One of the defining aspects of House of the Dragon season 3 compared to the show's previous outings is that this time around, characters are spread all over the map. From King's Landing to Dragonstone, the verdant fields of the Reach, the ocean strait known as the Gullet, the Crownlands, the Vale, the Riverlands and more, the cast of characters is finally sprawling all over the realm in a way that will feel welcome to Game of Thrones fans.
Quite a few of those characters will collide in the Riverlands, a central region of Westeros which is always the first to be torn apart when the Seven Kingdoms goes to war. Season 2 left off with Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) setting off on a somber march toward Harrenhal, where Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) had rallied an enormous army of rivermen to fight for Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy). At the same time, a Lannister host crossed the Red Fork to meet Daemon, and an army of Northern greybeards called the Winter Wolves made their way south to join the fray.
In season 3, all these forces will collide. And now we have a clearer picture of two armies in particular who will clash, thanks to a statement from Fabien Frankel at a recent press conference attended by Winter Is Coming. Frankel was asked about filming the show's epic battle scenes, and he had nothing but glowing things to say about them — including the actor leading the charge from the other side of the field.
"It's a real blast, like any of those scenes. The hard scenes to do are the ones where you're sat in the Small Council and you're spinning a ball, you know, for 3 days," Frankel joked. "But the war scenes are like, they're just amazing, man, especially when you get all the background artists in and you've got like hundreds of people screaming at the top of their lungs and Tommy Flanagan looking fucking awesome."
Beyond appreciating Frankel's general hype for filming battle scenes, which he calls "a joy" to work on, the mention of Tommy Flanagan is also worth noting. The veteran actor joins the cast of House of the Dragon this season as Lord Roderick Dustin, a hoary old fighter that leads the Winter Wolves in support of the Blacks. He's known more widely by his nickname, Roddy the Ruin.
Roddy and Criston do meet in the book, at a fateful battle called the Butcher's Ball. Without diving too deep into the spoilers, that battle is an important one for Criston Cole in particular. Presumably that's the battle that Frankel is referencing here.
It also raises an interesting change House of the Dragon may be making from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood. In the book, Criston doesn't get a chance to fight at the Butcher's Ball. But we've seen footage in trailers of Frankel in the thick of a bloody battle, and now with this mention of mixing it up with an army led by Tommy Flanagan's Roderick Dustin, it seems like the show may give Criston more of a chance to fight at the Butcher's Ball than in Martin's novel. We'll have to see how that all plays out, likely in one of the later episodes of season 3.
For Frankel, a big part of filming these epic battlefield scenes is that it means he gets to go shoot on location. While he was asked whether the battles in particular affected his preparation and performance as an actor, the change of scenery is the thing that struck him most.
"I mean, I don't know how much they affect you, but it's the first time I suppose that...you're outside of the set, because those scenes are all shot on location, and we go less and less to location as the course of the show's gone on," he explained. "You know, we used to go away to Spain and stuff. So I think you feel the real scale of it in a way that you can't at Leavesden [Studios], if that makes sense."
Out of all the characters in House of the Dragon, Criston Cole takes part in some of the most central battles of the saga, from the Battle at Rook's Rest to the campaign across the Riverlands. But with dangerous enemies like Roddy the Ruin stalking the forests around him, the Kingmaker may have finally met his match.
House of the Dragon season 3 premieres June 21 on HBO and HBO Max.
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