Photo Credit: Starz Outlander‘s depiction of the death of a major character in Season 8, Episode 7, has drawn strong criticism from the author of the source material, Diana Gabaldon. In the books, a different character dies than the one who perishes in the show. Gabaldon said in a recent interview that she thought the team behind the show ultimately made a safer choice.

Diana Gabaldon criticizes a major change from the book in Season 8 In the latest episode of Outlander Season 8, Fergus Fraser (César Domboy), Claire and Jamie Fraser’s son, sacrifices himself to save his wife and children from a fire. He succeeds in getting his family out of their home, but dies when the roof caves in due to the flames. However, Fergus’ son Henri-Christian is the one who dies in the Outlander books.

While the show depicts Henri-Christian nearly suffering the same fate as in the novels, his father’s heroic efforts save him. Gabaldon has slammed this story alteration. “I can tell you that they killed Fergus because they (personally) couldn’t stand to kill Henri-Christian.

Several of them told me it was the final line of that scene from the book— ‘…the sound of his head striking the cobbles was the sound of the end of the world’ that horrified them so much they couldn’t stand to do it onscreen,” Gabaldon told Parade. “I suppose they thought they had to kill somebody.” The author added that if the series “were too chicken to do it right, they should just have eased back and burned down the print-shop—but (luckily) not my call.” In the episode, Fergus’ wife, Marsali (Lauren Lyle), takes her children to her in-laws to inform them of the tragedy. Predictably, it devastates the series protagonists. In the same interview, Gabaldon revealed that she also opposed William (Charles Vandervaart) finding out bout Lord John’s (David Berry) sexuality as she believes there was “absolutely no reason” to depict that except “shock value.” She observed, “Essentially, this episode isn’t a structural part of the show; it’s just a collection of shocks.” Outlander Season 8 airs weekly on Fridays.