The third season of House of the Dragon draws ever nearer, and according to star Fabien Frankel, it has the potential to drastically reshape our perceptions of the characters. Frankel plays Ser Criston Cole, a bitter knight who was spurned by Rhaenyra and became a staunch supporter of the Greens. The knight was quickly marked out by the fandom as one of the most hated characters on the series, thanks to horrific actions like beating a man to death at a wedding, spouting utter hypocrocies about Rhaenyra Targaryen, and carting the severed head of the dragon Meleys through the streets of King's Landing.
Despite all that, Criston managed to have one of the most compelling arcs of season 2. While other characters stagnated in their fortresses or struggled to find their footing in the Dance of the Dragons civil war, Criston was on the front lines — and it changed him. Following the devastation of the battle of Rook's Rest, Criston was sent to the wage war on the Riverlands, which is controlled by Daemon Targaryen. His final scene of season 2 features a haunting monologue that makes it clear that after watching dragons battle in the sky, Criston has been saddled with the knowledge that his time is short, and the war is fated to be a terrible affair that will see many others to the grave alongside him.
For as awful as Criston has been in the show, this shift challenged the audiences opinions of the Kingsguard knight and made him far more interesting in the process. According to Frankel, we'll see similar developments for other characters in the upcoming third and fourth seasons of House of the Dragon.
Fabien Frankel expects audience sympathies to shift in House of the Dragon's final two seasons
Speaking at an interview at Budapest Comic Con this past weekend, Frankel dove deep on Criston Cole and House of the Dragon. And while he mostly focused on the show's first two seasons, he couldn't help getting a tease in for what's in store.
"I'll be very interested to see, like as the next two seasons of Dragon unfold...how people's opinions on these characters shift. Because I think they innately will, you know, as season 3 and 4 come out," Frankel said. "So I'm excited for people to, you know, recalibrate in a sense."
If anyone is entitled to have this conversation it's Frankel. Ser Criston Cole has been the most universally reviled character on House of the Dragon, recalling the sorts of reactions people had to Joffrey Baratheon and Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. But he's right about major shifts for characters being on the way. Even if House of the Dragon continues deviating from George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, the groundwork is there for some truly stunning turns from characters we love (or love to hate). And now is the time where the series either has to lean into these shifts, or abandon them entirely. It's going to be an interesting final two seasons for House of the Dragon.
How Fabien Frankel gets inside the mind of Ser Criston Cole
Frankel also spoke a bit about how he gets into the headspace for Criston, especially considering the character's often reprehensible actions. "I think that like murdering a man at a wedding is probably not the best way to go about heartbreak. You know, I'd like to think that like I won't be murdering anyone anytime soon," he joked.
"I think it's an odd thing, because obviously when you're playing a character like that, you're trying the best you can to understand the mentality of someone like that. So you find justifications for actions," he continued. "I watched this interview with Christoph Waltz talking about playing Hans Landa [in Inglorious Basterds]...they ask him, you know, how is it to embody such a villain? And he's like, 'I don't see him as a villain,' even though he so clearly is. And so...I suppose Criston Cole's actions are so questionable at times...you do the best you can as an actor to find your way into that."
While Frankel credits how "eloquently written" the show is for helping find those nuances, there are still aspects of Criston's psyche that necessitate reading between the lines. "Someone described it, they said, 'You know, you put someone who doesn't belong in a world inside a castle and lock him there for 25 years, he's going to start to lose his mind a little bit. Not to mention falling in love with both queens, shifting allegiance."
This is a pretty interesting take on Cole. Since we were first introduced to him in King's Landing and have mostly seen him there in the halls of the Red Keep, it can be easy to forget that he had a life before the events of the series, where he served as a young knight on the Dornish Marches. It makes me wonder how different a man Ser Criston Cole might have been, had he not gotten tangled up in the political intrigue of the Targaryens and Hightowers.
Ironically enough, we may finally get more of a glimpse at that side of Criston in season 3, since he'll most likely spend the entirety of the season away from the capital. Maybe the country air of the Riverlands will do him some good...for as long as he and his men are able to stay out of battle, at least. It's going to be a rough season for Ser Criston Cole, which probably means it's going to be an excellent season of material for Frankel to sink his teeth into as an actor.
House of the Dragon season 3 premieres in June on HBO and HBO Max.