Outlander’s Diana Gabaldon was reminded about one character
Outlander author Diana Gabaldon had to be reminded about a key detail in her books after she questioned the show’s producers about the inclusion of a character in the Starz series.
Season two of Outlander saw Jamie (played by Sam Heughan) and Claire Fraser (Caitríona Balfe) hosting a dinner party in Paris.
The pair were desperately hoping to change the course of history and prevent the disastrous Battle of Culloden from occurring and stopping Bonnie Prince Charlie (Andrew Gower) from going to Scotland in an attempt to reclaim the throne.
As part of their scheming, they held a dinner party and invited some key guests including Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Duke of Sandringham (Simon Callow), and various French noblemen including the Comte St. Germain (Stanley Weber) and his wife the Comtesse St. Germain (Gaia Weiss).
However, it seems writer Gabaldon completely forgot about the Comtesse, as revealed previously in the official Outlander podcast.
Screenwriter and producer Toni Graphia said: “The Comte St Germain shows up and he’s a surprise guest and that woman – that is his wife.
“I had a really great time watching the [fans] when we released the photos of the dinner party, long before the season started, all the fans trying to guess who is this woman at the dinner table? Who is she?
“The answer they’ll find out in this episode [La Dame Blanche] was that she was the Comte’s wife.”
Graphia continued: “Which is something that Diana had in the book [Dragonfly In Amber] that was only one sentence. Diana herself actually forgot it.
“So when I wrote in the script that the Comte brings his wife, Diana actually sent a note that said, ‘The Comte doesn’t have a wife.’ I said, ‘Actually, he does. It’s in the book. You wrote it!’
“And she laughed and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I forgot it! I forgot that he had a wife that I wrote that.’
“Which is understandable considering how gigantic the books are and how many she’s written and how long ago she wrote it.”
Graphia clarified: “But he did have a wife and we were like, ‘Perfect, we’ll put her in the dinner party’ and everyone was trying to figure out for the longest time who she was.”
In the books, the Comte is revealed to be a fellow time traveller and has had dealings with Master Raymond (Dominique Pinon) with the pair aware of each other’s abilities to venture through eras.
Whether the Comte makes a comeback remains to be seen, but in the novels he’d tied into Fergus Fraser’s (César Domboy) storyline with suggestions the former street urchin could actually his son and in line to inherit a huge fortune and estate,
The best-selling author is now penning her latest tome, the as yet untitled 10th Outlander novel which is expected to be the last and round off Gabaldon’s epic saga.
However, it’s unlikely the book will be coming out before season eight hits screens and ends the show.
Nevertheless, the producers behind the Starz adaptation have already confirmed the TV adaptation will be diverging from the source material.
The Outlander series finale is expected to wrap up Jamie and Claire’s expansive story in a different way to the novels, with fans hoping to get answers about Jamie’s ghost after being kept waiting from the very first episode.