Editor’s Note: The following contains MAJOR spoilers and deaths for the future of House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood, the book that the series is based on.
George R.R. Martin’s latest blog post has dropped, and before it disappeared from the internet, he leaked a major spoiler for the next season ofHouse of the Dragon. Well, kind of. Martin’s post detailed a major issue he had with how theGame of Thronesprequel played outthe infamous Blood and Cheese scenefrom the Dance of the Dragons. This, in his opinion, caused a butterfly effect throughout the Targaryen civil war that could lead to devastating results, including major character deaths.
Anyone with access to the internet or a library can look up howFire & Blooddetails this era of history, but the bigger surprise is thatMartin detailed in his post where exactly a major death would occurin the next season. He revealed that showrunnerRyan Condal’s outline for Season 3 includes Helaena’s (Phia Saban) suicide. Until today, there was only speculation about when Helaena would die and how it might affect the show’s final two seasons. Today, we got confirmation that, at least in Condal’s outline for the season,Helaena’s time is coming to an end with Season 3.
Why Does Helaena Kill Herself?
InHouse of the DragonSeason 2 premiere, “A Son for a Son,” Helaena is forced to pick which one of her kids must die. In the HBO series,she is only a mother of two children, and the assassins Blood and Cheese can’t tell the difference between the twins, Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Jaehaera.In the bookFire & Blood, Helaena and Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) have three children.The twins are six years old, and Maelor, a younger son, is two years old. Blood and Cheese force Helaena to choose between her two sons. When she offers herself in the place of her children, Blood and Cheese threaten to not only rape Jaehaera but also kill all the children. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Helaena chooses Maelor because he is just a baby and would have no true understanding of what is happening. With her choice made,Blood and Cheese then promptly kill Jaehaerys in front of them and make sure that Maelor knows his mother wants him dead.
The show definitely downplayed Blood and Cheese, not because they cut away from Jaehaerys' beheading (though we got an earful of that bone-crunching disgustingness) but because it cut the fact that Helaena offers her own life in place of her kids and completely erased Maelor.But do we really need yetanotherTargaryen? No, and even Martin himself, who initially pushed back on the removal of the third child, admitted in his blog that the change would only affect book readers in that specific scene. However, his larger issue involves Helaena’s eventual suicide. She is wracked by guilt and grief over the death of Jaehaerys, and this only gets worse when Maelor dies after being torn apart (yes, literally) by a mob after a failed escape from King’s Landing at Bitterbridge. Learning of this, she is completely devastated. Not only did she choose for Maelor to die at first, but now even his being spared is meaningless. As Martin wrote, “She could barely stand to look at Maelor, knowing that she chose him to die in theSophie’s Choicescene… and now he is dead in truth, her words having come true. The grief and guilt are too much for her to bear.” This is why Helaena dies.Maelor’s death is the final straw for Helaena, who then throws herself off of a tower to her death.
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Why Does It Matter That Maelor Was Cut From ‘House of the Dragon’?
So maybe George R.R. Martin has a good point. InFire & Blood, Helaena’s death is quickly twisted into a murder that was ordered by Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). We saw fromthe initial procession after Jaehaerys' deaththat the smallfolk love Helaena.Learning that Rhaenyra has ordered the death of their beloved queen sends the people of King’s Landing into a frenzy. They riot and storm the dragon pit. This leads to one of the most devastating scenes in the war. Yes, the death of kids and heroic figures is sad, but the smallfolk turn on the dragons and kill the dragons in the pit! That’s way more devastating! In all seriousness, Martin has a point thatMaelor’s existence causes a domino effectthat goes from the beginning of the war to the end.
Martin says that the Blood and Cheese sequence being changed “undercut the motivation for Helaena’s suicide, and that in turn sent thousands into the streets and alleys, screaming for justice for their ‘murdered’ queen.” Granted,Fire & Bloodis a historical retelling of Targaryen history that is meant to be inaccurate. It was written years after the events of the story and is not written from a specific character’s point of view (likeGame of Thronesis). So, whether or not Helaena’s reason for killing herself is over the death of her son is both speculation and does not matter that much. As we’ve seen in Season 2, the smallfolk have already been discontent. We already saw that Rhaenys (Eve Best)escaping from the dragon pit on Meleysled to the death of countless smallfolk, the blockade, the ceaseless fears of attack, the starvation, it is all piling onto the fact thatthe smallfolk are suffering at the whims of the nobility. At this point, King’s Landing is a powder keg about to explode,Maelor doesn’t need to exist for them to turn on the royal family, those seeds have already been sown.
Why Did George R.R. Martin Delete His Blog Post?
Maybe we could take this all as the ramblings of an author who is upset that his work is not being adapted properly, but a few hours after Martin’s blog post went up, it disappeared. Now, we all know that the internet is forever, and that blog post has no doubt found life all over the internet by now, but why was it taken down? We have no official explanation from Martin, butthe fact that he spoiled when Helaena will die could be the reason, specifically that it happens in Season 3. Specifically, he said, “In Ryan [Condal]’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself… for no particular reason. There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”
Whether this has ruffled feathers with the creatives behindHouse of the Dragonor with HBO is uncertain. But HBO’s response to the blog post,as reported by Variety,put their support behind showrunner Ryan Condal, who Martin called out a few times in his post. A spokesperson for HBO explained that the creative team behind the show is “required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow,” and emphasizing that the creators are great fans of Martin’s work. They concluded, “We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it.”
This is not the first time Martin has taken to his blog to complain about the series. He wrote initially about Season 2’s premiere andcomplimented and criticized the Blood and Cheese episodebefore later posting criticism for the use of the House Targaryen sigil that chose to usethe four-legged dragon sigil rather than the two-legged. His most recent deleted post,which he teased last week, ends more ominously, with a threatening final word for fans. “And there are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, ifHouse of the Dragongoes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…” While it seems unlikely that these blog posts will affect the actual story ofHouse of the DragonSeason 3, it sure makes for a messy behind-the-scenes look that implies that Martin has some serious issues with where the show is going.
House of the Dragonis available to stream now on Max in the U.S.
House of the Dragon
The reign of House Targaryen begins with this prequel to the popular HBO seriesGame of Thrones.Based on George R.R. Martin’sFire & Blood,House of the Dragonis set nearly 200 years beforeGame of Thrones, telling the story of the Targaryen civil war with King Viserys.
