u lowkey being obtuse on purpose but i’ll expand on what i said so then maybe you understand.
helaena being queen consort in the green council—which weaponized misogyny— gave her very limited power. she was dependent on aegon’s hard headed ass listening to her advice, as opposed to rhaenyra who was the queen and had the final say on the decisions in her faction.
the only reason i brought up this difference in power is because you brought up lucerys, b&c, and tumbleton. rhaenyra, as queen, is going to be held more accountable for the actions of her men because she has a bigger hand and voice in the war. her men will carry out her rulings. the greens don’t follow helaena, they follow aegon.
helaena was explicitly stated to have gone mad in fire and blood. she was incapacitated. she stayed sane in hotd.
and yeah she knew who the rightful heir was, she could have ran or written in theory, but her mother was one of the heads of the coup. she might not like aegon but he’s the father of her children. once he was crowned, they were his immediate heirs.
helaena, in the books and the show, is close with her mother and puts her children above anything else. why should she betray her and put her kids in danger over “the rightful heir” that she more than likely doesn’t trust?
when rhaenyra wrote to the greens asking them to surrender, she was asking for aegon, aemond, and helaena, not just one of them. if only helaena went, aegon would still not have forfeited the throne and she and her children would probably become hostages at the mercy of the blacks.
its too big of a risk to take for a lady she dgaf about.
also, i never called her or implied she was a lamb to slaughter. i was only telling you that ur arguments fall apart easily when you stop seeing everything in black and white.