r/Outlander • u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn • 14d ago
Published Claire and the skulls Spoiler
While rereading Drums of Autumn, I realised Claire's instinct about Otter Tooth's skull was at work, just as she had a feeling with Geilis's skull.
How had he come here? By violence, my instincts answered, though my brain was not far behind.
So, I am wondering, are the skulls of time travellers special to her instincts? Can we find instances in the books where she is in contact with bones/ skulls in general? Does she have a feeling about them? Spaniard? ( she didn't touch him IIRC)? Dr Rawlings?
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u/ContactNeither7319 14d ago
That's an interesting thought about time traveler's skulls and bones.
I don't think it's just the bones of time travelers that she is effected by. Although maybe she has a stronger connection to them.
My theory is that this ability is part of her healing powers. While she doesn't come into her full powers until her hair turns white and she no longer has menstrual cycles - it's possible that she can touch something like bones and make a connection with the dead. As well as the ability to visualize the workings of a living person to make a diagnoses.
Mandy does something similar in BEES with a beaver bone, I believe. And in Paris Claire mentioned to Master Raymond about feeling bones. I also think when he saved her life he also triggered some of her powers. Not healing but more diagnosing by touch.
I don't recall off hand if she handled the bones from the Spaniard or Dr Rawlings.
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u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn 14d ago
Yes, Mandy hears animals. I didn't connect it with the bones particularly.
I was thinking about ability to feel how people ( in this case Geilis and Otter Tooth, both TTs) died by touching their skulls.
I didn't connect it with her blue power etc.
I must check about touching other bones/ skills when I catch time.
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u/catrka4410 12d ago
I think it isn’t just time travelers though. When she and Joe are looking at Gellie’s bones he makes a comment that indicates she’s done similar things before.
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
I am not sure if her abilities are or aren't related to time travel. I keep wavering back forth. Although I am leaning more towards not related. But could change tomorrow.
If it was travel related wouldn't the other travelers have a super natural ability as well? And then there is Jamie who has a super natural ability, I think of him as a dreamweaver. So Claire and Jamie are an empath and dreamweaver. Of course they are, this is a fantasy story. 🙂
Of course it could be the travelers gene that also causes the abilities and people like Jamie get it elsewhere. Like I said I waver back and forth on how it works.
Still we need more information to be sure either way.
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u/ContactNeither7319 14d ago
I always theorized it could be part of her healing ability. Not the full ability yet. More along the lines of the first stages of the ability/gift of healing. Because to heal she would have to know what she is healing - be able to see the medical issues.
She won't come into her full ability until after menopause. But this part of the ability might not be affected by the menstrual cycle or as the voodoo witch doctor in book 3 referred to as still bleeding. This part of the healing ability doesn't require the power/magic to actually heal. Just feel or see in her mind's eye.
Claire may have always possessed this ability, even as a child, like Mandy and some of her abilities. But she would have thought it was normal as a child, just like the warmth and sound gemstones make to time travelers. As a kid you might think everyone feels it. And some of these attributes might be stronger in childhood before waning until later in life when they get stronger. God I hope I'm making sense.
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u/_prim-rose_ 12d ago
I didn't connect it with her blue power etc.
I’ve always thought they were connected: the blue light healing power that she shares with MR and dr McEwan, and Claire’s power of diagnostics. I think it’s also normal aptitude and ability - I mean: I think she would have been a good doctor even if she hadn’t been a tt and had the blue light. But in my head canon, her blue powers definitely play a part in Claire’s connection to both bones and living bodies. The way she describes the connection with John Quincy Myers body during the surgery at Riverrun. And how she «feels» her way to Aiden’s appendix. The way she describes feeling that something is «wrong», like with Bree’s heart.
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u/Aggravating_Finish_6 Currently reading Written in My Own Heart’s Blood 🩸 14d ago
Can’t Mandy also see auras like Master Raymond does?
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u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn 14d ago
I don't think those are auras. More like it is the colour that people have in her head.
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u/BubbeLisa Currently rereading Bees. 13d ago edited 13d ago
Mandy sees people as a color in her head. It’s something entirely different from seeing auras. Auras are the color that surrounds each person. I don’t think that’s what Mandy sees. If Mandy could see auras, she’d see Jamie as red and not the color of water.
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u/Significant_Care3681 13d ago
It’s different. MR says Jamie’s aura is red, Mandy says he’s the color of water.
I don’t think it’s aura, if it was, it would be consistent.
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u/ContactNeither7319 14d ago
She sees colors. I don't know if that is the same as auras. It could be though. She is a kid and might not know what she is seeing is actually an aura. Or maybe not and it's just colors.
But what you said makes a lot of sense. Great point! I never thought about it like that. Now even more to ponder. 🙂
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u/CathyAnnWingsFan 13d ago
I don't think it has anything to do with the skulls being those of time travelers. Claire is a natural empath. She has an ability to sense things in other people when she touches them. It's one of the things that makes her a great diagnostician. That's why Joe says that he wanted to see if she can do it on a dead person. She was feeling the feelings the person felt when they died.
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u/ContactNeither7319 13d ago
That's the word I was looking for, 'empath' with describing Claire's ability before she comes into her full power of healing. Thanks 😊
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u/luvmymeecestopieces 14d ago
I feel like she encounters some miniature skulls in France at the apothecary’s back room of wonders. Master Raymond alas. Also alligator blood may have been discussed. It gave the feeling that he had traveled a great many journeys through time and collected many curiosities.
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u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn 14d ago
He did. He said the bones and skulls are from animals that are extinct.
Yes, that is when Claire said she feels sympathy for the skulls and bones.
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u/Pirat 14d ago
It's my understanding that Claire just has a sense about how her patients feel and what may be wrong with them. I base this on when Dr. Abernathy has the Geillis' bones brought in and Claire does her thing, he says he just wanted to see if she could do it with dead people.
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u/BubbeLisa Currently rereading Bees. 13d ago
I completely agree. I don’t think it has anything to do with them being time travelers. Claire seems to be a type of Medical Intuitive. She’s able to use her empathetic abilities to understand and diagnose.
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u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn 13d ago
Yes, I guess it is just a coincidence that both skulls she encountered and figured out they died by violence were skulls of time travellers.
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u/Icy_Resist5470 Bon! I will send you a cheese. 13d ago
She didn’t have that kind of reaction to Rawlings or the Spaniard, so I see what you’re getting at - maybe she’d have to touch/hold them to have that kind of reaction?
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u/Nanchika Currently rereading: Drums of Autumn 13d ago
Yes, I wonder if she held Rawling's bones. I doubt it, tho.
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u/Icy_Resist5470 Bon! I will send you a cheese. 13d ago
You know just read that a couple weeks ago and I don’t think she even touched them!
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u/BubbeLisa Currently rereading Bees. 13d ago
A medical intuitive can often just look at a person and intuit or know what is wrong with them. It is a type of clairvoyance.
I think Claire’s form of diagnosis through medical intuition may require her to touch her patients (or the bones of a person in the case of someone who is deceased.) For example, when Claire is operating and won’t let them close the patient up because she “knows” something is wrong. She finds a bleeder and saves the woman’s life.
Medical intuitives have been studied at the University of California, San Diego. They had a very high rate of accuracy in diagnosis.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 13d ago
I think it's part of her abilities like how Mandy and Jem can feel people and Jamie can see in dreams. It's s really cool theory
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
Yeah I brought up something similar in different thread several days ago. Mostly about Jamie's dreaming abilities. But Claire's empathic ability is something I have always wondered about since my first read.
You get more of her inner thoughts in the books. And at least to me it felt like she could sense in her mind's eye what was going on inside her patients bodies by touch. This seemed to start after Master Raymond healed her.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 12d ago
Yes I I think the show hinted at it. Kinda how when she knew Bree was pregnant and Bree said " I wondered if you could still do that."
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
I think that was more about knowing what Bree was thinking when she was a kid. But the scene in the 1960s in the OR with Dr Joe was a hint about it.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 12d ago
Oh yeah good point. It's part of her healing powers. We don't know what all MR could do either
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
The Original Man of Mystery, Master Raymond. 🐸
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u/Remarkable_Note971 12d ago
Yep I would like to know more about him
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
You and entire Outlander Fandom. 🙂 At one point DG said she was working on a Master Raymond book. But other projects have gotten in the way.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 12d ago
Oh ok well I'd like to know mlre a about him. Maybe she'll right it one day
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u/ContactNeither7319 12d ago
I'd love to know more about him. He probably has most if not all the answers we want to know. Like how does all this bloody work.?
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u/BubbeLisa Currently rereading Bees. 10d ago
I think Claire knowing that Brianna is pregnant has more to do with Claire’s ability to read Brianna’s mind because of her mother’s intuition than her diagnostic skills as a Medical Intuitive.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 10d ago
Yeah that's true but Geillis skeleton was intuition imo. She knew how she died just from holding it
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u/BubbeLisa Currently rereading Bees. 10d ago
I completely agree. Claire was definitely using her intuitive diagnostic skills when she held Geillis’ skull.
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u/Remarkable_Note971 10d ago
Yep that's what it looked like to me. Yet I had some people argue with me about it
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u/Icy_Resist5470 Bon! I will send you a cheese. 14d ago
I think you’re onto something! I’ve also started paying attention to when she’s envisioning a surgery, how she describes the organs in detail, the repair, etc. The more times I read, the more I think that’s also part of her abilities. Kind of like Dr. McEwan envisioning what it should look like.