Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) marches his army into battle in the season three finale of House of the Dragon, only to learn that the traitor knight Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) has already been killed. Daemon asks how Cole died, with a gloomy sense of disappointment. The Northman second-in-command, Roderick Dustin (Tommy Flanagan), tells him it was badly.
Cole had wanted a warrior's death. With his forces outnumbered and certain to be slaughtered, he made a noble offer in episode six to face the opposing commander in single combat, an offer still pending when the first arrow struck him in the stomach. A second arrow followed, then a third to his face.
An episode later, Cole's severed head was paraded as a trophy. Now, as the season reaches its climactic battle, his enemies laugh at his pointless death.
The finale wages war in Tumbleton, and death is everywhere. Ormund Hightower (James Norton) and Roderick Dustin are both killed, along with countless fighters on both sides who are incinerated by the unpredictable dragon rider Ulf (Tom Bennett), who decides to turn his dragon against everyone. The reckless use of Westeros's most powerful weapon recalls Daenerys Targaryen's attack on King's Landing, but where Daenerys had been driven mad by grief, Ulf is simply an angry man lashing out from wounded pride.
The bloody capture of Tumbleton and the royal family's tragic fate
Knowing he is hopelessly outnumbered but unable to surrender, the aristocrat Ormund, who commands Tumbleton against Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), staffs the city's battlements with child soldiers. Daemon warns his troops that the city must be retaken in a way that preserves Rhaenyra's moral standing, though his soldiers nearly laugh at the idea. When Roderick spots one of the children, he does not hesitate to plant his axe in their face.
The show has not suddenly turned soft on violence elsewhere. In Sunday's finale, Rhaenyra sends her troops to the Great Sept of Baelor to disembowel the High Septon (Simon Chandler) after he refuses to publicly proclaim her queen. Daemon carves his way through the city until he meets a fighter named John Roxton, and the cold-blooded Targaryen assassin suddenly finds himself fighting for his life.
Technically, the Blacks win the round. The remaining Hightower forces flee, Rhaenyra proclaims herself queen, and her surviving enemies are exiled or killed. But her kingdom is left crippled, its resources nearly exhausted, and she will never be a beloved ruler like her father. She appears to have no choice but to rule by violence.
Helaena (Phia Saban) tries to starve herself, and after Rhaenyra orders guards to force-feed her, she jumps to her death near the end of the finale. Before that, she tells Rhaenyra that everything about her is ugly, that the place is ugly, and that Rhaenyra herself is ugly.
Even after being impaled on a fence, Helaena appears more beautiful than ever, while the makeup Rhaenyra wears for her coronation makes her look as though she has an infection in both eyes, according to Slate.com.
