House of the Dragon’s Laena Velaryon got a different fate in the book
House of the Dragon’s sixth episode, “The Princess and the Queen,” was a particularly difficult one for almost everybody on the show. The series picked up 10 years after episode 5, and caught us up with its most important characters, many of whom had had a few kids in the interim.
Among these characters was Laena Velaryon, daughter of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen, and now Daemon Targaryen’s second wife. Viewers knew Laena best as the 12-year-old girl from episode 2 who spoke to Viserys about dragons before pitching him on marriage (which he politely declined). Laena and Daemon wound up having two children during the 10-year time jump, and Laena spends most of the sixth episode pregnant with what would be their third. Amid the drama of an incoming newborn is where the filmmakers decided to change a few details about her fate from the show’s source material, Fire & Blood.
[Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood novel and for House of the Dragon.]
In Fire & Blood, Laena undergoes a particularly difficult labor before giving birth to a stillborn child, much like what happens in the show. However, in the book, she spends several days ill and dying. According to Fire & Blood’s maester author, legend has it that in her final moments, she tried to find her dragon, Vhagar, to fly just one more time, but died on her way.
The show makes all this a little quicker and a little more literal. Overcome with grief over the loss of her son, Laena rushes from the birthing chamber and finds Vhagar. She kneels down in front of the dragon and commands it to burn her alive.
There could be a couple of explanations for this change, or more accurately, this new version of the story. While Fire &
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