House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 6 opens with the death of one of the show’s original lead characters and ends with a rather murky attack on another. Did the HBO show massacre its cast yet again?
**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 6, now streaming on HBO Max**
First things’s first: Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) is dead. He was killed at a pathetic encounter book readers know as the Butcher’s Ball, where the massive combined forces of House Tully and House Stark ensnare Cole and his paltry group of surviving men in a trap and wipe them out with ease.
When DECIDER spoke with Fabien Frankel before House of the Dragon Season 3’s premiere he compared Cole’s final stand to the bombastic Battle of the Gullet.
“It’s very different. I mean, obviously the Battle of the Gullet is, you know, on water, our fight is on land,” Frankel said. “I think there’s like little segments of it that are teased in the trailer. It’s a really interesting fight. It’s a very isolated fight. That’s all I’ll say. It’s not grand in the same way that the Battle of the Gullet is.”
However, Ser Criston Cole isn’t the only major House of the Dragon who may have died this week.
This week’s House of the Dragon ends with Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) presenting Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) with a “gift” from Tumbleton. It’s one of the Baratheon tunics that Rhaenyra dressed her assassins in to attempt to kill Ormund Hightower (James Norton) and Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Written in blood on the fabric? “Kick this dog and it will bite your hand.”
Immediately after this, we cut to Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and his loyal soldiers at a bonfire in the woods. He praises them for their work fighting the Triarchy pirates who flooded the shores of Westeros after the Battle of the Gullet. Then he announces that it’s time for them to return to King’s Landing to aid Rhaenyra.
We then see Corlys contemplating his decision alone, away from his men, when Ormund’s right hand guy, Ser Jon Roxton (Joplin Sibtain) approaches. Corlys asks Roxton what his business is and then is immediately besieged from behind. We hear Hightower forces killing the Velaryon men in the distance. The final shot is Ser Jon Roxton observing Corlys (who is offscreen).
So did Corlys just die on House of the Dragon?
House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 6 Ending Explained: Is Corlys Velaryon Dead?
Worried about the Sea Snake? Well, he might actually be okay! No, really. House of the Dragon very pointedly kept him offscreen, so we don’t know for sure if he’s dead or not. Not only does the cliffhanger aspect seem to confirm there’s more to come, but we have reason to believe that Ormund Hightower didn’t send Ser Jon Roxton to kill Lord Coryls, so much as to capture him.
In George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, Corlys is imprisoned around this time during the civil war known as Dance of the Dragons. However, in that book, Rhaenyra herself turns on Corlys, accusing him of treachery.
You might have noticed that in this latest episode of House of the Dragon, both Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) and Hugh the Hammer (Kieran Bew) found reason to dislike their new lives as dragonriders. Ulf is literally beaten by Daemon (Matt Smith) in the streets of King’s Landing, while Hugh is horrified to learn his wife Kat (Ellora Torchia) wants nothing to do with him now because she feels he chose his dragon over her. In the books, Ulf and Hugh turn on Rhaenyra at the worst possible moment: in the middle of the first battle of Tumbleton.
After this happens, Rhaenyra mistrusts all of the dragonseeds and wishes to execute Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty) as well as Sheepstealer’s rider, who in the books is not Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), but a poor girl named Nettles. Corlys protests, to no avail. So he warns his son Addam to leave King’s Landing before he can be killed. Rhaenyra has Corlys thrown into the Black Cells.
It seems that House of the Dragon might be changing the storyline so that Ormund is the one who captures Corlys.
Or, you know, he could have died off camera. But House of the Dragon tends to prefer to keep its kills onscreen.
Is Ser Criston Cole Dead in House of the Dragon? Who Kills Ser Criston Cole?
Yes,Ser Criston Cole dies in the cold open of House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 6. And “Black Aly” kills him in the show — though not in the books.
While Cole believes that he will maintain his dignity by fighting to the death against the Rivermen, young Lord Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes), Ser Roderick “Roddy the Ruin” Dustin (Tommy Flanagan), and Alysanne “Black Aly” Blackwood (Annie Shapiro) have other ideas. They lure him to an “abandoned” Tully camp, where they have hidden live soldiers under the bodies of dead ones. While Cole and his men initially win this short melee, they have no chance against the full army that soon encircles them. Cole asks Roddy and Tully if they’ll spare his men if he yields. Young Tully makes a chilling comment that he swore to build a sept out of bones and he needs more bones!
Cole readies himself to fight to the death, going so far as to wrap Alicent’s (Olivia Cooke) handkerchief around his sword pommel. However, neither Roddy nor Tully fight him. Instead, Black Aly fells Cole with three arrows from afar.
Ser Criston Cole dies in basically this same manner in the books. However, in George R.R. Martin’s version, Roddy the Ruin is there with Ser Garibald Grey and Ser Pate of Longleaf — and it’s not Black Aly who fires the arrows.
House of the Dragon returns next Sunday, August 2 at 9 PM ET on HBO and HBO Max.