Outlander Author Diana Gabaldon has criticized the season 7 ending as it is totally made up and not based on the books.

Gabaldon lightly criticizes the reintroduction of Master Raymond saying the character could have been brought back more elaborately. Still, the author acknowledges the budgetary limitations of television:

“I agree that the ending of 716 is flat-out weird, partly owing to their (evidently) having exhausted their budget. They could have made a more convincing visitation by Master Raymond with blurry special effects, rather than having him just walk through the door and stand there. Better to have kept it soft-focus and leave it up to question as to whether he’d actually been there, or perhaps Claire imagined or dreamed the whole thing. But easy for me to talk; I don’t have to figure out the logistics.”

“I’m frequently pleased that I can do things easily in a book, that are incredibly difficult [not to say expensive] to do in a visual medium. A book is a remarkably useful [and economical] way to tell a story.”

Gabaldon also shares that she conversed with Outlander showrunner and executive producer Matthew B. Roberts about her idea for how Faith might’ve survived and how it connects to Master Raymond:

“They actually did get the (general) idea from me, though. When chatting with [showrunner] Matt [Roberts] about All Things plot wise, I mentioned that if I had written a second graphic novel (I didn’t, for assorted reasons), I would have shown what actually happened after Faith’s presumed death at the Hopital des Anges, and how/why Master Raymond resuscitated and nurtured the baby secretly, but wasn’t able to come back with her before Claire and Jamie left France. So, they liked that idea and ran with it.”