House of the Dragon director opens up on Criston Cole becoming the most hated character on the show

If there is one character in the second season of House of the Dragon that has received the most amount of hate, it is Ser Criston Cole. Episode 3 director Geeta Vasant Patel seems to acknowledge this in her recent interview with Variety,  and she even promised that he is ‘a very interesting character by the time you get to the season finale.’ Fabien Frankel, who plays the part in the show, even disabled his Instagram comments due to the negative comments. (Also read: House of the Dragon season 2 episode 3 review: Reason is thrown out the window as battle bells toll)

What the director said

In the interview, when the director was asked about Criston turning out to be ‘the most hated character this season,’ she said, “With Criston Cole, I really wanted to insert point of view. Watching him and having a moment of anxiety and walking with him downstairs, passing the men with a continuous shot going into the council chamber, that was intentionally designed so that we would feel him for once. We would be in his space, rather than everyone else watching him. A lot of times the lack of liking someone comes from not being in their point of view. When we’re in that space, we see everything happening at that table. That was one technique to start bringing his dimension out and start building to what’s going to happen in the season finale, where I think you are going to really understand him.”

'What he shares with us in Episode 8 is pretty awesome'

She also added, “He’s a very interesting character by the time you get to the season finale. There’s a lot of things that we will relate to and we will be embarrassed to relate to. What he shares with us in Episode 8 is pretty awesome — we all have a bit of Criston Cole in us. That’s what we’re building. There’s this vulnerability in Episode 3, and then it keeps building from there and by the time you get to Episode 8, he has this beautiful moment where he shares what he thinks about the world and what he thinks about war.”

Cristan Cole is a knight of House Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and Hand of the King under Aegon II Targaryen. A master manipulator, he lies and plots revenge at several points in the show, even leading to the death of other commanders.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres a new episode every Monday morning on JioCinema.