How House of the Dragon's Fiery Death Was Different From the Books

House of the Dragon's latest episode, "The Princess and the Queen," featured a shocking, fiery death. It featured multiple, but where one solved a long-standing Game of Thrones mystery, the other went a bit different than what the books relayed. House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin's novel Fire & Blood, which tells the history of House Targaryen. However, the book is structured like an actual history written in the Game of Thrones universe. Its in-world author is Archmaester Gyldayn, a Westerosi historian drawing on other written accounts of events. As such, readers must account for unreliable narrators, willfully misconstrued events, lapses in memory, and other such mischaracterizations.

House of the Dragon, on the other hand, offers a first-hand account of how these events occurred, filling in many of the gaps left in the in-world accounting. Here's how the original telling differs from what fans saw in House of the Dragon.

Who is Laena Valeryon?

Laena Valeryon was the eldest child of the "Sea Snake," Crolys Velaryon, and "the Queen Who Never Was," Rhaenys Targaryen. In both Fire & Blood and House of the Dragon, the Small Council urges King Viserys to remarry following his wife's death, putting Laena forth as a prime candidate. Viserys refused, choosing to marry Alicent Hightower instead, which created a rift between House Velaryon and the royal family that wouldn't be healed until Laena's brother, Leanor, married Princess Rhaenyra.

Having been passed over by the king, Laena soon gained the attention of his brother, Daemon Targaryen. The two would eventually marry (in Fire & Blood, this involved Daemon first dueling and killing the man to whom Laena had already been betrothed, which pleases her family).

From a young age, Laena was also a dragon rider. She rode on the back of the dragon Vhagar.

How does Laena Valeryon die in House of the Dragon?

There's a 10-year time jump in House of the Dragon between its fifth and sixth episodes. By the time "The Princess and the Queen" begins, we find Laena and Daemon already married. They have two children, Baela and Rhaena, and Laena is pregnant with their third. They're living in the free city Pentos, though whether that's a temporary or permanent arrangement is a matter of discussion between her and her husband. Daemon seems happy to stay away from the drama of Westeros, but Laena wants to return home.

Laena goes into childbirth in Pentos, and the birthing proves difficult. Soon, Daemon is given the same choice that his brother the king had to make in the first episode. However, Laena sees this coming and decides to take her death into her own hands. Rather than dying in childbirth, she runs to Vhagar and commands "dracarys." The dragon breathes fire, burning Laena alive.

How does Laena Valeryon die in Fire & Blood?

The broad strokes of Laena's death in the book are similar to what occurs in House of the Dragon, but the details are different (or unrevealed, depending on how you view the show's relationship to the book). In Fire & Blood's telling, Laena gave birth to her and Deamon's first two children in Pentos. After that, the family returned home to the Driftmark, the seat of House Velaryon.

It is there on Driftmark that Laena gives birth to her third child, a stillborn son. Rather than running to Vhagar and self-immolating, Laena succumbs to sickness brought on by her weakened physical state and grief. The book states that some say Laena attempted to reach Vhagar to fly on his back one last time before her death, but the truth of that accounting remains unverified.

Why did House of the Dragon change how Laena Velaryon died?

Fans are likely wondering about the change to Laena's death. Showrunner Ryan Condal explained that it was an attempt to get Laena's personality across in her final moments, making up for the lack of time she got in the story.

"Laena's a valkyrie. She's a dragon rider," Condal told Variety. "We met that little girl back in Episode 2; that little girl went on a couple years later to claim the biggest dragon in the world. It felt like she wouldn't want to go out the way that the history book said. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the season and the storytelling, we didn't get to spend as much time as I think we would have preferred to with Laena. We had to keep the story moving. So we wanted to give her a memorable out that felt active and in her character. Even though we're only with Nanna Blondell's portrayal of her for a very brief time, within that moment, it tells you a lot about who Laena is and was."

New episodes of House of the Dragon air Sundays on HBO.