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- 6 details you might have missed in the latest episode of 'Outlander'
6 details you might have missed in the latest episode of 'Outlander'
Eve Crosbie
- Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Outlander" season seven, episode three.
- The fire at Fraser's Ridge fulfills the prophecy the characters have been fearing since season four.
The episode title, "Death Be Not Proud," comes from a poem about the powerlessness of death in the face of human intervention.
While previous episodes this season have quotes lifted from the "Outlander" series by Diana Gabaldon, the title of the third episode comes from a 17th-century poem.
"Holy Sonnet X," often referred to by its opening line ("Death, be not proud"), is a 14-line poem by English poet John Donne that is a dressing down of death. Donne writes that while some consider death "mighty and dreadful," he sees it as a "slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men."
In essence, death is not to be feared because it can be evaded — and that's exactly what we learn Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitríona Balfe) have done in this episode.
The fire at Fraser's Ridge fulfills the prophecy the characters have been fearing since season four.
As audiences will recall, in season four, Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin) stumbled across an obituary from the 1770s that revealed Claire and Jamie died in a fire at their home in Fraser's Ridge. The date was January 21, but the year remained a mystery as it had been smudged.
The fire at the big house is something Jamie and Claire have been fearing ever since Brianna and Roger traveled through the stones to warn them about it, and by having the house burn down in this episode — as a result of two modern inventions accidentally coming into contact: Brianna's matches and Claire's ether — the couple manages to avoid their fiery fate.
We're to believe that this isn't the same fire that was originally fated to take place as Claire remarks that it isn't January after she and Jamie watch their home go up in flames. Their letter, presumably written not long after the fire, is dated April 1776.
As Roger explains to Brianna after they read a letter from Claire explaining it all, she "caused a fire that they survived."
Claire and Jamie are seen wearing clothes that Brianna and Roger left behind.
In the aftermath of the fire, Claire and Jamie take up lodging at Brianna and Roger's old cabin, and with only the clothes on their back — save Jamie's tartan which he found in the wreckage — they are seen wearing the younger couple's clothing.
Claire, for instance, wears a striped cream shirt and sleeveless knitted cardigan, previously worn by Brianna in season six when she and Jamie visit the cave to hide the Jacobite gold.
In another scene, Jamie appears to be wearing a blue cravat that has previously been worn by Roger.
During the funeral for Mrs. Bug, it really is Caitríona Balfe singing "Ave Maria."
Ever since the trailer for the seventh season dropped, in which the haunting rendition of the song played over a montage of upcoming scenes, fans have been speculating whether it was Balfe's familiar voice singing the song or not.
The actor told Decider that it wasn't a "natural thing for me to be singing," nor was it her idea.
"You know, they suggested it and, you know, look, it's always nice to have a new challenge," she told the outlet. "They might have been able to pick an easier song, but they didn't. They really threw me in there."
She added that they chose to do an acapella version of the song since "Claire's not a classically trained singer."
It's also another instance of Claire introducing her 18th-century companions to music that has not yet been written.
Franz Schubert, the composer of "Ave Maria" did not actually pen it until 1825 — almost half a century later.
It's not the first time Claire has sung music that is years off from being written. During season one, she introduced the Scots to The Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B".
The selling agent for Lallybroch is Dick Cameron and Co., someone who could be a relative of Hector Cameron.
As we learn in this episode, Hector Cameron, the third husband of Jamie's aunt Jocasta, was one of three Scots who smuggled the gold meant to help Charles Stuart's campaign for the crown over to North Carolina. The two other men were Dougal MacKenzie and Arch Bug — the latter of whom received it on behalf of his laird, Malcolm Grant.
With the repeated mentions of Hector Cameron — and the fact that Jamie has hidden the gold in a place only his family will find it —it feels as if viewers are to take note of the name of the auctioneers and estate agents who have Lallybroch on the market in the 1980s: Dick Cameron and Co.
It's possible that some modern-day relations of the Camerons would be looking for legendary lost Jacobite gold and know that Brianna and Roger might be the only ones who can help them locate it.
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