By Rifan Muazin 
Ser Criston Cole’s watch has ended, marking the conclusion of one of the most divisive and complex character arcs in the history of the "Game of Thrones" franchise. Within the first ten minutes of this week’s "House of the Dragon" Season 3, Episode 6, the most polarizing knight in Westeros joined the ranks of the countless casualties in a familial squabble turned catastrophic civil war. His death was not the soaring, dragon-fire-fueled spectacle some might have expected for a character of his stature, but rather a cold, efficient, and almost clinical execution on a muddy field in the Riverlands. This event, known to readers of George R.R. Martin’s "Fire & Blood" as the Butcher’s Ball, serves as a grim turning point in the Dance of the Dragons, signaling the beginning of the end for the Greens’ terrestrial military dominance.
Doom has followed Ser Criston Cole, played with simmering intensity by Fabien Frankel, for the better part of a season and a half. While he began the series as the quintessential "white knight"—the low-born son of a steward who rose to the Kingsguard through sheer martial prowess and a charming smile—his soul began to rot the moment his romantic and moral ideals were shattered by his complicated liaison with Rhaenyra Targaryen. However, the true catalyst for his final descent into nihilism was the horrific Battle of Rook’s Rest in Season 2. It was there that Cole truly understood he was but an ant under the foot of a giant. Warfare with sword and shield was a realm where he excelled, a place where a man’s skill could dictate his fate. But Cole’s encounter with Meleys and Vhagar—walking, flying, fire-breathing deities capable of reducing entire battalions to ash in the blink of an eye—opened his eyes to the void. Since that day, he has lingered there, staring directly into the abyss of his own insignificance.
This deep, dark, and overall nihilistic arc is a rarity for a character in the high-fantasy genre. Often, knights are afforded a heroic end or a villainous downfall that validates their importance. Instead, Cole’s Season 3 journey has been a slow-motion car crash of existential dread. Both understandably and perhaps a bit unfairly, Cole has come under heavy fire from the show’s vocal fanbase. Since switching his allegiances from Rhaenyra to Queen Alicent Hightower, he has been labeled as smug, pious, hypocritical, and even "incel-adjacent" by viewers who grew weary of his resentment toward the woman who once rejected his offer of domesticity in Essos. Yet, Fabien Frankel brought an undeniable depth to the character that transcended the "hated villain" trope. His performance often mirrored the best "heel" work in the WWE; he leaned into the audience’s animosity, providing a focal point for their frustrations while maintaining a tragic humanity. Showrunner Ryan Condal and Frankel seemed to strike a deal: Cole would be the man everyone loved to hate, but he would also be the man who most clearly saw the futility of the war they were all fighting.
The compelling nature of his Season 3 arc lies in the theme of absolution. Across both "House of the Dragon" and his work in other prestige dramas like "Task," Frankel has carved out a niche playing characters obsessed with the weight of their own sins. For Cole, the titles he accumulated—Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Hand of the King, the "Kingmaker"—were mere pretenses. At his core, he was a fighter who had been elevated far beyond his station because he was in the right place at the right time, and he knew it. He spent the latter half of his life trying to atone for breaking his vows, first through religious fervor and then through a desperate, bloody loyalty to the Hightowers. But after Rook’s Rest, even that loyalty felt hollow. He realized that no amount of political maneuvering or battlefield bravery mattered in a world where dragons decide the victor.
Looking back, Season 3 has been a clear death march for the character. The trauma of seeing men melted inside their armor rearranged his thought process so drastically that he found a strange kind of freedom in nihilism. Having embraced the notion that the humans on the ground have no real role to play in a "dance" performed by dragons, it was only a matter of time before his end arrived. He finally communicated this death wish aloud to Ser Gwayne Hightower, played by Freddie Fox, in the preceding episode. As they marched toward the Riverlands, Cole spoke not as a commander seeking victory, but as a man seeking an exit. He recognized that the "glory" of war was a lie told by those who had never seen the fire up close.
The events that unfold in the field at the start of Episode 6 are as dastardly as anticipated by Martin’s text. In the novel "Fire & Blood," the Butcher’s Ball is a massacre where the Greens are lured into a trap by the combined forces of the Rivermen and the Northmen. In the show’s adaptation, the tension is palpable as Cole’s dwindling forces are surrounded. Surviving a brutal ambush is just the first phase of a two-part trap. As Cole, ever the soldier, attempts to salvage a shred of knightly dignity, he challenges the young Lord Oscar Tully and the grizzled Lord Roderick Dustin to single combat. In any other story, this would be the moment for a grand duel. But "House of the Dragon" is not that kind of story. The two lords reject the notion of a "fair fight" with cold indifference. Before Cole can even finish his challenge, an archer strikes him down. He is not killed by a rival’s blade or a dragon’s breath, but by a nameless soldier’s arrow.
This end is fittingly "dishonorable" for a character whose entire life was defined by the perception of others. Whether it was the court’s view of his virtue or the fans’ view of his hypocrisy, Cole was always a prisoner of reputation. By dying in such an unceremonious fashion, there is a paradoxical liberation. He finally escaped the pretense of being the "Kingmaker" or the "Lord Commander." In his final moments, the look on Frankel’s face wasn’t one of fear, but of weary acceptance. He didn’t get to carve his own path in life—he was a pawn of the Hightowers and a victim of his own resentment—but in choosing to march toward certain death, he finally claimed ownership of his destiny.
The loss of Ser Criston Cole leaves a massive vacuum in the series. He was the show’s "fucked-up beating heart," a character who perfectly personified the messiness, the complications, and the outright brutality of the Targaryen succession crisis. While characters like Daemon and Aemond represent the mythical, larger-than-life power of the dragons, Cole represented the human cost and the moral decay of the ground war. His presence anchored the Greens’ storyline in a gritty reality that contrasted with the ethereal, often detached world of the dragonriders.
From a strategic standpoint, Cole’s death is a catastrophic blow to King Aegon II’s cause. He was the most experienced military commander the Greens possessed, the man responsible for the successful (if costly) sieges at Duskendale and Rook’s Rest. Without his leadership, the Green armies in the Riverlands are leaderless and vulnerable to the "Winter Wolves"—the ferocious Northern reinforcements led by Roderick "Roddy the Ruin" Dustin. This shift in momentum highlights the true horror of the Butcher’s Ball: it wasn’t just a battle; it was an execution of the Greens’ terrestrial power.
As we move forward into the final acts of Season 3, Frankel’s absence will be deeply felt. His performance will go down as one of the highlights of a series already renowned for its stellar acting. He managed to make a character who was objectively "unlikable" into someone whose internal logic was entirely understandable, even if it was tragic. He showed us that in Westeros, the line between a hero and a villain is often just a matter of who is telling the story and how much fire they’ve survived. Ser Criston Cole is dead, and while many fans may cheer his demise, the show has lost its most human—and therefore its most flawed—warrior. Long may his complicated legacy reign in the annals of Westerosi history.
