Diana Gabaldon Weighs in on the Death of a Beloved Member of 'Outlander' Family
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Gold is the throughline of episode 3 of season 7 of Outlander, affecting the lives of many members of the Fraser and MacKenzie families but also resulting in the death of one beloved member of the Fraser’s Ridge family: Murdina Bug (Sarah Collier), and New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon exclusively gives Parade her thoughts on what’s going on behind the story we see on the screen.
As we learned in episode 2, it was revealed that the Bugs—Arch (Hugh Ross) and Murdina—were the culprits who had stolen the Jacobite gold from Jamie’s (Sam Heughan) Aunt Jocasta (Maria Doyle Kennedy), which inadvertently led to the burning of the Big House—and to Ian (John Bell) killing Mrs. Bug—he thought it was Mr. Bug—when he felt Jamie’s life was in jeopardy.
This is the second life that Ian has taken this season—Allan Christie (Alexander Vlahos) was the first. But unlike Jamie, who killed Richard Brown (Chris Larkin) at the end of episode 1 to keep Claire (Caitríona Balfe) safe going forward and seemed to have no qualms about it, Ian seems to feel it more.
“Ian is an interesting mix of cultures at this point,” Gabaldon says. “Is he Scottish, Mohawk, both at once, or something beyond either? Both are cultures with a strong tradition of vengeance, and he must—knowing Arch Bug—expect the man to be vengeful. That being the case, he’s got a choice: give Arch his vengeance, i.e., put his life at Arch’s mercy (if he has any, which he really doesn’t…), or kill Arch.
“Somewhere in the background of [Ian’s] character, though, lies a deep respect and love for women and mothers—and Mrs. Bug was motherly toward him (fed him, washed his clothes, etc.), which leaves him with a deep sense of guilt, even though he knows what he’s done was accidental. That being so, he can’t bring himself to try to kill Arch, and so…he does the other thing he can think of to resolve the situation, and not have to live with his guilt.”
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So Ian offers Arch his life in exchange for Mrs. Bug’s, but Arch says that’s too easy. The revenge he wants is more Old Testament: “You killed someone I love and now I have to live with the pain; so, when you’ve something worth taking, you’ll see me again.”
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Which means that we will see Arch later in the story as season 7 unfolds and either he will kill someone Ian loves or Ian will have to kill him. An interesting note: Arch Bug was a real person. Diana found his name on a ship’s manifest.
“Oh, Mr. Bug is pretty much straight out of the Old Testament, and an eye for an eye is right up his alley. (The show doesn’t mention Arch’s missing fingers; he was a famous bowman, but ran afoul of another clan, who caught him on their land and gave him the choice of losing an eye or his first two fingers—so that he’d never be able to draw a bow against them again.),” Diana continues.
The gold also shows up in the future storyline when Brianna (Sophie Skelton) and Roger (Richard Rankin) receive a box that contains letters from her parents from the past and in it is one of the musket-shaped balls of gold that Jamie prepared for the Frasers trip to Scotland. This will be a turning point for the MacKenzies—but no spoilers here!
“We don’t know—yet—what the Frasers/MacKenzies may do with the gold. But there it is, sweetly gleaming MacGuffin that it is…,” Diana teases.
The episode does end with Jamie, Claire and Ian preparing to head for Scotland. Partly because Jamie promised Jenny to return Ian to her at some point, but the question is: Do they actually believe they can sit out the war? The episode closes with the thought about Fraser’s Ridge: “We will make it back here one day.”
And the answer per Diana is: “Well, a lot of people did—sit out the war in Europe, I mean. On the other hand, there’s not much left for the Frasers in Scotland, save Jamie’s family, and with Bree, et al gone, that family is the most valuable thing Jamie has. And he is a man of his word; he’ll take his nephew home.”
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For those interested in more background on where the Jacobite gold came from, here is the explanation from Diana:
“The gold was sent from the King of France to help finance the Jacobite insurrection. (The King’s motive was neither friendship nor partisanship, btw; he wanted the Jacobites to keep the British government/army occupied while he got on with appropriating various territories elsewhere without interference.)
“Now, in history, there’s no actual record of the French gold actually showing up in Scotland. On the other hand, nobody can prove it didn’t, and that’s plenty of wiggle room for a historical novelist, let alone TV writers…
“ So, for story purposes, the gold shows up (in the books; the dying man who speaks to Jamie while he’s a prisoner tells him the story. The show didn’t have time for the details, but did get across that there was gold) in the Highlands, and is divided—for safety—into three parts, these confided to the care of three different clans. One of these was Clan MacKenzie, and it was Dougal MacKenzie who received one-third of the gold on behalf of his brother, Colum (chief of Clan MacKenzie); another was Clan Grant, and one-third of the gold was given to Arch Bug, who was a tacksman (a man of property and trust) to Malcolm Grant, chief of the clan. The last third was entrusted to the Camerons, and given into the hands of Hector Cameron.
“But the gold came too late to be used for its intended purpose; the Jacobite cause was already crumbling. So the recipients of the gold did various things with their shares. Hector took as much as he could carry and ran for the Colonies, once there, using the gold to establish himself as a wealthy planter and build his estate of River Run. Arch Bug also secreted the share he held, but was transported—we don’t know what happened to that share, but Arch did know what happened to Hector’s share!
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“Hector died with a good bit of gold still in its original form, and Jocasta inherited this, and kept it secret. (We still don’t know what Dougal did with the final third, since neither he nor Colum survived after Culloden.)
“Anyway, Arch Bug knew Hector Cameron had essentially stolen his third of the gold and used it for his own aggrandizement, and therefore plotted to steal it back, so to speak—though since there was no longer a Jacobite army to receive or use it…well, we can’t know his ultimate goal, because he didn’t say, but after Hector’s death, he discovered where Hector had hidden his share of the gold, and took it. This is the gold that he and Murdina hid under the Big House for safekeeping, and we all know what happened then…”
New episodes of Outlander are available to stream weekly on Fridays at midnight on the STARZ app, all STARZ streaming and on-demand platforms, and internationally on the Lionsgate+ premium streaming platform in the U.K. New episodes will air weekly on the STARZ linear platform on Fridays at 8 p.m. ET in the U.S.
Next, Outlander EP Maril Davis Teases What Will Happen in the Final Season (Season 8)
