Even 7 seasons in, Outlander’s core love story is still setting the bar for romance

polygon.com:

“Don’t be afraid. There’s the two of us now,” may be one of the most romantic lines ever written, but when Outlander author Diana Gabaldon penned it, it’s doubtful she realized how much of an anchor it would become not just for her main characters, but for their millions of fans.

Since the book series debuted in 1991, Outlander has amassed a huge fan base obsessed with its prestige historical drama and fantasy elements, but the thing that keeps people coming back is its romance. Gabaldon has planned 10 books for the series, and the penultimate door stopper — the ninth book, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone — debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2021. The core series, not including the Lord John Grey spinoff series or the novellas and companion books, boasts nearly 9,000 pages total — and the element holding it all together is the sweeping, impossible love story between protagonists Claire and Jamie Fraser.

Thanks to the Starz television adaptation, which is currently in part one of its two-part seventh season, Outlander is more popular than ever. Eight months prior to the show’s debut in 2014, Outlander made the NYT bestseller list for the first time in 23 years on shelves, and Gabaldon’s other new releases in the last decade have seen incredible success as a result of the TV series. Older seasons are available on Netflix, and Starz frequently runs deals on its own streaming app with Outlander as one of its main selling points to gain new subscribers.

In many ways, Outlander sets its own precedent as it seeks to legitimize itself through prestige presentation, leaning into and highlighting its various genres — particularly romance — rather than shying away. In the first episode, Claire Randall (née