“House of the Dragon” Turned One of Westeros’ Fiercest Women Into a Punchline for Criston Cole’s Death

Fan favorite Black Aly, whose full name is Alysanne Blackwood, has been a relatively minor character in the third season of House of the Dragon until episode six. It is here that the show finally gives her a defining moment: killing Ser Criston Cole.

It is a powerful scene. However, as many readers of George R.R. Martin’s novels familiar with the source material have noticed, it is a drastic reduction of a much larger character.

In Martin’s 2018 novel Fire & Blood, Alysanne Blackwood is a tomboyish younger sister of Lord Samwell Blackwood. According to Wiki of Westeros and A Wiki of Ice and Fire, she avenges her brother’s death by killing Lord Amos Bracken with an arrow during the Battle of the Burning Mills, and joins the Riverlands army, commanding its archers, fighting during the whole Dance of the Dragons, which is the main conflict of the HBO series.

After surviving the war and participating in shaping the political situation after it, she marries Lord Cregan Stark of Winterfell, thus becoming Lady of Winterfell, as mentioned by A Wiki of Ice and Fire.

What viewers see on the screen is just a part of this character arc. Alysanne, who is played by Annie Shapero, is introduced to the show unnamed in the Battle by the Lakeshore early in the season, according to Winter Is Coming. She reappears a few episodes later as the archer who finally kills Cole, one of the most hated characters in the series, as he tries to make a stand at the Butcher’s Ball.

There is another irony that fans have mentioned online: the version of the story presented in the show is even less faithful to the books than it is meant to be. Screen Rant and Comic Basics mention that in Martin’s novel, Alysanne is not even the one who kills Cole. In Fire & Blood, Cole is killed by a different archer called Red Robb Rivers.

House of the Dragon has shown a willingness to alter the book’s timeline for the sake of storytelling and has merged characters before. However, for a character that readers consider to be one of the most interesting women in Martin’s books, this reduction to just one kill, which she does not perform in the books, is considered by some as a mistake.

In Fire & Blood, Alysanne is described as a tall, dark-haired woman, fearless and renowned as a hunter, horse-breaker, and archer. She defies the expectations put on noblewomen in Westeros during the whole war, according to the sources.

It is still unclear whether the show will give the character further development. However, audience interest in her character has been strong enough that entertainment websites have published explainers about her history in the books following her introduction on the show. Some fans hope that the show will tell the rest of her story, including her marriage into House Stark, in future episodes.

For now, though, the adaptation of the story has turned a relatively independent female character in the war into the one who finishes Criston Cole’s story.