Jamie Fraser
James "Jamie" Fraser is a fictional character in the Outlander series of multi-genre novels by American author Diana Gabaldon, and its television adaptation. In the series, married World War II nurse Claire Randall is visiting Scotland when she is transported through time from 1945 back to 1743. There she finds adventure, war and romance with the dashing Highland warrior Jamie Fraser, a grandson of Lord Lovat and senior member of Gabaldon's fictionalized Clan Fraser. Jamie Fraser also appears in two novels in the Lord John series of historical mysteries, and in the 2013 novella Virgins.
Jamie is portrayed by Sam Heughan in the television series Outlander.
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.
Physicality
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 Prison, Randall also branded him, though Jamie later cuts the stigmatized flesh out of his chest, leaving a puckered scar.
Before Claire goes back through the stones shortly before the Battle of Culloden, she carves the letter "C" into the base of his left thumb. A broken nose just before the battle leaves Jamie's knife-edged nose slightly thickened at the base of the ridge where the fracture healed. During the battle, a bayonet ran clean through his thigh to the bone; he only escapes death from infection by his sister's stubborn refusal to let him die, and survives with a thick, welted scar up the length of his thigh.
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.
The Novels
Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels:- Outlander (1991)
- Dragonfly in Amber (1992)
- Voyager (1994)
- Drums of Autumn (1997)
- The Fiery Cross (2001)
- A Breath of Snow and Ashes (2005)
- An Echo in the Bone (2009)
- Written in My Own Heart's Blood (2014)
- Virgins, prequel novella in the anthology Dangerous Women (2013)
- Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (2021)