George R.R. Martin’s disdain for House of the Dragon is not exactly a secret, as he’s gone off on the show’s book changes in interviews and on his blog. Some posts are still up, though some were so harsh they were deleted. At one point, he was spoiling aspects of the season 3 script drafts, and in one case, we got to see that play out last night.

He was wrong on one point as we saw in the House of the Dragon finale, but there are some caveats. Spoilers follow.

There was a “leaked” screenshot of Helaena throwing herself to her death behind Rhaenyra at the Sept, which was widely circulated and mocked before it...became clear it was AI. That didn’t happen, it wouldn’t have even made logical sense for Helaena to be there, but it was a spoiler all the same. Helaena did, in fact, jump to her death in the palace.

This moment is what Martin addressed previously in his blog, calling out showrunner Ryan Condal’s script:

“In Ryan’s outline for season 3, Helaena still kills herself…for no particular reason. There is no fresh horror, no triggering event to overwhelm the fragile young queen.”

So that…wasn’t what happened. There were plenty of reasons for Helaena to jump. Alicent tried to force her to have an abortion she didn’t want before she left her alone, confined in her room, likely never to return. Alicent warns Rhaenyra that Helaena can’t be kept confined like that, the implication being that it would drive her to dangerous things, and sure enough…

Past that, however, there is very much an inciting incident. The recently “fired” Mysaria catches Helaena briefly to warn her that Aegon had returned and Rhaenyra would now use her child as a hostage and never, ever set her free. A short while later, the jump.

I do wonder if there were changes made based on what Martin was complaining about. That Mysaria moment did somewhat feel like a last-minute addition to the script to be that “inciting incident.”

Additionally, there was a more severe inciting incident for her death in the books. Her youngest son, Prince Maelor, was trying to be smuggled to Oldtown, but he was caught and brutally killed. When Helaena heard of this, that caused her to jump.

Why didn’t that happen in the show? Because there is no Prince Maelor, Helaena only has two kids, twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, one of whom was killed when Helaena was forced to choose who died.

The removal of Maelor, however, snowballed into this moment where that character’s absence didn’t allow for that horrific book moment to be realized, so another set of reasons was concocted. While I do think Martin was wrong that she dies for “no particular reason,” you can see how the reason she was given in the books was more intense.

The episode seems to have split book and show fans, as is Game of Thrones tradition. I personally think it worked, and this was a great season, no matter Martin’s complaints, even if I can see where he’s coming from.

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