Warning: SPOILERS about Outlander season 7, episode 2 ahead.
Starz’s Outlander season 7, episodes 1 and 2 reintroduced Wendigo Donner and his resolute search for Otter Tooth, picking up after his first appearance in season 5 and one specific story in the Outlander season 4 finale. Despite being remembered for the time he refused to help Claire escape from Lionel Brown’s abduction in Outlander season 5, Donner already revealed at the time that his wish to go home to the future after his trip to the past failed. However, Claire’s past meetings in Outlander season 4 with the Mohawk and Otter Tooth’s ghost unveiled how she already knew much about Otter Tooth and how Donner traveled to the past.
The knowledge Claire displayed in the Outlander season 5 finale made her Wendigo Donner’s target. Indeed, it prompted Outlander season 7, episode 2’s ending incursion of Donner and his men to Fraser’s Ridge, as Claire offered as an exchange for her freedom knowledge about how time travel worked in Outlander season 5. As she had already proved she knew about both the group Donner traveled back through time with and the ending of Otter Tooth’s story, Donner felt drawn to return to her for information, even if that meant putting her through suffering again as Outlander season 7, episode 2’s incursion and big explosion showed.
Related: Outlander Comes Closer To Explaining How Jamie's Ghost Appears In 1946
Outlander Season 4 Explains Otter Tooth's Story
The misunderstanding that led Jamie and Young Ian to sell Roger to the Native American tribe as punishment for believing Roger attacked Brianna eventually also set up Jamie, Claire, and Young Ian’s trip to the Mohawk to save Roger. Claire met Otter Tooth firsthand even though he died many years before, seeing his ghost during a storm in North Carolina. Indeed, finding his skull showing clear marks of being from the future and the opal he used to travel through time enabled Claire to see Otter Tooth’s ghost in Outlander season 4, episode 3, even before she knew his whole story.
Otter Tooth’s story was eventually revealed in the Outlander season 4 finale. In a bid to get the opal Claire found close to Otter Tooth’s skull, the Mohawk woman Wahkatiiosta told her that before she was even born, Otter Tooth came from a different time to her tribe to convince them not to ally themselves with the white man, instead choosing violence. Because the leader thought Otter Tooth sought discontent, he banished him, but after he went on coming back to convince them, he eventually called for his death, making Otter Tooth’s story as an Outlander time traveler among the most tragic.
Wendigo Donner's Tragic End Doesn't Let Him Say Goodbye To Otter Tooth
Donner and the rest of the Mohawk 5 would have never traveled back in time without Robert Springer, a.k.a Otter Tooth, to guide them. Their purpose was to travel to the 18th century from the 20th to convince the Native American tribes to ally with the British so that the American Revolution’s success didn’t lead to the Native Americans’ decimation. However, Otter Tooth’s real goal was to go even further back in time to convince the tribes not to establish positive relationships with the white settlers at all so that they may not be destroyed.
Without Springer to guide them, the Mohawk 5 would have never planned to travel back in time. They only did it because traveling as a group to follow their plan meant more security, but their split through different stone circles and times essentially doomed them, dividing them and eventually killing them. Even if Wendigo Donner’s shortsighted home invasion of the Frasers didn’t kill him, he could have never said goodbye to Otter Tooth properly, as not only did Donner not have a chance to meet him anymore, but he also didn’t have time to learn Otter Tooth’s full story from Claire in Outlander season 7.
