage to actually use it because Claire killed Geillis before she could.

People using Craigh na Dun end up in the same place they were, Craigh na Dun, in a different time. I see no reason why other portals would move people in space as well as time.

[Anothermi]

2 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

People using Craigh na Dun end up in the same place they were, Craigh na Dun, in a different time.

That's what I think as well. 

When Claire told Brianna she (Claire) couldn't be sure that if the time travel was made with a babe in arms rather than a fetus in the womb that they would go together. She never quite said the babe might end up somewhere else, but  I understood it to include a  Craigh na Dun at another point in time.  

[gingerella]

9 hours ago, Anothermi said:

11 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

People using Craigh na Dun end up in the same place they were, Craigh na Dun, in a different time.

That's what I think as well. 

When Claire told Brianna she (Claire) couldn't be sure that if the time travel was made with a babe in arms rather than a fetus in the womb that they would go together. She never quite said the babe might end up somewhere else, but  I understood it to include a  Craigh na Dun at another point in time.  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get both your points! To be fair, I kept forgetting that people end up in the same place they left, only the time is different. Everyone moves around so much on this show that I'd forgotten that. SO, that said, then the person Claire found in NC, the skull with the fillings in the teeth, that's someone who was from the future America, who found the Stones and traveled back in time, not long before Claire arrived in NC by the looks of the skull. I wonder if it a relative of Claire's or perhaps of Ian and whomever he ends up having a family with, or Fergus and Marsali? I remember that scene, was it the top of S03, where Claire goes to Scotland to show Brianna around, and she goes to Lallybroch alone and sits on the steps of a now-derelict Lallybroch envisioning her life there in the 1700s...It made me think, what about the people that followed Claire and Jamie's bloodlines after they are gone? If they, or at least if Ian and Fergus/Marsali remain in America, then their descendants will be Americans and thus could have traveled back through the Stones.

I'm trying to figure out if everyone is related or not. I mean, Geillis isn't blood related to Claire but she did birth a MacKenzie baby from whom Roger is descended, yes? So there is a familial connection via marriage there for Claire, being married to Jamie who is half MacKenzie. I wish Claire could talk with Colum about all of this, because of all the MacKenzie's he gave me the feeling that he would have listened to Claire and been interested in her time travel. Dougal couldn't because he wasn't that intellectual, he was the epitomy of a Scottish warrior, but Colum was quite educated or so it seemed and I'd have liked to know what he thought about all of this! Anyway, I digress...

We think Master Raymond was a time traveler too, and he seemed to take an immediate like to Claire, and it felt like he knew she was a fellow time traveler without every saying so directly. Could they be related too, from her French Beauchamp side of her family? Roger can time travel because he's descended from Geillis, and Brianna obviously from Claire. We don't know if Brianna's baby can but I'm going to assume yes. I wish they'd show or tell us things like, what happens if someone like Claire, holds on to someone like Jamie, and tries to go through the Stones, what will happen to the normally not a time traveler person? That sort of thing interests me because time travel, as a concept, is so hard to wrap one's head around, so if you're going to use it in an epic story, then give me some damn details! We are nearly at four full seasons and we still know almost nothing about it.

[Hanahope]

4 minutes ago, gingerella said:

Geillis isn't blood related to Claire but she did birth a MacKenzie baby from whom Roger is descended, yes? So there is a familial connection via marriage there for Claire, being married to Jamie who is half MacKenzie.

 

5 minutes ago, gingerella said:

We don't know if Brianna's baby can but I'm going to assume yes. I wish they'd show or tell us things like, what happens if someone like Claire, holds on to someone like Jamie, and tries to go through the Stones, what will happen to the normally not a time traveler person?

I thought there was a scene early on when Jamie tried to go through the stones and he could not.  I don't think its a MacKenzie thing (at least until Geillis gave birth to one).  

So far, we don't know why Claire or Geillis had the ability, but clearly their descendants do.  we haven't been provided with any information about their ancestors.  

[Noneofyourbusiness]

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

 

I thought there was a scene early on when Jamie tried to go through the stones and he could not.  I don't think its a MacKenzie thing (at least until Geillis gave birth to one).  

So far, we don't know why Claire or Geillis had the ability, but clearly their descendants do.  we haven't been provided with any information about their ancestors.  

Correct. Jamie couldn't hear the stones or travel through them, so presumably Jenny wouldn't be able to either and neither would Ian, unless he had it on his dad's side without us knowing so far. Based on the available evidence, Roger is only able to travel because of Geillis and not Dougal. Dougal is Jamie's mother's brother, so if he'd had it then Ellen and therefore Jamie would have, too.

As for whether Claire and Geillis are related by blood, we don't know.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Noneofyourbusiness

[gingerella]

4 hours ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

As for whether Claire and Geillis are related by blood, we don't know.

Exactly. This is what I want the Show to reveal to us. Is there a blood connection between Geillis. Claire. And Master Raymond and if so, what is it? Are all.time travelers related to one another, like on tribe that shares this ability to time travel? Or do the Stones draw their intended travels to them, and thus its just a coincidence that a MacKenzie was also a time traveler?

These and other mysteries on As the Stones Buzz...

[mythoughtis]

Lizzie is partly to blame for this mess.   She saw Brianna leave the tavern.

1)  She did not wait downstairs for Brianna to come back. If she had, then Brianna may not  have gone into the separate  room with Bonnet alone.

2) Brianna screamed loud enough that Lizzie should have heard her upstairs.  Did she investigate the screaming knowing that Brianna was not in her room? No she did not 

3)  she identified Roger as the man that raped  Brianna and told Jamie when asked she was sure.  all she knew for sure is that Brianna  left with him.  She never asked Brianna when she came back if the man she left with had hurt her. 

Brianna is also partly to blame. She didn’t tell Lizzie about the fact there were two men.  She never told Lizzie ( even months later) she got hand-fasted to the man she loved that night.  That would have led to the discussion of there being a second man. 
Jamie is also partly to blame because Claire did tell him that there were two men and that Brianna was pregnant.  Jamie already knew about Roger, the handfasting and the argument too.  
 

Claire is partly to blame because she  never told Jamie who the rapist  was.  Keeping secrets when she knew how that works out. 
 

Roger told the other prisoner that he was memorizing landmarks to make his way back if he escaped.  If so, he should run into the search party. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by mythoughtis