Jamie Fraser

James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser is a Scottish soldier and landowner. He is well-educated and has a knack for learning languages. Raised to be the future Laird of Lallybroch, he is a natural leader, from the homestead to the battlefield. He first meets Claire on his return home to Scotland from France.

Personal History

Jamie was born to Ellen and Brian Fraser in the Scottish Highlands, at their family home of Lallybroch. He was very close to his older brother, William, and was devastated when his brother died of smallpox when Jamie was only six or so. From that point, he was raised to be the future laird of Broch Tuarach, the more official name of the estate. The family suffered another blow when Ellen died in childbed, along with the baby, when Jamie was about eight years old. His sister, Jenny, aged ten, took on the running of the household after their mother's death, and their father Brian raised them both to adulthood.

Around age fourteen, Jamie went to foster with his maternal uncle, Dougal MacKenzie at Beannachd, his uncle's home. Dougal, left-handed like Jamie, taught him to wield a sword with both hands. Jamie had been previously taught some left-handed swordsmanship by the factor at Lallybroch, John Murray, his best friend Ian's father. At sixteen, Jamie lived for a year at Castle Leoch, seat of the Clan MacKenzie. At eighteen, Jamie went to Paris to study at the Université, and lived with his father's cousin, Jared Fraser.

After Jamie had returned home to Lallybroch, in October of 1740 he was arrested by the English for obstruction – that is, for defending his family and property when the English set upon his home – and then taken to Fort William for imprisonment. He escaped, but the English pursued him and brought him back to the fort, where he was flogged with one hundred lashes for escaping. While still recovering, Captain Jonathan Randall ordered that he be given another hundred lashes for theft. After his second flogging, friends came to help Jamie escape a second time, and in the process one of the guards was killed; thence Jamie had a price of ten pound stirling on his head for murder. By the time he had escaped, though, he had word that his father had died of an apoplexy, apparently caused by his distress after Jamie's second flogging, when it looked as though Jamie had died. Jamie then fled to France to join his best friend, Ian Murray, as a mercenary in the French army, where he stayed for two years. Returning once more to Scotland in 1742, Jamie traveled the countryside with a gang of broken men – men without clans – for six months, raiding cattle and the like from the borderlands, when one day someone hit Jamie in the back of the head with an axe, and his uncle Dougal had him sent to recover (or die) from his injury at the Abbey of Ste. Anne de Beaupré in France, where Jamie's uncle Alexander Fraser was abbot.

Jamie-exile — Jamie as depicted by Hoang Nguyen for *The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel*

In the spring of 1743, Jamie returned to Scotland with his godfather Murtagh, and once in the Highlands they were found by Dougal and his men, who were absconding with lifted cattle. Captain Randall and his dragoons pursued the Scots and engaged them in a confrontation, during which Jamie was shot and dislocated his shoulder. Soon after, Murtagh brought an Englishwoman named Claire Beauchamp to Dougal, having rescued her from the English captain.

Events of the Novels

Appearances in the Lord John Series

While Jamie is often in Lord John's thoughts all through the Lord John series, he only appears in person in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade and The Scottish Prisoner.

Personality

In general, Jamie is charming and amiable, with a highly developed sense of humor and knack for inventive swearing. However, the Frasers are known for their stubbornness, and Jamie exemplifies the trait powerfully. He is also completely devoted to his family, especially his wife Claire, and will eliminate any threat to his loved ones, no matter the cost to himself. He has a strongly developed social intelligence, and a profound sense of a man's honor and duty. He won't turn away from any fight or responsibility that he perceives to be his.

Physical Appearance

Jamie is described as very tall at six feet, four inches, with thick, wavy red hair and slanted, cat-like blue eyes. While his height and broad shoulders cut a large figure, Jamie is built like a swimmer or basketball player; muscled and strong, but not excessively so – no extra flesh on his large frame. His hair is not the gingery sort of red, but rather a multitude of individual colors mixed together: auburn, amber, roan, cinnabar, rufous, copper, cinnamon, red and gold are all used to describe the strands of its unique hue, and it is often compared to a red deer's pelt. His eyes are described as dark blue, fringed with long lashes that are nearly black at the tips, but transition to auburn then pale blond at the roots. He gets his height and hair color from his mother's MacKenzie blood, as well as the high cheekbones and long, straight nose, but the slanted eyes, strong jaw and wide mouth are traits from his father, Brian Fraser.

Over the years, Jamie's body has acquired many scars from various injuries. The most shocking of these, usually hidden by his shirt, is his heavily scarred back, from lashings inflicted by Jack Randall and, years later, as a punishment at Ardsmuir Prison. He also has a triangular scar on his collar bone, as well as a long scar on the fourth finger of his right hand, both of these also inflicted by Jack Randall. In Wentworth, Randall also branded Jamie, prompting him to later cut it out of his chest and leaving a puckered scar. During the Battle of Culloden, a bayonet ran clean through his thigh to the bone; he only escaped death from infection by his sister's stubborn refusal to let him die, and survived with a thick welted scar up the length of his thigh. Before Claire goes back through the time loop in Dragonfly In Amber, she carves a C into the base of his left thumb, though it seems to switch to his right in Voyager. A broken nose just before Culloden left Jamie's knife-edged nose slightly thickened at the base of the ridge where the fracture healed.

Over the years since his torture at the hands of Jack Randall at Wentworth Prison, Jamie's right hand has suffered additional trauma repeatedly, owing to the stiff fourth finger that sticks out and is prone to re-breaking. In An Echo in the Bone, the damage to the fourth finger during the Battle of Saratoga is such that Claire finally must remove it completely to salvage the rest of the hand.

Relationships

-- Relationship summary for Jenny Murray --

-- Relationship summary for Ian Murray --

-- Relationship summary for Annalise de Marillac --

-- Relationship summary for Claire Fraser --

Jamie meets Geneva Dunsany after Lord John Grey arranges his parole in September 1756. Jamie comes to Helwater, an estate owned by Lord William Dunsany—Geneva's father and Grey's friend—to continue his sentence as Dunsany's groom. Seventeen-year-old Geneva becomes infatuated with Jamie.

In May 1757, when Lord Dunsany arranges a marriage between Geneva and Earl of Ellesmere who is fifty years her senior, Geneva comes to Jamie and demands that he take her virginity before her wedding. After he refuses, she blackmails him and he eventually succumbs. As a result of their encounter, Geneva becomes pregnant and gives birth to Jamie's son in January 1758. She dies the same day due to severe hemorrhaging.

Jamie feels responsible for her death and prays by her coffin in the night preceding her funeral.

Jamie originally met Laoghaire MacKenzie while in his youth as a ward to his uncle Dougal MacKenzie at Castle Leoch. He didn't remember her but she certainly remembered him.

Upon his return to Leoch in 1743, Jamie takes a beating on her behalf, trying to save her from humiliation, which she mistakenly interprets as a sign of reciprocated love. Jamie then goes with his uncle Dougal to collect rents, and returns married to Claire Fraser, which outrages Laoghaire. She puts an ill-wish under Jamie and Claire's bed, and tries to get Claire killed, of which Jamie is ignorant for many years.

Laoghaire later marries and is twice widowed, with two young daughters, Marsali and Joan MacKimmie. In late 1764, after Jamie returns to Lallybroch from prison and indentured servitude, his sister Jenny Murray arranges a marriage between him and Laoghaire. However, the marriage is a failure, and within a year Jamie leaves Laoghaire and moves to Edinburgh. Jamie later recalls that he seemed to always say the wrong thing, and that Laoghaire seemed to fear him when he tried to be close to her. Years later, Laoghaire admits that she knew Jamie did not need her, wouldn't truly look at her, and that lack made her turn away from him.

Upon Claire's return in November 1766, Laoghaire is furious and shoots Jamie in the arm. After the dust settles, Ned Gowan settles matters between Laoghaire and Jamie, drawing up a contract stating that Jamie would continue to support Laoghaire and her daughters until Laoghaire should remarry, as well as provide a dowry for each of the girls. Their marriage is declared invalid and Jamie leaves Scotland with Claire short time later.

Jamie and Claire return to Lallybroch in January 1778. While there, Jamie pays Laoghaire a visit and apologizes for marrying her when he was incapable of loving her. They start arguing and Laoghaire attacks him. Jamie ends up beating her servant Joey, with whom Laoghaire has an affair. In March 1778, Claire and Laoghaire make a deal—Claire will go to Philadelphia to perform a surgery on Laoghaire's grandson, and Laoghaire will marry Joey, thus giving up Jamie's alimony.

-- Relationship summary for Jonathan Randall --

-- Relationship summary for Lord John Grey --

Name

James is the English form of the Late Latin name Iacomus which was derived from Ιακωβος (Iakobos), the New Testament Greek form of the Hebrew name Ya'aqov (Jacob). Thus, the names James and Jacob derive from the same source. Possible meanings of the name Jacob include "holder of the heel", "supplanter", or "may God protect".^[3]^[4]
Alexander is the Latinized form of the Greek name Αλεξανδρος (Alexandros), which meant "defending men" from Greek αλεξω (alexo) "to defend, help" and ανηρ (aner) "man" (genitive ανδρος).^[5]
Malcolm is from the Old Irish Máel Coluim, meaning "disciple of Saint Columba (from mael "devotee" and coluim "of Saint Columba", from the Latin columba meaning "dove").^[6]^[7] Related to the name Colum.
MacKenzie is the anglicized form of MacCoinnich, a Gaelic patronymic name meaning "son of Coinneach". The personal name Coinneach means "handsome" or "comely".^[8]^[9]
Fraser may be derived from Fredarius, Fresel or Freseau. The earliest recorded versions of the name, from the 12th century, are de Fresel, de Friselle and de Freseliere, which appear to be Norman.^[10] Another suggestion is that the Frasers were a tribe in Roman Gaul, whose badge was a strawberry plant.^[11]

Trivia

Jamie has taken on many aliases and nicknames throughout the series, including:
- Jamie MacTavish, when he returns to Scotland from France in 1743;
- Red Jamie, during the Rising of 1745;
- Mac Dubh, while a prisoner at Ardsmuir (years later, Jamie's fellow former prisoners still address him so);
- Alex MacKenzie, while paroled as a groom at Helwater;
- Alexander Malcolm, as a printer in Edinburgh;
- Jamie Roy, as a smuggler in Edinburgh;
- Captain Alessandro, when he temporarily joins the Spanish garrison on Hispaniola;
- Etienne Marcel de Provac Alexandre, disguised as an immigrant from Martinique at the governor's reception in Jamaica;
- Bear-Killer, the name by which various tribes of Native Americans know Jamie.
In childhood, Jamie's brother called him Sawney, a nickname for Alexander.
Jamie is a polyglot. He speaks Gaelic, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian,^[12] Latin, Greek,^[13] Hebrew,^[14] and a little Chinese.^[15]
Jamie is allergic to hyacinth.
The story of the "Dunbonnet" that Brianna finds in Voyager is actually true. There was a man named James Fraser, 9th of Foyers, who lived in hiding for seven years, often in a cave, to avoid capture by the British after the Battle of Culloden. The locals referred to him as "Bonaid Odhair" (Dun-colored bonnet) to keep his whereabouts secret.^[16]^[17]
SPOILER: The ghost that Frank sees in Outlander is Jamie, and Diana has revealed that ghost-Jamie is about 25 years old.^[18]
Diana Gabaldon was inspired to create the Outlander series after watching an episode of Doctor Who on PBS. The episode was part of the serial titled "The War Games" from 1969.^[19] Fascinated by the character of Jamie McCrimmon,^[20] a young Scotsman from the 18th century clad in a kilt, Gabaldon decided on the setting for her story and the character of Jamie Fraser.
The character of Jamie McCrimmon on Doctor Who was played by English actor Frazer Hines. Despite reports to the contrary,^[21] Jamie Fraser's surname was not inspired by Hines' first name. Gabaldon has stated that she did not catch the name of the actor when she initially saw the rerun of Doctor Who.^[22] The similarity of names is a coincidence.
After Jamie is abused by Randall at Wentworth the scent of lavender triggers terrible memories and nightmares.^[23]
Jamie appeals to St. Agnes when Claire is torturing him sexually.^[24] St. Agnes is the patron saint of chastity and virgins, so she was possibly called on often by Jamie prior to his marriage.
One of the stained-glass windows in the upstairs hallway of Jared Fraser's townhouse shows the scene of the Judgement of Paris. This is the window that Jamie smashes after conceding to Claire's demand that he not kill Jack Randall for a year until Frank's ancestor can be conceived.^[25]