RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Spoilers follow for both House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood .
“I'll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker.” — Pate of Longleaf on Criston Cole’s death in Fire & Blood.
Ser Criston Cole, arguably the most hateable character on House of the Dragon , is finally dead, slain in the opening moments of Season 3, Episode 6 without attaining the glory he so desperately sought.
Cole wanted to be remembered in song for his battlefield deeds but was swiftly denied what he craved. He demanded single combat but died ignominiously, still clutching Queen Alicent’s handkerchief around the hilt of his sword, cut down suddenly by three arrows.
House of the Dragon Season 3, Episode 6 Recap and Review
Given his climactic speech to Gwayne Hightower in last week’s episode, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Cole’s death wish finally came true this week. Cole’s death is pretty close to how it plays out in the book Fire & Blood, although the show omitted a few notable players in the battle that would become known as Butcher’s Ball. In the book, Red Robb Rivers and his archers killed Cole but the show had Lady Alysanne Blackwood (Annie Shapero), wife of Lord Cregan Stark, kill him instead.
Cole was self-aware enough to know his days were numbered. A lifetime of poor choices led to his demise and the needless deaths of his remaining troops. He was a bitter hypocrite who broke his vows yet punished others for their own mistakes.
(Before I really start to rant, hat tip to actor Fabien Frankel for playing a character it seemed everyone loved to hate. May your next big role be someone more likable!)
Surely, in a show where dragons lay waste to whole battalions and towns, this one toxic, smarmy, sulking douchebag can’t have been the worst, most loathsome character on House of the Dragon? Yes, he can and he was. While other characters are despicable and evil, Criston Cole made bad, selfish choice after bad, selfish choice because he was needy, petty and vindictive. He wasn’t driven to it because of the demands of royal duty; he was butthurt and proceeded to make life worse for so many more people.
Cole sowed the seeds of his destruction very early on when he violated his oath as a member of the Kingsguard by sleeping with then-Princess Rhaenyra. He unrealistically thought she would give up her royal life to run away with him to grow grapes or some such nonsense.
This rejection spurred Cole to ultimately switch sides in the Dance of the Dragons. Ser Criston defected to the Greens, becoming their most fervent warrior and ultimately the Hand of the King to Aegon II.
Before he was Team Green, the petulant Cole pushed his luck with the Blacks by bullying Rhaenyra’s (“secret”, bastard) children by Ser Harwin “Breakbones” Strong during a training session where Cole behaved needlessly cruel. Even after a young Queen Alicent kept Cole’s potentially executionable romance with Rhaenyra secret , the dumbass would later go on to break his vows AGAIN by becoming romantically involved with Alicent herself!
As Cole admitted later in Season 2, "Do not think I have no shame in me, ser. Desire for women has brought me grief after grief."
Cole wasn’t on duty when the assassins Blood and Cheese slew Prince Jaehaerys because he was sleeping with Alicent, and then projected his own failings onto another member of the Kingsguard, Ser Arryk Cargyll. Cole then set the stage for Arryk to end up in a duel with his identical twin, Ser Erryk, which left both brothers dead.
Among Cole’s other crimes: he slew Lord Beesbury in a fit of rage during a council meeting, beheaded Lord Darklyn, and infamously beat Laenor Velaryon’s secret lover Ser Joffrey Lonmouth to death at Rhaenyra’s wedding feast. And let us not forget all the deaths in battle and raids that he’s personally responsible for.
Ser Criston Cole is dead. Good riddance, you insufferable prick!
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