Ser Criston Cole: Using courtly love as a weapon – that’s what ASOIAF is all about

Of all the things George RR Martin has ever written in the universe of A song of ice and fireOne thing that stands out is the consistent effort to deconstruct pretty much every classic fantasy cliché.

As a long-time fantasy girlie, this is part of what attracted me ASOIAF first and foremost, what makes me stay here and manifest every single day for a piece of news about The Winds of WinterSo you can imagine my joy when I saw in the third episode of the second season of House of the Dragon“The burning mill”.

Warning, spoilers!

It all begins with the confrontation between Queen Alicent and the newly appointed Hand of the King, Ser Criston Cole, in the courtyard of the Red Keep, as the Hand prepares to lead a relatively small group to take possession of Harrenhal. We have already seen how the power dynamic between the two shifts with Criston’s new status – with him waiting for her in her chambers, instead of her She invites him, and he silences her during the meetings of the small council. The situation becomes even more serious when Alicent’s brother, Ser Gwayne Hightower, enters the picture.

Ser Gwayne obviously loves his sister very much and wants to protect her – and he is also anti-Dornish, like pretty much everyone in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, which is why he enjoys taunting Criston and bringing him down. Alicent continues Gwayne’s taunts, which could also be seen as an attempt to gain more control over Criston. And what does Criston do? He turns courtly love into a weapon. I love it. love it! As a means of storytelling, of course.

Courtly love, a literary device that was all the rage in medieval Europe, was essentially the idea of ​​a love that moved between erotic desire and spiritual connection – a brave and fearless knight who loved a pure and beautiful lady, their love was overwhelming but never acted out except through heroic adventures and longing glances. And since the world of ASOIAF is largely inspired by the European Middle Ages, courtly love is also alive in Westeros.

We have actually already seen courtly love in House of the Dragon in the very first episode of the first season, when Criston asks for Rhaenyra’s favor to carry her in the tournament. And young Alicent is taken by this, maybe even a little jealous, because she obviously wants some kind of courtly love herself, having probably idolized it in songs and stories.

But now we see that courtly love is just an illusion and, worse, another weapon men use to exercise their power over women. Criston is loudly pleading for Alicent’s favor and she can’t really refuse him in the middle of the courtyard with a large number of members of the court watching. So she grants him her favor – with the most soulless face imaginable, oh Olivia Cooke, the actress that you are – but we can clearly see that she hates every second of it. She probably understands very well how this violent request once again degrades her to a simple token, a gold star on his record as a man and as a knight.