Drake Carne

Drake Carne arrives in Cornwall as Demelza's much younger brother, a poor, devout young man with a gift for blacksmithing and none for guile. He wants only honest work and a quiet life, but his good nature and open heart make him impossible for the Poldark household to ignore, or to leave alone.

Harry Richardson plays him with an unguarded sweetness rare in this world of scheming and class warfare, so his decency reads as strength rather than naivety. The show uses him as its moral compass, and Richardson makes goodness watchable by grounding it in real, stubborn feeling rather than saintliness.