The House of the Dragon episode 9 finale was extremely abrupt and dramatic, and the focus has since rightfully been on Rhaenys’ spectacular escape from King’s Landing with the help of a dragon.
However, considering that it was predicted, it shouldn’t have truly come as a surprise. The issue was that the persona speaking them was one that no one paid attention to.
Let’s take a quick step back, then. King Viserys’ (eventually) demise earlier in the episode prompts Queen Alicent to seek out her son Aegon and inform him that he will succeed his father as king. Princess Helaena Targaryen, who is also her daughter and Aegon’s sister/wife (yes), is her first destination.
You might recall that Princess Helaena is a little peculiar. She plays with insects, is quiet much of the time, and when she does speak, it frequently sounds ridiculous.
Until she accurately predicted the outcome of episode 9, that is.
Helena abruptly interrupts Alicent in the scene in question as she is about to tell her about her father’s passing by saying, “There is a beast beneath the boards.”
Alice doesn’t pay attention at the time. We viewers hardly pay attention either.
When the story ends, though, Helaena’s remarks have a completely different significance. The creature under the floorboards was Meleys, the dragon of Princess Rhaenys, who bursts through the floor to fully thwart King Aemon’s coronation before taking off to inform Rhaenyra of the Hightowers’ scheme.
It turns out that we ought to have listened to Helaena all along. Going back to her earlier appearances, Helaena foretells her brother losing his sight in one eye in episode 6 — “He’ll have to close an eye,” she mutters when her mother tells Aemond he’ll have a dragon one day — and she utters a seemingly meaningless poem in episode 7 that may have even greater significance.
At Laena Velayron’s burial, Helaena sings quietly, “Hand turns to loom, spool of green, spool of black, dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread.”
What if the phrase “Hand turns loom” relates to Otto Hightower, the Hand, who is arranging for his daughter to wed King Viserys? Dragons could stand for something that will happen during the conflict between the opposing factions (Alice vs. Rhaenyra) represented by the green and black spools. Does “dragons of thread” refer to, say, banners? Or perhaps it alludes to Rhaenyra’s sons, the faux Targaryens.
It’s hard to say, but given Helaena’s track record, it seems likely that we will learn the answer soon enough.