The House of the Dragon season 3 finale is out in the world, and it arrives with fire and blood. The eighth episode of the Game of Thrones prequel's third season features its most brutal clash yet: the Battle of Tumbleton. This fight sees Rhaenyra Targaryen's host of Rivermen and Winter Wolves assault the once-sleepy market town, while Hightower forces under the command of Lord Ormund seek to repel them.
The battle itself is thrilling, but things go truly off the rails when the drunken dragonrider Ulf the White (Tom Bennett) takes to the sky. Each side believes Ulf is fighting for them, but the truth is that Ulf is fighting for himself. He's sick of being slighted by the Greens and Blacks alike, and has no qualms about burning both the army outside the gates — as well as the innocents in the city.
Despite Queen Rhaenyra's best efforts, Tumbleton is engulfed in carnage the likes of which we haven't seen before in the Dance of the Dragons civil war. Could it have been prevented?
As it turns out, maybe — though not for the reason you think. The true villain who may have doomed Tumbleton isn't Ormund or Rhaenyra or even Ulf, but a knight who wasn't even alive by the time the battle took place.
Yes, I'm talking about Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), the Kingmaker. As it turns out, he had an unwitting hand in the devastation of Tumbleton. Without Cole, it's entirely possible that Ulf would never have defected at that crucial moment, and the battle may have unfolded very differently.
How Criston Cole's actions led to the betrayal at Tumbleton
Now, I know what you're thinking: we all love to blame Criston Cole for everything that goes wrong in House of the Dragon, but how could he possibly be responsible for Tumbleton? He took three arrows from Black Aly and died weeks before the climactic battle of season 3. Surely, there's no way he had a hand in its misfortunes.
Cole certainly didn't mean to, but a throwaway line in the finale confirms he did, in fact, mess things up once again.
When Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) is reunited with the army he left behind in the Riverlands, Lord Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes) bitterly tells him that they would have arrived a fortnight earlier, if not for Cole. Those two weeks undoubtedly gave the Hightower army more time to prepare for the fight ahead, which seems like a good thing on the surface. However, they also allowed Ormund and Daemon to make terrible mistakes that insured Ulf's actions at Tumbleton.
In season 3 episode 6, "Faceless Men," Grand Maester Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan) informs Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) that the River host is still a fortnight's march away. That puts this episode roughly in line with when Oscar Tully originally anticipated their arrival at Tumbleton, before Cole's knights started harrying their march and slowing them down.
A few key things happen after this point that insure the doom of Tumbleton. The first is that Daemon assauls Ulf in the middle of Flea Bottom after catching the other man sneaking out of the castle to go carousing in the city. This insult is the last straw for Ulf, who has been treated unkindly time and again by Rhaenyra and her husband.
The second is that because of the Black army's delay, Ormund Hightower (James Norton) has time to tempt Ulf over to the Greens. We see Ulf make his final decision to defect at the end of season 3 episode 7, which is the eve before the Battle of Tumbleton.
However, we also know that Ulf was meeting with Ormund much earlier — even before Daemon beat the dragonseed in the street. That means that Cole's actions wouldn't have prevented Ulf from ever meeting Ormund, but they almost certainly gave the Hightower lord time to fully sway Ulf to his side. Had the River host arrived sooner, it's likely that Ulf wouldn't have been driven to the emotional point of no return he had to reach in order to burn Tumbleton to the ground.
So the next time you think of all the carnage that unfolded at the Battle of Tumbleton, remember that it might have been far less devastating if not for the well-meaning actions of Ser Criston Cole.
All eight episodes of House of the Dragon season 3 are now streaming on HBO Max. Check out our extensive coverage for the series here.
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