Trivia / Ranger's Apprentice

• Recycled Script: The Red Fox Clan shares numerous similarities with The Sorcerer in the North, being about a charming Villain with Good Publicity trying to seize control of a castle, whose leader is deathly ill and bedridden. Such villain plots on killing both the bedridden lord/king and his offspring, to ensure they rule unopposed. Both books also end without solving the main plot, as setup for a sequel.
• Shown Their Work: Flanagan's notes on battle tactics, geography, etc, are usually pretty accurate. However, one seeming aversion is that real Vikings almost never wore horns on their helmets. He himself notes that this isn't accurate, however, in a very funny video.
• What Could Have Been: Will was initially intended to be blonde (or at the very least fair haired). But when the illustrator of the first book's cover art drew Will as having dark hair (due to the model posing for the illustration being dark haired), Will's hair color was changed to dark brown to match.
• Written for My Kids: Author John Flanagan wrote the first book for his son Michael, wanting to encourage him to read and to show him that heroes don't always need to be big and strong.