SPOILER ALERT: Dinna read unless you have finished chapter 90ish in THE FIERY CROSS.
OK so I'm home with a croupy 5 year old today and getting some reading done since he's on the couch watching The Backyardigans. This will be a quick post since I have to try my best at getting him to take a nap - but I have to update you all on where I am.
Poor Roger (I always call him that, now; "poor Roger") was hoping to get a little Bree-lurve until Jemmy decided he was going to wake up and kill the mood. Next thing you know Jamie comes-a-knockin' and tells Roger they've got to jet; there are "beasts" grazing just over the ridge. So off they go - find out they are buffalo - and are getting ready to kill them some supper... when BAM! Jamie gets bitten in the calf by a big-assed snake - about 4 feet long with the girth of Roger's wrist. DAMN. That's a big snake. Now... personally... I canna really blame yon snake... though I'd have aimed a little higher. (Oh c'mon... you know you were thinking the same thing. Admit it!)
Soooo.... Roger - my hero - cuts Jamie's leg (with some help from Jamie) and sucks out the venom. But they must have waited too long and Jamie starts turning 18 shades of red from head to toe... and is swelling like a prized haggis at The Gathering (LORDDDDD THE GATHERING!) And Jamie and Roger start discussing death and whether you can change the future (past?) and Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie and everything. It was a killer discussion that I'll have to read again at a later date. Anyway - they're trying to decide if Jamie is safe because he's not scheduled to die until 3 or 4 years from now. And Jamie - thinking he's dying - rattles off this whole barrage of instructions for "Poor Roger", involving many names of those on the Ridge, at Cross Creek, at Wylie's Landing, etc. And he says to tell Bree he's "glad of her" and to give Jemmy his sword... and doesn't say anything about Claire. And when Poor Roger asks him about Claire, Jamie tells him to tell her he "meant it".
Um - WTF?? Am I supposed to get that? Will I find out later? Am I a moron for not knowing precisely what that means? I feel so un-close to Jamie right now! Am I putting too much thought into it? Here is the email I just sent my sister/Outlander mentor, Tracey. I'll be back later, after I read more!!!
WHAT does he mean by "Tell Claire I meant it"??? Just that he loved her with all his heart and he "meant" every bit of their life together? Or is it something distinct and different that I'll find out later??? Right now Claire is pulling her medicinals out of her cabinet and praying she won't have to use the tools. (I canna even THINK about this. NOT at all.)
I checked the Compuserve site and per Karen Henry, it's from when J&C find the site to settle at Fraser's Ridge and he tells her he will love her even after he's dead.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking of what he tells her when they reunite in Voyager: he tells her there are the two of them now, and they will be together forever.
ReplyDeleteThe reference re: finding Fraser's Ridge makes sense, cause that's where, if memory serves me, Claire has the wee "you can't go back to Scotland to get settlers cause if you do, you'll die" breakdown.
ReplyDelete@Terry - I'm amused to find myself quoted here. :-) But yes, "I meant it" refers back to the discussion in DRUMS, chapter 16, "The First Law of Thermodynamics". DG has confirmed this, so you don't have to take my word for it!
ReplyDeleteKaren
WOW!! You Ladies are GOOD! I emailed Tracey R. earlier today asking her what "I meant it" meant because I had just finished reading that chapter last night. Wee Tracey R. said....go to the blog it's all there.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lassies!!
Thanks all - it was bothering me. I felt like I should know what it meant... like I was somehow less of an Outlander fan if I didn't know!
ReplyDeleteI am loving the relationship between Poor Roger and Jamie right now! How great is it?!?!
ReplyDelete"I meant it" through me for a bit of a loop but I had figured it was in regards to loving her. I'm happy to see it confirmed here.
I just had to take a break reading as it was a bit to emotional for me and had to see what your thoughts were up to this point.
I am emotionally spent. I have ready FC 3 or 4 times and am on another reread of the whole series right now. Just reading the snake scenes and even tho I know exactly when it's coming, exactly how it ends, the drama of the scene, the exchange between Jamie and Roger, between Jamie and Claire, and the primal pull (no pun intended) of the requested last touch that ultimately brings Jamie fully back just completely gets me verklempt each and every time. I can't even express the effect that this scene, and the series itself, has had on me. What a gift Diana has bestowed on us.
ReplyDeleteI'm weeping, weeping, WEEPING! At the discussion between Roger and Jamie about the possibility of changing the future, and it looked like Jamie was going to die, I was ready to close the book and walk away forever. Now I'm just weeping because I can just feel what's about to happen.
ReplyDeleteThat talk Jamie has with Claire when they're burying Aaron Beardsley and he asks Claire to kill him should he ever be in a similar position... I just can't. I know she won't kill him (God I hope so) but he won't be whole again. Suddenly Jamie's "You're alive. You're well. You're whole" to Roger is all coming full circle here and I'm WEEEEEEEEEEEEEPING!!!
❤️
DeleteI enjoyed Fiery Cross but I have been snake bit and you turn black and swell up three times your normal size. It takes months to get over it without antivenom. I know because they refused to give me any. They said they were going to take my leg if the discoloration went all the way around. So that part was true. I was also nauseous,vomiting, shaky,and in a lot of pain. It took 2 months before I could walk again. If the snake hadn't hit it's nose on my ankle bone the bite would have been fatal.
ReplyDeleteHad a moccasin bite me as a child but I survived and it was nasty time.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to see this question answered. It's been bugging me every since I saw the episode. And yes the scene with Jamie and Clair was more than I could take. I cried so hard it made me sick. To think that his love for her goes so deep that it could bring him back from the brink of death. Diana is a genius. Outlander has been one of the best and worst things that's happened to me. I think about it day and night. I am truly obsessed with the world that is Outlander. Thank you Diana
ReplyDeleteYes. It's almost in my every waking thought.
ReplyDelete