Is Helaena pregnant in House of the Dragon season 3? The potential George R.R. Martin damage control unfolds

House of the Dragon season 3 episode 4 takes us to Tumbleton to see what Ormund Hightower (James Norton) is scheming, while Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) remains in King’s Landing to try and learn everything she can about her new enemy. But while all of this is going on, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and her daughter Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) are still being held in the castle, and even they’re about to go through some real drama.

Since Rhaenyra took King’s Landing in episode 2, Alicent has served as a sort of strange advisor for her, providing what she can about the castle and those in it. Rhaenyra believes Alicent has important information that can help her in the war, though Alicent seems annoyed by it all.

Alicent discovers Helaena is pregnant

Alicent wants to leave King’s Landing and start a new life with her daughter and granddaughter, but a wrench might be thrown into those dreams as she learns Helaena is pregnant.

In a very subtle moment towards the end of tonight’s episode, Alicent makes a shocking discovery when lending a hand to Helaena. Helping her with her robe, she notices something Helaena is quick to try to hide: a pregnant belly. We don’t see their conversation, but they both look at each other very seriously, coming to terms with this truth. Helaena is pregnant, and that can’t exactly be the best news considering the state they’re in.

It’s been long speculated by fans that Helaena would become pregnant again at some point in House of the Dragon, considering in the book, Fire & Blood, she and her brother-husband Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) have three children, not two: Jaehaerys, Jaehaerys, and Maelor.

The behind-the-scenes drama of Maelor

While the fact that Helaena only has two children in the show might’ve been confusing to book fans, it was downright bothersome for author George R.R. Martin.

In his now-infamous blog post from September 2024, in which he heavily criticized House of the Dragon, Martin expressed frustration with the show’s depiction of Blood and Cheese, notably the decision to remove Maelor and, effectively, the Sophie’s Choice element.

Martin also shared that he previously spoke with showrunner Ryan Condal about the Blood and Cheese scene and felt okay with the fact that Maelor could still be born in season 3. “That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change,” the author wrote. However, as he went on to explain, he then learned that Maelor actually wouldn’t be in the show at all, which seemed to bother him even more.

Of course, we expect book changes with big adaptations such as House of the Dragon, especially with a complex book like Fire & Blood. However, as we’ve discussed plenty of times here at Winter Is Coming, sometimes these changes feel a bit short-sighted, and could have major implications down the line the writers can’t backtrack from. Martin seemed to feel that way about Maelor, warning about the potential butterfly effect that could come from removing him from the story.

Why is that, you might ask? We will briefly be touching on MAJOR SPOILERS for Fire & Blood in this paragraph and beyond. Well, in the book, Maelor ends up dying, which drives Helaena to throw herself out the window. The people of King’s Landing are devastated by her death, and a rumor begins that Rhaenyra actually had her killed, turning the smallfolk against her. Without Maelor in the picture, Helaena doesn’t have this huge trauma that leads her to take her own life, and that really pissed off Martin.

“In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself… for no particular reason,” Martin wrote in his 2024 blog post. “There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”

Well, fast forward nearly two years later, and it appears Maelor will appear in House of the Dragon after all. But it’s not just his inclusion that would drive the story forward. As Martin explained: “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.”

Could Helaena’s pregnancy be damage control?

The most interesting part of this is that it appears the House of the Dragon writers may have backtracked on their season 3 outline after seeing Martin’s blog post. Very soon after the post went live in 2024, HBO issued a statement defending Condal and the creative team, and two days later, they even released a podcast episode with Condal, in which he explained the decision to remove Maelor. (In case you’re wondering, he said that working with very small children can be difficult, plus the timeline didn’t work). Clearly, HBO took Martin’s complaints very seriously… but enough to actually change the third season?

Maybe! It appears like it very much could be the case, though we still don’t know exactly where Helaena’s storyline is headed. Yes, she might give birth to Maelor—there’s a shot in the teaser trailer which appears to be her screaming, potentially while giving birth—but we don’t know how or if she’ll die. For all we know, she (and Maelor) could die during childbirth (this show loves traumatic childbirth scenes, after all!).

With the number of creative liberties the House of the Dragon writers have taken with the source material, it’s hard to even predict what’ll happen. What we do know is that Martin saw a season 3 outline that did not include Maelor, and now, in the latest episode, Helaena is pregnant with her third child. Introducing Maelor but changing Helaena’s fate would kind of be a slap in the face to Martin, and I don’t think HBO wants to go down that road again.

Not only is Helaena’s pregnancy interesting plot-wise, but it also creates more mystery around the behind-the-scenes drama of House of the Dragon. The last we heard from Martin on his relationship with Condal, he described it as “abysmal” in January. We very much wonder what he might think of tonight’s episode, and the implications that come with it.

We’re officially at the halfway mark of House of the Dragon season 3! How are we feeling, readers? Keep watching new episodes every Sunday night on HBO and HBO Max.

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