A Collection of Ranger's Apprentice Theories

Is Gilan Actually Tall?

This theory was in response to Flanagan tending to refer to Gilan as a tall man, and then switching over in Brotherband to much more commonly refer to him as a tall Ranger. Since Rangers are short men, a tall Ranger could be just average height: 5'7. A tall man, though, is like Horace and all the other knights who have a large physical presence, more like 6' than 5'7. Gilan's height is critical to his character description because nothing else is known besides how handsome he allegedly is—something that may be attributed to his height if he's so tall no one can see his face.

Logically, since Gilan was in training to become a knight before he switched into the Ranger profession and then was allowed to continue both ('The Burning Bridge'), he displayed some traits as a child where he was expected to grow into the tall and burly stature of knights, over the small one of Rangers that makes Will ineligible for Battleschool ('The Ruins of Gorlan'). That, or genetics from his father, Sir David, made them expect growth.

As an author, Flanagan has the right to make changes, especially small details which have little effect on plot. Staying with Gilan being ridiculously handsome is a good tactic and general enough to avoid misremembering his "real" appearance. Crowley's eye color and hair both change between 'The Hibernian' and 'Scorpion Mountain'—from hazel to blue, and red to sandy blond respectively. As of 'Scorpion Mountain,' Gilan and Crowley are similar in height, with Crowley being slightly shorter; Crowley has previously been described as shorter than expected and makes Duncan have to look down to establish eye contact ('The Battle of Hackham Heath'). Whether Gilan is shrunk by implication of tall for a Ranger, rather than a tall man, does not impact the plot at all, and the point is that in a crowd of Rangers, his head literally sticks out the top.

An important point is perspective. The books were written in a close third person; while third person makes the observations more objective, the closeness of it means it's tinted by the thoughts and feelings of the characters. A character like Halt is only going to be scary until Will gets to know him and realizes he's just really serious because the Ranger business is a serious one. A character is only going to be tall until someone taller comes along.

'Scorpion Mountain' is from the Skandian perspective, being a Brotherband book. Skandians are more likely to be tall and burly relative to Araluens, making the relative shortness between Rangers like Crowley and Gilan much less significant. From Will's perspective in books like 'The Ruins of Gorlan' and 'The Burning Bridge,' Gilan is taller and more like the height of Araluen knights. In fact, conclusively, Gilan is whatever tall means to Araluens—within a few paragraphs, Gilan is described as both a tall man and a tall Ranger in 'The Ruins of Gorlan.'

This raises a crucial point of character descriptions in writing: character perspective and reader perspective must be taken into account. The character is telling their story, and so bits about the character must be established to understand their subjective observations. Some writers try to vary how they refer to a character; instead of typing the name over and over again, they rely on the reader's knowledge and memory. If the reader cannot remember or it was never established who is taller or older then the character perspective is difficult to follow. Additionally, how much taller or older? How short or young is the other character? Since Will is established as below average height, never hitting his growing spurt like other boys, the other wards feel that much taller even though George is average height in 'The Ruins of Gorlan.' Gilan feels that much taller because the average height of Rangers is below the average height of Araluens.

This video on epithets in fanfiction [https://youtu.be/UmAeAt-gdRU?si=MSBCmVinP7IcmRJW] is a good guide to the pitfall of relying on them too much. A comment or two are also worth reading—to summarize those: using an epithet creates distance and/or unreasonable focus on one attribute, where the distinction becomes oddly focused on race or height or something else in a way that begins to feel more like the author really enjoys imagining a ravenette getting on with a brown-eyed person, than the two characters enjoying each other's company. In the case of Ranger's Apprentice, Flanagan likes to focus on how sneaky and stealthy his characters are, which is important to the plot, rather than their hair colors, which are not. Gilan being tall is distinctive because he has more body to move around and is not average in the Corps, since he was going to become a knight. When writing, it is important to filter out the unimportant bits, leaving the gems behind, and ditching a lot of epithets is one of those.