All 5 Major Deaths In The House Of The Dragon Season 3 Finale, Explained

Warning: Dragon-sized spoilers follow for the "House of the Dragon" Season 3 finale.

A mixed "House of the Dragon" season ended in an appropriately mixed way. The Season 3 finale delivered some stunning battle scenes that are different from what we've seen before in this universe, some funny Aegon II moments, and a phenomenal performance from Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra. That being said, the finale also delivered some bewildering adaptation choices that justify George R. R. Martin disowning the show and hint at great difficulties for the adaptation as it heads to its final season.

One thing the finale didn't lack was deaths. In true Westeros fashion, the finale of "House of the Dragon" let the bodies hit the floor, with hundreds of dead at the Battle of Tumbleton, and also some known characters meeting their end and changing the course of the Dance of the Dragons.

Just in case you forgot who some of these characters are or why they matter, let's break down every major death in the "House of the Dragon" Season 3 finale. Don't worry, this article won't spoil what happens in the book or in the next season (though at this point it feels like knowledge of the books can't help with how much the show is changing). With that being said, let's pay our respects to the fallen, and maybe laugh at one or two of these because they got what they deserved.

We didn't get to spend much time with Roderick Dustin (Tommy Flanagan), aka Ruddy the Ruin, Lord of Barrowton and head of House Dustin, but he wrote himself into the annals of Westerosi history by being the coolest dude in the Seven Kingdoms.

After chasing Criston Cole's forces with his co-worker best friend, Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes), Roddy gets his time to shine in the Season 3 finale. As part of the Winter Wolves, Roddy the Ruin is in this fight to do one thing and one thing only — die historically on the Fury Road. He leads a massive army of northerners doing the Westeros equivalent of the Viking Row chant, which makes the Hightower soldiers (mostly innocent children) pee their pants in fear. He storms the gates of Tumbleton, killing everyone in his path. Knowing full well that the Hightowers are using children and innocent civilians as human shields, Roddy shows that the Starks are really the only northerners with some manners, as the Ruin just straight up kills a kid for love of the game the first chance he gets.

Spending the entire finale looking to die at the right time, Roddy finally gets what he wants when he sees Ormund Hightower. This absolute beast of a man, the Northernest Northman to ever North, becomes a legend when he kills Ormund by literally stabbing him in the butt with a dagger while half-dead himself. He then held Ormund as the two were burnt alive by dragonfire.

In the span of a season, Roddy helped kill the two most hated and annoying characters in "House of the Dragon," fought in a spectacular battle, and got killed by dragon fire while looking like a badass. Rest eternal, Roderick Dustin; you'll be missed.

Just when you thought Criston Cole was the most hateful and despicable "House of the Dragon" character, along comes Ormund Hightower (James Norton) to really make you root for the obliteration of that entire house. He was obnoxious, creepy, abusive, racist, homophobic, a war criminal, and all around a huge bigot. He placed children in the front lines and sent them outside the gates of Tumbleton to be burnt alive. He was horrendously homophobic toward his cousin Gwayne and abusive toward Daeron Targaryen, his ward.

The finale of Season 3 sees Ormund finally get what he deserved when the Battle of Tumbleton claims his life as well as hundreds of others. Still, it took its sweet time. Ormund missed most of the battle looking for a passed-out Ulf the White, avoiding Roddy the Ruin's wrath for a good while. But that didn't last long. Even after throwing a man at Roddy as a human shield, and even after managing to stab the northerner, Ormund is killed when Roddy stabs the Lord of Oldtown where the sun don't shine, then holds him in place right as the dragon Silverwing breathes fire on them.

James Norton did an excellent job making Ormund a truly despicable man, with a funny aversion for strong smells. His death is a huge loss to House Hightower, as most of his army is either dead or fleeing, with Gwayne probably not in a great place to organize and lead them again.

Now this is a rather tragic — and puzzling — death. Helaena's death is quite polarizing because of how much the show changed about her character this season. Though "House of the Dragon" Season 3 provides a fair amount of reasoning behind this sweet neurodivergent queen jumping out a window to her death, it is nevertheless an abrupt and kind of pointless death because of the many changes to the book.

In the show, Helaena (Phia Saban) has struggled all season long with the loss of her freedom after her mother Alicent sold out her family and opened the gates for Rhaenyra to conquer King's Landing. Things reach a breaking point in the Season 3 finale when, after refusing to eat for a long time due to the psychological toll of being under house arrest, Helaena is force-fed by Rhaenyra and also told that her brother and husband, Aegon II, is alive. That means that Helaena and her unborn child are now a direct threat to Rhaenyra, meaning that child will be a prisoner their entire life, if even allowed to live.

Unable to cope with that, Helaena jumps out of what is now a cursed window in the Red Keep — seemingly the same one Joffrey Baratheon jumps out of at the end of Season 6 of "Game of Thrones." In the books, this is a huge turning point for Rhaenyra, as people in King's Landing all loved Queen Helaena and many even believe Rhaenyra had her killed. Here? We never saw Helaena in public, and she didn't interact with anyone but her family. It's a bummer, but one devoid of thematic meaning or plot relevance.

Regardless, here's to you, Helaena. You were the only character who recognized how ugly King's Landing was.

Unfortunately, the High Septon is so unmemorable that he doesn't even get a name — he just gets a title. He's really only there to be yet another nuisance to Rhaenyra this season.

That being said, his death is arguably the most monumental one in the Season 3 finale of "House of the Dragon." The murder of a High Septon is something that not even Maegor the Cruel tried to do because he knew it would be too big a disaster for his reign. Aegon the Conqueror literally converted to the Faith of the Seven rather than risk the ire of the church. Rhaenyra, however? She understands the importance of the separation of church and state (we simply have to support our woke queen) and murders the dude right before proclaiming herself the Kwisatz Haderach to the masses.

The murder of the High Septon when he refuses to crown Rhaenyra is the Westerosi equivalent of killing the Pope, a huge attack on the entire faith and its hundreds of thousands of followers. In theory, this should prove catastrophic to Rhaenyra, as she now has the entire Faith of the Seven against her.

And yet, there is precedent for no one batting an eye at this. In "Game of Thrones," we saw Cersei blow up the entire Sept of Baelor with the High Septon and hundreds of followers inside it; it was like blowing up St. Peter's Basilica with Princess Diana inside it. And yet, no one rose up against Cersei. They didn't even protest when she then took the throne following her son's suicide, despite "House of the Dragon" literally being about how Westeros would rather destroy itself than see a woman rule. So the High Septon's death might be huge, or it might be meaningless. We'll see.

You would be forgiven for not remembering just who the hell Kat is, because she is by no means a major character in "House of the Dragon." Nothing against Ellora Torchia, who played the character in seasons 2 and 3; it's just that Kat wasn't very memorable and barely had any screen time before her untimely death.

She was Hugh the Hammer's wife, and the mother to their child, who passed away in Season 2. When Hugh left in order to become a Dragonrider, Kat left King's Landing on her own, facing untold horrors to escape the capital. She ultimately landed at Tumbleton, where she remained until her death.

When Hugh seeks her out, Kat is mourning the execution of her brother, who tried to defend her from one of Ormund Hightower's soldiers who assaulted her. She rejects Hugh, mad that he abandoned her first without an explanation, and wants nothing to do with him. The next time we see her is during the Battle of Tumbleton, running away from the fighting, as one of the Hightower soldiers tries to use her as a human shield before he gets killed. By the end of the episode, Hugh finds her dead.

Even if Kat herself wasn't a hugely important or even memorable character, her death is likely going to be a pivotal moment for Hugh the Hammer. Season 3 of "House of the Dragon" already gave us one Dragonrider turned traitor in Ulf the White, for something as petty as beer and a castle. Hugh blaming Rhaenyra for the battle that killed his wife (even if it was the Hightowers hiding amongst women and children) is not out of the question. If that happens, it would be a huge blow to Team Black to lose yet another dragon.