Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

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Inanna
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Inanna »

Impenitent wrote:=:) =:) =:) I love knowing the answers.
Ditto.

But it also stops me from participating & discussing & wondering!


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Maria
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Maria »

Thanks for not spoiling it. :) Netflix says the next DVD will be "a very long wait". :nono:
I'm so tempted to sign up for starz via amazon prime and just stream the next half of season one. We probably will. We are just on the free trial period of netflix DVD and I'm not impressed with their selection.
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Maria
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Maria »

We went with the Starz option when Netflix shipped our second choice and skipped the Outlander DVD. :roll:

So, the question is still unanswered. Will paradox result if Frank's ancestor is killed? Or, for that matter, if any of Claire's or Frank's 128 (ish) ancestors in this era are either killed or have their lives interfered with such as to not result in the pairings that originally created Frank and Claire. How malleable is history? :scratch:

Or for that matter, what if one or more of the people Claire saves ends up killing one of her ancestors. Or a descendant of a person she saves will somehow cause a set of grandparents to never meet. Will she just disappear in a poof of unrealized destiny? Or is this a splinter universe where the events that produced her are not relevant to the events that transpire in this new universe?

It is possible that I've read too many alternate history tales prior to this one. Any action of Claire's can magnify over generations to negate her own existence if she really is back in her own world's past.

One time travel story I read a long time ago included the concept of people who could not be killed. Certain people in history could not be killed by the time travel agent if doing so would cause a paradox. You never knew who these people were until you tried to kill them and some weird coincidence saves them every time. The gun misfires. The rope breaks. The knife misses. And then the unkillable person is very likely to kill the time travel agent in retribution for the attempt, so it is drilled into them to ALWAYS seek a nonlethal end to a confrontation.

This same book also stressed how much fashion is very time specific and how time travel agents always had to wear hand sewn clothing. People would notice machine stitching, or fabrics that weren't possible for the day. Just getting an outfit together for a time travel expedition was very expensive and time consuming.

With that in mind, Claire's white dress should have drawn some attention (even torn and dirty) and her shoes certainly should have. Where did those shoes go, anyway? They seemed sturdy and well made. Surely someone is using them, even if they were deemed not suitable for a lady.

I am also amazed at the amount of clothing they give her. That stuff is expensive in terms of man (woman) hours. As a spinner, I can tell you that a single skein of yarn represents 10 hours of my time, and I'm using a motorized carder to get the wool ready for spinning. Hand carding the wool would take even longer. Creating a huge swath of woven tartan material to make a big dress with would take hundreds of hours. And even more hours to sew the dress, of course.

And she seems to have several of them! Either the Laird is more generous than they are making clear in the story, or the producers don't recognize how expensive several sets of clothing are.
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Alatar »

Of course the other side of a paradox is that nothing you do in the past can change history because its already happened. In other words you might go back in time to kill Hitler and your attempt turns out to be the bomb in the bunker event. Any change you make in the past simply serves to reinforce the present.
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Maria
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Maria »

Yeah, there is that.... everything she's going to do has already been done and thus she can't change anything in history. Under that theory, even if she gets everyone in the area using cowpox to vaccinate against smallpox, then somehow the knowledge will die out and never become widespread.

And if she is her own ancestor, then she had to come back in time and be that ancestor and that's why the stones worked for her. It was inevitable, inescapable.

But it doesn't make for much of a story if the protagonist is locked into a predetermined set of events- so that logic doesn't get used much. In fact, I can only think of one example: "Predestination". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535/ Now that's a mind bender of a time travel tale!
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Maria
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Maria »

We quit this series after the
Hidden text.
witch trial
episode. I tried watching the next episode, but couldn't get into it. I read the plot synopsises (how do you pluralize synopsis??) for the books on wikipedia and decided I just didn't want to go there. We weren't enjoying the episodes anymore, and the twists the tale is set to go through just don't appeal to me at all.

*sigh*

I've decided, in my head, that the story ends where I left it, and they live happily ever after.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

Synopses.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Inanna
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Re: Diana Galbaldon's Outlander

Post by Inanna »

I just pre-ordered the next book in Outlander! Squeeee!
'You just said "your getting shorter": you've obviously been drinking too much ent-draught and not enough Prim's.' - Jude
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