Basic Info
Release years so far: 2013-2018
Release years of Ivan’s seasons: 2013-2017
Ivan’s character: King Aelle of Northumbria, Ragnar Lothbrok’s Saxon nemesis (see character page for King Aelle)
Number of seasons so far: 6 (with “double” seasons from Season 4 onwards, released up to Season 5A)
Number of Ivan’s seasons: 4 (with one “double” season: 4A and 4B)
Number of episodes so far: 89 (released up to episode 59)
Number of Ivan’s episodes: 12
Episodes featuring Ivan:
1×04 Trial
1×06 Burial of the Dead
1×07 A King’s Ransom
2×07 Blood Eagle
2×09 The Choice
3×04 Scarred
4×04 Yol
4×05 Promised
4×09 Death All ‘Round
4×15 All His Angels
4×17 The Great Army
4×18 Revenge
All of these episodes contain noteworthy Ivan scenes worth watching as he was amazing whenever he entered the screen, but three of them are especially important for the main storyline between King Aelle and Ragnar set up in Season 1 leading up to their intertwined fates:
*SPOILERS*
1×07 A King’s Ransom:
This episodes centres completely on King Aelle and Ragnar’s clash with him and is the highest rated episode of Season 1 on IMDb as of 14 October 2018.
Teaser by History Canada on Youtube:
4×15 All His Angels:
The center of this episode is Ragnar’s delivery to King Aelle, the king’s efforts to make the Viking repent, Ragnar’s heroic demeanour and King Aelle’s inner struggle, all culminating in the final execution of the hero via snake pit. This episode is the highest rated of the whole show on IMDb as of 27 October 2018.
Recap by History on Youtube:
4×18 Revenge:
The focus and climax of this episode is the revenge of Ragnar’s sons upon King Aelle who is by far outnumbered and overpowered by their army, taken captive, humiliated and tortured to death by the gory blood eagle procedure.
Promo Trailer on the channel of Vikings France:
Not to forget that we think Ivan should get an award for his incredible performance in this episode:
Plot Summary
*SPOILERS*
Plot Summary
(introductory paragraph taken from the summary written by IMDb user Archit srivastava)
The story of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Norse farmer with a thirst for exploration, who becomes the king of the northmen.
Ragnar sets out sailing West and raids Northumbria which brings him into conflict with Northumbria’s King Aelle who consequently becomes Ragnar’s life-long deadly enemy and nemesis. After setting up this main storyline and hinting at the intertwined fates of these two epic characters in Season 1 the show depicts Ragnar’s ascension to ever growing power in his homelands and further raids to different Saxon and Frank territories are interspersed in Seasons 2 to 4A.
In Season 4B the show resumes the main storyline when Ragnar returns to the Saxon lands to tend to unfinished business there and meet his destiny at the hands of King Aelle who thereby unwittingly seals his own gruesome fate. Both these monumental characters fittingly meet their end through epic deaths and enter legendary status.
From Season 5 onwards the story revolves around the adventures of Ragnar’s several sons.
DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming & Broadcast Info
DVDs and Blu-rays of Season 1 to 4B are available worldwide and in dubbed versions. German dubbing on Season 1 DVDs and Blu-rays, however, is still the first version while a new dubbing version has been produced and continued into later seasons when the show took off. Season 5A meanwhile is available on Blu-ray almost everywhere.
To our knowledge Ivan appears as King Aelle in several snippets from scenes already broadcast in the bonus material of the DVDs/Blu-rays, but there is no additional material, there are no deleted scenes or interviews featuring him (for which see below).
Streaming of Season 1 to 5A is also available on Amazon Prime Video in Germany (with second dubbing for ALL seasons) and on Amazon Video in other countries – please check your local Amazon page!
Season 1 to 4B have also been broadcast on History Channel (sorry, this link will redirect to your local page), on TV in multiple countries beginning in 2013 and on other streaming services. If you can provide us with more detailed information from your country, please do so!
Season 4B aired on German free TV in summer 2017 and in the UK in early autumn leading up to the release of Season 5A in late November 2017.
Release date for Season 5B is 28 November 2018 for the US (on History) and 29 November 2018 for the UK and Germany.
Further Info/Links
Having a more involved production process, the seasons of Vikings usually have been shot in the year before its release. Season 1 has been shot in 2012 and first released in 2013, Season 4A was filmed in 2015 and released in 2016 while filming for Season 4B took place partly in late 2015 and partly in early 2016 and aired for the first time in late 2016 and early 2017.
Originally, Vikings was planned to show Ragnar’s story and the revenge of his sons in only two seasons and to proceed to the story of his sons thereafter. When the show inexpectedly took off after the first season had aired and Ragnar’s popularity became perceptible, the need for further stories and characters arose and the initial concept was adapted to fill the additional runtime by digressions to Wessex and Paris.
General Links
There is plenty of info, material and links relevant for Vikings. We will mention only the most important resources here and possibly amend this section later if necessary.
Vikings has an official page on the respective regional websites of History Channel – you will be redirected to your regional version automatically if you are not using a VPN tunnel. There is differing content on these pages.
However, you can change the settings of History’s Facebook page to another region (click on the three dots in the menu and select “change region”).
The fandom on social media is hugely international too, so you will not have any problems to find whatever you are looking for.
There are official social media pages for Vikings as well: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Links with Info on Ivan’s Part
*SPOILER* In an extremely insightful interview with Ivan on King Aelle and on his experience with filming Vikings from a rather unusual perspective Ivan talked about killing Ragnar, being bloodeagled and about King Aelle’s disputed status as a villain. Published on 11 September 2017 on myFanbase, you can find the English original and a German translation on that page and the full text in Arabic translation here.
A new extensive video interview about Ivan’s changing experience on Vikings over the years and his own take on King Aelle is being edited as of April 2021 and will be published later in 2021. It is not an overstatement to say that many fans will find: Almost all they thought they knew about King Aelle is wrong!
*SPOILERS* Articles on Express UK:
Who is King Aella of Northumbria (May 2020)
Vikings cast: Who played King Aella of Northumbria in Vikings? (February 2021)
In an interview back in February 2015 on Buzzfeed Clive Standen described Ivan as the most Viking-like cast member of Vikings (question 16) – not bad for a Saxon king. 😉
*SPOILER* For an appraisal of Ivan’s performance in episode 4×15 All His Angels when Ragnar met his fate at King Aelle’s hands see this recap of the episode.
On Wikipedia you will find an entry for Vikings in lots of different languages. For English we would like to refer you to the character page (jump top Ivan by clicking here) as you will find more relevant information on the appearance of characters there than on the main page which has mostly technical information. You can easily navigate there, but you will have to click at separate pages for every season while in other language versions (e.g. the German version) you will find everything in one place.
There is a Wikia fandom page, yet it is not too informative on Ivan and misleading with regard to King Aelle’s character. As we have seen no in-depth treatment of the Vikings characters anywhere online, we are going to treat King Aelle extensively here as soon as possible (see character page for King Aelle).
For some self-made bonus material (helped by the make-up department on social media), see this clip of King Aelle’s blood eagle prop with a description of the making-of process by Bobby McGlynn:
If you like the show or just Ivan’s performance in it, please consider going to IMDb and rating Ivan’s episodes 10 and/or writing a review!
Ivan Kaye Source 
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