Possible book/TV deviation for season 03? *SPOILERS*
***Warning -- this post discusses the novel Voyager, and possible book/TV show plot deviations going forward in season 03. If you have not read the books up to and including book 3 (Voyager), there will be spoilers!!***
This is about Murtagh.
What has become of Murtagh? In ep 301, we see him briefly on the battlefield -- he has a quick word with Jamie and then he's off battling again. But that's it. In the farmhouse after the battle, Jamie asks about him and no one knows what became of Murtagh.
In Voyager, without knowing how or why, Jamie realizes, when he regains consciousness on the battlefield at Culloden, that Murtagh must be dead. Twenty years later, when Claire has returned to him, Jamie tells her about how he found Murtagh, near death, though the man had enough strength left to say to Jamie, "Dinna be afraid, a bhalaich. It doesna hurt a bit to die."
So in the books, as far as we know up to and including book 8, Murtagh is dead. And this might be the case in the series as well. However, while live-tweeting the episode, Caitriona replied to a tweet asking if we'd find out what happened to Murtagh this way:
Now would we leave you hanging .????? ( okay, yes we probably would but in this case .... you'll hear from him again!!) #OutlanderPremiere https://t.co/eMua6DS0dT
- Caitriona Balfe (@caitrionambalfe) September 11, 2017
Now, maybe it will just be a flashback scene later in the series, when Claire and Jamie are back together, similar to what happened in the book -- Jamie remembering how he found Murtagh near death on the battlefield.
But what if it's not? What if they don't kill Murtagh in the series? What if they replaced some other character with Murtagh going forward? The logical one for me would be Duncan Innes, and I've not read anything that anyone's been cast in that role. IMDB has what looks like a pretty complete cast listing, and there's no character "Duncan Innes" listed. Jamie meets Duncan in Ardsmuir prison, and finds him again later in Edinburgh, and Duncan sails with Jamie and Claire to Jamaica, so if they'd cast that character, you think he'd be listed as he'd be in a fair few episodes.
So what do you think? Have the producers decided to #saveMurtagh afterall?