History Trivia / Vikings

* IKnewIt:
** Anyone who remembered Ragnar's death in the saga and the Seer's prophecy knew that Ragnar was not actually dying during the siege of Paris.
** Fans correctly guessed that [[spoiler:Hvitserk]] was the one that would kill [[spoiler: Lagertha]].

* TheWikiRule: [[http://vikings.wikia.com/wiki/Vikings_Wiki The Vikings Wiki]].

*** As for the Norse, it would take less to list those who ''are'' played by actual Scandinavians. Floki, Erlendur, Astrid, Freydis (by Swedish Creator/GustafSkarsgard, Edvin Endre, Josefin Asplund and Alicia Agneson respectively), Ivar, Hvitserk, Earl Sigvard and Margrethe (by Danish Alex Høgh, Marco Ilsø, Morten Sasse Suurballe and Ida Nielsen), Jarl Borg (by Norwegian Creator/ThorbjornHarr) and Gunnhild (by Icelandic Ragga Ragnars). Then the overwhelming majority of the Norse are played mostly by British, Irish and Canadian actors. Few exceptions include Erik Marteinn (Czech-born Vladimir Kulich) and the Norwegian brothers Harald and Halfdan (Finnish Peter Franzén and Jasper Pääkkönen).

** The Byzantine (Greeks) Euphemius and Kassia are portrayed respectively by Portoguese Albano Jerónimo and English Karima Adebibe. The latter does have Greek ancestry though.
* FakeRussian: The only Rus characters portrayed by actual Russiana are Oleg the Prophet, played by Danila Kozlovsky, and Dir, played by Lenn Kudrjawizki who was born to Russian parents who migrated to Germany.

* CastTheRunnerUp: Clive Standen said that he was actually more interested in the part of Rollo, but nonetheless auditioned for Ragnar, which would turn out to be the lead role for the first four seasons of the show. (Despite early drafts that planned to kill Ragnar in the first season.) After Travis Fimmel was cast as Ragnar, Standen did wind up playing Rollo.

* FanNickname:
** The brother of Aelle, Aethelwulf often gets called Aethelwulf the older to avoid confusion with Ecbert's son.
** The [[spoiler: Icelandic Revenge Killings]] quickly got dubbed the "Viking Red Wedding".
** King Olaf's dwarf stewart Canute quickly got dubbed "Low-Rent Tyrion" and "Canute the Sinful Dwarf".
** After [[spoiler: loosing Kattegat and his kingship]], Ivar got sainted as "Ivar the Homeless".

*** As for the Norse, it would take less to list those who ''are'' played by actual Scandinavians. Floki, Erlendur, Astrid Freydis (by Swedish Creator/GustafSkarsgard, Edvin Endre, Josefin Asplund and Alicia Agneson respectively), Earl Sigvard and Margrethe (by Danish Morten Sasse Suurballe and Ida Nielsen), Jarl Borg (by Norwegian Creator/ThorbjornHarr) and Gunnhild (by Icelandic Ragga Ragnars). Then the overwhelming majority of the Norse are played mostly by British, Irish and Canadian actors. Few exceptions include Erik Marteinn (Czech-born Vladimir Kulich) and the Norwegian brothers Harald and Halfdan (Finnish Peter Franzén and Jasper Pääkkönen).

* FakeRussian: The only Rus character portrayed by an actual Russian is Oleg the Prophet, played by Danila Kozlovsky.

* ChannelHop: For most of the series, it aired on Creator/TheHistoryChannel. For the second half of the sixth season, it's airing on Creator/PrimeVideo.

* EnforcedMethodActing: Freydis' actress asked to be ''actually'' strangled in the scene where [[spoiler: Ivar kills her]]. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes [[RealityIsUnrealistic much longer]] then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.

* FakeNationality: The majority of the Vikings are played by actors and actresses who are not Scandinavian:
** From Ragnar's family, Ragnar himself is played by Australian Creator/TravisFimmel, so are Gyda and Aslaug played by Ruby O'Leary and Creator/AlyssaSutherland respectively. Rollo is played by Northern Irish Creator/CliveStanden, Lagertha and Bjorn by Canadian Creator/KatherynWinnick and Creator/AlexanderLudwig respectively (the former having Ukranian ancestry), Ubbe by Scottish Jordan Patrick Smith.
** As for the Norse, it would take less to list those who ''are'' played by actual Scandinavians. Floki, Erlendur, Astrid Freydis (by Swedish Creator/GustafSkarsgard, Edvin Endre, Josefin Asplund and Alicia Agneson respectively), Earl Sigvard and Margrethe (by Danish Morten Sasse Suurballe and Ida Nielsen), Jarl Borg (by Norwegian Creator/ThorbjornHarr) and Gunnhild (by Icelandic Ragga Ragnars). Then the overwhelming majority of the Norse are played mostly by British, Irish and Canadian actors. Few exceptions include Erik Marteinn (Czech-born Vladimir Kulich) and the Norwegian brothers Harald and Halfdan (Finnish Peter Franzén and Jasper Pääkkönen).

** As for the Norse, it would take less to list those who ''are'' played by actual Scandinavians. Floki, Erlendur, Astrid Freydis (by Swedish Creator/GustafSkarsgard, Edvin Endre, Josefin Asplund and Alicia Agneson respectively), Earl Sigvard and Margrethe (by Danish Morten Sasse Suurballe Ida Nielsen), Jarl Borg (by Norwegian Creator/ThorbjornHarr) and Gunnhild (by Icelandic Ragga Ragnars). Then the overwhelming majority of the Norse are played mostly by British, Irish and Canadian actors. Few exceptions include Erik Marteinn (Czech-born Vladimir Kulich) and the Norwegian brothers Harald and Halfdan (Finnish Peter Franzén and Jasper Pääkkönen).

* ActingForTwo: In an interesting piece of casting John Kavanagh plays both The Seer and Pope Leo

* RealLifeRelative: The characters of Helga and Torvi are played by real-life sisters Maude and Georgia Hirst, who are also the daughters of Michael Hirst, the show's creator. It shows.

** Many of the costumes used in [[Series/MarcoPolo]] where repurposed as costumes for [[TheHorde the Rus]]. Oleg's armor is the same Ariq Böke wore, but with the mongol-crest removed and additional studs added to the lower part of the breastplate.

** Hvitserk's vest in season 6A is from ''[[Film/ValhallaRising]]''.

* FakeNationality: A good portion of the Vikings are played by actors and actresses who are not Scandinavian. A lot of local Irish actors play the bit parts.

** The show was originally about Alfred the Great fighting the Great Heathen Army.

** The brother of Aella, Aethelwulf often gets called Aethelwulf the older to avoid confusion with Ecbert's son.

** The most noticable example is Bjorn's gambeson in season 5, which is the same used by Micheal Fassbender in ''Macbeth''. It's especially noticable in episode 5.7 and 5.8, but later they make modifications to it which makes it less obvious.
** Harald's armour in season 4B & 5 is Nicolas Cage armour in ''Season of the Witch'', like with the Macbeth-example above it get's a modification to make it more uniqe. Olaf's armour was made for Ron Pearlman in the same movie.

** Many sheilds where recycled from Kingdom of Heaven.

** Many of the costumes used in [[Series/MarcoPolo]] where repurposed as costumes for [[TheHorde the Rus]]. Oleg's armor is the same Ariq Böke wore, but with the mongol-crest removed and additional studs added to the lover part of the brestplate.
** A clever example happens with Lagertha. In season 4 and 5, the sheildmaidens protecting Lagertha (like Astrid) wear armor worn by Lagertha in earlier seasons, as if she handed it over to them as gifts.

* RomanceOnTheSet: Althrough we are not sure about what was going on between their characters, George Blagden and Elinor Crawley fell in love during the production.

** Ragnar was supposed to die in season 1, which is why King Aelle's snake pit is introduced so early in the series. The rising conflict with King Aella is unexpectedly cut short in season 1, given a minor resolution in episode 7, leaving the final 2 episodes to set up new conflicts. Producers realised they had created an icon with Travis Fimmel as Ragnar and it would have been a waste to kill him off so early in the show. In the first half of the season you can see that they are seting up Ragnar's death with Lagertha's pregnacy (so Ragnar will have son''s'' to avenge him), the introduction of Aella's snakepit and Ragnar comment about pigs (seting up his FacingTheBulletsOneLiner).

** As mentioned in the YMMV page, ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedValhalla'' owed quite a bit of influence to ''Vikings'' with series composer [[Music/{{Wardruna}} Einar Selvik]] doing the soundtrack for the game and the Viking characters having punk-ish looks. It even has some of the same characters as part of the cast, since it covers the very same era and some of the same places.

* NamesTheSame:
** Leif is the son of Erik, which technically makes him Leif Eriksson. He obviously isn't ''that'' Leif Eriksson.
** Gunhild is congratulated for defeating Sven Forkbeard. The real Sven Forkbeard was a Danish ruler who became King of England in 1013, almost two century after the events of ''Vikings''.

* PlayingGertrude: Travis Fimmel is only thirteen years older than Creator/AlexanderLudwig, who plays his son. Katheryn Winnick is likewise only fifteen years older than Alexander. This is however a result of AluminumChristmasTrees -- young marriages were very common in Viking society as puberty was considered adulthood.