I need to have a little fun. The whole world is NOODLES N NUTS!
We are on the countdown for season 5. Everyone is getting antsy. There is a lot of activity on the Outlander Starz accounts. W Network is gearing up for us Canadians. I’m doing Meme reruns getting jacked for the live tweets every Sunday night followed by, what I hope are some interesting blogs.
For now, I’m going into Imaginationland. There is always a lot of discussion in the fandom about deviation from the books. If you have read my blogs before you know my stance on the books vs the show. There really is no vs. for me. They stand alone. I have been reading the books for 25 years, pretty much know them inside and out. The show has to be a different thing, so I can fully enjoy the experience. Others do it their way, that’s cool. That is what makes the world go ’round. Well, that and gravity sciency stuff.
We have all seen movies, tv shows and mini-series created from books that have been slaughtered by the production company once they had the rights. I still see people claiming that has happened to Outlander. I disagree with those assessments. Here, I am going to show you what I envision a REAL slaughter looks like.
This is a GAG blog. A few things I have pulled out of my thinker that Outlander’s writers COULD have done if they so chose to. I’m not sure everyone is aware they could have done whatever they wanted and still had an audience. It may not have been you or I but it would have been someone.
I recall, in the beginning, many claimed Ron D. Moore and the writers had a love affair with Frank. They percieved this odd amount of empathy was given to his character and with too much screen time. He was Claire’s husband, it made sense to me to show his story, however, if they REALLY loved Frank so much they could have made him a much bigger part of the story.
What if? What if at the moment when Frank and Claire were at the stones at Craigh na Dun, appearing at the same time (200 yrs apart), the power of her desire to see him PULLED him through the stones? Before you say that never could have happened. The writers are all-powerful in their storytelling. They can make anything they want, happen. We are just lucky they didn’t.
We all recall when Jenny was nearly raped by Black Jack Randall. Remember the nasty gossip that Dougal told Jamie? That Jenny had a child as a result and BJR was the father? That would make for a juicy storyline, wouldn’t it? Almost too juicy for writers to pass up.
Here we could be, Jenny has BJR’s child. Ian still marries her because he loves her and raises the child as his own because that’s what the men on Outlander do, right? BJR comes to Lallybroch frequently trying to steal the baby, it’s an added side story. Oh, you know – extra drama! Most writers on TV want drama above all else and this story has years of drama written all over it.
Ron Moore is currently involved in a super cool show called For All Mankind. The series explores an alternate history showing what happens if the space race never ended and the Soviet Union succeeded in the first manned Moon landing. Let’s put Outlander in that same headspace, shall we?
Since we are clearly aware Mr. Moore isn’t afraid of taking chances, like changing history. We should probably be happy that he didn’t get that itch out of his system with Claire becoming the ‘time traveller that could’. What if that became part of our epic new drama? Hmmm.
Culloden? WINNING! Bonny Prince? Bonny KING, thank ya, kindly. Jamie, no prison for you! You and all the Scots that battled so bravely now have your independence. That’s a story for the ages, is it not? Yes. This could have been a thing and people would still watch. There would still be blogs. They might suck but they would be there.
I see folks on SM insist that Outlander writers have never read the books. Even though the writers have discussed their process many times of using the books as their outlines. If they never read the books or used them as a reference we could be looking at some crazy shit.
Imagine this. A new writer pops on the scene that has no idea what Outlander core stories are and they decide this – Frank takes Brianna to a park for the afternoon. The park has this strange rock formation beside it, Brianna is skipping and playing around the rocks. One moment everything is fine and the next moment, she is gone! That’s right, Brianna has travelled through time as a 6-year-old! Frank is now forced to believe Claire after all this time.
That kind of storytelling would match the comments that production on Outlander has gone so far past what the books are about, the story isn’t recognizable.
I could have gone on and on with badaptations for days, it was kinda fun, to be honest with you. I bet some of you reading have ideas of your own. Drop them in the comments and we can have some laughs!
I do admit we all perceive the characters and much of the heart of the stories with our personal filter and biases. That is a completely natural way of enjoying or having contempt for what is happening on screen. I hope we can look at the brighter side of our experience with Outlander’s adaptation. Yes, there may be some stuff that grinds our gears or twists us up. I most certainly do not take anything away from that. It’s natural for some peeps to fan that way.
The whole point of this little blogscursion. There are some downright horror shows of adaptations. BADaptations. Granted, those badaptations are creations by people far more talented than I am. Everyone has a vision. I am sure there are people who will love those adaptations just as much as those who don’t.
It is my opinion that Outlander is a RADaptation. (Yep, Gen X’er here)
I hope you all have a FANtasticalamazirifisome day!
Sher xo❤
ABOotlanders w/Sher 
