House of the Dragon’s Alicent and Helaena aren’t dying yet, but their real endings will destroy you

House of the Dragon season three episode five ends on a pretty stressful cliffhanger for Alicent and Helaena, so is this how they die?

After trying to escape the Red Keep, Alicent and Helaena end up trapped inside a secret tunnel with no obvious way out. By the time the credits roll, they’re stuck in complete darkness with no food, no light and seemingly no way back.

Thankfully, the trailer for House of the Dragon season three episode six already confirms they survive this particular scare. But if you’ve been wondering what eventually happens to them in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, neither of their stories has a particularly happy ending.

So, here’s how Helaena and Alicent die in the books.

Helaena Targaryen

via HBO

I’m already not emotionally prepared for this one because Helaena’s death is easily one of the saddest in the whole story. In Fire & Blood, Helaena dies after throwing herself from a window in Maegor’s Holdfast, falling onto the iron spikes below.

Exactly why she does it is one of the book’s biggest mysteries. Because the book is told through different in-universe historians, there are several versions of what happened.

One account claims Helaena takes her own life after witnessing the execution of men who tried to free Corlys Velaryon. Another says Mysaria tells her that her son Maelor has been killed by a mob, leaving Helaena overwhelmed with grief. There are even rumours around King’s Landing that Rhaenyra secretly had her murdered, but there’s never any proof of that.

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George R.R. Martin later confirmed that Helaena’s overwhelming grief after Maelor’s death is what drives her to take her own life.

Right now, Helaena is believed to be pregnant with Maelor. Whether the show gives her the same ending remains to be seen. Hopefully not, because I genuinely can’t cope. I just want her to live happily ever after with her chickens.

Alicent Hightower

via HBO

Compared with almost everyone else in the Dance of the Dragons, Alicent actually survives the war. That doesn’t mean she gets a happy ending, though.

By the end of Fire & Blood, Alicent has outlived all of her children. After Aegon II dies, she’s kept under gentle confinement inside the Red Keep because those in power fear her grief and anger could cause more problems.

She spends the final year of her life largely alone with only her septa, servants and guards for company. According to the book, she cries more than she reads or sews, tears up her clothes, talks to herself, and eventually develops a deep hatred of the colour green after everything her family has lost.

Eventually, Alicent dies peacefully from Winter Fever. Her death isn’t brutal at all, but the life she lives before it is far more tragic.

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