Spoilers follow for both House of the Dragon and Fire & Blood.
“This is strange. It isn’t the season.”
House of the Dragon: Season 3, Episode 2 includes that brief but notable dialogue spoken by Queen Helaena Targaryen, lines that demand closer scrutiny given that the show has transformed her into a far more enigmatic and preternaturally gifted character than she is in the source material, George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood.
The book’s Helaena is a tragic character ultimately driven to madness by the deaths of her children, one of whom, Maelor, was cut from the show. (Another of her young sons, Crown Prince Jaehaerys, was slain in Season 2 by the assassins Blood and Cheese.) The show’s Helaena has, from the outset, possessed a supernatural gift that allows her to glimpse the future, a power she doesn’t have in Fire & Blood. (Some of her ancestors, like Daenys Targaryen (who foresaw the Doom of Valyria) or Aegon the Conqueror, were Dragon Dreamers.) House of the Dragon has made it clear that Helaena’s strange utterances should be taken as harbingers of things to come.
For example, in Helaena’s introduction in the series as a young girl in Season 1, Episode 6, she speaks in riddles as she observes a millipede in her hand, which fan theories claim is her prophesying the Dance of the Dragons, if not the entire Game of Thrones saga. During that same millipede scene, as her mother Alicent assures young Aemond he’ll have a dragon one day, Helaena says he’ll have to “close an eye” for it, foretelling the loss of his eye in the very next episode after he claims his dragon Vhagar.
In this week’s episode, Helaena studies a caterpillar on a leaf, remarking to Alicent, “This is strange. It isn’t the season.” Helaena’s observation doesn’t seem like another example of her precognition, however. She seems legitimately puzzled by the creature appearing out of season. Helaena always seems to innately understand what she says even if other characters (and many viewers) are left befuddled. Here, she’s telling her mother that something is amiss. Helaena’s remarks might not be a prophecy, but it sure seems like foreshadowing. But of what? What is strangely out of season and how might it relate to Helaena?
Phia Saban and Olivia Cooke. (Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO)
It should be noted that the shot immediately preceding the close-up of the caterpillar and Helaena is of Team Black’s dragons flying off to King’s Landing. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to cut between those two images if there isn’t some kind of connection the viewer is being asked to make.
Let’s start with caterpillars, creatures that metamorphose into either butterflies or moths. (Caterpillars, it should be noted, can also have dragon-like spikes.) As Helaena notes, this process is happening out of season. So we’re dealing with the unexpected emergence of a new lifeform. If that’s the case then it would seem to fit with theories fans have promoted since Season 3’s trailer dropped that Helaena might be pregnant.
One trailer showed what appeared to be Helaena screaming in childbirth. But is she actually pregnant this season? Or is it just some kind of vision? Maybe she’s screaming for a completely different reason, but childbirth is the fan theory that’s gained the most traction.
Every Dragon in Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon
George R.R. Martin has infamously disliked some of showrunner Ryan Condal’s choices in adapting Fire & Blood for TV, including dropping Helaena’s son Maelor, something Martin warned would have a “butterly effect” on the rest of the show’s choices.
In a since-deleted blog post from August 2024, Martin told fans: “Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two.”
Then, in another post from late 2024, Martin cautioned: “There are larger and more toxic butterflies to come, if House of the Dragon goes ahead with some of the changes being contemplated for seasons 3 and 4…”
As Martin observed at the time: “Maelor is a 2-year-old toddler in Fire and Blood, but like our butterfly he has an impact on the story all out of proportion to his size… What will we offer the fans instead, once we’ve killed these butterflies? I have no idea.”
If House of the Dragon is now working Maelor into the show (perhaps as a result of Martin’s criticisms) then making the first hint of it being a creature that turns into a butterfly is either a masterful bit of trolling or an amusing acknowledgement of the online controversy Martin sparked. Even Helaena’s line “it isn’t the season” seems a bit cheeky in this context, as if the show is winking at how the pregnancy should’ve happened in Season 2, not 3.
If Helaena is indeed pregnant then that would certainly put a target on her back for bringing yet another possible heir to the Iron Throne into the fray as Rhaenyra assumes control of King’s Landing. We shall see if anything of this is even in the cards as the rest of Season 3 of House of the Dragon plays out.
What do you think Helaena meant by “This is strange. It isn’t the season”? Let us know in the comments!
