Helaena’s ‘Stopped Singing’ Prophecy Foretells the End of House of the Dragon
"This one stopped singing. Isn't that strange?" Helaena (Phia Saban) may once again have spoiled House of the Dragon.
This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6 and details from Fire & Blood that will likely spoil the end of the series.
Queen Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) has a charming habit of spoiling House of the Dragon.
The only daughter of Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and sister-wife to King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) possesses the ancestral Targaryen “dreaming” trait, meaning she experiences prophetic dreams and visions. Back in House of the Dragon season 1, Helaena made mention of a “beast beneath the boards,” foreshadowing Rhaenys (Eve Best) and her dragon Meleys’ violent disruption of Aegon’s coronation ceremony. Helaena’s expressed fear of rats in the season 2 premiere is justified when a King’s Landing ratcatcher infiltrates the Red Keep and assassinates her son Jaehaerys.
Helaena’s delivery of these prophecies is often abstract so her family rarely pays them heed. If they did, they might be able to anticipate and avoid future catastrophe. That’s especially true in House of the Dragon season 2 episode 6 “Smallfolk” where Helaena shares a benign observation that is likely another warning for the participants in the Dance of the Dragons.
When Alicent visits Helaena in her quarters to invite her out to the Sept, Helaena is already busy studying small birds in rounded cages. Considering one bird in particular, Helaena absent-mindedly mumbles “This one stopped singing. Isn’t that strange?” True to form, Alicent doesn’t appear to clock that Helaena has said anything of importance. House of the Dragon fans, however, are now conditioned to consider Helaena’s words carefully. So what does Helaena mean by her avian observation? Is this another prophecy that could foreshadow events to come?
The most popular theory online currently points to King Aegon II as the bird who “stopped singing.” In this scenario, the tune he was singing was one of projected strength and he has stopped now that the Battle at Rook’s Rest has rendered him weak.
Other fans posit that Aegon’s severely wounded dragon Sunfyre is the bird who stopped singing, which makes some sense given that both are creatures who take to the air and lose their spark when confined to a cage. The problem with Aegon and Sunfyre’s potential roles in this prophecy, however, is that their inclusion wouldn’t make it a prophecy at all. Aegon and Sunfyre’s injuries already occurred. Pointing out that Aegon’s circumstances have changed isn’t “dreaming,” it’s simple observation.
The theory that we would like to put forth is that Helaena is not prophesying the end of any one character but rather the end of this story itself. Recall that George R.R. Martin’s book series that inspired the entire Game of Thrones franchise is called A Song of Ice and Fire. The House of the Dragon series premiere revealed that “A Song of Ice and Fire” was the name that Aegon the Conqueror gave to his own prophetic dream that motivated him to conquer Westeros in the first place.
The Song of Ice and Fire states that a Targaryen must unite the Westerosi continent to prepare for a future apocalyptic event in which ice and death (re: White Walkers) sweep down from Beyond the Wall to end the world as we know it. This news came as a surprise not only to a young Rhaenyra but to Game of Thrones fans as well. That’s because knowledge of Aegon’s Song was lost sometime between Viserys I telling his daughter about it and the events of Game of Thrones.
With that in mind, Helaena’s “stopped singing” word choice sounds darkly predictive yet again. Whether she realizes it or not, the Dreamer has foreseen the moment in which the Song of Ice and Fire is lost to history. What that means for the fate of the few individuals to know about the Song (Alicent, Rhaenyra, and Jacaerys) we’ll leave for you to read about in Fire & Blood or look up on A Wiki of Ice and Fire.
New episodes of House of the Dragon season 2 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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TV Editor at Den of Geek and Television Critics Association member. Based in Cleveland, Ohio. Very upset about various sporting events.