‘House of the Dragon’ Star Phia Saban Explains Helaena and Daemon’s Vision: ‘Maybe It’s Not That Literal’
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for HBO’s “House of the Dragon” Season 2 finale, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” now streaming on Max.
For much of “House of the Dragon,” Helaena Targaryen has spoken in riddles about what will unfold for the two factions within House Targaryen, the Greens and the Blacks.
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That is, until the Season 2 finale, when she tells her brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell): “Aegon will be king again.” As for the one-eyed Prince Regent, he’ll be dead.
“You were swallowed up in the God’s Eye, and you were never seen again,” Helaena says to him.
All the trauma Helaena’s endured this season, from her son Jaehaerys’ murder to the smallfolk attacking her and her mother Alicent (Olivia Cooke) outside the Sept, has led to this moment of clarity, Phia Saban explains.
“The present is a little bit too painful to live in for now, so she’s managed to step more forthrightly into this otherness — and that’s why this moment felt so clear to her,” Saban tells Variety. “She’s not fighting it as much anymore.”
Helaena is not involved in only one major prophecy in the finale; she also appears in Daemon’s weirwood tree-induced vision at Harrenhal.
“It’s all a story. And you’re but one part in it,” she says to Daemon. “You know your part.”
Here, Saban speaks with Variety about Helaena’s role in Daemon’s vision, her tense interaction with Aemond about his fate — and whether we’ll ever see her ride her dragon, Dreamfyre.
What was your reaction when you read Daemon’s vision sequence and Helaena’s prophecy about Aemond?
My initial reaction was, I can’t wait to see that dream sequence that Daemon has when he touches the tree, and I can’t wait to be involved in that. I think I had this sort of fantasy that it was going to be really trippy, and that I was going to be coming out of an egg and crawling over, or something really scary like that.
And then my second reaction was thinking, if this season ends with her so directly talking to Aemond and something’s happened where she has this clarity, then I have to work backwards from there and be like, What zone does she have to be in? What does she have to go through in order to get that moment of clarity? Because that’s not really how her visions have been up until then — they haven’t been that clear.
You mentioned that this particular vision is clearer, whereas in the past, Helaena has told them in these sort of riddles. How did you approach that change in Helaena’s visions?
I think what I was focusing on was the fact that they seemed so abstract in the past, because the way that these dreams or these feelings washed over her wasn’t in a clear way. It wasn’t in a way that she felt that she could translate it into: This is what’s going to happen. It was more like really strong intuitions, or really strong feelings or strange things that get stuck in her head, where she’s like, Well, maybe if I say that out loud, that will mean something. But it was never as clear as what happened to her in that last episode. And I think that’s something to do with the fact that she’s kind of, in the last part of the series, disassociated more from the real world, where she’s expected to engage with all of this, I guess what they would call reality. She’s living more and more in her own reality.
And maybe there’s something in the fact that something quite powerful has happened, and it’s meant that something has aligned in her — she has this clarity for that moment. I wouldn’t say that that’s just her now, but I think it felt as clear as it ever has for her.
Some viewers believe Helaena is secretly Team Black after her moment with Daemon and then with Aemond. Do you agree with that, or do you just see her as an objective observer?
I don’t feel that she is on a team. And my feeling isn’t that she was giving Daemon advice because she wants him to succeed. I think choosing between one team and the other suggests that you think anything can happen, and I think to a certain extent, she feels a little bit transcended above that. She has a clear view of this end that’s in sight. And I wouldn’t say that she knows it innately, but I think she knows enough to be like, it’s not about who’s on the throne next — we’re all going in the same direction.
I would also say about the scene with Daemon, it’s slightly left up to what the audience thinks about how much she is there — present in his dream. Maybe she’s a projection of something he wants to tell himself, especially since he hurt her so much with her son and everything. From a psychoanalytical perspective, maybe it’s all about him, and maybe it’s not that literal.
If she still is not entirely certain about the future, why do you believe she tells Aemond he’s going to die?
I think in that moment, she does believe that that is true, and I also think that what he’s asking her to do, which is to get Dreamfyre and go and fight for a cause that she thinks is about ego and this sort of toxicity — and kill people after everything that she’s been through — it’s just a step too far. She’s used to doing things for the convenience of her family, but that’s a step too far.
The issue is that she knows him, and she loves him. That is what keeps the family together, is knowing each other and loving each other, even when it gets complicated. And I think that she knows, knowing Aemond, that for him to back off, she needs to go for his ego as well, and just be honest. And she goes, I’m not going to do it — and by the way, this is not going to end well for you! Do you know what I mean? And I don’t think she thinks that it will necessarily change his path, but it’s just a little moment where she stands up for herself.
Speaking of visions, I wanted to bring something up that Helaena said in the past — in Episode 6 with the crickets and she says, “This one stopped singing.” What was your interpretation of that moment, because there are a few theories out there.
Do you know any of the theories?
One of them is that the crickets are the three unclaimed dragons — Seasmoke, Vermithor and Silverwing — and the one that stopped singing is Seasmoke because he’s later claimed by Addam. Another is about Aegon after he’s burned by Aemond, so it’s related to the three Green siblings. I think there are more, but I would say those are the top two contenders.
That’s so cool. I didn’t know any of those, so it’s fun for me to hear that, because my answer is quite boring. It’s nice for me to imagine those things.
Like I said, sometimes her dreams or her visions aren’t so lucid. They are rooted in just overwhelming feelings she gets, or discomfort. I think that she, much like I said about Daemon and how Helaena could be a projection of his guilt — I think that for her, bugs — that’s the world that she comfortably lives in, that she can hold in her hands. And it just causes her grief that one of her insects might be unhappy, and that’s why she says it. I’m not saying that it doesn’t have a bigger meaning and a bigger connection, but I think for her, in that moment, that’s as simple as it is.
In the book “Fire & Blood,” it’s mentioned that Helaena loves to fly with Dreamfyre. Even though Helaena doesn’t want to fly with her dragon to war, do you see Helaena riding Dreamfyre at some point? And would you like to?
This is my public statement: I would like to fly with Dreamfyre! Yeah, I’d absolutely love to, and I like to think that they have a lovely relationship and connection. But I can’t say yes or no as to whether we’ll see them together, but I’d like to think you will. Who knows?
Have your co-stars prepared you at all for how to use the rig for dragonriding?
I was on the lot at the same time as Tom [Glynn-Carney] and Beth [Antonia], when they were both on the buck. So I went and watched them both do it, and I was really jealous. It’s really cool. But I think dragon acting is a whole new thing — dragonriding acting — so maybe I’d have to get some tips from them first.
Yeah, take a class. Dragonriding 101.
Maybe they’ll give me mates’ rates for a class on that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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