Outlander. wtf?

[SmallLegsOrSmallEggs]

Just started watching Outlander and I am wondering if they could have made it any more inaccurate.

Ok so picking up on things like referring to Inverness as a city in the 1940s is maybe a bit picky (it didn't become a city until very recently).

But the constant references to the redcoats as the 'English'. FFS. Surely if they had done even a teeny tiny amount of research they would know it wasn't Scots v the English!?!

The Highland Gaels who speak both Gaelic and English.

Or I am too early in and all the inaccuracies turn out to be because it's all on her head?

Anyone else wants to pick holes? Or to try to convince me it is worth sticking with?

Off even.

We really need some gratuitous Jamie pics on this thread.
Yeah Falkland was where the second honeymoon hotel was, it's a great wee village to visit actually.

I haven't watched the series yet but from the books on the authors exit (intro?) she does state that she spoke to her husband after writing worrying about historical innacuracies and his response was "you start with time travel through standing stones, I wouldn't worry about it".

So even she knows it's shit for that

Will just leave this here.

It's worth it for scenes when the top comes off!

Funniest thing about Outlander is that Cameron got it banned from airing in UK before the Referendum..

Can't blame him, it does have a bit of the Braveheart effect.

Braveheart being an even bigger pile of historical cobblers than Outlander.

They filmed some in our village a while back. Something about a castle and monks I think.

Fannyfifer I still don't believe that.

Exactly Elinor, but Braveheart came out when I was a young 'un and I remember going away on the school residential to England and all the knuckledraggers singing 'Flower of Scotland' everywhere and eff the english etc.

I still heard that kind of nonsense at my old work (which I tossed magnificently as they were idiots.)

That was kind of my objection. Making out that the English trampled about torturing and raping in a popular drama is hardly going to help discourage that kind of anti English nonsense.
(And I say this as a pro indi. I am pro Scotland not anti-English and I would rather see the Scots rally round our future potential than some historical injustice. Particularly when it isn't even correct)

Disclaimer: yes I do know the government troops did terrible things. As did the British Empire.

Apart from anything it is very much like she nicked the character of the brutal commander from Rob Roy.

Still at least this one is filmed in Scotland with some Scottish actors (topless or otherwise).

Think a lot of the problem & why folk kinda jump on the Braveheart stuff is that's it's prob the first taste of Scottish history real or imagined that people had a taste off.

We certainly didn't get taught any Scottish history at school, it's a shame that folk don't have a more correct knowledge of our country's history.

Anyway, I'm only up to episode 8 as only just got Amazon prime so shhhhhh no spoilers.

Been appreciating the sex scenes this evening.

fannyfifer do report back when you finish the series and give your views. No one I know in RL watches! Apart from DH but he's just in it for the topless Claire parts!

I'm a bit torn; I do enjoy Outlander, but the historical inaccuracies definitely detract. The subsequent books are better in that regard. I'd love to go into detail but I don't want to let out any spoilers.

Protestant classmates who still somehow managed to be pro-Jacobite due to a complete misinterpretation of their own history.

This is true among some in the diaspora as well. It's amazing how many of my fellow Scottish-Americans seem to think that their ancestors had to leave Scotland because they were Jacobites. Presbyterian Jacobites. It's so much more romantic than the more likely truth, which is that they left because they were poor crofters and cottars who could not feed their families.

By the way, I actually prefer the fully clothed, but no less appealing, Jamie, as illustrated above.

Is it a myth that Scotland has a statue of William Wallace and it looks just like Mel Gibson?

There was one created just after the movie which resembled Mel Gibson it caused such an outcry it was removed and sent back to its creator

Thanks Redglitter.

I started watching a couple of days ago too op, but the difference is Im a bit of a fangirl of the books, and first read them when they appeared in the UK in the 1990s as crossstitch and diana gabaldon was signing copies in our local bookshop. Its a guilty pleasure of mine. Im finding it hard to be objective because Im just so relieved that they havent wrecked the books, thought the character of Jamie Fraser was almost uncastable, but they seem to have done it, its all very much as i imagined. Im a history graduate so dont tend to find detail inconsequential, but this is a scifi/history/romance - there are so many highly improbable things that happen both big and small, that you just have to relax, enjoy and realise that its really quite soapy and not serious drama.

There was one created just after the movie which resembled Mel Gibson it caused such an outcry it was removed and sent back to its creator

Not true. Sadly. It is in a cage at the foot of Wallace monument. It was made by an amateur recovering from a heart complaint and dobated so they felt obligated. So badly done sculpture of an Australian actor graces these lands yet.

I am pleased to stand corrected.
It has been removed after 10 years of its lumpen presence. It was there last time I visited but it must have been just before they removed it as my dcs were definitely there so it wasn't that l9ng ago.

Awful.

Well put, Didi. I'm a history graduate, too, with a specialty in Scottish history. I just do the "willing suspension of disbelief" thing and enjoy it all.

The costuming is fairly accurate. They have taken a few liberties, perhaps a bit too much tartan, but it is in muted earth-died colors. The men wear the great kilt, not some 19th century inspired romanticized version of highland dress. And the costume designer has discussed how she has resisted industry pressures to make the women's clothing sexier, more revealing, and more modern, at the cost of historical accuracy. They also made all the redcoat uniforms because the ones that were available to rent or buy were too brightly red.

In some ways maling the costuming etc. fairly accurate makes it worse as people who don't know will then assume this seems fairly authentic hence there must have been a war between Scotland and England in that era and weren't the English bastards.

That's my main objection.

that and the fact I often gain hisorical information from sci-fi/faction such as Quicksilver because I am too lazy to read the real stuff

Speaking of inauthentic costumes, has anyone seen the US TV series Reign, supposedly about Mary Queen of Scots? It makes Outlander look like a documentary.