Helaena Targaryen
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Helaena Targaryen, by Hylora © | ||||
|
| ||||
| Titles |
| |||
| Allegiances | ||||
| Culture | Crownlands | |||
| Born | 109 AC | |||
| Died |
130 AC (aged 21) Maegor's Holdfast, the Red Keep, King's Landing | |||
| Father | Viserys I Targaryen | |||
| Mother | Alicent Hightower | |||
| Spouse | King Aegon II Targaryen | |||
| Issue | ||||
| Books |
| |||
| Played by |
Phia Saban Evie Allen (young) | |||
| TV series | House of the Dragon: Season 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
Queen Helaena Targaryen was the sister-wife to King Aegon II Targaryen. She was the only daughter of King Viserys I Targaryen by his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower, and his second daughter overall. Helaena and Aegon had three children: the twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, and Maelor. Like her siblings, Helaena was a dragonrider, who rode the dragon Dreamfyre.[1]
In the television adaptation House of the Dragon, Helaena is portrayed by Phia Saban and Evie Allen (young).[2][3]
Contents
Appearance and Character
At the age of thirteen, Helaena was plumper than most Targaryens, and less striking as well. Nonetheless, she was a pleasant and happy girl, and all agreed she would be an excellent mother.[1] She loved her dragon, Dreamfyre,[4] and according to a semi-canon source, taking to the skies on Dreamfyre was Helaena's greatest joy in life.[5] As queen, Helaena was loved by the smallfolk.[6] Following the murder of her eldest son, Helaena became depressed and descended into madness.[7]
History
Early life
In 109 AC, Helaena was born to King Viserys I Targaryen and his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower. She had an older half-sister, Princess Rhaenyra, and an older brother, Prince Aegon, and would have two younger brothers, Prince Aemond and Prince Daeron.[1][8]
By the age of eleven, Helaena had become a dragonrider, and rode the dragon Dreamfyre. In 122 AC, at the age of thirteen, Helaena was married to her older brother Prince Aegon, following the ancient tradition of House Targaryen. Barely a year after her wedding, Helaena gave birth to twins: Jaehaerys and Jaehaera.[1]
On the first day of 127 AC, Helaena's father, King Viserys I, held a feast to celebrate the recovery of his health. According to the court fool Mushroom, after the king had left the feast, Helaena's nephew, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon, asked her for a dance, which her husband and brother, Aegon, took offense to. Later that same year, Helaena gave birth to a third child, a boy named Maelor.[1]
On the third day of the third month of 129 AC, Helaena brought her three children to her father's chambers, where the king, the night before his death, entertained her children with a fictional tale[N 1] about their great-great-grandsire, King Jaehaerys I Targaryen.[1]
The Dance of the Dragons
With the death of King Viserys I Targaryen, a war for succession began. Helaena was informed of her father's passing a day after his death was discovered. When the decision was made to crown her husband, Prince Aegon, instead of Viserys's appointed heir, Princess Rhaenyra, Helaena became a queen. On the day of the coronation, it was Helaena's mother Alicent Hightower who placed the crown upon Helaena's head and addressed her as "my queen".[10]
Unwilling to accept Aegon as her king, Helaena's half-sister Rhaenyra was also crowned as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms on Dragonstone. While Rhaenyra declared Dowager Queen Alicent and Helaena's grandfather, Ser Otto Hightower, to be traitors, she expressed willingness to forgive Helaena and her siblings, as long as they came to Dragonstone and swore fealty to her. When Grand Maester Orwyle suggested traveling to Dragonstone to make Rhaenyra give up her claim, Helaena spoke in favor of his plan, together with her mother, after which King Aegon reluctantly agreed to send the Grand Maester under a peace banner.[10]
After Prince Aemond caused the death of Rhaenyra's son, Prince Lucerys Velaryon, her husband Daemon Targaryen hired two men to murder one of Aegon and Helaena's sons as revenge. The assassins were aware that Helaena was accustomed to bring her children to her mother's chambers in the Tower of the Hand every night before they were put to bed. Thus these two men, known as Blood and Cheese, hid in Alicent's chambers, bound and gagged Alicent, and murdered her bedmaid. There, they awaited Helaena's arrival. After killing her guardsmen and barring the door, they took Helaena and her children hostage, and forced Helaena to choose which one of her sons would die. Helaena offered herself, but was refused. The two men forced Helaena to make a decision when they threatened to have Blood rape Jaehaera, and to kill all three of her children should she refuse to choose. In the end, Helaena reluctantly named her youngest child, Prince Maelor, who she deemed to be too young to understand what was happening. In response, the two men killed Prince Jaehaerys instead, cutting off his head with a single swing of a sword, and fled with it while Helaena screamed.[7][11]
After Jaehaerys's death, Helaena became deeply depressed and slowly sank into madness, and refused to eat, bathe, or leave her chambers. Nor would she look at her younger son, Maelor, knowing that she had chosen him to die.[7] Aegon and Helaena slept apart from one another from then on, and after Aegon was severely injured at the Battle at Rook's Rest, Helaena did not even make an attempt to visit him. She became unreliable as a dragonrider, incapable of flying into battle. When King's Landing fell to Rhaenyra in early 130 AC, Helaena was taken captive.[12]
After the death of Helaena's son Maelor Targaryen at Bitterbridge, his head was sent to Queen Rhaenyra in King's Landing. Mushroom says that Rhaenyra cried when presented with Maelor's head, whereas Septon Eustace says she smiled, and ordered that the head be cremated per Targaryen funeral customs. However, false rumors spread through King's Landing that Rhaenyra had Maelor's head delivered to Queen Helaena in a chamberpot.[4]
Several days after the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Helaena jumped from the window of her room in Maegor's Holdfast. She died immediately on the spikes below, with her throat impaled, only twenty-one years old. At the moment of Helaena's death, her dragon Dreamfyre suddenly rose and snapped two of her chains, and roared loud enough to shake the Dragonpit. When Dowager Queen Alicent was informed of her daughter's death, she tore her clothes and cursed Rhaenyra.[13][N 2]
The reasons Helaena committed suicide, after half a year of captivity, remain the subject of speculation. Court fool Mushroom asserted that Helaena had been impregnated after being sold into prostitution by Rhaenyra and Mysaria, but Archmaester Gyldayn dismisses the tale of the "Brothel Queens". Grand Maester Munkun proposes that Helaena was driven to the act by the horror of seeing Ser Thoron True and Ser Denys Woodwright hanged from the walls of the Red Keep that same day, but Gyldayn also dismisses this notion as there is no evidence she witnessed the hanging, and knew the two men as gaolers at best. For his part, Septon Eustace suggests that Lady Mysaria had chosen that night to tell Helaena of the death of her son Maelor and the manner it had happened, but Gyldayn does not understand what motive Mysaria would have had for doing so.[13][N 3]
By the nightfall of Helaena's death, rumors were flying in King's Landing that she had been murdered. It was believed it had been done by Ser Luthor Largent of the gold cloaks, at the behest of Rhaenyra,[13][11] for Prince Daeron would soon be at the gates of the city with his dragons. Munkun proposes these calumnies were begotten by the Shepherd, who decried both crime and the queen. Mushroom, for his part, indicates this slander was concocted by Lord Larys Strong, former master of whisperers, who had never left the capital. That same night, King's Landing rose in a riot, with men and women of the common folk shouting for justice for the beloved Helaena and her dead sons. Helaena's dragon, Dreamfyre, was slain when the smallfolk stormed the Dragonpit.[13]
Legacy
In 131 AC, Helaena's daughter, Jaehaera, was married to Rhaenyra's son, King Aegon III Targaryen, as part of the peace agreement between the blacks and the greens.[16]
When Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower was dying of the Winter Fever in 133 AC, she spoke of hoping to see her sons and Helaena again.[17]
Later in 133 AC, Queen Jaehaera reportedly threw herself from her window in Maegor's Holdfast, and died on the spikes of the dry moat below. Her death ended the line of King Aegon II and Queen Helaena, as well as the line of King Viserys I Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower. Jaehaera's death was officially deemed a suicide, akin to Helaena's, but many suspected that she had been murdered.[18]
Quotes
—Alicent Hightower, to the green council
—Helaena, to the Kingsguard, about Aegon II Targaryen
As for my half-brothers and my sweet sister, Helaena, they have been led astray by the counsel of evil men. Let them come to Dragonstone, bend the knee, and ask my forgiveness, and I shall gladly spare their lives and take them back into my heart, for they are of my own blood, and no man or woman is as accursed as the kinslayer.[10]
You hear that, little boy? Your momma wants you dead.[7]
—Cheese, to Maelor Targaryen
Though Blood and Cheese had spared her life, Queen Helaena cannot be said to have survived that fateful dusk.[7]
—writings of Gyldayn
This unnatural queen who sits bleeding on the Iron Throne, her whore's lips glistening and red with the blood of her sweet sister.[13]
—The Shepherd, accusing Rhaenyra Targaryen of murdering Helaena
I want to see my sons again, and Helaena, my sweet girl...[17]
—Alicent Hightower, to her septa
Family
| Notes: |
Behind the scenes
According to The Princess and the Queen, King Aegon II decreed that Rhaenyra was never a queen, and that she be referred to only as "princess" in all chronicles and court records, as the title of queen was reserved only for his mother Alicent and his late wife and sister Helaena, the "true queens."[6] However, no such decree is mentioned in the stronger canon Fire & Blood.
George R. R. Martin has said about Helaena's character as adapted in House of the Dragon: "Phia Saban's Helaena is a richer and more fascinating character than the one I created in FIRE & BLOOD." He noted that the book version of Helaena neither displayed the "strangeness" nor the gift of prophecy of the show's Helaena, but that he had no problem with those changes.[5]
Notes
- ↑ Elio García has stated that George R. R. Martin confirmed to him that this story was made up by Viserys to entertain his grandchildren.[9]
- ↑ According to The World of Ice & Fire, Helaena Targaryen's death and the subsequent riot of King's Landing began on the same day as the Battle Above the Gods Eye was fought, on the twenty-second day of the fifth moon of 130 AC.[11] However, Fire & Blood does not confirm that temporal connection,[13] and The Rise of the Dragon says that the uprising happened days after Daemon Targaryen's death.[14]
- ↑ In a now deleted blog post, George R. R. Martin confirmed that hearing of Maelor's death was what drove Helaena to commit suicide, out of grief and guilt.[15]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Fire & Blood, Heirs of the Dragon - A Question of Succession.
- ↑ HBO.com: House of the Dragon Cast & Characters
- ↑ WarnerMedia Pressroom: House of the Dragon | Character Descriptions
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Not a Blog: Blood, Cheese, and Grief (July 5, 2024)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Princess and the Queen.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - A Son for a Son.
- ↑ The World of Ice & Fire, Appendix: Targaryen Lineage.
- ↑ A Forum of Ice and Fire: Inconsistencies, plot holes, and missing details in TSOTD, TRP, and TPATQ (February 28, 2018)
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Blacks and the Greens.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 The World of Ice & Fire, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Red Dragon and the Gold.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Overthrown.
- ↑ The Rise of the Dragon, The Reign of Aegon II.
- ↑ Not a Blog: Beware the Butterflies. George R. R. Martin (September 4, 2024). Archived and retrieved September 4, 2024.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon II.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - The Hooded Hand.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - War and Peace and Cattle Shows.
- House Targaryen
- 109 AC births
- 130 AC deaths
- Casualties of the Dance of the Dragons
- Characters from the Crownlands
- Characters improved by the television adaptations
- Deaths by defenestration
- Deaths by impalement
- Deaths by suicide
- Dragonriders
- Greens
- Mad characters
- Members of Viserys I Targaryen's court
- Members of Aegon II Targaryen's court
- Noblewomen
- Royal consorts