Joe is a pretty good friend of Claire from their medical school and has a very strong presence in the third season of Outlander. He is a black man with warm golden-brown eyes that remind Claire of toffee droplets. He is warm, friendly and very ive to her and her daughter Brianna. He was a trusted family friend and they even shared the supposedly secret of the Craigh na dun and time travel. Even if you have read the books, we don’t have much knowledge about his history, struggles or early life. There have been lots of tiny details though, that might have been overlooked by the fans. We are going to share ten such things you might not know about him. Pour some Rhenysh and let's jump straight into it.
Outcast
Claire and Joe became friends at the medical school. After ing as interns, they became each other's confidant by the end of their internships as both of them were singled out from the rest of the students.
While Claire was the only female student, Joe was the first African American in the class. Interestingly, the author said she first visualized Joe as a black friend who helped Claire through the twenty years she lived with Frank after she left Jaime in the 18th century. And from there through this visualization, Joe Abernathy entered the universe.
Was Joe Related To Geillis?
We all know Geillis lived in for a major chunk of her time as Mrs. Abernathy. So, was Joe related somehow? All the facts suggest so, but some fans also think it might just be a coincidence for all we know. That's baseless because nothing is a coincidence in the Outlander universe. Diana Gabaldon has done deep research and planned her characters and their subplots immaculately. Joe might be a descendant of one of Geillis's slaves because during that time period, all slaves had been allotted their owners’ surnames after getting freed.
The Show Joe Abernathy Is A Refined Version
The Outlander TV series version of Joe is a much-processed version of the books' Joe Abernathy. The book Joe is a stereotypical black man speaking in jive or imitating Walter Cronkite and humming religious tunes. In fact, many fans and critics felt offended and they criticized Diana for such a clichéd portrayal of seemingly the first character of black origins. That is why the production team took a much different approach for filming the role and storyline of these characters to avoid any racial characterization. The same was done for Cho.
Parents' Expectations
When he was pretty young, Joe used to entertain his mother by imitating Walter Cronkite. Once he told Claire that if people in his neighborhood heard him imitating Cronkite, he would never have lived long enough to even go to a medical school.
He also mentioned once that growing up, his mother wanted him to be a preacher, but he was always interested in medicine and that’s how he ended up there.
Who Is LJ?
Joe calls Claire "Lady Jane," or, in short LJ. Sometimes, he just calls her Jane. It started with a prank. A friend of theirs, Hochstein, used to make fun of her voice and accent saying she sounded like she just came after a tea party with the Queen. It was a fun nickname coined with playful friendly humor, of course. Claire does have a distinct British accent though, regardless of wherever on the Earth she spends her time or how long she was there.
This Person Might Be His Ancestor
In the third season, Jamie and Claire leave for on a rescue mission to save Jamie’s nephew Ian. They hear about a queer Mrs. Abernathy suspected to have poisoned her husband. She turns out to be Geillis Duncan, Claire’s old friend. At her plantation, they run into a slave named Ishmail who reminds Claire of Joe every time she looks at him. He also knows about herbs and healing and given the profession of Joe, they might be related.
She speculates that Ishmail might be his great great grandfather. Although profession could be a coincidence, it is a very strong possibility.
First Character Of Color
You might not have noticed, but, throughout the first and second seasons, there are no characters of color. Only white people had been cast in every setting Claire has been to. Joe is the first character of color throughout the three seasons. On the other hand, this is a common knowledge that during the time periods these seasons are based on, the households and streets had been filled with people of color as slaves and yet the first person of color we see in the show or the book is Joe Abernathy.
Coincidence?
If it's a coincidence, it's too much of that. So, in a point above, we established a possibility of Joe being a descendant of a slave who used to work at Mrs. Abernathy's or shall we say Geillis’s plantation. His name was Ishmail. In the third season, while talking to Claire, Joe tells her that his son has changed his name to Mohammed Ishmael Shabazz III in an attempt to repudiate his white man’s name and honor his history. Coincidence much?
Some Other Details
Joe loves to eat chicken cacciatore on every Tuesday. He has a friend named Horace and he is an anthropologist. He also is more ionate and careful about surgery than Claire is. He was the friend who helped Claire move on after Frank died in an accident.
He also helped Brianna and Roger ease back into the modern world every time they traveled back through the stones. Joe stood up for his rights and got itted in a med school as the single black man in the entire school. He also does not fear voicing his opinions on the racial discrimination prevalent throughout their time period.
A Side Character
Joe Abernathy is like a ive character of a romantic drama who has the full potential of having his own storyline, but sadly, will be limited to shouldering the responsibilities of steering the story towards the lead characters Jamie and Claire. Since Claire already went to the past and the drama is focused more on her life, we might not get much history about him. It doesn’t look very likely that we would be able to see more than a few glimpses of him here and there in future seasons, but we can hope!