Helaena Targaryen

Born in the year 109, Helaena Targaryen was a princess of House Targaryen, daughter of King Viserys I Targaryen and his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower. She was married to her brother Aegon. She rode the dragon Songefeu.

Physical appearance and personality

Helaena was plump and her beauty was less striking than that of the other Targaryens. She was, however, kind and laughing, and everyone agreed that she would make a good mother.

She adored her dragon Songefeu, and was loved by the people. While there was a deep enmity between her half-sister Rhaenyra and her brothers and mother, it seems that no animosity existed between Rhaenyra and Helaena.

History

The Princess of the Greens

At the age of eleven in the year 120, Helaena was already riding the dragon Songefeu, which had not been ridden since the death of Queen Rhaena Targaryen, the elder sister of King Jaehaerys I.

At the age of thirteen in the year 122, according to Targaryen tradition, she married her older brother, Aegon. The following year, she gave birth to twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera. In the year 127, she gave birth to her third child, Maelor Targaryen.

On the first day of 127, the Targaryens held a banquet in King's Landing. After Viserys I Targaryen goes to bed, quarrels break out: Aegon takes offense at the fact that Helaena has been invited to dance by his half-nephew, Jacaerys Velaryon.

On the third day of the third moon of the year 129, Helaena leads her three children to their grandfather, Viserys, in his bedroom. Tired, Viserys finally dismisses them; he dies that same night in his sleep, triggering the war of succession between the Blacks of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and the Greens of her half-brother, Aegon II Targaryen.

The day after her father's death, Helaena and her children are having lunch. The Royal Guard comes to find her to know where is her brother-husband, but she answers that they did not sleep together, Aegon having left to indulge himself.

Aegon is crowned a few days later, making Helaena queen consort. Their mother, Queen Alicent Hightower, takes off her own crown to put it on her daughter. She kissed her cheeks, knelt before her and called her "My Queen".

After being crowned in her turn, Rhaenyra proclaims that she will forgive Helaena and her brothers, who were misled by felons. She promises to spare their lives if they come to Peyredragon to bend the knee and ask for her forgiveness.

These terms are rejected by Aegon II, who accuses Rhaenyra of treachery. Helaena and her mother then support Grand Maester Orwyle's proposal to lead a peace embassy to Rhaenyra. They make Aegon II give in, but this mission fails.

The Dance of the Dragons

After the death of Lucerys Velaryon, Rhaenyra's son, killed by Aemond Targaryen, Helaena's younger brother, Rhaenyra's consort Daemon Targaryen vows revenge, "a son for a son.

Through Mysaria, he mandates Blood and Cheese to carry out his reprisals. They break into the apartments of Queen Dowager Alicent Hightower in the Tower of the Hand in the Red Keep.

That night, Queen Helaena brings her three children to say goodnight to their grandmother. The killers murder their guard and force Helaena to decide which of her sons will die.

She begins by begging them to kill her instead, but Sang refuses, claiming that a woman is not a son. Cheese then threatens to rape Jaehaera and kill them all. The queen then appoints her youngest son Maelor.

The killers exchange a knowing smile, before killing Jaehaerys, decapitating him in one blow. Helaena screams in pain at the sight. The assassins then take Jaehaerys' head with them, doing no harm to the other family members.

After this atrocity, Helaena gradually sinks into madness and locks herself in her room. She no longer eats, washes or leaves her chambers.

From that day on, she no longer sleeps with her brother-husband and can no longer bear the mere sight of her son, Maelor, whom she had designated to die. Aegon II ends up taking the child away from her and entrusting him to their mother, Alicent.

In the year 130, still lost in her madness and grief, Helaena did not visit Aegon II after he received serious wounds during the siege of Repos-des-Freux.

According to all reports, Helaena remains cloistered in her room, crying. Even with Flintstone still in Fossedragon, Aegon's enemies know that she poses no threat.

When King's Landing is taken by the Blacks that same year, Aegon II, Maelor and Jaehaera are evacuated by their supporters, while Queen Helaena is left behind in King's Landing. She is discovered locked in her room, still half-mad.

Helaena Targaryen remains a captive in the Red Keep throughout Rhaenyra's reign. After the death of the young prince Maelor, a rumor began to spread in King's Landing that Rhaenyra had had his head delivered to Queen Helaena in a chamber pot.

Considering the future of Alicent and Helaena, the Hand of the Queen Corlys Velaryon proposes that they be entrusted to the Faith, to spend the rest of their days in prayer and meditation.

Most chroniclers of the time suggest that Rhaenyra deferred her choice, simply holding Helaena captive until the war was over, but the dwarf jester Mushroom tells a different story.

According to his Testimony, Rhaenyra decided to punish Alicent and her daughter, and, at Mysaria's suggestion, she prostituted them in one of King's Landing's brothels, where a pass with Aegon II's queen was worth three gold dragons.

This punishment was to last until both queens became pregnant with a bastard child. Archmaester Gyldayn does not believe this story.

Gradually, Rhaenyra loses the support of her main allies and the people. While Helaena has just spent half a year in captivity, two swordsmen of House Velaryon, Denys the Carpenter and Thoron the Truthful, are hanged on the walls of the Red Keep for treason.

That evening, at dusk, Helaena Targaryen fell to her death from her chambers in Maegor's Citadel to the dry moat. She impaled herself on the iron spikes, one of which pierced her throat, causing a quick death without a sound. The causes of this death are disputed by the monks.

The chronicles say that at the very moment of Helaena's death, her dragon Songefeu roared down from Fossedragon and broke two of her chains. When told of his daughter's death, Alicent Hightower tore his clothes and cursed Rhaenyra.

During the evening, a rumor swells that Helaena was murdered by the commander of the golden cloaks, Luthor Largent, on Rhaenyra's orders. The following night, the Port-Realese, who loved Helaena very much, rise up against Queen Rhaenyra, bringing about the end of her reign and her flight.

A few years after the end of the war, in the year 133, Jaehaera Targaryen met a similar end as her mother.