Who Is Helaena Targaryen in House of the Dragon? Meet Evie Allen and Phia Saban’s Character

Episode 6 of House of the Dragon allowed us to meet the teenage and pre-teen versions of the characters that would become very important in the Dance of the Dragons. While she won’t be one of the warriors that would take part in the Dance of the Dragons, as far as the book is concerned, Helaena is still going to be quite important to the overall storyline. So, who is Helaena Targaryen in House of the Dragon?

Helaena Targaryen is the second child of King Viserys Targaryen to Queen Alicent Hightower and is their only daughter. She is also the younger half-sister of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. In the future, Helaena will be wed to her older brother, Aegon II, in keeping with Valyrian tradition.

The introduction of Helaena Targaryen was quite amusing because of the fact that she did seem quite odd in her own way. Helaena didn’t act like ordinary girls in their younger teenage years, as there is a good chance that she might be special in the series. Now, with that said, let’s look at what we know about Helaena Targaryen in House the Dragon.

Who Is Helaena Targaryen In House Of The Dragon?

Back in the first five episodes of House of the Dragon, we were able to meet the central characters that laid the foundation for what would eventually become a huge Targaryen civil war that tore the entire continent apart. Affectionately called the Dance of the Dragons, this civil war is the culmination of all of the different events that began with Queen Aemma’s death in episode 1. Of course, a lot of things have happened since then, especially between Princess Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent.

As the foundations have now been built, episode 6 allowed us to see some of the key figures that would take part in this huge war. While the focus of the series will still be the rivalry between former best friends Rhaenyra and Alicent, the series will also dwell a lot on the stories of their children. 

That’s why the ten-year gap between episodes 5 and 6 allowed their children to grow into their pre-teen years. And one of the children that grew up away from our eyes was Helaena Targaryen. So, who is Helaena Targaryen in House of the Dragon?

Episode 6 of House of the Dragon wasn’t the first time we met Helaena because we met her in episode 4 when she was still a baby in her mother’s arms. Of course, in episode 3, she was the one that Alicent was carrying in her belly during the time when Prince Aegon II was still celebrating his second name day.

That means that Helaena Targaryen is the second child of King Viserys Targaryen to Queen Alicent Hightower. She is also their only daughter and is the younger sister of Aegon II and the older sister of Aemond. Consequently, she is the younger half-sister of Rhaenyra Targaryen.

In the book, Helaena is described to be cheerful and happy, in contrast to her brothers, who are neither the best people. As such, the smallfolk adored Helaena and had no love for both Aegon II and Aemon.

However, in episode 6, Helaena seems to be quite aloof as she doesn’t show any emotions during her scene. She was merely talking about her insects while Queen Alicent was obviously uninterested while listening to her. In that regard, there is a good possibility that the character of Helaena will be given a different treatment by the showrunners compared to her book counterpart.

In the scene that allowed us to see a teenage Helaena, she is played by Evie Allen. However, because there are many time skips in this series, Evie won’t play Helaena for a long time as the role will be taken over by Phia Saban.

What Is Helaena Targaryen’s Role In House Of The Dragon?

In Fire & Blood, Helaena Targaryen became Dreamfyre’s dragonrider, although she was always an unreliable one due to her lack of training and the fact that she was never interested in riding her dragon or fighting in battles. Instead, she was mostly in court and was actually the only one among Viserys’s children that cared about the smallfolk.

Eventually, Helaena was married off to Aegon II as the Targaryens were staying true to their old traditions of marrying brothers with their sisters. A year later, she gave birth to twins Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. Then a few years later, she gave birth to Maelor. In the book, only Jaehaera survived the Dance of the Dragons.

During the actual Targaryen civil war, Helaena never took part in any battles. Instead, when Rhaenyra took King’s Landing, she was held captive because she was never smuggled out of King’s Landing, unlike her brother and husband. 

Eventually, she took her own life by jumping off the window of the tower where she was confined. This was one of the events that led to the revolt of the smallfolk, as they loved Helaena. Rumors that Rhaenyra killed her began spreading as the smallfolk rioted. As such, while Helaena never took part in any battle, her death was one of the factors that triggered Rhaenyra’s retreat from King’s Landing and her eventual death.

Is Helaena A Dreamer?

One of the things that we saw in the scene where Helaena was introduced was the fact that she seemed to be quite odd and was describing her insect in an equally odd way. She didn’t even pay any attention to the fact that her younger brother, Aemond, almost got burned to death by a dragon in the dragonpit. And the weirdest part was the fact that she said about her insect that it had to lose an eye, all while Alicent was telling Aemond that he was going to get a dragon eventually.

In a sense, Helaena basically foretold Aemond’s future, as he would end up losing an eye somewhere down the road after he acquires Vhagar. He ends up losing that eye in a battle against Lucerys in the book. We don’t know for certain if the same would be adapted in House of the Dragon. All we know is that the trailers have already revealed the one-eyed Aemond.

So, does that mean that Helaena is a dreamer? For those who have forgotten, Viserys once described that the power of dragons is nothing to the power of prophecy. After all, it was Daenys the Dreamer who foretold the Doom of Valyria, which prompted House Targaryen to move from Valyria all the way to Dragonstone. Meanwhile, Aegon the Conqueror also dreamed of the threat from the north of Westeros, and that was what prompted him to conquer the Seven Kingdoms.

Viserys himself once claimed that he had a dream about a baby boy wearing the Conqueror’s crown, and it was that dream that made him obsessed about producing a male heir. However, he never had the same dream again, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to be a dreamer because he believed that being one carried more weight.

In that regard, it is possible that Helaena will become the dreamer that Viserys never was. There was even a line wherein she said that the “the last ring has no legs at all” while she was describing her centipede-like insect. Of course, this could be her way of foretelling the future of the Seven Kingdoms.

The rings on the centipede could represent the kings of the Seven Kingdoms. We know for a fact that Bran Stark, who lost his legs and was confined to a wheelchair his entire life, became king. The statement made by Helaena could be a prophecy in relation to the future of the realm, as it is possible that she is indeed gifted with the powers of a dreamer.