A subreddit for the Diana Gabaldon book series and STARZ television show.
What's your actual unpopular Outlander opinion?
Not disliking Roger and/or Bree, or their actors. Or the sexual violence used as a plot device. Or Claire being responsible for 90% of things going wrong. Things that you often disagree with that are popular opinions, or that others never seem to notice and comment on.
Here's mine (feel free to tell me I'm wrong and these are actually popular or are just plain wrong!). I want to hear people's opinions and challenge my own views.
Also these are more to do with the books as I'm more familiar with them:
-
Book Roger is one of my favourite characters. When he and Jamie clash in DoA I always agree with Roger over Jamie (for reasons below). I also like Bree, especially in later books.
-
I love the filler scenes of domesticity almost more than the plot. It's my happy place.
-
I have to skip all the sex scenes. These characters feel like my family and it feels wrong.
-
Jamie Fraser is very, very far from a perfect man. Claire always forgives him quickly and we see him through her eyes, but he often acts incredibly selfishly, is arrogant, violent to women and definitely sees them as property (sure, that's time accurate but people love to glorify him and I do not!). I still love him (he's family) but he does infuriate me!
-
It doesn't matter to me anymore how the series ends, I'm happy to enjoy the journey even if DG doesn't conclude it.
-
Maybe this isn't unpopular but WHY do Claire and Roger use the word "diaper" and other Americanisms? It takes me out of the book at times!
-
The show dumbs down Jamie. So often he looks confused where book Jamie would be blank faced with his mind whirring. His actions are more rash too, and I swear he does things that book Jamie wouldn't (e.g. the redcoat).
I apologise if the formatting is poor! I'm a lazy mobile user.
Please don't use this as an excuse to be rude ❤
I think Clarence the mule should have a larger presence in the show.
I wish Rollo looked more like he was described in the book. Show Rollo looks all wolf. In the book he was a wolf / irish wolfhound mixed breed. No offense to show Rollo. He's a good boy.
Agree! Clarence is so much fun in the books. And I never think dogs match their book description, but I'm sure it's hard to cast a specific breed. The Rollo in my head is very different to the one on screen (my Rollo is taller, scruffier, and more slobbery). But screen Rollo is beautiful so I appreciate him too.
I’m starting to wonder if Clarence is immortal. I always got the impression that he was an old, worn in mule and now it’s been like a decade and he’s still (literally) kicking.
Killing Clarence would end Gabaldon's career! LOL
Unpopular opinion - people see/read Jamie too superficially and judge him for it
He's either forgiven because he's hot/brave/says something swoony
Or he's not forgiven because he acts all 18th century and hot-headed
But i don't think people take enough time to think about him and why he behaves the way he does. It bothers me because I spend most of my day working with the "naughty kids" at school (or at least how others perceive them) and most of the time i understand why the teachers get mad of them, but also i feel sad because no-one has the time to think about the why.
Anyway, Jamie is a very broken man. He's lost his mum, his brother, he's been tortured, raped and tried to be the hero to everyone. He's never had counselling or emotional support. Anyone today who'd been through that without emotional help would have some major processing issues that would look like character flaws from the outside.
Instead he's internalised eveything that's happened to him and I think he believes it is his fault and he feels worthless. He perpetually trying to take amends for guilt he feels over things that aren't his fault. This is why he tries to be a leader, keep people safe - feels it's his duty but it's almost done as an act of repentence hoping that someone will eventually tell him that he can "stop now, you've done enough" but as he's aged it becomes habitual, something he can't stop because he doesn't know how to. Even Jenny admits as much that she blamed him for their father's death - when she knows what she did in the house with BJR and saw how Jamie stepped in to protect her outside.
I wish people would judge the man and not just his actions.
tin hat on 🤣
Editing because my finger nudged post before i'd finished!
A "for example", when he takes Claire to the stones for the first time and says "there's nothing for you here, nothing but danger etc" it doesn't even occur to him that HE might be a reason to stay.
And the relief/amazement/all the feels when Claire does actually stay is evidence that he's never seen himself through the eyes of others.
He does a lot for others. I remember when he took the beating for Laorghie. Claire asked him why you? And he said why not me? I think it's born in him. Don't forget his Mother was a MacKenzie, and a formidable one at that. And his grandfather was also a Laird. I was just reading ABOSAA in preparation for Season 6 and Tom Christie (who is drunk and feverish after his hand surgery) asks Claire if she knows about the flogging scars on Jamie's back (DUH) and what Jamie did at Ardsmuir, taking the flogging for another prisoner over the scrap of tartan. Christie couldn't understand why Jamie did it. Claire knows.
Oh man, I knew I loved your comments for a reason.
Getting to the “why” behind any behavior is so crucial and I love that you pointed that out. I hadn’t though to translate that point to novels though. Good call!
Comment deleted by user
I LOVE William and the Greys and the Hunters as much as I love the Frasers. I was sad that there was so much less Rachel and Dottie in Bees.
ME TOO! Sometimes I even feel like I love LJG more than Jamie and Claire. I absolutely ADORE him.
William seems to be just wandering around in an angry daze. I loved his interaction with Bree in "Bees", but otherwise, he just seems to be wandering around pissed off at everyone. It's getting old, and unbecoming to an earl.
My biggest complaint about BEES is that we didn’t see enough of the established characters because so much time was devoted to irrelevant new characters.
I love Roger's journey in the books too! I think it's the first time we are confronted with the problem of what to do when your skills don't transfer very well to the 18th century (an issue that is very easily sidestepped with Brianna and Claire).
I can still see Claire calling them diapers since she did all her child-rearing in America. Roger saying diaper over nappy is more incongruous, but maybe he picked it up from Bree (it's the only thing that makes sense in my head)?
Thank you that's amazing! I think you have excellent points. Especially re Jamie. He is a good man but I've just finished the audiobook of DoA and he is infuriating me right now!
I also like William and I do love how hot headed, stubborn and all round similar Jamie and his children are. Strong genes!
Comment deleted by user
Yes, I want them to get it all out, shout at each other (with Claire too) and have a big emotional scene and then they all make up. Jamie yelling at LJG and Claire, William yelling at Jamie and LJG, Claire yelling at all of them!
I love William, too! Which is why I wasso disappointed in BEES. The poor kid needs some resolution!
I feel that William’s lost identity is all part of the ‘build up’ to finale.
Did we just become best friends? All kidding aside these are 100% how I would have answered
I love William and how he embodies Geneva’s recklessness and Jamie’s compassion. His courage is beautiful and in it he is John’s son. I feel JG and Jamie dynamics are v unique and so difficult to create on paper so yes DG is crafty writer.
Well said! I’ve never thought of William that way but it’s a very cool observation!
I loved the beginning (and all) of The Fiery Cross, I thought the "long day" was really fun to read. When I got to the end of that part I was genuinely impressed that she managed to spend over 100 pages on one day's events.
Upvoting because I completely disagree and that’s what this thread is about
This was supposed to be in my list! I love that part too, I can see why people find it frustrating but I find it so fun.
I think it’s those of us that like the day to day, slice of life, homesteading stuff that enjoyed that part.
I gotta say though I was listening to the audiobook and I remember thinking to myself “Jesus Christ I’ve been listening for a week, get married already”
Yes! I loved that part of Fiery Cross. I love the descriptions of daily life!
About point 4- Jamie gets me uh, thirsty, more than any other fictional person has. Seriously, the amount I drool over that man in both books and show insane. Many of the things he has said and done make me swoon, and I don't get attracted to men very easily, I would consider myself demisexual towards men. However I would never ever date him, no way would I put up with a lot of the shit he has pulled. I don't understand how I can be so attracted to a man I would never want to be with in real life.
I agree completely. He’s hot headed and has his flaws. But I saw a videoclip the other day of Sam Heughan saying something dreamy in Gaelic that made me melt and swoon.
I feel the same as you. Jamie is too heroic to be a good husband/father's figure in our century. I couldn't live with someone who risks his life for the sake of others all the time... I admire that very much, but I don't want to be a future widow of a man with such a heavy violent past (killed a lot of people, went to prison several times...). And I'm fond of this king of men all the same!
I appreciate all the 'dirty' sex in the books. Dirty meaning actually full of mud and dirt (and not raunchy). One of my favourite scenes in the later books is where Jamie sniffs Claire and describes her scent notes to include garlic and potatoes and what not. It was hilarious but also weirdly sexy because there is no requirement for any artifice between those two.
Yes I love that!! I like stuff that's realistic, like sometimes you've been chopping garlic earlier that day or are dirty from working in the garden. Those are real situations in a relationship and you find yourself appreciating odd things like that.
Haha i feel you. I feel the same.
I NEVER really feel attracter towards a character like this. Weird
I feel you so much. And when he does this kind of things I just remind myself that he is a Scottish men from 200 years ago... I think he is really advanced for his time, he does things that men I know nowadays would never. I think Roger is worst than him. When he spanks Claire in first season, because it's what the thought him, and then he say sorry and tell her they need to find their own way to have a relationship...
I cannot imagine leaving my child behind, with no expectation that I would ever see them again, to voluntarily travel through time for the possibility of seeing a man that I was in love with 20 years ago.
Agreed -- I literally just got past that part in the book (AND SHE JUST LITTERS. PLASTIC. LIKE IT'S NOTHING.) and it was crazy to me.
Like bre lost her daddy -- she literally had no living relatives or anyone who would take care of her and Claire was like, okay bye, you're 20 so you're an adult because obviously 20 is old enough to be able to emotionally cope with, essentially, being orphaned.
I found it so, so, soooo unbelievably selfish.
Actually I found the decision v natural given how Claire is created in the books.
If we think about her upbringing with Uncle Lamb, marrying at 19, and serving in a war at age 22/23, it does make more sense.
It's not terribly realistic, but also Claire is written as someone who's been alone nearly all her life (orphaned at a young age and Uncle Lamb seems very much the 'cool uncle' not the involved parent). So for someone like her 20 might seem like 'old enough to make your own mistakes' kind of an age.
She was married to Frank at 19/20 and nursing on battlefields a year later. Plus she never really had any female role models on how to be a mother either - it's not like any of us are born with built in user guides so we have to learn from what we're shown.
This is my #1 issue. Claire literally abandons her child for a man that she may never find, and with no assurance that she will be able to get back to her daughter again. Like, if she went back in time, never found Jamie, and couldn't get back - then what?
I agree. I would have been so hurt if I were Brianna.
Brianna wanted her to go. To be with Jamie. To tell Jamie about Brianna. I really think Brianna wanted to go too.
That’s the part that gets me, Bree always seemed like she wanted to go but Claire never even considered it. Like lots of bad things can happen to people in the 20th century, and Claire would understand how easily wayward young people could be drawn into bad situations. Like cults and communes were all across the country at the time, I don’t know how Claire thought abandoning her daughter was a good idea.
I think Claire had an upbringing that kinda has her of the belief that she's done her job raising Bree, you need to cut the apron strings eventually,if Bree is foolish enough to get into a cult that's Brees business. Plus i think she felt that she had left Bree in Rogers hands and he wasn't going to let go easily ha.
I don't think this is an unpopular opinion. I mean I think pretty much everyone knows that it's only possible because this is a work of fiction. But in real life, there is no way any mother would leave her child without a guarantee of seeing them again. I already know this and I'm not even a mother! I feel like the ones who are mothers would agree even more strongly.
Also, my mom is still happily married to my dad but she always told me since I was little that no man/husband could EVER come before a child, because husbands and wives could become complete strangers if they separate but a child is a part of you forever.
Unfortunately lots of mothers abandon their children every day so it’s not actually that unreasonable…and in this case Bree told her to go so I guess my unpopular opinion is that Clare was right to go and Bree didn’t need or want her there.
i wouldn’t go as far to say that bree didn’t need or want her mother. i am sure she very much wanted and needed her. i think bree didn’t want to feel like she was making her mother unhappy by having her stay with her.
That’s true, but she was going to go to England with Frank before he died so they wouldn’t have been in the same country….she didn’t need her like a small child would
This is a great one. It just doesn't add up, especially when all she knows about him is he's alive and working as a printer in Edinburgh. To give up your child for a possibility? I'd rather die lonely. I'm glad she did go back though.
Yes! For all she knew, he could have been very happily married with children and her returning would have ripped a family apart.
I mean, minus the "happily" married part, that's exactly what happened...
I agree. A thought has occurred to me though... Claire KNEW/felt those bones were a woman who'd been murdered. She didn't realise that she knew but we later find that it was her that did the murdering (self defence though) once she went back in time. Because she's technically already lived the past does she subconsciously know that she will see Brianna again which subconsciously makes it easier to make that decision?
I think that's because we think of it as her leaving her child, when she isn't really. To Claire who's always sort of had to make her way alone somewhat, got embroiled in war in her early 20's, and then had to handle travelling through the stones. She's always been striving, using her wits, building and growing. When she leaves Bree already in her early 20's, her child's grown, on her own path in life in a pretty linear way: school, work, marriage, babies more or less, she doesn't NEED her mother. She will always love her daughter, but she doesn't really need to hang around for Sunday dinners and weeknights with the grand kids, To be hanging around while Bree builds her own life with her own core family, when i guess her one real attachment in life, her family, her always was Jamie, and so she feels compelled to go back because if there is a chance that she can save the other half of her, she's going to do.
Yep, this I couldn't agree with more. I always see my kids as having pieces of my ancestors, so in a way it's like I get to take care of parts of the people that took care of me. Having Bree would be like having a piece of Jamie, rather than flying into the unknown like that.
I think Claire and Jamie's towering, unstoppable passion is one of the things we have to accept in the alternate reality of "Outlander" (along with time travel). In our real lives, we would not abandon our children for a man we hadn't seen for 20 years. We probably also wouldn't abandon our friends, family and careers for a man who had killed as many people as Jamie had. This is FICTION and we suspend our common-sense take on realty when we lose ourselves in this world.
Unpopular opinion about the show:
I love "The search" episode. It's one of my favourites and I just realized from another post that people hate it. 😣
Murtagh is my favourite character. I don't know if I can say this is unpopular, but people prefer Jamie over him.
I’m actually watching the Search right now! It’s one of my top 3 episodes!
I'm watching that right now. It's a great episode.
I also love Murtagh 😍
I love The Search, too.
I don't agree with your assessment of Jamie. He is, as Claire says 'a bloody man'. But he's a lot better than most of the men in that time.
I do agree that Show Jamie is a bit dumbed down. Book Jamie is shrewder.
Super agree with your points 1 and 7.
I LOVE Roger and Bree in later books, especially Echo and MOBY. Their story in the “future” was just as compelling as J&C in the past. Book Roger is probably my favorite perspective after J&C (like, POV of the chapters).
My partner has watched some of the show with me and I’ll never forget him asking something like “It seems like Claire is having to show Jamie around and how to do everything, right?” And I remember saying something “Uhhh no, actually Jamie is the one always maneuvering them through the events in the past.” And after mulling that over, I realized it’s not always depicted like that in the show! I guess they’re trying to make “strong women” characters the focal point, but many of the female Outlander characters are strong in their own right! I don’t think they should dumb down the men to “build up” the women.
I just watch the show:
I hate the whole France Arc. I can't really put my finger on it (I think a big part is that I usually don't like historical dramas set in a time where wigs were a thing), but the whole thing felt like a big caricature of it. Like, what could they experience in France? Ah yes, brothels, revealing dresses, rape via kings and shaving your private parts! Because France has and always will be the sexy sex land.
I hate the word honeypot.
I love Frank. I think he's an upstanding man and just as strong as Jaime just in different ways. I think Bree should honor (don't know if that's the right word) him more.
After the scene with Roger and Bree at the festival, where he tells her that he only has sex with women he doesn't want to marry and his future wife needs to stay a pure virgin until the wedding, I wanted to physically strangle him. What an ass.
I also skip a lot of the sex/rape scenes in the show, because they make me feel uncomfortable. I think I watched the wedding night and started skipping during James rape and never watched a sex scene in full afterwards.
But in defence of Jaime-
Idk why but he's kind of an a** in the tv shows and idk why? In the book, he's SO much more chill. Also Season 2 like skips over so MUCH good s*it in the books.
High key rec to read the books to change your mind ;)
You mean in defence of Roger? I think Jaime is fine. He can save me from redcoats any day.
And I knooooow I should read the books, but they are SO BIG. My local bookshop has them all in stock right now because of Bees, but 1) I don't like starting unfinished book series 2) it's not really the genre I usually read 3) they take up an entire shelf and I'm not ready for that kind of commitment
I'm also notoriously starting books and never finishing them and from what I gathered the Outlander series has a lot of filler, which might trigger that habit, so there's that.
ahah no sorry! I presumed that the issue with the France arc was because Jaime wasn't all that greatly behaved during it. Maybe I'm projecting :P But I'm glad I misunderstood!
re reading the books: And don't worry about it. It's a very long endeavour indeed ;)
omg HONEY POT TRIGGERS ME TOO!
100% with the France Arc, i also felt like it dragged ass. lol
I will preface this with saying that I'm currently only a show-fan, as I'm only half way through the first book.
I really don't think Claire is a good mother (especially while she was in the 'modern' day). The show portrays her and Bree as having an unstable relationship (imo), and I'm sure that's mostly to do with Claire's absent behaviour. Their relationship doesn't appear to get better until after Bree finds out about Jamie, and more specifically, once they are both in the past
as the show goes on, I feel like I'm loosing interest in Claire and Jamie. At this point, I tend to favour most scenes featuring Marsali, Fergus, Grey, etc over Claire and Jamie
Not sure if it's unpopular but I wish Ronald D. Moore was still involved at a more detailed level. His eye would have caught a few mistakes (like Adagio for Strings) that slipped through the cracks.
Yes exactly that; S1 is of a diff class than others was becoz of Ron’s high involvement. Even rewatching is preferable fr me than s6 or whatever is upcoming now
Unpopular opinion about the show:
As a scotsman I wince whenever I see someone with memorabilia or the like saying "I'm your sassenach"
It's a very unflattering term for an English person here nowadays and no-one Scottish would want to be one. If I called my wifey that she'd deny me access to her honeypot for a few weeks.
Also my second unpopular opinion is that honey pot is an excellent phrase.
I saw a photo on Pinterest of a tattoo that said “Mrs Jamie Fraser” and I cringed hard at that. I adore this series but I would never TATTOO that on myself.
Oh god I hate all the Sassenach merch. I'm not even a Scot but to me it's on the same level as Minion memes, I can't explain it lol. Didn't even realize the implication of wanting to be called a sassenach, but I can totally imagine.
Omggggg it’s totally minions level
Fortunately I never got any Sassenachy vibes when we visited Inverness for our holiday last year... it might have helped that I mentioned we were visiting my grandmother's grave and "Oh, I'm a Fraser" when introducing myself 🤣 in fact everyone we met were positively lovely!
I love book Roger (most of the time) and I enjoyed seeing how the relationship with he and Jamie has progressed.
I like some of the filler scenes but all of the war scenes are too much at times.
I skip the most graphic ones
Jamie is annoying at times but I think what he does is out of love for Claire and his family.
If the series ending means that one (or more) of the main characters die, then I'm find with the current books.
Being from the US I hadn't noticed that. Maybe Claire got into the habit from living in Boston for so long but it's odd that Roger does.
Yes, they do!! Jamie is a very educated man, he would have to be to handle the wine business like he did, to run a printing business and to build everything he did. He is also multi-lingual.
I complete agree with you on point #2. I absolutely LOVE domestic life on the ridge with no drama. I think that's why I seem to be in the minority of loving Bees.
yes this is my unpopular opinion - bees was really good and i enjoyed it. i like the small stuff, the farmstead, small adventures, lots of conversations and slow plot. and all the plants/herbalism and claire being a bad ass when it comes to woodsy healing.
so yeah i liked bees. that does seem to be an unpopular opinion.
I don’t like Fergus 😬 I want to because he’s family but I find him very boring and underdeveloped and I highly dislike the kid that plays him in the first two seasons.
I think the show handles the Black characters terribly and instead caters more to liberal white 21st fantasies
I was especially disappointed by their decision to just erase Phaedra instead of recasting the role. Also, even before the actress moved on her story had been minimized. We don't meet her mother or learn anything solid about her background. I was really looking forward to her part of the story and seeing it erased the way it was, was disappointing to say the least.
Same! I watched the show first then read the books and was so surprised that Diana featured so many Black characters and conversations around their lives in Voyager and on. There’s so much that could have been done on the show with it.
Right. A lot can be said about their portrayal but atleast they weren't completely erased! It just sucks. *shrugs* Oh well.