Sumith Prasad
The sixth season of Starz’s historical series ‘Outlander’ ends with Brianna “Bree” Fraser MacKenzie getting pregnant. She joins her husband Roger MacKenzie, who leaves Fraser’s Ridge to become a minister, to travel to Edenton during her period of pregnancy. In the second episode of the seventh season, Bree gives birth to a baby girl, who is named Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie. Amanda becomes a ray of hope in the Fraser household, however, only until Claire diagnoses her with a severe heart condition. She informs her daughter that Amanda’s condition is dangerous, making one wonder whether she will die. Well, here’s everything you need to know about the same! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Amanda’s Heart Condition and Future in Outlander
In the second episode of season 7, Bree gives birth to a baby girl in the presence of her husband Roger, father Jamie, and mother Claire, who serves as a midwife to help her daughter. Amanda is loved dearly by her mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather. After a series of misfortunes that befell the Fraser household, Amanda’s birth lights up the family severely. While taking care of Amanda, Claire one day notices blue marks on the nails of the baby girl. The nurse then listens to her granddaughter’s heartbeats and finds out that she is suffering from a heart condition.
Bree, who watches Claire listening to Amanda’s heartbeats, wonders what’s wrong with her daughter, only for the nurse to explain that the baby is suffering from a heart condition that doesn’t let the organ pump adequate blood to the rest of the body. Since Claire isn’t a cardio surgeon, she informs Bree and Roger that there is nothing she can do to save Amanda, which makes the family leave for the future. Bee, Roger, their son Jeremiah “Jem” MacKenzie, and Amanda end up in the 20th century so that the latter can undergo the essential surgery and further treatment. Although Amanda’s life is hanging by a thread, we may not need to worry about her anytime soon.
According to Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Outlander’ novels, which serve as the source texts for the series, Amanda doesn’t die. Since the series is expected to faithfully adapt the books, we see no reason to worry about the baby girl’s life in the historical drama. Amanda is alive and healthy in ‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone,’ the ninth and last-published ‘Outlander’ novel. The novel also doesn’t give any indication of Amanda’s life being in danger and we can be hopeful that she will remain alive in the upcoming tenth novel of the book series. Therefore, Claire and Jamie are not expected to lose their dead granddaughter.
In ‘An Echo in the Bone,’ the seventh ‘Outlander’ novel, Amanda is described as a cheerful and imaginative girl. She forms a close relationship with her brother Jem, who gets abducted by Rob Cameron, one of Bree’s co-workers who takes him to the past. However, Amanda and Jem eventually reunite. If the series follows the narrative of the novel series, we can even expect Jamie and Claire to reunite with their dear granddaughter. In the final chapter of ‘Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone,’ Bree and her family return to the past to be with her father and mother. Amanda finally gets to cherish her time with her grandfather and grandmother as well.
Diana Gabaldon must have conceived Amanda’s heart condition for the same to pave the way for Bree, Roger, and Jem’s journey to the 20th century, which is a pivotal development in the later books of the ‘Outlander’ novel series. The journey to save Amanda’s life leads Bree and her family to several events that drive the narrative of the novel series forward.
Read More: Is Mark Lewis Jones Leaving Outlander?
