The Westerosi Primer - A Song of Ice and Fire Podcast
Jul 29, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
In this week's episode, Liz discusses and opines House of the Dragon Episode 3x06 titled "Faceless Men." In an episode where a notable character dies and the cyvasse pieces move on the board once…
The episode opened with Kristen Cole.
We basically get a follow-up on what happened with Kristen in the previous episode where it's pretty clear that...
He knows that one way or another he's going to die and he's not going to make it back to King's Landing.
So he is all in on fighting to the very last.
And that is exactly what we got in the very beginning of the episode.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the event that people familiar with the lore and also the books know is called the Butcher's Ball.
In a lot of ways, what was depicted on the show is basically exactly what George wrote in Fire and Blood.
It's pretty anticlimactic-ish.
in many respects because it is a battle, but it's not this completely cinematic, exciting battle where you got thousands of people fighting simultaneously and people die a glorious death.
It was basically a total one-sided massacre because Kristen Cole and his men are ridiculously outnumbered.
There's just no way Any of them were going to survive.
They were all destined to die at that point.
And the reason why it's called the Butcher's Ball is because it's connected to a comment that one of the participants later said about this particular event.
And they described it as complete butchery.
And that's how it got the name.
I will have to say I've heard rumors that Fabian was apparently not completely happy about the scripts this season, especially for his character, which over the course of the six episodes, I will have to acknowledge that if he was frustrated... privately I can honestly see that because except for maybe two or three scenes that he got in the season Kristen Cole really didn't get a lot happening and a lot to do in the season overall on the one hand it is a reflection of exactly what was going on with the character based off of what George wrote in Fire and Blood On the other hand, as an actor, it's really not a lot of material to work with.
And on a personal level, it does get really frustrating, especially when you take into consideration that the character got way more screen time and more things to say and do in the first two seasons.
So it does feel a bit of a wah-wah type of thing when he finally dies.
I had a sneaking suspicion that he was probably going to die in this season just because I knew some of the major events that happened during the dance and...
Based off of what they've depicted so far in this season, I figured that they were going to have the character die.
But yeah, so that is the end of Kristen Cole and Fabian basically signed off.
on the show.
On a personal note, I will be very curious to see what other work he ends up getting now that he's no longer involved with the show at this point.
It will be interesting to see if this show actually helps give him a noticeable boost in his CV.
Game of Thrones really helped out a number of actors, and so far we've also seen that Millie Alcock has gotten some more acting opportunities after playing Rhaenyra in the first season, so we will see what happens with him.
The episode opened with Kristen Cole.
We basically get a follow-up on what happened with Kristen in the previous episode where it's pretty clear that...
He knows that one way or another he's going to die and he's not going to make it back to King's Landing.
So he is all in on fighting to the very last.
And that is exactly what we got in the very beginning of the episode.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the event that people familiar with the lore and also the books know is called the Butcher's Ball.
In a lot of ways, what was depicted on the show is basically exactly what George wrote in Fire and Blood.
It's pretty anticlimactic-ish.
in many respects because it is a battle, but it's not this completely cinematic, exciting battle where you got thousands of people fighting simultaneously and people die a glorious death.
It was basically a total one-sided massacre because Kristen Cole and his men are ridiculously outnumbered.
There's just no way Any of them were going to survive.
They were all destined to die at that point.
And the reason why it's called the Butcher's Ball is because it's connected to a comment that one of the participants later said about this particular event.
And they described it as complete butchery.
And that's how it got the name.
I will have to say I've heard rumors that Fabian was apparently not completely happy about the scripts this season, especially for his character, which over the course of the six episodes, I will have to acknowledge that if he was frustrated... privately I can honestly see that because except for maybe two or three scenes that he got in the season Kristen Cole really didn't get a lot happening and a lot to do in the season overall on the one hand it is a reflection of exactly what was going on with the character based off of what George wrote in Fire and Blood On the other hand, as an actor, it's really not a lot of material to work with.
And on a personal level, it does get really frustrating, especially when you take into consideration that the character got way more screen time and more things to say and do in the first two seasons.
So it does feel a bit of a wah-wah type of thing when he finally dies.
I had a sneaking suspicion that he was probably going to die in this season just because I knew some of the major events that happened during the dance and...
Based off of what they've depicted so far in this season, I figured that they were going to have the character die.
But yeah, so that is the end of Kristen Cole and Fabian basically signed off.
on the show.
On a personal note, I will be very curious to see what other work he ends up getting now that he's no longer involved with the show at this point.
It will be interesting to see if this show actually helps give him a noticeable boost in his CV.
Game of Thrones really helped out a number of actors, and so far we've also seen that Millie Alcock has gotten some more acting opportunities after playing Rhaenyra in the first season, so we will see what happens with him.
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