House of the Dragon's Tom Glynn-Carney, Phia Saban on Aegon and Helaena's Marriage After Season 2

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the season finale of House of the Dragon Season 2. Read at your own risk!]

The king and queen of Westeros end Season 2 of HBO's House of the Dragon faced with the same proposition: get the heck out of dodge or risk death.

While still recovering from being barbecued by his brother and current King Regent Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) on dragonback, Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) is delivered a hard truth by his Master of Whisperers, Larys Strong (Matthew Needham): If he doesn't leave King's Landing, his brother is going to finish the job and take the Iron Throne permanently. By the end of the episode, Aegon can't help but accept this reality, and stows away in a dingy cart with Larys bound for Braavos until the war is over.

"I think out of all the bad options Aegon has, this is the least damaging," Glynn-Carney told TV Guide. "The other option is that he sits and waits in his bedroom for them to come and he is in no fit state to defend himself."

Meanwhile, Queen Helaena (Phia Saban), still reeling from the murder of her and Aegon's son, is confronted by their mother Alicent (Olivia Cooke) with a similarly dire option — flee King's Landing and escape the brutality of the war to come. But the usually soft-spoken Helaena stands her ground, defiantly telling Aemond she won't ride her dragon Dreamfyre into battle, nor will his threats of killing her change her prophetic visions. She has seen his fate, and he won't survive this war.

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"I think she is having the most clarity she has ever had with this intuition, this feeling and these visions that she has," Saban said. "Essentially, she has kind of been pushed to the limit."

But considering how estranged Aegon and Helaena have been all season — and really, their entire lives — it is not lost on the people playing them how ironic it is that the couple/siblings find themselves in similar predicaments at the end of Season 2.

"They are quite strong mirrors of each other, they just don't have the communication there," Saban said. "In a way, I think they wish they did have a shared language. They both have this awful trauma where they are the only two people who have that in common, and yet they can't be there for each other. Then they are both disempowered. She disassociates from the world, and he isn't respected and then is completely debilitated. So they both have to run off and go somewhere safe."

Glynn-Carney says he and Saban came to an understanding while filming that the death of their son Jaehaerys intertwined Aegon and Helaena more than they realized or could admit to each other. "Myself and Phia liked to think it brought them closer together and let them sing from the same hymn sheet for a small amount of time," he said. "We saw them both become more human versions of themselves."

But what does that mean for the husband and wife faced with death or escape by the end of the season? Saban says Helaena's trauma and grief left her to disassociate from the world, which she previously used to conceal her abilities.

"It widened the gap between her and other people, and it made her feel more strange than she already knew she was," she said. "Since this dissociation, she has kind of stepped out of that reality, and I think it has brought her a little bit closer to this ability that she has."

It leads to her surprisingly standing up to Aemond's demands that she and Dreamfyre join him in setting fire to the competition, no matter how many innocent people have to die in the flames. Her candor and honesty in that moment, let alone her admission that he is fated to die, brings the otherwise steely Aemond to tears. But Saban cautions fans of this new Helaena not to expect her to suddenly tell everyone like it is.

"I can't speak for what's to come because, in a way, I wouldn't be able to say that this moment of clarity she has in communicating with Aemond is going to be the beginning of this whole new future where she really looks people in the eyes and really lets them know what's up," Saban said. 

In fact, it wasn't Helaena's searing speech to Aemond that most intrigued Saban. That comes later on in the climactic exchange between Alicent and Rhaneyra (Emma D'Arcy).

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"I am very interested in that beautifully acted conversation between Alicent and Rhaenyra, where Alicent says Aemond is going to fly to battle and that leaves Helaena as the ruler in Kings Landing," she says. "My imagination just started dreaming what that could look like."

Aegon might not get to see what Helaena's temporary rule could look like as he heads out of town in less-than-kingly conditions. But just as Helaena has been galvanized to push back against Aemond and the turmoil beseeching their family, Glynn-Carney says Aegon shouldn't be counted out either.

"I think people underestimate Aegon," he said. "He has been seen as a laughing stock, and someone who tries to be something he is not. But there are only so many times that someone can be called those things and not take action that surprises people to the lengths they are willing to go. I think he has it in him. It will only take the straw to break the camel's back at this point."

Looks like Aegon and Helaena have one more thing in common.

Seasons 1 and 2 of House of the Dragon are streaming on Max.