Criston Cole

Born at Blackhaven in 82 AC, Criston Cole came of a small house in the Dornish Marches and made his name entirely by the sword. He won fame in the tourney lists at court, and asked Viserys I for the hand of Princess Rhaenyra. Refused by the king — and, the singers insist, used and discarded by the princess — he turned his devotion to her rivals and never forgave the slight.

He rose to Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and became the Greens' fiercest champion. On the night Viserys died it was Criston who placed the crown on Aegon's head, which is how he earned the name the Kingmaker. He led the Green armies in the field, was named Hand of the King in 129 AC, and held the faction together through the year the war turned against it.

The war turned and the Kingmaker went down with it. In 130 AC, south of the Gods Eye, Criston was brought down by a flight of arrows — death by common shafts rather than the knightly end he had planned. The Greens had made him Hand before the end; history remembered only the crown he put on a head that did not want it.