House of the Dragon: Season 1 Episode 9 Preview
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Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon has seen younger members of the Targaryen clan rising to the forefront of the drama series. Alicent Hightower (played by Olivia Cooke) and Viserys Targaryen’s (Paddy Considine) children are now adults and are playing their part in the Dance of the Dragons. Out of her three children, many are keen to know more about Alicent’s daughter Helaena Targaryen.
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Fire and Blood
Who plays Helaena Targaryen in House of the Dragon?
Alicent’s only daughter is portrayed by rising star Phia Saban, who takes on the older version of the character.
Not much is known about Phia with House of the Dragon marking her biggest role to date.
Phia attended the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and starred in a number of productions and projects, including Othello, Private Lives, The Seagull, The Trojan Women,
She has also had experience at the National Youth Theatre as well as winning The Josephine Hart Poetry Prize in 2019.
According to her Guildhall acting CV, she can sing in Alto and has a good ear for accents.
Additionally, she can do stage combat and perform acrobatics as part of her skills.
She has also starred in The Last Kingdom as Aelfwynn, making her debut in 2022.
Aelfwynn is the daughter of Æthelflæd (Millie Brady) and her husband Lord Æthelred (Toby Regbo).
The character features both in Bernard Cornwall’s novels The Saxon Stories series as well as the TV show.
However, her character differs a little in the screen adaptation with some dispute over her parentage.
Phia’s House of the Dragon role sees her starring alongside The Last Kingdom alumni Ewan Mitchell, who plays Aemond Targaryen.
The younger version of Helaena was played by child star Evie Allen, whose other screen credit it Lost in London LIVE in the role of Zoe.
How does Helaena die?
Helaena is revealed be a soothsayer in the show as she utters predictions which later come to pass.
In George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, Helaena meets a gruesome ending after she is married to her older brother King Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) in a bid to keep the bloodlines pure.
During the Dance of the Dragons, Prince Daemon (Matt Smith) hired two men known as Blood and Cheese to murder one of Helaena’s sons.
Blood and Cheese broke into the castle and forced Helaena to choose one of her sons to kill, warning she must choose one and couldn’t put herself in their place.
A bereft Helaena named her infant son Prince Maelor because he would be too young to realise what would happen.
In the cruel world of Westeros, Blood and Cheese instead killed her eldest son Jaehaerys and took the child’s head to prove their mission had been completed.
The traumatic incident sent Helaena into a spiralling depression she never recovered from and she became estranged from her husband.
Heleana ended her own life jumping from the walls of the castle after her grief became too much.
House of the Dragon airs on HBO on Sundays and Sky Atlantic on Mondays and streams on NOW
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