Who is Black Aly Blackwood? House of the Dragon Season 3 introduces Ser Criston Cole’s archer killer and how his death differs from George Martin’s Fire & Blood explained

House of the Dragon keeps expanding George R.R. Martin’s bloody history of the Targaryen civil war. The series, based on the pseudo-history Fire & Blood, is created by Martin and Ryan Condal, with Condal now the sole showrunner. Season 3 premiered on HBO and Max on June 21, 2026 and runs for eight episodes.


Emma D’Arcy continues as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, Matt Smith as Prince Daemon, Olivia Cooke as Queen Alicent Hightower, and Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole, the complicated Kingsguard knight who has been central since the first season. New and returning faces include James Norton as Lord Ormund Hightower, Tommy Flanagan as Roderick “Roddy the Ruin” Dustin, Archie Barnes as young Oscar Tully, and Annie Shapero as the sharp-eyed archer Alysanne Blackwood. Gayle Rankin remains in the mix as the enigmatic Alys Rivers.

Season 3 has already delivered naval battles, shifting loyalties and personal reckonings. Episode 6, titled “Faceless Men” and released on July 26, 2026, finally stages one of the most discussed moments from the source material: the ambush known as the Butcher’s Ball. At the centre of that sequence is a character many casual viewers had barely noticed until she loosed three arrows.


Alysanne Blackwood comes from House Blackwood of Raventree Hall, one of the older and more stubborn houses of the Riverlands. The Blackwoods have long feuded with their neighbours the Brackens, a rivalry that surfaces repeatedly during the Dance of the Dragons and has already been touched on in earlier seasons. Alysanne is the younger sister of Lord Samwell Blackwood and aunt to the young Lord Benjicot Blackwood, who later earns the nickname Bloody Ben for his ferocity in battle.

In Fire & Blood she is described as tall and lean, with thick black curly hair that falls past her waist when unbound. She is an excellent hunter, a skilled horse-breaker and an outstanding archer. She has little patience for the usual expectations placed on noblewomen of her rank. At the start of the civil war she is only sixteen, already old enough by Westerosi standards to ride with the host and fight.

Her personality comes through in small, telling details. She is said to have a bawdy tongue and little interest in courtly manners. She once claimed she lost her maidenhead while horse-riding at the age of thirteen, a story many at the time suspected was a convenient cover. There are also persistent rumours that she was particularly fond of Lady Sabitha Frey, with whom she shared a tent on campaign. Whether those rumours are true or simply the gossip that attaches itself to any woman who refuses to stay in her expected place, the books present her as someone who lives on her own terms and expects others to deal with it.


On the show Annie Shapero plays her. Shapero first appears in ensemble moments early in Season 3, most noticeably among the celebrating Riverlands soldiers in Episode 2 after earlier fighting. The black war paint around her eyes makes her easy to spot once you know to look for it. The paint is practical rather than theatrical. It reduces glare when aiming a bow in daylight, the same reason modern athletes sometimes wear eye black. Shapero has said she audibly gasped when she first read the script pages that gave her the major kill in Episode 6. As the only woman in that particular battle sequence, she found the physical work and the chance to take down a long-running character exhilarating.

The Blackwoods declare for Rhaenyra early in the conflict. When the fighting reaches the Riverlands, Alysanne rides with her brother’s forces. At the Battle of the Burning Mill, Ser Amos Bracken of the rival house kills Lord Samwell Blackwood in single combat. Alysanne answers almost immediately. She puts a weirwood arrow through the eye-slit of Amos’s helm, avenging her brother on the same field.

Weirwood arrows are not ordinary. The wood is considered sacred by those who still keep the old gods, and the arrows are said to fly farther and strike harder than common shafts. That kill establishes her reputation among the Riverlands forces. From then on she serves as a close aide to her young nephew Benjicot and later takes direct command of the Blackwood archers.


She remains active through most of the major Riverlands campaigns. At the Battle of the Kingsroad she helps break the flank of Lord Borros Baratheon’s army. Her archers cut down knights and unhorse Borros himself, clearing the way for Lord Kermit Tully to finish him. The books note that she is one of the few commanders on either side who fights from the early battles right through to the later stages of the war and survives relatively intact.

After the fighting ends she plays a quieter but important part during the period known as the Hour of the Wolf. Lord Cregan Stark of Winterfell arrives in King’s Landing as Hand of the King and begins executing those he holds responsible for the death of Aegon II. Alysanne approaches him and asks him to honour the young Aegon III’s pardon of Lord Corlys Velaryon. According to the accounts, Cregan agrees on one condition: that she marry him. She accepts.

They wed in the godswood of Winterfell in 132 AC, in the middle of a harsh northern winter. Benjicot leads a retinue up the kingsroad through the snow to attend. Cregan’s young son Rickon by his first wife sings a song for his new stepmother at the feast. Alysanne and Cregan later have four daughters: Sarra, Alys, Raya and Myriah.


Before leaving the south she organises a series of gatherings later called the Widow Fairs. Across the Riverlands she matches Northern soldiers who had come south to fight with local women who had lost their husbands in the war. The matches help both sides. The northmen gain land and purpose. The Riverlands gain able-bodied men to help rebuild after the devastation. Many of those northmen stay and help spread the worship of the old gods further south. Alysanne dies at some unspecified point between 136 and 179 AC. Cregan eventually remarries a distant Stark cousin.

Episode 6 opens on the field that history will call the Butcher’s Ball. Ser Criston Cole has been marching through the Riverlands with a dwindling force after parting ways with Ser Gwayne Hightower at the end of the previous episode. His men are exhausted and low on supplies. They come upon what looks like an abandoned Tully camp scattered with bodies.

The bodies stand up. Rivermen who had been playing dead spring the first ambush. Cole fights with the same brutal efficiency that has kept him alive for years, cutting through the initial wave with sword, dagger and mace until it briefly seems he and his remaining men have won. Then the larger trap closes. Oscar Tully and Roderick “Roddy the Ruin” Dustin appear on a nearby rise with the bulk of their combined Riverlands and Northern force.


Cole tries to bargain. He offers his own life if his remaining soldiers can be spared. When that is refused he takes Alicent Hightower’s handkerchief from his sleeve, wraps it around the hilt of his sword and challenges Tully and Dustin to a two-on-one fight. He wants the kind of ending the singers would remember. He wants to die with a blade in his hand, clear-eyed and unbent, the way he had talked himself into at the end of Episode 5.

Black Aly does not allow it. From the treeline she looses three arrows in quick succession. The first two strike his torso. The third hits his face. Cole drops where he stands. The surrounding army finishes what is left of his men in a short, chaotic slaughter. The sequence is over in minutes. Alicent’s favour slips from his dead hand as the fighting continues around him.

Fabien Frankel plays the final moments with a quiet mix of defiance and something close to acceptance. After three seasons of resentment, self-justification and shifting loyalties, the man who once lectured others about honour dies without being given the chance to perform it one last time. The music under the scene is sparse and mournful rather than triumphant.

The overall shape of the death is taken directly from Fire & Blood. Cole’s force is lured into a trap among apparent corpses near the Gods Eye. The corpses rise. The larger Black host surrounds them. Cole attempts to negotiate safe passage for his men and then demands single combat with the opposing commanders. Both requests are refused. Arrows end him before any duel can begin. The battle is remembered as the Butcher’s Ball because it is pure butchery rather than a proper fight.


The largest change is the archer. In the book the fatal shots are credited to Red Robb Rivers, a highly skilled Blackwood bastard regarded as one of the best bowmen in Westeros. Alysanne is present at the battle and commands archers under her nephew, but the killing arrows are not hers. The show collapses that role into Black Aly. It is a practical decision. Red Robb is a minor figure who would have required extra introduction. Black Aly has a longer story still ahead of her in the source material. Giving her the kill introduces her with force and gives Annie Shapero a clear, memorable entrance that sets up future appearances.

Other smaller differences appear. The cutting line spoken over Cole’s body in the book by Ser Pate of Longleaf – “I’ll have no songs about how brave you died, Kingmaker” – does not feature. In its place Oscar Tully delivers a colder remark about having promised the dead he would build a sept from traitors’ bones and not yet having enough. Cole’s final gesture with Alicent’s handkerchief is a show addition that ties his death back to the personal relationship that shaped so much of his arc across three seasons.

The ambush itself, the refusal of heroic combat and the deliberately anti-climactic nature of the death remain faithful. Cole never gets the glorious last stand he spent the previous episode imagining. The show keeps the spirit of Martin’s version even while changing the name on the arrows and adjusting a few of the surrounding faces.


The similar first names have already caused some confusion among viewers. Alys Rivers and Alysanne Blackwood are not related and have almost nothing in common beyond the shared name.

Alys Rivers, played by Gayle Rankin, is the mysterious woman living at Harrenhal. She is a bastard associated with House Strong, a former wet nurse, an herbalist and a figure many believe has genuine second sight or darker knowledge. Some accounts in the books claim she is a daughter of Lord Lyonel Strong. Others suggest she is older and more dangerous than she appears, with rumours of blood magic and unnatural longevity. Her story is bound up with Prince Aemond and the strange power that seems to linger in the stones of Harrenhal. She operates on or adjacent to the Green side of the conflict.


Black Aly is a trueborn daughter of House Blackwood, an archer and field commander who has fought for Rhaenyra from the early days of the war. She belongs to a different house, a different corner of the Riverlands, and a completely different set of loyalties. Once you see them on screen the difference is obvious. One moves through shadows and prophecy. The other moves through mud and archery ranges.


The series has already moved her forward in the timeline compared with the books. In Fire & Blood her most significant actions come later. The show has chosen to give her a major kill early, which suggests the writers intend to keep her active rather than treat her as a one-scene surprise.

Expect her to remain with the combined Riverlands and Northern forces as the war continues. The Battle of the Kingsroad still lies ahead in the source material, and her command of archers there is a natural fit for further screen time. Beyond the fighting, her post-war role offers rich ground if the series continues. The conversation with Cregan Stark, the marriage in the Winterfell godswood, the Widow Fairs and her time as Lady of Winterfell are all still available.

Annie Shapero has said she expects to return for Season 4. Given how cleanly the writers handed her Cole’s death and how deliberately they marked her with the black war paint and the quiet competence, it is reasonable to assume they see her as a character who can grow.

In a war full of dragons, prophecies and larger-than-life claims to the throne, Black Aly’s contribution so far has been practical and final. She saw a man preparing a performance and simply refused to let him finish it. That refusal may turn out to be one of the more lasting images of the season.

House of the Dragon Season 3 continues streaming on Max, with new episodes releasing weekly on Sundays at 9pm ET.