The Kingmaker

The Kingmaker is the epithet associated with Ser Criston Cole, a Kingsguard knight whose part in Aegon II’s coronation placed him at the center of the contest over who would rule. The title joins ceremony to violence: Cole helped make a king through a public act of allegiance, then died amid the brutal consequences of the war that act helped define.

A title grounded in coronation

The term rests on a visible political deed. After King Viserys’s death, Ser Criston placed the iron-and-ruby crown of Aegon the Conqueror on the brow of Viserys and Alicent’s eldest son, proclaiming him Aegon of House Targaryen, Second of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. Septon Eustace anointed Aegon in the Dragonpit, while Alicent crowned her daughter Helaena as queen. The ceremony made Cole more than a witness: he performed the act that publicly declared Aegon’s claim.

The coronation’s authority was conveyed through its setting and regalia as well as its words. The Dragonpit’s immense dome and defensible walls offered a guarded stage for the ceremony, and the crown linked the new king to the Conqueror. Yet the succession remained contested. On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra was crowned the following day with the crown of Jaehaerys the Conciliator, and named her eldest son Jacaerys heir. The rival ceremonies made the dispute legible to the realm: each side had a crowned monarch, a dynastic claim, and supporters prepared to act on it.

Kingmaking as public ritual

The history of the epithet is illuminated by earlier coronations. When Aegon the Conqueror’s red three-headed dragon standard was unfurled, Westerosi lords recognized a familiar heraldic form; the banner helped present the dragonlord as a ruler of their world. Visenya placed a ruby-studded Valyrian steel circlet on his head, and Rhaenys proclaimed him king. The lords and knights cheered, and the smallfolk cheered loudest. At Oldtown, after its lord submitted, the High Septon anointed Aegon with seven oils and crowned him in the Starry Sept. That second coronation, witnessed by hundreds of lords and followed by cheers from tens of thousands in the streets, became the established starting point of his reign.

These earlier ceremonies show why placing a crown carries political weight: it turns a claim into a public act, witnessed by people whose recognition helps make rule effective. Cole’s act similarly took place amid competing claims, but its consequences were not settled by ceremony. Aegon’s coronation did not prevent Rhaenyra’s rival crowning, and the two declarations helped set the realm on the path to war.

The title and its reversal

The epithet returns at the end of Cole’s military career, when the Kingmaker and the Kinslayer part to meet their separate fates. At the Butcher’s Ball, Cole faced the queen’s forces with only a small group near him. Longleaf asked for three more, and Red Robb Rivers and two archers shot Cole. Longleaf rejected the prospect of songs praising the Kingmaker’s bravery, blaming him for the tens of thousands dead in the war. The ensuing rout was so one-sided that Ser Garibald called it butchery rather than battle; Mushroom’s name for the fight endured.

The ending turns the title against any uncomplicated image of the kingmaker as a triumphant architect of rule. Cole had helped install Aegon, but the rival coronation, the war, and his own death expose how little a single ceremony can secure. At the Butcher’s Ball, the name is not a tribute offered by a grateful realm: it is spoken by an enemy who connects Cole’s celebrated political role to the human cost of the conflict.