RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Gaming ‘House Of The Dragon’ Season 3, Episode 6 Review: The Butcher’s Ball By Erik Kain ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about TV shows, movies, video games, entertainment & culture. Follow Author Jul 26, 2026, 10:00pm EDT Jul 26, 2026, 11:51pm EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Sunday evening’s episode of House of the Dragon gave us a healthy mix of action and death and more of the slow unraveling of Queen Rhaenyra and her tenuous grasp on the Iron Throne. Not to mention one character death that many fans of the series have been eagerly awaiting, though I found myself oddly conflicted when it actually came. Spoilers ahead.
Ser Criston Cole has, since his turn halfway into Season 1, become one of the most hated characters in not just House of the Dragon , but all of Game of Thrones . He’s vain and petty, mistakes honor for ego and, once spurned by Rhaenyra, made it his life’s quest to ruin hers. But I think the show has given Cole a bit more depth in Season 3. We’ve come to understand him a bit better, even if he remains an arrogant and ultimately self-serving bastard (who never ages, miraculously).
Still, when he and his remaining men are ambushed by Riverlanders pretending to be dead, he shows us that he is at least one of the greatest warriors in Westeros. The ensuing fight is brutal. Ser Criston moves from flail to sword to dagger, wearing nothing but his padded gambeson. No shield, no armor, like some warrior priest, fighting off one attacker after another, saving those of his men he can in a whirl of blood and steel. He only drops his heavy spiked flail because it’s lodged so deep into an enemy’s face, then scrambles for a blade, fends off another attacker, takes the final enemy down on the ground in the dirt, shanking him with almost an Aegon-like ferocity. It’s damn fine fighting. If only Ser Criston were as damn fine a knight.
Then the real trap is sprung. What was to become known as The Butcher’s Ball. The rest was all a diversion. Ser Roderick and Lord Tully arrive with their assembled forces. Cole, to his credit, tries to surrender. “If I strike my banners,” he says, “Will you spare my men?” He doesn’t beg for his own life.
Oscar Tully replies that he’s been decorating with the bones of his enemies and he has far too few bones. So Cole makes another surprisingly honorable offer: Him against Roderick and Oscar, two against one. He wraps Alicent’s favor around the hilt of his blade. You think, as you watch this, that it’s still not a fair fight. This man is a champion. Against an old man and a boy, he’ll likely still prevail, even exhausted.
Then an arrow pierces his side. Another enters his gut. He gasps and a third takes him in the cheek. Ser Criston Cole, once Rhaenyra’s champion, once Alicent’s lover, once Captain of the King’s Guard and Hand of the King, son of the steward to Lord Dondarrion, a lowly knight who has risen high, is at last dead. The Starks and Riverlanders descend upon his meager forces. It’s hardly a fair fight. It’s hard to mourn Ser Criston, but it’s a terrible irony to see him slain by an archer from the trees. Then again, a man who traded his honor so freely because of his pettiness and jealousy and resentment deserved no better death, even if he was finally becoming the kind of knight he should have been all along.
Few will mourn his passing. I’m not sure Alicent will ever hear those heroic ballads he was so certain would be written about him. Heroic ballads often involve heroic duels to the death, and Cole was no Boromir.
Wisely, Alicent’s brother, Gwayne, decided to part ways with Ser Criston and his deathwish. He makes his way to Tumbleton where his cousin and liege lord, Ormund Hightower, is none too pleased either with his cowardice or his smell. He’s traveled long and hard and you can tell that Gwayne has very little patience for his cousin’s chiding.
Ormund sends Daeron away with Gwayne (who is Daeron’s uncle, whereas Ormund would be his second cousin, though I start to get all turned around with these things and it always gets worse in Westeros). In any case, Daeron immediately confides in Gwayne that he hates being Ormund’s ward and feels betrayed that Gwayne left him. Alas, while Gwayne is certainly sympathetic – they’re both quite aware of how unhinged Ormund is – he has no intention of sticking around Tumbleton.
“I’m second in line," he tells Daeron, referring to his place in the Hightower hierarchy. “I’ll head back to Oldtown and pick up the pieces.” We should perhaps start referring to the honorable Gwayne as Gwayne the Wise. Ormund makes insinuations that his cousin is gay, which makes Ormund at once the most outwardly homophobic and sexist character in the show presently. But James Norton is just so delightful in the role, you love to hate him.
Freddie Fox plays Gwayne, and as a huge fan of Slow Horses , I have to say I’m shocked at how much I like his character here. His character in Slow Horses is radically different and about as annoying as they come. (Please do watch Slow Horses on Apple TV if you haven’t already).
Gwayne is not only wise, he is observant. Earlier in the episode, Rhaenyra is visited by representatives of Lord Baratheon. They make their apologies, but their lord, they tell her, is busy with a bandit insurgence and cannot lend his strength to her cause until all that’s settled. Similar excuses, we can presume, that the House of the Stag sent Ormund.
Rhaenyra makes threats, but ultimately ends up just taking the Baratheons’ clothing which she then gives to assassins, sending them to Tumbleton pretending to be from Lord Boros Baratheon. She makes them quite foul-smelling, too, having learned that Ormund detests foul odors. Ormund doesn’t spot the trap, and proudly presents young “King” Daeron. Gwayne, however, knows that these are imposters and moves quickly when th...
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