Major SPOILERS follow for both House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood.
House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 7 further explored Helaena Targaryen’s power as a Dreamer, with one particular sequence heavily suggesting that her character’s fate on the HBO series might turn out quite differently than how it played out in George R.R. Martin’s book, Fire & Blood.
Unlike in the book, the show’s Helaena (Phia Saban) has long foreseen events, including her brother Aemond’s death. But this week’s episode saw Helaena dream of her own future — and possible death.
The episode opens with Helaena in the courtyard of King’s Landing approaching a white horse hitched to a wagon. There’s a breeze blowing and the light is low, until the gates open and sunshine pours in. Helaena’s glimpse of freedom is quickly thwarted when Rhaenyra’s voice awakens her.
Helaena confirms to Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) that she had been asked by Aemond to ride her dragon, Dreamfyre, into battle with him but she refused. Helaena says that as a girl she dreamt of flying but now when she’s with Dreamfyre “it’s too much.” She doesn’t want the dragon to “alter” her, suggesting Rhaenyra herself has been changed by all her dragons. Like their father Viserys, Helaena is not as enthralled by the power and allure of dragons as other Targaryens.
Rhaenyra becomes increasingly aggressive as she pushes Helaena to tell her whether she will prevail in the war, treating her like the human equivalent of that fortune telling machine that drove William Shatner’s character to obsession in The Twilight Zone.
Later in the episode, Helaena dreams of giving birth but the newborn is whisked away before she can even get a chance to hold it. Was the child taken away to be killed or to be made a captive since it poses a threat to Rhaenyra’s rule? It’s uncertain.
Helaena then dreams of being in her dragon rider garb, saddled atop Dreamfyre. She is inside the Dragonpit as scores of enraged people storm towards them. “Dracarys!” she cries as Dreamfyre then breathes fire down on the charging mob.
The final part of Helaena’s dream shows her living on a farm, that white horse from the opening dream grazing nearby and two of her now slightly older children – a boy and a girl – helping her feed the chickens. (Remember, she told Alicent that she would like to have chickens if she were ever to be free of King’s Landing.) Helaena’s bucolic bliss is quickly interrupted when the sun is eclipsed by the moon, and what seems to be either ash or snow starts to fall before a debris cloud quickly engulfs her.
I read this dream sequence as Helaena’s premonition of her own death. All season she has yearned to be free, first of her mother Alicent’s control over her and then of being Rhaenyra’s hostage. Helaena has never known agency of her own, essentially being a captive in the Red Keep her whole life, first by her own immediate family before Rhaenyra took control of King’s Landing.
In this episode, Helaena dreams of a simple, quiet life with her children but the darkness and destruction of the Dance of the Dragons seems inescapable for her. That middle portion of her final dream featuring a militant Helaena riding Dreamfyre — a far cry from the shy, non-threatening young woman we’ve known this entire series — depicts The Storming of the Dragonpit, one of the most momentous passages from Fire & Blood.
Warning: We’re about to get into book spoilers!
With the citizens of King’s Landing in full rebellion against Rhaenyra and the city having fallen into chaos, thousands of people — many inspired by the preachings of The Shepherd — charge the Dragonpit with the intention of slaying all the dragons kept there, including Dreamfyre. The dragons are chained so they are at a disadvantage but they nevertheless still roast and kill countless numbers of attackers. Still, the humans are relentless and finally, one by one, kill every dragon kept in the Dragonpit.
Dreamfyre is the last to fall, battling hordes of attackers, ultimately breaking free enough to soar into the domed ceiling of the Dragonpit, fatally bringing the whole structure down upon herself and the attackers. That would represent the debris cloud that consumes Helaena at the end of her dream — except that, in the book, Helaena dies before the Storming of the Dragonpit so Dreamfyre perishes without her.
In Fire & Blood, Helaena plunges to her death from Maegor’s Holdfast, impaled on spikes. The unreliable narrators sourced in Fire & Blood suggest Helaena, devastated by the recent murder of her son Maelor — who doesn’t exist in the show but might be the child she’s now pregnant with in Season 3 — leapt to her death. Others claim she was, like her young son Jaehaerys, murdered on the orders of Rhaenyra, a rumor that takes hold among the masses and further enrages them against the ruling queen.
If the baby Helaena carries is indeed meant to be Maelor, then perhaps she might commit suicide to prevent either Alicent or Rhaenyra from trying to take it away from her. If that’s the case and she dies before the Storming of the Dragonpit, then maybe her vision of riding Dreamfyre might be a case of Helaena connecting with the creature at the time of the dragon’s demise or sensing her death from the afterlife when the Dragonpit is stormed.
Personally, I think House of the Dragon will forgo the book’s idea of Helaena’s death being mysterious and instead have her go out as a warrior queen defending the Dragonpit.
If so, this would mean Helaena would finally accept the inherent violence required to be a Targaryen ruler, which might be a crueler, more tragic fate for this gentle soul than not getting to live out her days feeding chickens.
