+++ Opinion +++
So that’s it for the shrimp feeder: Cragha’s Drahar (Daniel Scott-Smith) was mentioned briefly in the first episode “House Of The Dragon”, he was seen at the end of episode 2 – and then he is found in episode 3 its end again. And that was unfortunately quite disappointing in an otherwise pretty good episode of House Of The Dragon.
A character is set up as a major threat, with fans puzzling and speculating as to what it could be, but before there can be any exciting revelations, he’s killed again: Of course, there’s an optional comparison to the Night King from “Game Of Thrones” or Snoke from “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
But that’s really not my point at all. I’m not disappointed because I would have liked to know more about the crab feeder. Also, what should showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan J. Condal have told me about Cragha’s drahar? When did he get gray scales? Where did he find the creepy mask? That he’s an illegitimate son of King Viserys and wants revenge on the Targaryens?
My problem with the crab feeder is a different one (or actually two different ones): Building up such an antagonist character for an episode and a half and then sawing it off again – that’s just sloppily told. The screen time could have been used much better.
It’s a bit reminiscent of the handful of storylines that were hinted at in “Game Of Thrones” and then never finished. So I could imagine that Craghas Drahar once played a larger role in the first season of “House Of The Dragon”, but the role was then gradually cut due to time constraints.
» “House Of The Dragon” at WOW (Sky Ticket)*
But then one could have dispensed with the crab feeder altogether and had the pirates of the triarchy led by a nameless admiral on the stepping stones. Then Strictly speaking, Cragha’s drahar serves no real function in the story. In the form we see the character in House Of The Dragon, she’s actually superfluous. And that leads me to my second point:
I think, the idea behind The Crab Feeder was to introduce an adversary for Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). A figure that he can rub shoulders with, with which he threatens to fail and which he eventually overcomes and then emerges as a new demon on the other side. But in order to make such a change meaningful and comprehensible, you also have to show the duel between the two characters.
The fact that Daemon just runs into the cave here and then comes out again with the severed torso of Cragha’s drahar is probably the definition of anticlimactic.
It’s all the more disappointing because in “House Of The Dragon” a story is told beforehand with the action scene on the beach: We see Daemon as a wild, instinctive fighter who is ready to die and would probably have actually met his death if the Velaryons and their soldiers had not appeared. And “Shang-Chi” or most recently “Obi-Wan Kenobi” have only recently proven again that a story can also be told in the form of a duel in Hollywood productions.
“House Of The Dragon” Episode 4 will be released on September 12, 2022 on Sky and WOW (formerly Sky Ticket).
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