We’ve barely had two episodes of ‘The house of the dragon’ and characters who are postulated as possible great antagonists of history are already beginning to appear. If ‘Game of Thrones’ had its King of the Night as a clear opposing force to the protagonists, Could the Benefactor of the Crabs be the great villain of the series?
Notice of spoiler of the first two episodes of ‘The House of the Dragon’
feeding the crabs
Who really is this Benefactor of the Crabs? At the moment, we have been able to see that it is a mysterious individual who hides his battered face under a mask. His nickname is given to him by his modus operandiconsisting of loot ships and impale their victims on the beach (thus making them, effectively, “food for the crabs”).
Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) himself is the one who reveals the identity of this character: Craghas Drahar, a Myrish prince of the Free Cities. The Benefactor appears at the end of the second episode and is installed with his army at the Stone Steps, where he killed the pirates in order to collect a toll from anyone who crossed there. The Steps are important islands that link Westeros to Essos and are also part of the Corlys trade route.
Aside from his bloodthirsty practices, the Benefactor is already causing indirect conflict within the main houses of the series. To the stand in the way of House VelaryonCorlys goads King Viserys into sending troops from King’s Landing against these criminals.
However, he meets the Viserys’s refusal to march against Drahar’s group, who rules out a forceful counteroffensive due to his tendency to shy away from conflict. This, added to the king’s support for his daughter Rhaenyra as his successor, arouses Corlys’ suspicion and leads him to seek an alliance with Daemon, the king’s brother, so that he can free himself from the Benefactor and his allies. .
Thus, this strange pirate prince is one of the main threats to the current power in Westeros. He counts on the allied force of the Free Cities to charge against Viserys’ command. It will be necessary to see how it is solved confrontation between him and Daemon and what surprises are in store throughout the season. For now, we can say that does not look like a supernatural figure (as if it were the King of the Night).
‘The House of the Dragon’ airs weekly on HBO Max, with a new episode every Monday.