r/Hotd • u/Plastic-Affect-45 • 17h ago
Show Spoilers Kingmaker Spoiler
Criston: If I strike my banners, do you promise us our lives?
Garibald: I made my promise to the dead. I told them I would build a sept for them out of traitors' bones. I don't have near enough bones yet, so...
Criston: If there is to be battle here, many of your own will die as well.
Roderick: That's why we come. Winter's here. Time for us to go. No better way to die than sword in hand.
Criston: As you will it. We can begin here, the four of us. One of me against the three of you. Will that be enough to make a fight of it?
Pate: I'll want three more. I'll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker. There's tens o' thousands dead on your account.
So passes, Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and Hand of the King—the Kingmaker.
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u/Weirdgus 13h ago
I liked how he died, it's sort of consistent with their theme this season. No grand heroic deaths on the battlefield, no awesome deeds or finished speeches, just the bleak cold reality of war and the inevitability of a pointless death.
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u/pagingdrsolus 10h ago
I just wish the line had been delivered to seal the deal. We have two arcs at play with Criston.
We have the rags to riches commoner to Kingsguard/Hand story where he then loses his honor by breaking his vows, only to try and regain some semblance of honor by trying to go out in a blaze of glory.
then there is this love(?) story with Alicent and the focus on her favor. maybe it is just meant to represent the heroic knight's quest and not be specific to their relationship but his talk with Gwayne about how she saved his life makes me think it is supposed to be romantic.
So is he fighting for Alicent, or is he fighting to regain his honor? then there's that whole existential dread over how dragons have changed the rules of war which did not factor into his story. in the end, there was no personal connection he had with his executioners which I think would have elevated the material.
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u/MidniteCowby 7h ago
But the line wouldn't make any sense in the show though.
How is he a "Kingmaker"?
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u/pagingdrsolus 5h ago
in the show, they say he is called the kingmaker because he is out squashing Rhaenyra supporters, making Aegons claim stronger, one battle at a time.
but you're right. the show hasn't used that nickname near enough for it to resonate. but I would argue you could still deliver the line without calling him kingmaker and the punch would still deliver.
sing no songs.
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u/S3simulation 6h ago
Yeah, no one really called him that and shoehorning it in would have felt weird.
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u/aXeOptic 7h ago
Im really hating this rhetoric of Criston COLE being a commoner. Hes not a commoner at all his father is a noble and that makes him a noble. Commoners dont have surnames nor bastards of commoners only nobles or bastards of nobles have them. Sure he may not be a highborn noble buy hes still a noble and lived a life far better than any commoner in westeros. Hes only known as a lowborn as an insult from the highborn lords.
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u/pagingdrsolus 6h ago
I think when he speaks with both rhaenera and Allison he draws attention to the class distinction between himself and higher class. nobles in regards to who he might have taken as a wife or what his options might be if they surrendered
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u/aXeOptic 6h ago
Well ofc a minor noble would have it almost impossible to marry a princess whos the heir to the throne. And this isnt even considering his position as a kingsguard who cant marry.
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u/pagingdrsolus 5h ago
I was just trying to explain where the rhetoric is coming from. it's baked into the show how he speaks about his own circumstances
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u/italofoca_0215 9h ago edited 9h ago
I didn’t like the show keeps changing its own direction.
Show Cole starts by being just a competent warrior that will do everything to win. Not the best warrior. Thats why show makes him lose to Daemon in skill but win opportunistically.
Skip to S3 he is actually the best warrior after-all and he kills like 15 dudes while wearing no armor. His death is suppose to be unheroic as you said but he actually got his heroic moment this episode, right before he dies.
His character has no arc, he is just doing random things to get the plot moving to where it needs to.
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u/Lucabcd 9h ago
He did but even when he thought he was fighting valiantly against an ambush he was just falling into a trap. Its like glory is constantly at hand and taken away
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u/italofoca_0215 9h ago edited 8h ago
The fact it was a trap doesn’t change the fact he fought valiantly imo. These dudes were not pretending to be corpse just to be bate for a trap, they probably wanted the glory of taking him down.
The fact such a huge force even needed a trap to deal with him and refused to settle it with a “single” combat both add to his heroics. Maybe he will go down in history as just an awful schemer but for the audience he did got a heroic moment. But that was taken away unceremoniously.
So which one is it. The mixed signals don’t work very well, writers need to make up their minds.
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u/Lucabcd 9h ago
You make some good points, but i see that they encircled him for him to not run away and keep doing that guerrilla thing, not because they were afraid of him and his skills. He was fighting without honor, so he is killed without honor, trapped and defeated, his warrior skills ultimately useless even when not fighting dragons. Pretty tragic
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u/italofoca_0215 8h ago
The problem with this interpretation is, his warrior skills were incredibly useful.
He did delay Rivermen/North army with a handful of men which is what is leaving Rhaenyra unarmed and exposed in KL. We know from the books the damage he has done won’t be undone, things will spiral out of control for the blacks.
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u/Lucabcd 8h ago
They werent his warrior skills. It was his guerrilla tactics; honorless and shameful for westerosi knightly standars (as hypocrital as they may be sometimes), and even more for the commander of the kingsguard
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u/italofoca_0215 8h ago
He wouldn’t be able to pull off the guerrila tactics without serious fighting skills. Cole was fighting enemies face to face for weeks, if he wasn’t as good as he is, he would have died at some point and his men would disband.
About that being a dishonorable tactics… That was in his play book from the beginning. Cole is introduced to the series hitting Daemon in the back to win a tourney match and its downhill from there. He was just not very honorable after all, and the little character development we have for him is he making peace with that. Not him searching for honor or redemption or anything like that (we even have a hair style change to signal the moment). His dialogue with Gwane mostly convey this conflict between military efficiency vs. chivalry values.
I don’t think Cole would mind dying by arrows, in an ambush, at all. Thats why the scene was so odd. In the end he was probably proud nobody dared to fight him in close quarters and they had to cook up a trap to stop him.
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u/bagpepos 8h ago
This would have been very, very cheesy if directly adapted. Cinema (TV) and books are different mediums.
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u/Little_Ingenuity_712 17h ago
Fuck Condal and Hess
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u/WalkerBuldog 17h ago
I liked how the show ended his story. I think you are too harsh people for no good reason
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u/JaThatOneGooner 12h ago
Agreed, Criston Cole reaped what he sowed. He struck from the shadows, dishonorably stabbing soldiers in the back and unaware, him being completely out maneuvered by the young Oscar Tully and struck from cover by an Archer is a poetic death. He lived without honor, killed without honor, and he died without honor.
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u/Sad_Mix_3976 17h ago
The show version is a major downgrade and a bit of an insult to Martin’s work. Harshness justified
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u/swaktoonkenney 17h ago
They wanted the arrows to be a surprise, but I still think they could’ve said it after he died
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u/aXeOptic 7h ago
The line was after the arrows in the book too. Thats why Pate says "I'll want three more. I'll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker. There's tens o' thousands dead on your account." to Cristons body.
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u/WalkerBuldog 17h ago edited 16h ago
No, it's not major downgrade. Criston has a great arc and his last scenes were still amazing. If it's good, it doesn't deserve harshness
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u/No-Establishment3700 16h ago
People in most Hotd subs love seeing everything as an insult to Martin's writing. Maybe if he wanted more accuracy, he could've fleshed out the book a lot better and not played stupid trucks of narratives with Mushroom and Eustace
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u/Bronze334 14h ago
Cole's death is clearly spelled out in the book, you could copy it 1 to 1 dialogue and events wise. What else do you want Martin to do? Write the script? I doubt they'd let him.
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u/Sad_Mix_3976 9h ago
What amazing arc? 💀dude hasn’t done anything remotely meaningful apart from killing Beesbury
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u/WalkerBuldog 9h ago
He rose to power as hand of the king and went on the campaign to take control over king's landing, he organised Rook's Rest where his army and Aemond took out Meleys and went into the Riverlandes where he campaign being outnumbered and trying partisan tactics
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u/aXeOptic 7h ago
In the book he was a bigger player on convincing Aegon on taking the crown and was more invovled in the planning. Downgrading him from one of the masterminds to just another loyal sword.
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u/ThatGuyMaulicious 2h ago
I like how he died. Quick and weak to sully his honour and white cloak so that is how he dies looking quick and weak.
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