House of the Dragon season 3 has officially come to an end, and with the closing of the season, Ryan Condal seems to have just proved George R.R. Martin had nothing to worry about regarding planned changes to one character’s storyline. Warning: Spoilers ahead from the House of the Dragon season 3 finale!
Trigger warning: This article mentions the topic of suicide.
As fans will likely recall, back in 2024, long before season 3 had even begun filming, George R.R. Martin took to his personal blog to air out his grievances about the show’s plan to cut the character of Maelor from the show entirely. For those unfamiliar with the source material, Maelor is the second son of Aegon and Helaena, and his death in Fire & Blood creates a major domino effect that leads to a pair of major storylines.
In the book, Maelor is killed at Bitterbridge after a hostile mob of people tears the young boy apart, yes, literally, fighting over his body in hopes of cashing in on the bounty on Maelor’s head. When the news reaches Helaena, she is so overcome with grief that she jumps from the window at Maegor’s Holdfast and falls onto the iron spikes of the dry moat below.
After Helaena’s death, thousands take to the streets and alleys of King’s Landing in protest, crying for justice to be had for their “murdered” queen, believing that Rhaenyra had killed Helaena directly. The uproar behind her death forces Rhaenyra to flee King’s Landing. This is a critical storyline in the book, but it’s one that Martin revealed back in 2024 was set to be altered with the show choosing not to include Maelor.
The decision to cut Maelor from the show was one that Martin took serious issue with, as he stressed in the deleted blog post that doing so would undercut the motivation for Helaena’s suicide and would result in Helaena taking her life “for no particular reason.”
In his words, cutting Maelor from the show meant that the show would lose Bitterbridge, Helaena’s suicide, and the riots, which would create a “considerable loss.”
“None of that is essential, I suppose… but all of it does serve a purpose; it all helps to tie the story lines together, so one thing follows another in a logical and convincing manner,” Martin wrote at the time. “What will we offer the fans instead, once we’ve killed these butterflies? I have no idea. Maelor himself is not essential… but if losing him means we also lose Bitterbridge, Helaena’s suicide, and the riots, well… that’s a considerable loss."
Martin’s fears were certainly justified and left us worried that the show would make a major change to a pivotal storyline. Having now seen Helaena’s death play out, though, it’s clear that Martin may have been worried for nothing.
House of the Dragon changed Helaena’s death but it was still impactful and may be the downfall of Rhaenyra
It is true that House of the Dragon did not introduce Maelor officially into the show and therefore altered the reason for Helaena’s death; however, the writers did a brilliant job of making sure that her death was not “for no particular reason,” though the motivations for her death were indeed altered.
Because Maelor was not born in the show, he was never killed, and his death did not push Helaena over the edge, leading her to take her life after being overcome by grief. Instead, she ultimately saw taking her own life as the only escape from the prison she could not flee.
After Rhaenyra took King’s Landing, Alicent thought she and Helaena would be able to flee, but they became Rhaenyra’s prisoners instead. Since being held captive, we’ve seen Helaena struggling with having her freedoms taken away from her little by little as a pawn in a war she wants no part of.
Her vision of Dreamfyre slaughtering innocent men and women at her command crystallizes a terrifying truth in her mind: dragons don’t just serve their riders, they corrupt them. Seen through that lens, Helaena’s death no longer reads as an act of pure grief but as a desperate attempt to break the cycle and escape a future she believes is both unavoidable and devastating. We saw this with her conversation with Rhaenyra, in which she called her out for not seeing the beauty in the world and only being interested in ugly things, even calling Rhaenyra ugly in calling out how toxic she is.
It became clear to Helaena that there was no way Rhaenyra would let her be free. Her treatment of her in the way in which she literally had her guards force-feed her was not in the interest of her baby, but because she saw the baby as a pawn she could hold over Aegon's head. While it might have been unspoken, it was clear that Helaena realized her child would never have a good life and would end up trapped in this same world, living as a pawn and prisoner.
Although the motivations behind her death changed, it was still just as heartbreaking as in the book. Phia Saban gave a phenomenal performance in the finale, breaking our hearts multiple times with her tear-filled face as she was forced back into her cage when her time outside was cut short and watching the guards hold Helaena down and force food down her throat; it was heartbreaking to see her pushed to her breaking point and come to the realization there was only one way out.
It is also clear there is still a path ahead in the final season for Helaena’s death to lead to the downfall of Rhaenyra.
As her death is revealed in the closing moments of the finale, we do not get to see the immediate fallout of Helaena’s death, which is a storyline we fully expect will play heavily into the opening episode of season 4. Once word of Helaena’s death spreads, we fully expect that the show will see the people of King’s Landing turn further on Rhaenyra and blame her for Helaena’s death just as they do in the book.
Essentially, while the buildup to her death was different, it still should lead us to the same path as in the book with the citizens turning on Rhaenyra. As such, Martin’s fears did not to come to fruition, as the chain reaction to removing Maelor from the show did not end up creating as damning a butterfly effect as Martin feared it would. Sure, it would have been nice to see the show be more faithful to the source material, but Helaena’s death was just as heartbreaking as it was intended to be and has paved the way for Rhaenyra’s undoing in the final season.
If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 988.
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