The series premiere of House of the Dragon spent most of its time introducing its many Targaryens, Velaryons, Hightowers and assorted lords and emissaries, as well as establishing their competing interests for favorable standing at court—if not for the Iron Throne itself. That put it in familiar Game of Thrones territory, spinning a web of duplicity and scheming that ensnared all manner of striving men and women desperate to enhance their position in ever-volatile Westeros.
At the same time, however, it also suggested a greater peril on the horizon—or, more specifically, on the outskirts of the Targaryen empire in Stepstones, where much to the chagrin of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) and his allies, a revolt is brewing, led by an individual seemingly destined to assume a prominent role in the HBO prequel.
Enter: the Crabfeeder.
Game of Thrones waited until its fourth season before divulging its Big Bad: the White Walkers’ silent sovereign, the Night King. His specter loomed large over the back half of that George R. R. Martin-based fantasy epic, serving as the personification of wintery doom. Only truly taking center stage in the series’ 48th installment, “Hardhomme,” he was a menacing phantom who stalked the periphery, waiting patiently for his chance to lay siege to the civilization of men in order to bring about a new world order cast in his own frigid image.
He was, almost literally, Death on a pale horse, and though his refusal to talk reduced him to a one-dimensional villain, his icy glare and equally scary battle skills—not to mention his ability to resurrect the dead as his frosty minions—made him a scourge to every living, breathing character on the show.
“The Rogue Prince,” the sophomore chapter of House of the Dragon, continues to develop King’s Landing’s palace intrigue, yet it also bookends its tale with visions of Craghas Drahar, aka Craghas Crabfeeder. As we learned in last week’s episode, Crabfeeder is the prince admiral of the Triarchy, a collection of free cities who’ve banded together to rid the Stepstones—a chain of islands in the distant sea—of their pirate infestation.
Getting rid of bandits is good for everyone’s business, but Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), the “Sea Snake,” nonetheless views this as a growing problem, since united independent cities pose a natural threat to all of Westeros and, in particular, to his seafaring kingdom, whose wealth depends on the unfettered passage of his ships through the Stepstones. Corlys makes that plain at the start of “The Rogue Prince,” demanding that something be done about the four ships (and attendant men) he’s now lost in the region courtesy of the Crabfeeder, whom Corlys thinks is emboldened by the fact that the kingdom has never waged war against the free cities—and, thus, is unlikely to halt the rogue’s reign of Stepstones terror.
And what terror it is! House of the Dragon’s latest hour opens with a close-up of decaying hands nailed to a broken ship beam via a giant spike, creepy crawly crabs gnawing at their flesh. A subsequent shot of a skull with small crustaceans picking at its temple and emerging from its mouth, with out-of-focus carnage spied in the background and wails of agony ringing through the air, make clear that nothing good has occurred in this watery place. When a leg being feasted on by some crabs twitches, and we subsequently see that the living are being consumed as voraciously as the dead, the depths of this nightmare becomes clearer. It culminates with an aerial panorama of the ravaged beach, littered with bodies and engulfed in smoke and the screams of the damned.
This is the handiwork of the Crabfeeder, whom by episode’s end turns out to be a strategically sound enemy for both Corlys and Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), two second-born sons who rightly deduce that by taking down the rebel—whom Viserys presently intends to ignore—they can fortify their own wobbly circumstances.
Consequently, the stage is set for a fearsome showdown between the Crabfeeder and Corlys and Daemon, which in turn lends House of the Dragon a larger-stakes conflict with which to contend while its backstabbing political machinations proceed apace. Moreover, it provides it with a formidable fiend capable of upending the balance of power in ways that have nothing to do with issues of succession and birthright; on the contrary, the Crabfeeder is a force of monstrous annihilation, driven only by greed, cruelty and a fondness for turning his foes into crab chow.
Whether the Crabfeeder is fated to play a Night King-esque part in House of the Dragon is, for now, best left unsaid. With charred skin and a face mask straight out of the WWE—as well as an apparent interest in letting his brutal actions do the speaking for him—he’s a malevolent figure whose very presence serves as an omen to everyone in Westeros: no matter how secure you think you are, there’s always an agent of chaos and madness waiting in the wings, ready to tear everything asunder.
Keep obsessing! Sign up for the Daily Beast’s Obsessed newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
