i love the direction this episode took, because it wasn't just helaena who died today.
when helaena asks rhaenyra “do you think living means just not being dead?” that is her trying to make her sister see sense. she is trying to tell her that rhaenyra, after all these losses, isn’t really living anymore.
the rhaenyra that she was died a little when visenya did, but she still had enough to carry on. and then luke died, and a part of her broke beyond repair.
when jace died, so did she.
and then, the final shot of the season—framed like she’s closing the doors upon her own crypt, because she's dead in all the ways that matter.
rhaenyra targaryen—the mother, the daughter, the wife, the friend, the sister—has perished. each one of them died, suffocated bit by bit under the weight of each successive tragedy. now, only the crown remains.
the queen is dead. long live the queen.
