On Outlander, Claire once said, "When confronted with the impossible, the rational mind will grope for the logical." Well, throughout the five seasons, fans of Outlander have indeed been confronted with the impossible — the entire show centers around time travel! But when it comes to rationally explaining the remaining unknowns in Jamie and Claire's world, perhaps we need to look outside of the logical and more towards the magical.
Besides the whole ~time travel thing~, there are two magical/paranormal elements of Outlander that still leaves fans with a lot of questions: Jamie's ghost and Claire's potential powers. With these two plots causing so much speculation, it got me thinking on a theory in which Claire's powers and Jamie's ghost on Outlander could be connected. (Remember, we're not thinking logically here.)
Let's take it back and examine the two situations we have in front of us. In the first episode of Outlander, Jamie's ghost appears outside Claire's window in Inverness in the 1940s. Separately, in Season 4, a Native American healer delivers the prophecy that Claire will obtain her full power as a healer when her hair is completely white. What do these two things have to do with each other?
Some fans think the answer to Jamie's ghost will be straightforward in that, Jamie's ghost spirit is simply visiting his wife. It's a normal thing ghosts do, right?
Yet, Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has created a bit of a buildup when it comes to explaining Jamie's appearance in the 1940s, having said that she will reveal how Jamie's ghost fits into the story in the last Outlander book.
With that kind of anticipation set, are we really to believe that Jamie is just a ghost doing his ghostly duty of lovingly haunting his wife? With Outlander being so entrenched in fantasy, there's reason to theorize there might be something more mystical to it. So here are some thoughts on how Claire could be what summons Jamie's spirit.
Claire Has Saved Jamie Before (A Lot)
Claire is often there to save Jamie from death, something Sam Heughan discussed on the Outcasts podcast recently with costars David Berry and Tim Downie. "It kind of happens a lot that Jamie reaches near-death and then, [Claire] saves him, and she's the first thing that he sees," Heughan said.
Besides all of the times she has patched him up, we've seen her nurse/doctor Jamie back from the brink of death after Black Jack Randall's abuse at Wentworth, the gunshot wound courtesy of Laoghaire, and the venomous snakebite. Regarding the last moment, which was featured in the Outlander Season 5, she seemed to resurrect Jamie by giving him a hand job. (If that isn't magical, what is?)
Claire's healing powers almost lean toward the supernatural at times. And after he survives the snakebite, Jamie tells Claire, "I knew ye were the one thing that could bring me back." What if on his deathbed, Claire's able to "bring him back" another way?
Her Powers Are Still Growing
Though Claire can time travel, this surgeon is very scientifically-minded and is quick to dismiss superstitions, but even she seemed intrigued in Season 4 when she heard Adawehi's dream. In it, Claire appeared as a white raven who swallowed the moon and laid an egg that contained a magical, healing stone inside of it. The takeaway from this dream? "You have medicine now, but you will have more. When your hair is white like snow, you will have wisdom beyond time."
In the book Drums of Autumn, it's Nayawenne who has this dream and the prophecy is slightly different: "When your hair is white like hers, that is when you will find your full power." In both, Claire is prophesized to have more medicinal power when her hair is completely white.
And it's very possible that Adawehi/Nayawenne weren't strictly talking about scientific medicine. After all, the stone that came from Claire's raven had "great magic" and as Adawehi/Nayawenne were both shamans, they could have foreseen Claire possessing a mystical way of healing.
Claire Can't Stop Death
Another part of Adawehi's prophecy was this message to Claire: "You must not be troubled. Death is sent from the gods. It will not be your fault." At the time, it seemed like Adawehi was forewarning what occurred in the next episode when the measles killed Herr Mueller's family and he sought revenge by murdering Adawehi, but what if she was foreshadowing another death in the future... say, around the time Claire has come into her full powers when she's an old woman?
Saving Jamie Once More
There will come a day when Jamies dies... this is an irrefutable fact since he turns up as a ghost (and uh, morose alert: Everyone eventually dies). If Jamie dies before Claire (a popular theory), she'll no doubt be by her husband's side when he passes doing all that she can to heal him one last time.
No one — not even Claire with her powerful healing abilities — will be able to save Jamie from the inevitability of death, but could her white-haired magic somehow will Jamie's spirit to live on?
In the end, Claire's "full power" could be that her love for him on his deathbed allows Jamie's ghost to manifest and find her in the 20th century. Maybe the culmination of all the medicinal healing she has delivered to Jamie over the years is what makes his spirit to exist in another realm... until Claire's spirit is ready to meet his in the afterlife.
While there is no guarantee that Claire will have magical powers, an ending where Claire's last attempt to save Jamie's life leads his soul to find her in the afterlife would certainly fit Gabaldon's criteria of a "happy ending" that leaves "the readers in floods of tears." Not to mention, it would give fans resolution on both Claire's powers and Jamie's ghost. If you ignore that we'll all feel like we've lost something when Gabaldon does finish Claire and Jamie's love story, this theory is a supernatural win-win.
Images: Starz