Dragonfly in Amber

Claire is a time traveler; she knows things that others in the 1740s don’t and how major events unfolding in the 1740s will end. Because of this, Claire urges Jamie to avoid the conflict that will take place between the Stuarts and King George II of England. However, as the honorable man Jamie is, he refuses to simply avoid the final battle that Claire tells him will be a massacre for the army of the Highlands and decides he must do something to protect the men who live and work on his lands. To this end, Jamie and Claire come up with a scheme to stop Charles Stuart, the son of the displaced king, James Stuart. In this way, Claire’s knowledge could prove to be beneficial to the people of Lallybroch.

There are other times when Claire’s knowledge has the potential to be beneficial to the people who she encounters in the 1740s. Claire is a nurse and her medical knowledge coupled with her knowledge of plants helps her care for patients at the hospital as well as people she encounters throughout her travels. Claire is also aware of the genetic line that will result in the birth of her husband, Frank Randall, in the twentieth century. This knowledge causes some discomfort to Jamie when she recognizes the name of the woman Jack Randall was supposed to have married short before his death in April 1746. This woman is the mother of Frank’s direct descendent and must be conceived and born to ensure Frank’s birth. However, Claire becomes concerned that this timeline will be disturbed first when it appears that Jack Randall has died and again when Jamie duels Jack and leave him unable to father children. Fortunately, there are events in this timeline Claire could not and is not aware of, ensuring Frank’s eventual birth. In this case, a lack of knowledge if a good thing.

Toward the end of the novel, Claire speaks to a seer who struggles with the burden of telling her employer the truth about what she sees of his future or hiding it from him. In this conversation, Claire begins to understand that it is a burden to have important information that could impact the lives of other people. She struggles with this herself when she returns to her own time, first when she tries to share her story with Frank, and later when she realizes that Geillis Duncan told her when she came through the stones, giving Claire the ability to warn her that she will be burned to death as a witch if she goes to the 1740s. The seer decides it is better to share her knowledge and allow people to decide for themselves, and Claire follows suit, telling Roger about his ancestor’s fate and helping him track her down to give her the information. Although they fail in their mission, she gave the man who would be directly impacted by the choices Geillis might make the choice to save her and risk his own existence, or to hold back and continue as he has always been.

Claire grew up with an archeologist and married a historian, therefore her entire life has been centered on the people of the past. Part of this includes the history of political strife in both England and Scotland. For this reason, Claire knows how one of the most noted periods of political strife ended, the unsuccessful Jacobite Uprising of 1745 by the Stuarts. When Claire arrives in 1743, she becomes aware that many of the Scots she befriends are Jordanites, supporters of the Stuarts. This recalls the Battle of Culloden, the final, brutal battle of the uprising that ended with hundreds of Highlander deaths. It is this knowledge that leads Jamie and Claire to attempt to stop Charles Stuart from beginning the uprising by limiting his access to financers in France and Spain.

Claire admits she never had interest in this part of history, so her knowledge is limited. Even though Claire is knowledgeable enough to urge Jamie to avoid Culloden, she believes Jamie died at Culloden and she has never attempted to learn what happened to his men. Claire comments to Roger that her husband, Frank, was a Jordanite historian but she never asked him to tell her what happened to the Scot leaders in the aftermath of Culloden. Claire puts her curiosity for Jamie’s men on the backburner out of respect for Frank, but after his death, one of her first acts is to visit Roger Wakefield and ask him to track down information on Jamie’s troop. Claire wants to verify that Jamie did as he said he would, that he led his men away from Culloden and returned to die a soldier’s death.

The history of this time is rich and comes to life in the pages of this novel. At first, Claire and Jamie try to change the future, or what would be Claire’s past, but when they fail, they take a first-row seat to the events that unfold despite their attempted interference. In the end, it is Claire’s knowledge of history that leads to Dougal’s death and Jamie’s decision to send Claire back to her own time where she safely delivers their daughter despite her complicated pregnancy. Jamie makes promises that he will save his men but will die in battle rather than face the punishment of his mother’s clansmen because of his role in Dougal’s death. For twenty years, Claire assumes Jamie died at Culloden, never bothering to verify the truth even though her husband, Frank, is a Jacobite scholar and could have found the information for her. Out of respect for Frank, she waits to learn the end of her story with Jamie from Roger. It is at this time that she learns Jamie did not die at Culloden despite his intention to do so. It seems that perhaps Jamie did avoid dying at Culloden as Claire had hoped he would, but the story of his passing remains a mystery at the end of this novel.