Lyman Beesbury
Master of coin to three kings, an honest old man in a council of knives ÔÇö the arithmetic of treason never added up for him.
A soul born at Honeyholt.
The fuller tale
How it ends for them
On the screen. Opened at the green council's table (S1┬ÀE9)
Master of coin to three kings, he alone at the green council refused the word 'succession' for what it was ÔÇö treason against the named heir. Ser Criston opened his throat on the table, and the council continued around the body.
On the page. Died objecting ÔÇö the accounts differ on how (F&B, ch. 2)
The master of coin refused the green council's treason to its face. Mushroom says Ser Criston opened his throat; Orwyle says a chill in a black cell; Eustace says a fall. The accounts agree only that the honest man died first.
In the show, Ser Criston Cole opens his throat across the table in front of the assembled council, and the meeting continues around the body as though a chair has simply been vacated rather than a man murdered ÔÇö the moment that announces, more clearly than anything before it, what kind of council now runs the realm.
Fire & Blood cannot even settle on a single account: Mushroom insists Ser Criston cut his throat exactly as the show depicts; Grand Maester Orwyle's version has him dying of a sudden chill in a black cell days later; Septon Eustace records a fall. The book's own verdict is that the sources agree only on one thing ÔÇö the honest man at that table died first, however it actually happened.
Their chapters, book by book
Where the page and the screen part
Both tellings agree Beesbury dies at that council table for objecting too loudly, though the exact manner differs by source even within Fire & Blood itself, let alone between book and show. The show settles the matter cleanly for its own narrative purposes; the book preserves the disagreement as a feature of its own unreliable-history conceit.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.