Trivia / A Court of Thorns and Roses

• Blooper: Amarantha is repeatedly described as having red hair, though on one occasion in A Court of Thorns and Roses she's mistakenly said to have black hair.
• Development Hell: There have been attempts to make a live-action adaptation of the books as far back as 2015. The first novel was optioned for a movie adaptation several months after its release, with things getting as far as a screenplay in 2018. However, the movie adaptation was ultimately scrapped and instead it was announced in 2021 that 20th Television had acquired the rights to adapt the books into a Hulu TV series; Ronald D. Moore and author Sarah J. Maas were both set to develop the series. The show stayed in the development stage for the next few years, with it being reported in February 2024 that while the plug hadn't been pulled yet, things hadn't progressed beyond a few scripts (the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike likely slowed things down too).
• Executive Meddling: In regards to the marketing. Sarah J. Maas stated in a 2019 panel that she never really intended for the books to be labelled Young Adult, especially because of the sexual content, but that at the time the series began publication the New Adult label hadn't really caught on and so the books were published as YA. Maas said she agreed to this on the condition none of the sex scenes would be censored. From A Court of Silver Flames onwards, the books are no longer marketed as YA (although they do still pop up in the teen section from time to time).
• Genre Popularizer: A Court of Thorns and Roses's popularity led to a new wave of "romantasy"^note romance stories with High Fantasy-type settings and plots books and other media in the late 2010s and 2020s and especially helped popularize romantasy featuring elves or fairies.
• Recycled Script: Rhysand's story arc is very similar to Aedion's from Sarah J. Maas' previous series, Throne of Glass. Aedion is a Warrior Prince who is widely hated and known as "Ardalan's whore" for supposedly betraying Terrasen and working with their oppressors only for it to be revealed he's secretly spying on Ardalan for the rebels. Rhysand is a powerful High Lord who is widely despised and considered a traitor by the inhabitants of Prythian for being the lover and right-hand-man of the tyrannical Queen Amarantha, and is known as "Amarantha's whore" only for it to turn out he despises Amarantha and is more of a Sex Slave than her willing lover, only going along with it to protect his people from her wrath. Both are also fae with mixed ancestry; Aedion is a Demi-Fae (human and fae parentage) and Rhysand is part-Illyrian, part-High Fae.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sarah J Maas debated upon several different titles for the second book, before deciding on A Court of Mist and Fury. This included A Court of Stars and Frost, A Court of Stars and Smoke, A Court of Venom and Silver and A Court of Wings and Stars, among many others. Her editor suggested A Court of Calm and Fury and Maas liked the "fury" part.
  • In the first draft of Mist and Fury, the book alternated viewpoints between Feyre and Rhysand, before Maas changed it to just be written from Feyre's POV. A Court of Wings and Ruin later included a prologue told from Rhys' POV.
  • Maas stated she originally intended for Lucien and Nesta to be romantically paired, but during the writing of Mist and Fury she came to feel they were ill-suited as a couple.
  • Shortly after the first book's publication in 2015, the rights to a movie adaptation were optioned and as of 2018 a script had been written. However, the movie plans fell through for unclear reasons, as after years of no news it was announced in 2021 that the series was instead getting a TV adaptation for Hulu.
• Working Title: Maas used A Court of Wind and Stone as the working title for the second book, later changing it to A Court of Mist and Stone, before settling on the final title.

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