House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 7 opens inside Heleana Targaryen’s (Phia Saban) dreams. The most sensitive member of House Targaryen imagines herself not confined to the Red Keep, but free to roam the yard outside with a grey mare. She’s about to look off into the distance — at whatever is yet to come on the HBO show — when Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) wakes her from her mystical reverie.
**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 7, now streaming on HBO Max**
Rhaenyra only learned last week what House of the Dragon fans have known for years: Helaena is a Dreamer, meaning she has a rare magical gift to see visions of the future. While this is a gift that has saved House Targaryen in the past, it’s also known to make life miserable for those who have it. For instance, in HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Prince Daeron (Henry Ashton) was driven to alcoholism to cope with his visions. Helaena is now essentially being threatened by Rhaenyra to divulge her secrets or suffer.
While Rhaenyra is disappointed with Helaena’s answers, fans can’t be miffed with what House of the Dragon ultimately showed us. Towards the end of House of the Dragon Season 3 Episode 7, we find ourselves once again inside Helaena’s visions.
First, she imagines herself giving birth to her baby. After a horrific labor, her newborn child is taken away and passed to a member of the Kingsguard.
Then, we see Helaena like we’ve never seen her before: riding her purple dragon Dreamfyre in the Great Sept. This version of Helaena doesn’t have her trademark soft “spaciness.” Rather, she’s ready for battle. As a mob of small folk rush towards Dreamfyre, she cries, “Dracarys!”
Finally, we get a sweet vision of Helaena living a quiet, happy life with her two surviving silver-haired children, feeding chickens on a farm. Everything is idyllic until the sky darkens and snowflakes begin to tumble down.
So what could Helaena’s visions mean? Will they come true? Here’s what we know from George R.R. Martin‘s books and here are our theories about Heleana’s latest dreams…
What Do Helaena’s Dreams Mean in House of the Dragon?
As with most forms of prophecy in literature, the dragon dreams in George R.R. Martin’s work are infamously open to interpretation. That said, there seem to be three major events that Helaena’s latest batch of dreams are tapping into from the books.
What Does Helaena’s Childbirth Dream Mean?
In George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, Helaena is the mother to three children when the Dance of the Dragons begins: Jaehaerys (who is killed by Blood & Cheese), Jaehaera, and their younger brother, Maelor. The show cut Maelor from Season 2 for simplicity’s sake — a move that George R.R. Martin himself infamously slammed in a now deleted blog post. House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal seems to have corrected this decision by making Helaena pregnant in Season 3.
Helaena’s vision of childbirth seems to be a cut-and-dry premonition of what her mother Alicent (Olivia Cooke) fears will happen should Helaena carry her baby to term. If the child is male, Rhaenyra will take and kill the baby as soon as its born, so as to prevent yet another threat to her legitimacy. This is what appears to be happening in Helaena’s vision.
Note: in Martin’s version of events, a toddler Maelor is literally ripped apart by a mob hoping to impress Rhaenyra. Helaena dies by suicide upon learning this news.
Will Helaena Ride Dreamfyre and Kill the Smallfolk?
Early on in this week’s episode of House of the Dragon, Helaena tries to explain to Rhaenyra the reason why she avoids riding Dreamfyre. According to younger Targaryen, dragons change people and, like their father, she doesn’t want to be changed.
The version of Helaena we see on Dreamfyre in her Dreams is very different from the one we know. She looks confident, angry, and defiant. Instead of protecting living things, she is happily telling Dreamfyre to massacre a mob of angry smallfolk.
This specific Dream could be teasing that we will see Helaena take to Dreamfyre in rage after Maelor’s death, which would be a huge departure from the books. Or… it could be Helaena foreseeing a terrible event that does indeed happen in Fire & Blood.
Eventually the smallfolk of King’s Landing have had enough of Rhaenyra’s poor leadership and rise up en masse against her and the other dragonlords. They storm the dragonpit to murder the remaining dragons living there. Dreamfyre notably snaps into action and winds up fighting back with gusto. However, even Dreamfyre eventually dies in the struggle.
This is either teasing a new version of events or is Helaena imagining herself as part of what will unfold.
Will Helaena Ever Get to Raise Her Chickens?
Helaena’s final vision feels to us like a fantasy for the Dreamer — and for us, too! A version of events where Helaena and her children not only get to survive the war, but live in peace with their chickens.
What’s interesting is that even this idyllic scene eventually fades and is overtaken by a vision of ice and darkness falling upon the farm.
We could be way off, but we think this is Helaena realizing that the White Walkers and the new Long Night are coming. If she doesn’t take her place in the larger Song of Ice and Fire, more innocents will perish. The White Walkers are coming, chickens be damned.
The House of the Dragon Season 3 finale comes out next Sunday, August 9 at 9 PM ET on HBO and HBO Max.