SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max.
HBO’s “House of the Dragon” lost its moral center with the death of Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) in Sunday’s Season 3 finale.
The pregnant Helaena takes her own life by jumping from her window in the Red Keep when left alone in her room. It’s a death many fans saw coming following a season of Helaena’s ominous visions and deep depression over being secluded from her young daughter, Jaehaera, in King’s Landing. Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) discovers Helaena’s suicide just before the episode ends.
“It’s a tragedy. That’s definitely the arc of Helaena’s story,” Saban tells Variety. “But I think, as she says earlier, ‘This is my body, and this is my baby — and both of those things have been forsaken as long as I’ve lived.’ And she doesn’t want to live the way she’s living anymore, and she feels that she wants to protect the children that she does have. She’s just trying her best.”
Before she died, Helaena left behind the final piece of a tapestry she’s been embroidering throughout all of “House of the Dragon” Season 3 for Rhaenyra to find. After the image of Rhaenyra jumping to her own death and landing on spikes, Rhaenyra sees a depiction of her on the Iron Throne with blood streaming down from the crown on her head and surrounded by dragon flames.
