“House of the Dragon” fans should be particularly glued to their screens anytime Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) pops up, because she has a proven track record of foreseeing future events.
Helaena is a dreamer – someone who can see futures and prophecise events — and she has correctly seen some of the biggest moments throughout “House of the Dragon” thus far. Her abilities as a dreamer is something that is specific to the HBO adaptation but the focus on prophecy overall has had a larger focus in the series.
Helaena’s father King Viserys was obsessed with prophecy – specifically Aegon the Conquerer’s “Song of Ice and Fire” foretelling the events that play out in “Game of Thrones.” The king became so enthralled by prophecy that he stopped riding his dragon just to study the concept of dreamers.
“Many in my line have been dragonriders,” Viserys said to Alicent in Season 1. “Very few among us have been dreamers. What is the power of a dragon next to the power of prophecy?”
He never found out that his own daughter ended up being a dreamer. Most of her family have shrugged off Helaena’s mutterings as merely an oddity or quirk, but multiple times now she’s foretold events that happen in the show. Sooner or later hopefully someone clues in on the fact that she’s tapped into something greater.
Her successful foretellings are growing as Season 2 gets underway. These are all of Helaena’s prophecies that have come true so far.
“He will have to close an eye.”
Helaena’s first on-screen prophecy in Season 1 was a big one. While Aegon, Jace, and Luke have all successfully bonded with dragons, a young Aemond is fretting to his mother about not claiming one for himself. Alicent comforts her son, assuring him he’ll earn his dragon soon enough and Helaena overhears and mutters “he will have to close an eye.”
Shortly after, Aemond gets in a fight with Luke and is cut across the face with a knife and loses an eye. It’s only after his eye is “closed” that Vhagar – the largest known dragon in Westeros – allows him as a rider.
“Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black, dragons of flesh, weaving dragons of thread.”
Helaena’s famous spider prophecy broadly foretells the entire upcoming civil war between the Rhaenyra (Team Black) and Alicent (Team Green) that became known in the histories as The Dance of the Dragons.
She whispered this to her brother – and future husband – Aegon while looking at a spider on Driftmark during Laena’s funeral.
“Beware the beast beneath the boards.”
One of her more ominous sounding prophecies, Helaena offers this warning during the light-hearted Targaryen dinner in Season 1, Episode 8: “The Lord of the Tides.”
In the following episode – “The Green Council” – while the Blacks and Green conspire to claim the Iron Throne after Viserys’ death, she’s approached by her mother Alicent where she again warns “There’s a beast beneath the boards.”
The multiple warnings pay off later in the episode when Rhaenys and her massive dragon Meleys burst up through the floorboards at the Dragonpit during Aegon’s coronation, killing many in attendance before she flies off to join Rhaenyra.
“I’m afraid … Not of dragons. Of rats.”
Helaena has mentioned her intense dislike of rats throughout Season 1, but the Season 2 premiere has her calling out her fear of them just days before Daemon Targaryen’s Blood and Cheese assassination plot happens.
She mentions to her brother husband Aegon her fear but is once again dismissed as being just quirky old Helaena. It’s not long after that Blood and Cheese – who served the Red Keep as a ratcatcher – break in looking to kill Aemond for the death of Luke at the end of Season 1.
They never find Aemond, but they do find Helaena and her six-year-old twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Cheese demands to know which is the boy and Aegon’s heir. Helaena relents and flees with her daughter while Jaehaerys is brutally decapitated.
