#Helaena of Troy

[alicentwhore]

There’s something very fun about the 3 Targtowers (Daeron mention though yippee) and their dynamics with Alicent.

Aemond is completely separate from Alicent at this point, but still wants her affection and finds it instead an a Prostitute. A woman he can pay to hold him and comfort him and tell him she’s proud of him.

Aegon is completely alone. He looks to her for guidance once in the council meeting, when his son has just died and he’s at his lowest, and her response in soft but distant. She does not touch him. And she cannot bring herself to comfort him even when he is bawling alone.

But Helaena. She cries for Helaena. When she goes to tell Helaena of the funeral she is as soft as she can be about it. And when Helaena is being overwhelmed during the procession, she leans into Alicent, and Alicent immediately responds and holds Helaena. Doing all she can to try and comfort/calm her and worries deeply over her. (And in spite of the dumb sex scene, it is notable that Alicent’s rooms the ones Helaena immediately runs to.)

There’s a level of closeness, of an actual maternal connection that Alicent is able to achieve with Helaena that she just can’t get with Aemond (anymore) or Aegon (ever). Her daughter will always be hers (will always be her) but her sons have never truly been. Not to Alicent at least.

When Aegon cries, she flees. When Helaena cries, she runs to her. And she’s never around Aemond enough anymore to see him cry.

[clytemnaestraes]

gif by black-dread

Phia did such a good job depicting the wide-eyed horror seen in so many paintings of Cassandra

[korkiekenobiconfirmed]

I see your "people say they are a monster, but I am the only one who knows the truly kind soul beneath" dynamic and raise you "they are exactly the monster everyone says they are, but I see it and I don't flinch away"

[sihtryggr]

TROY (2004):

Hector & Paris’s homecoming procession with Helen.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (2022 - ?):

Jaehaerys’s funeral procession with Helaena.

[yomna-art]

Cassandra of Troy

Commission info + prints + twitter

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

I know people like to say that Helaena is like Cassandra, but Daemon is the real Cassandra of the show. My guy was calling out everyone's bullshit since episode 1, if they had listened to him the Dance could have been avoided. But he is Cassandra, therefore no one did.

[loves-requiem777]

This is so important to me y’all don’t understand

[erasine]

Welcome Back Cassandra of Troy 🫶🏻

[1-jar-of-stars]

Why does grief feel like madness?

the ordeal of the bier, Jenő Gyárfás // unknown // Cassandra, Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys // Hamlet: Act 4, Scene 5, William Shakespeare // The Public Theater’s performance of Hamlet, 2024 // Hamlet: Act 4, Scene 5, William Shakespeare // Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2012 production of Hamlet // Electra, Sophocles // House of the Dragon: Season 2-Episode 2, Arsonists Lullaby, Hozier // House of the Dragon: Season 2-Episode 3 // Jamie Anderson

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

"Cot recreated the image of a woman who was breaking and deciding if she would take her own life. Hence the alternate title Pause for Thought. Ophelia was not mentally sound by the end of Hamlet and you can see that in the eyes of Cot’s Ophelia, unlike Millais and Cabanel’s."

-From thecollector.com about Pierre-Auguste Cot's Ophelia (middle picture)

[merricatblackwoods]

Question/random insomnia thought: does anyone else see Helaena Targaryen as being a strange twisted/events out of order combination of not only Cassandra of Troy (obviously), but Andromache, Hecuba and weirdly Helen of Troy?

Also Aegon being Hector but reversed and the utter opposite (with a dash of Menelaus and even Helen).

Aemond being both Patroclus & Achilles to Luke’s Hector & Patroclus.

Alicent being Helen, Andromache, Hecuba, and both Menelaus & Paris (but again twisted).

Otto as Agamemnon and horrifyingly enough, Aphrodite during the judgement of Paris (with a dash of Paris himself [trading one golden apple {his daughter} for another more valuable golden apple).

Obviously the Iron Throne is the equivalent of the golden apple (in itself a symbol of power). But it can also symbolize the power over ourselves that we give to other people (in the case of the show: the power noble parents/grandparents have over their children [specifically a female child’s agency which then turns into a husband’s agency over his wife], the monarch over their people, etc).

[alicentwhore]

Honestly any issue I DO have with season 2 doesn’t even matter to me because for TWO years I was in the TRENCHES in my confidence that Helaena was Alicent’s true favorite kid. Everyone went on and on about it being Aemond or Aegon (or even Daeron) but EYE knew the truth and Season 2 went out of its way to constantly reaffirm this so I’m still on that euphoria high tbh

[verysadlesbian]

[dulcewrites]

Olga Orozco, from Engravings: Torn from Insomnia: “To Destroy the Enemy,” // Anne Carson, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides // Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica in Dune // Olivia Cooke and Tom Glynn-Carney as Queen Alicent and Prince Aegon II in House of the Dragon // Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale // Wenzel Tornøe details // The Trojan Woman

Cassandra Devereux, Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms // Queen of Ash and Bone // Queen of Grief

[sihtryggr]

TROY (2004):

Hector & Paris’s homecoming procession through Troy with Helen.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (2022 - ?):

Jaehaerys’s funeral procession through King’s Landing with Helaena.

VIKINGS: VALHALLA (2022 - 2024):

The Byzantine army’s victory procession through Constantinople with Leif.

[clytemnaestraes]

“Up there on that roof there sits a chorus — it never leaves. They sing in harmony, but the song is harsh, predicting doom.

Drinking human blood has made them bold — they dance in celebration through the house.

The family’s Furies cannot be dislodged.”

Helaena targaryen as Cassandra of troy