In the season 2 premiere of House of the Dragon, Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) suffered an enormous trauma when her young son Jaehaerys was decapitated in front of her, killed by assassins sent into the Red Keep by Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). Helaena didn't have much to do for most of the rest of the season, but she had a part to play in the season finale, where she refused to ride her dragon Dreamfyre into battle alongside her brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) to help with his war effort.
She rejects him in pretty certain terms, using her precognitive abilities as a dreamer to foretell his own death. “You were swallowed up in the God’s Eye, and you were never seen again,” she tells him.
Helaena has been known to have prophetic dreams, but she's never articulated one with such clarity before. Speaking to Variety, actor Phia Saban tried to figure out what changed this time. "t was never as clear as what happened to her in that last episode," she said. "And I think that’s something to do with the fact that she’s kind of, in the last part of the series, disassociated more from the real world, where she’s expected to engage with all of this, I guess what they would call reality. She’s living more and more in her own reality...I wouldn’t say that that’s just her now, but I think it felt as clear as it ever has for her."
"The present is a little bit too painful to live in for now, so she’s managed to step more forthrightly into this otherness — and that’s why this moment felt so clear to her. She’s not fighting it as much anymore."
The directness also helps Aemond back off. "The issue is that she knows him, and she loves him. That is what keeps the family together, is knowing each other and loving each other, even when it gets complicated. And I think that she knows, knowing Aemond, that for him to back off, she needs to go for his ego as well, and just be honest," Saban said. "And she goes, I’m not going to do it — and by the way, this is not going to end well for you! Do you know what I mean? And I don’t think she thinks that it will necessarily change his path, but it’s just a little moment where she stands up for herself."
Why does Helaena Targaryen show up in Daemon's vision?
In that same episode, Helaena also turns up in a vision seen by Daemon Targaryen, the man who took out a hit on Helaena's son. She seems to give him some good-natured advice about his role in the wars to come. “It’s all a story. And you’re but one part in it,” she says. “You know your part.”
Daemon is actively at war with Aemond, and some fans have interpreted this as Helaena switching teams, but Saban doesn't quite see it that way. She's not even sure Helaena's really in Daemon's head at all; it might be another projection of his guilt or something. "I don’t feel that she is a team," Saban said. "And my feeling isn’t that she was giving Daemon advice because she wants him to succeed. I think choosing between one team and the other suggests that you think anything can happen, and I think to a certain extent, she feels a little bit transcended above that. She has a clear view of this end that’s in sight. And I wouldn’t say that she knows it innately, but I think she knows enough to be like, it’s not about who’s on the throne next — we’re all going in the same direction."
"I would also say about the scene with Daemon, it’s slightly left up to what the audience thinks about how much she is there — present in his dream. Maybe she’s a projection of something he wants to tell himself, especially since he hurt her so much with her son and everything. From a psychoanalytical perspective, maybe it’s all about him, and maybe it’s not that literal."
Phia Saban wants Helaena to ride a dragon on House of the Dragon
It's hard to figure out exactly where Helaena's story is going; the show has broken pretty hard with its source material, the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, where Helaena doesn't have prophetic dreams at all. Fire & Blood also says that Helaena loved to ride her dragon Dreamfyre before the murder of her son but doesn't rider her afterwards, whereas the show makes it sound like Helaena never liked dragon-riding.
"This is my public statement: I would like to fly with Dreamfyre!" Saban said. "Yeah, I’d absolutely love to, and I like to think that they have a lovely relationship and connection. But I can’t say yes or no as to whether we’ll see them together, but I’d like to think you will. Who knows?"
"I was on the lot at the same time as Tom [Glynn-Carney] and Beth [Antonia], when they were both on the buck. So I went and watched them both do it, and I was really jealous. It’s really cool. But I think dragon acting is a whole new thing — dragonriding acting — so maybe I’d have to get some tips from them first."
I doubt we'll ever see Helaena ride a dragon, but if we do, it'll be in the third season of the show, which should be coming to HBO and Max sometime in 2026.
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