Who killed Criston Cole in House of the Dragon?
Ser Criston Cole spent three seasons building himself into the character audiences most wanted dead, then died seven minutes into an episode without a duel, a speech, or a name most viewers recognized attached to the kill.
The archer who shot him is Alysanne Blackwood, known as Black Aly, played by Annie Shapero.
What happened in episode 6
The episode, "Faceless Men," aired on July 26, 2026, and opens with the Butcher's Ball. Cole marches the remains of the Green army into the Riverlands and finds what looks like a field of dead Rivermen. The corpses stand up. It's an ambush laid by Lord Oscar Tully and Lord Roderick Dustin, and Cole's men are massively outnumbered.
He offers to surrender if his soldiers are spared. Refused. He then offers to settle the battle in single combat, two against one, against Oscar and Roderick both. Before either of them answers, Black Aly puts three arrows into him. The slaughter of his army starts immediately.
Who is Black Aly
An archer of House Blackwood, aunt to young Lord Benjicot "Bloody Ben" Blackwood, and one of Rhaenyra's more effective supporters in the field. Fire & Blood readers know her well. Show-only viewers had seen her for a few seconds in the season 3 premiere and briefly in episode 2, which is why a lot of them finished the episode unsure who had just killed a lead character.
In the book, the archers fire on the orders of the commanders at the scene. The show hands the shot to a named character, which is the kind of change that improves a scene and confuses an audience at the same time.
Cole was trying to die
None of this was an accident on his part. In episode 5 he told Ser Gwayne Hightower outright that he was leading the men on a suicide march into the Riverlands, and that he intended to go out clear-eyed and glorious, ideally in a way that would reach Alicent. He got the death and not the story.
Fabien Frankel told The New York Times in 2026 that he was fine with it:
"Criston Cole's gone out in the way I wanted him to."
He also said he loved how unceremonious it was.
For the record: by the time of A Song of Ice and Fire, Westerosi history has largely stopped remembering Cole as a great warrior at all. He's filed under Kingmaker, and not admiringly.