‘House of the Dragon’ Star Phia Saban Thinks Helaena is Neurodivergent in Addition to Being a Dreamer: “I Think It’s Too Much for Her”

House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2 on HBO forces poor, sweet, grieving Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) to present herself to the smallfolk of Kings Landing. Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) has the brilliant idea to put Heleana and her mother, the Dowager Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), in a carriage behind the litter drawing Heleana’s murdered son, Jaehaerys, throughout the city. The plan? Frame the massacre as proof of Rhaenyra’s (Emma D’Arcy) twisted evil, leaning on the sorrow of the two gentlest royals to sell the outrage. The problem? Helaena Targaryen wants nothing to do with the unkempt, emotional masses.

**Spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 2, now streaming on Max**

When the wheels of the wagon carrying Jaehaerys’s corpse becomes stuck in the muddy streets, the already nerve-wrecking funeral procession comes to a grinding halt. The smallfolk begin to gather around their beloved monarchs, offering support. Heleana begins to have what appears to be a panic attack. She is so overwhelmed by the massive amount of stimulation that Alicent has to hold her down.

While we know that Helaena is a “Dreamer” — meaning a Targaryen with the gift of prophecy — she also is a mystery to most of her family. They ignore her cautionary predictions because they simply think she’s odd.

Heleana’s social awkwardness plus her problems with overstimulation might have you wondering if the Targaryen, like Bridgerton‘s Francesca or Geek Girl‘s Harriet Manners, is supposed to read as neurodivergent. Decider posed this question to House of the Dragon stars Phia Saban and Olivia Cooke.

“They don’t have the language for neurodivergent,” Cooke noted about the world of Westeros.

“No, they don’t,” Phia Saban said, “but I think that’s, yeah, I think that’s what’s going on.”

Saban revealed that there was a scene she auditioned with that was later cut from the show wherein Alicent tells Helaena she has to marry her brother Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney).

“And Helaena, just basically goes like, ‘Oh, he thinks I’m really weird and he laughs at things I say when I’m not trying to be funny,'” Saban said. “And Alicent goes like, ‘Oh, but you are.’ I don’t know, [she] says something quite affirming, like, ‘You’re just not like other people,'”

Cooke revealed that like Tom Glynn-Carney’s Aegon, Alicent also sees Heleana as “an enigma,” but not one that she wants to push away.

“I think that she’s super, super overstimulated already…The grief and that loss and that rupture to the routine. That, like, love, where does it go? All of that is enough to deal with.”

Phia Saban

“I think that Alicent with Helaena…she’s constantly trying to to access her physical proximity with her and and feeling really, like, selfishly bereft in that,” Cooke said. “Because she doesn’t have it like she did with her younger sons when they were boys.”

“I think Alicent feels like she’s failed Helaena because she doesn’t understand that she is, just, unlike anyone else that she’s been around for.”

Saban said, “I think that it’s not for the point of trying and it’s not for lack of love.”

Saban also understood why the funeral procession was the scene that perhaps made Helaena seem even more neurodivergent than perhaps everything we’ve seen before, whether it was her obsessive bug collecting to difficulty making eye contact.

“I think that she’s super, super overstimulated already,” Saban said of Helaena’s ride through Kings Landing. “The grief and that loss and that rupture to the routine. That, like, love, where does it go? All of that is enough to deal with.”

“And the fact that she has to sacrifice her peace in order to go and do this procession, not for her, for the realm. It’s like, you know, it doesn’t add up. And I think it’s too much for her.”

It’s too much for her and she almost bolts into the crowd in sheer panic.

Fans of George R.R. Martin’s books will know that Helaena’s grief is supposed to become overwhelming for her in the months ahead, but maybe the show is suggesting that the character is dogged by more than just the sorrow of losing a child.

Between Helaena’s prophetic visions and the implication that she struggles to connect emotionally with others, here’s hoping our girl finds someone to confide in soon.