With Claire firmly back in Jamie’s arms on Outlander, the next order of business is Claire returning to her 18th-century role as a healer (one so “powerful” that people there sometimes think she’s a witch). This time, Claire comes armed with her 20th-century medical school training, which she promptly puts to use attempting to save the life of the man who attacks her and providing a diagnosis for a woman named Margaret Campbell.
Margaret is the sister of Reverend Archibald Campbell, whom Claire meets in an apothecary shop. She helps him with his sister, prescribing a few things other than simply using laudanum (the 18th-century version of morphine) to keep Margaret calm.
But the Campbells are going to play a much bigger role in Claire’s life than this episode would have you believe. Read on to find out what significance they have to the story (and some changes the show appears to have made from the book), but be warned of spoilers.
In the book Voyager, Margaret’s backstory is that she was raped by a band of Redcoats after the Battle of Culloden and left for dead in a ditch. This trauma left her in a state of alternating between catatonia and screaming fits. The show changes that up a little, making Margaret “soft in the head since she was a bairn,” according to her brother. He also says she’s a “seer,” which is certainly what 18th-century people would have called her if she seemed like she was having visions. Claire tells the…
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