Chilling ‘House Of The Dragon’ Crabfeeder Is A Nod To Another ‘Game Of Thrones’ Antagonist

The following article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon’s third episode.

House of the Dragon is off to a flying start. The first episode marked HBO’s most successful series premiere of all time, and this week’s episode, ‘Second of His Name,’ has a stellar rating of 9.9 on IMDB - putting it on par with Game of Thrones’ ‘Battle of the Bastards’ and ‘The Winds of Winter.’ The episode saw Daemon face off against the mysterious Crabfeeder, the latter of whom plays a much larger role in the show than the book.

If you’re yet to start the show, what are you waiting for? Take a look at the epic trailer below.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Craghas Drahar - known to his enemies as the Crabfeeder - was barely mentioned in George R.R Martin’s Fire and Blood. The Myrish prince-admiral’s description amounted to less than a page but if you caught this week’s episode, you’ll know that the Crabfeeder engaged in a prominent battle with Daemon Targaryen.

The fact that Drahar feeds his enemies to crabs was something that featured in Martin’s book but what’s new is a clear affliction to the character’s skin. House of the Dragon’s Crabfeeder suffers from greyscale - just as Game of Thrones’ Shireen and Ser Jorah did. Actor Daniel Scott-Smith told EW, “We wanted to remember that there's two sides to him. So we spoke about the idea of him being a prince, or that he calls himself a prince, so he came from some sort of higher House. We spoke about that and the gradual decline to where he is, how the greyscale might affect him physically, even mentally.”

House of the Dragon also gave the character a very familiar mask. Drahar sports the same golden mask - albeit in a more disheveled condition - as worn by the Sons of the Harpy in Thrones. Scott-Smith explained, “It was definitely a nod to that for, I guess, the fans, because it's something familiar for them and we spoke about the idea of him being the first person to wear this mask and it becoming iconic.” Unfortunately, Crabfeeder was a short-lived villain but Daemon’s defeat certainly puts him in an interesting position of power heading into episode four.