Lassies of Lallybroch - SPOILERS

[MistressFraser]

New thread to discuss both the TV series of Outlander and the books by Diana Gabaldon. Discussion of spoilers allowed, if not positively encouraged.

I wasn't sure how to read into that bit scary, I read it as Frank acknowledging that Jamie was a real person, but I didn't get a clear opinion that he had gone looking for him and found out he had survived Culloden

No, I read it as Frank having put up the stone in the graveyard as well.

Just read the chapter Mr Willoughby's Tale in Voyager.
Wtf is that all about and does anyone care?

It ties in at the end if I remember correctly

Poor Mr Willoughby, he really didn't get much but mild racism and judgement over his foot fetishising ways.

Frank knew all about Jamie. There are letters to Brianna and records in the ministers house that showed how much research he had done. He just didn't tell Claire. He was afraid that she would leave him and go back with brianna and he was a gear grinding pillock!
Books v series, I think of them as separate entities, sort of buy one get one free, because they are so different yet essentially the same.
Yes, poor Mr. Willoughby. Jamie was just trying to do his best for a poor soul in need and it backfired again. He just doesn't seem to be able to win. How much heartache and strife can one person take without losing the place completely?

Poor Mr Willoughby, he really didn't get much but mild racism and judgement over his foot fetishising ways

Hated the Mr Willoughby storyline. Especially all that farce in Edinburgh.

I feel your pain - we've been TTC for a year this month too. I've no idea what's wrong - I know I'm ovulating as I'm tracking my temps and CM and doing OPKs. I'm putting off going to a doctor about it though as I have a very high BMI, and I'm sure that's got something to do with it.

FFS sorry guys - not sure how I managed to post in completely wrong thread. Leaving now.

Never fear Bodge. Good luck with that (and it took me 15 months to conceive DS)

Had to share this. Someone on twitter said they were struggling with Fiery Cross so asked DG if she had any tips to get through it!
She replied
'Flip 30 pgs, read three, if not interested, repeat. If you are interested, go back. 😜'
I'll bear this in mind when I get to that book.

Ha, that's effectively what I'm doing at the moment with my "re-reading" of Voyager on Audible. I listen to it in bed and fall asleep, it keeps going to the end of the chapter and I don't usually bother re-winding it the next day.

I recommend the books on Audible by the way, the actress who reads them is very good and somehow the sheer width of the books makes them ideal to listen to when doing long-winded chores, they got me through a lot of decorating last year.

Lots of speculation on Twitter that the changed opening titles now include Roger and Bree.
twitter.com/catsandkilts/status/736449029618339841

I've read the whole series and often missed out whole chunks. I then re-read the series and have whole new sections that I find interesting! I need to read the Scottish Prisoner series ...

Are we ready to discuss the Fox's Lair?! in which Claire and Jamie go a'pimping for the rebellion

not that i woke up early to watch it or anything like that, you understand :)

Just finished watching. I'm gutted they had all of 45 seconds (I timed it!) of Lallybroch feasting, with not even a glimpse of the much anticipated shagging by the fireside potato feast. The scene of Jamie cradling Jenny's babe were precious and really moving and I'm glad they kept them in. Very understated work there from the writers: claire's voiceover would have been totally unnecessary as it was so obvious what would have gone through her mind and heart. Beautiful stuff.

I didn't care much for the Looghaire sub-plot, which on the whole is quite unnecessary and I can see why DG would have made the jumping the shark remarks. Otoh, it does bridge nicely into what we know is to come, so am not totally incensed by it. And the whole Dame Blanche was verrah heavy-ended imo, didn't remember being so unsubtle in the books.

There were things I loved about this episode, however. Old Simon was as deliciously wicked as I remember him from the books; Jamie and his hair was mighty powerful and commanding - we really get the sense of what he is at the core, a leader of men, a soldier, a general; all those scenes in the pouring rain really worked in changing the tone of the whole story: this is Scotland, but not as we know it from season one - the clouds of war are definitely gathering.

Loved the shot of Jamie leading the Fraser army.

Brilliant work, as well, in all the scenes with Colum. I know that is not in the books either but overall it worked very well - nice way to condense the separate McKenzie strand into the machinations of Highlands diplomacy.

And finally - knees! lots and lots of wonderful knee shots.

Now for a totally stray observation - did anyone else notice the massive changes in SH's body between seasons one and two? it is really obvious now he's back in kilts. he has really bulked up a lot - I like him less this way, however, it really fits the story arc wonderfully: he is a man now, all muscles and tension, all traces of the youthful exuberance of season one gone.

Glad they're back in Scotland, Jamie looks a lot more at home there (and he was looking lurvely this week, the hair's back on form).

All this Dame Blanche stuff is ridiculous. Claire has already had a whuppin' for being a witch, why on earth would they keep pushing this idea that she's a white witch. I'm not sure they differentiated between black and white magic in those days.

Didn't mind the Laoghaire stuff. In fact, I've had a think about it and I think it was necessary in some ways, so we can understand why Jamie marries her later on.

I can hardly bear to think about what's coming in the next episodes. Collum has the right idea by trying to stay out of it but it's too late for that.

I agree with you Hip (sounds like i'm saying this a lot). I wasn't that bothered by the Laoghaire plot. In a way, I also think it does bridge into why Jamie would later agree to marry her... the way Claire almost encourages him to forgive her could be seen as opening the way for him to acquiesce in 10 years time.

Not a perfect episode but very, very solid work by the writers I feel, in bringing the lumbering and heavy plot of DIA to life in a dynamic and screen-friendly way.

Couple of things I omitted to mention: BLOODY LOVING the new opening shot with the Song of Skye back in english, bagpipes and all, and those heartbreaking shots of fiery shirtless scots going to the slaughter. Loved the Fergus scene, because basically I love Fergus. And loving Jamie and the way his character is solidifying: loyal to a fault, strong, honourable and really, really clever. In the books you get the sense he can get a room of hundreds of men, an army to gravitate to him and I GOT IT! I'd follow him into battle anywhere!

I'd follow him into battle anywhere

Absolutely!

I loved the new opening credits too, but I'm sure I spotted Murtagh in one of the battle scene shots and knowing what happens, it made me sad

Oh, and I know they've got a lot to fit in the remaining episodes but there wasn't enough shagging pottering around Lallybroch just being happy for my liking either.

They also managed to shoehorn a reference in to Jocasta, so, with the Laoghaire stuff, they're obviously planning on more seasons. Wonder why Starz haven't announced S3 yet, as the ratings are also good

The more I think about it (and I'm thinking about it A LOT) the more I become convinced that introducing Laoghaire now is the only way Jamie marrying Laoghaire 10 years later can possibly make sense. Claire may not have forgiven her entirely but she has created a bridge between her and Jamie. Which is not to say Jamie marrying Laoghaire makes any sense at all - whatever plot development is achieved by him re-marrying (which makes, by the way, a lot of sense given where he was and how he believed Claire was lost to him forever when it happened) would have been equally if not better served by him marrying someone else. But anyway. It will be interested to see how the writers will deal with Claire discovering his marriage in season 3 when (if?) we ever get to that - somehow i don't see this Claire going all bunny-boiler on Jamie the way book Claire does.

Another thing I like a lot better in the way this episode was handled: it is Jamie who realises he has no choice but to follow Charles into battle, not Jennie. It always bothered me in the book how it is Jenny that takes this decision for them all!

aka you've read my mind again

That's exactly how I feel about Laoghaire. Jamie marrying her made no sense to me, at all. For a number of reasons but not least for her trying to get Claire killed! But watching today's episode, it felt like it was a bit more understandable. And if I'm honest, I'm warming to tv Laoghaire. She's got spirit and she knows what she wants.

Also, I've been thinking about Claire going back to Frank and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. They'd no idea that Frank would still be waiting for her, let alone that he would bring up the child as his. And it was still only 1948, not a place to bring up an 'illegimate' child of an affair on your own, if Frank had rejected her.

She would have been better staying at Lallybroch, surrounded by all of Jamies family, even with the thought that Jamie could've died. Why wouldn't you want to stay with people who knew and loved your husband? Instead, Claire had to return to a place where Jamie was denied and had to pretend like he never existed.

Hip, you and I need to go away for a weekend in Scotland and talk this whole thing through! By the end of it, we will have rewritten the whole Outlander series MUCH, MUCH better.

Jamie should have married the kitchen maid or whoever jenny sends up to his cave for one final shag before he goes to Ardsmuir. Call me crazy but that scene was so profoundly moving it broke my heart (together with Jamie describing the humiliation of having to masturbate while in chains). That would have made so much more sense than Laoghaire!

You are spot-on re Claire going back, it also pisses me off!
However, I did re-read the final part of DIA last night, down to the wonderful scene of their last night together (which, sucker for punishment that i am, I am looking forward to like nothing else), trying to make sense of it. I think we are meant to understand that this was a decision borne out of utter desperation, after all, they were all starving, sick, hopeless and convinced they would all die and their clans/families with them. I think this is one of the parts of the books where DG really does a phenomenal job conjuring up the scenery of desolation and despair, not to mention the wretched physical state they were all in. Remember that Jamie had just killed Dougal, so was a traitor twice-over, and at this stage he was not only expecting to die, but actively looking forward to it. In fact, everything he does afterwards up until he sees Claire again only makes sense to me if we understand him as a man who wanted to die and in some way regrets that he hasn't. There was no guarantee that claire would survive the journey back to Lallybroch, that Lallyborch would still be there, and Claire had been vilified in the british press as a witch so no guarantee that even if she made it back she would be left alone. She was in great personal danger, irrespective of Jamie.

So yes, in hindsight she should have never gone back nor should she have stayed with Frank that long, but in the circumstances in which they decided she would go back, it makes tragic sense

Jamie should have married the kitchen maid

That would have made a lot more sense. Two people who know are under no illusion about their relationship, who know they aren't in love with the other, but need companionship. Would have been a lot more poignant and she would have been a lot less high maintenance than Laoghaire, but would Jamie have felt bad about abandoning her for Claire?

I take all your points about Claire going back to Frank and agree with them all, but I can only go by what I would've done. And by that, I mean I would have been clinging onto his leg as he went into battle, shouting 'You're not leaving me!'

I think I was just really upset that they had to spend 20 years apart and Jamie missed out on raising his child. Where I'm up to in the books (The Fiery Cross) they've spent far more time apart than they have together I liked Claire's idea of going to Ireland and waiting it out but Jamie is far too noble to do that obviously.

i'm only halfway through Voyager and their relationship is not a patch on what it was to be. I think it can never be the same, and in many ways i wish DG had stopped writing after DIA. I frankly dinna care for claire's story while they were apart, and Jamie is so changed by all his ordeal that it is simply not believable he will just slot back into being Claires lover as if nothing had happened.

I suppose it doesn't matter... we all know what needs to happen so I think we just buckle up and wait for it all to unfold in all its tragic glory.

Speaking of which... have you seen the promo for episode 9? Jamie looks absolutely GLORIOUS as an army general and I must admit it did very funny things to my lady parts!