\n<\/p>\n
Spoilers follow for both <\/strong>House of the Dragon<\/strong><\/u> and Fire & Blood.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis is strange. It isn\u2019t the season.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Fire & Blood<\/u>. <\/p>\n The book\u2019s Helaena is a tragic character ultimately driven to madness by the deaths of her children, one of whom, Maelor, was cut from the show<\/u>. (Another of her young sons, Crown Prince Jaehaerys, was slain in Season 2 by the assassins Blood and Cheese<\/u>.) The show\u2019s Helaena has, from the outset, been imbued with a supernatural gift that allows her to glimpse the future, a power she doesn\u2019t possess in Fire & Blood<\/u>. (Some of her ancestors, like Daenys Targaryen (who foresaw the Doom of Valyria) or Aegon the Conqueror<\/u>, were Dragon Dreamers<\/u>.) House of the Dragon has made it clear that Helaena\u2019s strange utterances should be taken as harbingers of things to come<\/u>.<\/p>\n For example, in Helaena\u2019s introduction in the series as a young girl in Season 1, Episode 6<\/u>, 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\u2019ll have a dragon one day, Helaena says he\u2019ll have to \u201cclose an eye\u201d for it, foretelling the loss of his eye in the very next episode after he claims his dragon Vhagar.<\/p>\n In this week\u2019s episode, Helaena studies a caterpillar on a leaf, remarking to Alicent, \u201cThis is strange. It isn\u2019t the season.\u201d Helaena\u2019s observation doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s telling her mother that something is amiss. Helaena\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n