While HBO’s House of the Dragon has set the stage for gruesome dragon warfare, the most devastating dragon death is quite unlike the rest.
Warning: This article contains potential spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2.Gruesome dragon warfare and hostilities will take the center stage in House of the Dragon season 2, but the dragon death primed to be the saddest is one that may not even be noticed by the audience. Dragons play a crucial part in the subtext and the storytelling of the fantasy drama with the war of succession between King Viserys’ eldest daughter, Rhaenyra, and her younger half-brother, Aegon II. This full-scale war, aka the Dance of the Dragons, results in the deaths of nearly all the dragons, as well key political figureheads, including Rhaenyra’s half-sister, Helaena, and her mount.
The war of succession begins after Viserys death and births the rival factions of Greens and Blacks in House of the Dragon. Those who stand by Rhaenyra’s claim to the Iron Throne come to be known as Blacks and those who support the faction backing the claim of Aegon II are Greens. While the crowning of Aegon II is seen as grave defiance of Viserys’ order and breach of the oaths he extracted from Lords and Knights of the Seven Kingdoms, Prince Lucerys Velaryon’s death at the hands of his half-uncle, Aemond Targaryen, is perceived as an open act of war by Rhaenyra who otherwise tries her best to keep the Seven Kingdoms in House of the Dragon from plunging into war. However, of all the deaths in the bloody battle, the saddest one of all is the purple she-dragon who wastes away.
How Blood & Cheese Could Sabotage Helaena’s Dragon Arc
Lucerys’ death, the first casualty of the Dance, has a domino effect and is avenged by the assassination of a Green son, masterminded by Daemon, organized by Mysaria, and executed by two men nicknamed Cheese and Blood. Using a secret passageway to the Red Keep, Blood and Cheese sneak into Alicent Hightower’s chambers where they trap Helaena and force her to choose which of her two sons should live. Helaena agonizingly names the young Maelor, but Blood slays the six-year-old Jaehaerys Targaryen, and flees with his head.
The horrific Blood and Cheese moment not only escalates the Dance of the Dragons but results in Helaena’s madness and mars her dragon arc. She becomes an unreliable dragonrider, incapable of flying into battle, and in the end, jumps from the window of her room in Maegor’s Holdfast. Her insanity also renders her she-dragon, Dreamfyre, first shown flying alongside Aegon II’s Sunfyre in season 1, episode 7, “Driftmark” riderless.
The greatest of the tragedies is that Dreamfyre was once attracted to spirited young women, but both of her riders meet a similar fate. She witnesses the worldly detachment of her former rider, Princess Rhaena Targaryen, and the withdrawal of her latter rider, Helaena. The repercussions of the Dance and the fallibility of humans have an impact on Dreamfyre, and the grief of Helaena’s death has her snap her chains and screech loud enough to shake the Dragonpit. Ultimately, Dreamfyre slowly wastes away without her riders, kept from the sky and chained in a pit, a tragedy born of the passive cruelty of the humans with whom she’d bonded.
1What House Of The Dragon Season 2 Likely Holds For Dreamfyre
The repercussions of Helaena’s descent into madness will undoubtedly have a profound impact on Dreamfyre, who will surely spend the last of her days chained in the Dragonpit. While House of the Dragon has set the stage for mass usage of dragons in warfare, Dreamfyre’s death in the books is far more tragic. She is nicked by a crossbow bolt during the Riot of King’s Landing, and meets a devastating death underneath the rubble of the Dragonpit’s great dome.
Since Helaena isn’t central to the events preceding the Dance of the Dragons, Dreamfyre is pushed back in season 1 to make screen time for more key characters and their dragons. That said, the tight-knit storyline and the intractable conflict will ensure that tragedy touches every member of the House Targaryen. Therefore, the assassination of Prince Jaehaerys will bring Helaena and her Dreamfyre into the spotlight in House of the Dragon season 2.
