108 replies to this topic

[MaryaStone]

brashcandy, on 23 February 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

When SanSanage (thanks R&R for that term) goes down, I fully expect she'll be just as eager to explore his body and vice versa.

The bloody cloak beneath the summer silks definitely seems to signify hope for a better day for them. I mean her decision to keep it in such a personal place with her clothing highlights that connection/bond between them.

Good point on what the objects represent to those who have them, Starbird. And we know who already has the man's heart.

During his journey across the Riverlands with Arya, he showed her how to give the gift of mercy, which he gave the dying soldier with a surprising tenderness. He gave him water, as much comfort as he could muster and finally, the gift of mercy. It's ironic that Arya had to learn something like this from someone she considers a cold blooded murderer. I also noticed that he paid no attention to things like burying the corpses they encountered, he even told her it was a good idea to loot them. Again, no pretences, it will do them no good, so why bother? But helping a fellow soldier, an unfortunate wretch like any of them could easily become as well; that, he didn't shun.

What gets my attention is how he insists on teaching the girl where the heart is and to have mercy on the fallen, at least by offering them some comfort and humanity when they found themselves at death's door.

When he thought she was about to kill him, he goaded her, asking her to remember where his heart was and to pierce it in a final act of mercy. A lot of insistence and references to the heart on Sandor's part. Maybe to show the readers he had one, and that it was made of flesh and not stone? After the manly tears in Sansa's bedroom, this references make me think of how important matters of the heart have become for Sandor. It's as if his had been thawed by Sansa's warmth and now it's raw and aching, full or remorse, regrets and other things he probably can't understand.

For other characters, power struggles, strategies, claims and politics are the main thing, but not for Sandor, every one of his motivations seem to be related to the private, the most intimate part of a person: his family issues, his trauma, his Cain versus Abel dynamics with his brother, his possible reticence when contemplating kinslaying, his loyalty, his feelings for Sansa, everything.

What makes him tick? What are his motivations and his role in ASOIF story? He's not driven by  power, greed, ambition and maybe not even revenge ( he should have tried to kill Gregor before, he's already in his late twenties and no coward).

It seems that personal matters and not public ones are the relevant ones for Sandor. These apparently small things (small when compared to power and ruling Westeros) are very important for Sansa. She's the dragonfly (as some of your mentioned in Sansa's thread) to Dany's dragon and Cersei's lioness.

Sansa and Sandor have most of their encounters in the darkness and in private (nobody else knows of them) but dragonflies are light in the darkness and Sansa is the light in Sandor's darkness.

Why has Martin given so much relevance (see how much he's mentioned) to a character whose motivations are reduced to the private sphere of life?

Sandor wants Sansa to look at him and see him for what he is: Sandor the man and not the Hound, without prejudices and pretences. She's quite clueless and can't give him what he needs from her because ,at some kind of instinctive level ,she can connect with him but he's still too much man for her, older and too complicated. So much saying: look at me, sometimes in a forceful desperate way probably means that one day she'll see him and recognise him as the one for her: her man. She wanted a knight, a protector and her own song; she had all that in front of her and didn't realise. I hope she will one day.

Edited by MaryaStone, 23 February 2012 - 07:52 PM.

[childofsummer]

Maroucia, on 23 February 2012 - 07:14 PM, said:

I’m not even sure she understood what he was offering her at that moment, it was not very clear. And then, he didn’t give her much time to get it… How long do you think this whole scene actually lasted? Probably not much more than 5 minutes and it was a fully loaded 5 minutes. No time to think.

Between being terrified that Ser Ilyn was going to come chop off her head, and the shock of finding a drunk, bloody, vomit-and-smoke-smelling desperate man in her bed in the dark, it's no wonder she didn't recognize his very cryptic offer, poor girl!

[brashcandy]

*brash contemplates a way to tie MaryaStone to her computer so she just keeps giving us wonderful posts*

[brashcandy]

Great post again Marya (ignore my selfish impulses above )

Ok, so you're right, Sandor is uniquely connected to the realm of the private in ASOIAF, but I fear that in the next two books his storyline is going to get jerked into the public sphere, not only with his helm being out there, but also with the prophecies and foreshadowing that appear to prominently feature him.

To come back to your point about Sandor and hearts, what do you think is the relevance then of him saying he should have fucked Sansa bloody and ripped her heart out? Here's a man who knows that the piercing of the heart is the best way to end pain, so is he thinking about ending Sansa's pain here, or just his own? Somehow he seems to be speaking of a death that would consume both of them, not just Sansa.

Edited by brashcandy, 23 February 2012 - 08:11 PM.

[MaryaStone]

brashcandy, on 23 February 2012 - 07:46 PM, said:

*brash contemplates a way to tie MaryaStone to her computer so she just keeps giving us wonderful posts*

It's a laptop, so I can carry it around like that ball the prisoners used to drag around while wearing their striped pyjamas.

[brashcandy]

MaryaStone, on 23 February 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

It's a laptop, so I can carry it around like that ball the prisoners used to drag around while wearing their striped pyjamas.

Problem solved!

[MaryaStone]

brashcandy, on 23 February 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

Great post again Marya (ignore my selfish impulses above ) Ok, so you're right, Sandor is uniquely connected to the realm of the private in ASOIAF, but I fear that in the next two books his storyline is going to get jerked into the public sphere, not only with his helm being out there, but also with the prophecies and foreshadowing that appear to prominently feature him. To come back to your point about Sandor and hearts, what do you think is the relevance then of him saying he should have fucked Sansa bloody and ripped her heart out? Here's a man who knows that the piercing of the heart is the best way to end pain, so is he thinking about ending Sansa's pain here, or just his own? Somehow he seems to be speaking of a death that would consume both of them, not just Sansa.

Yeah, I agree with you, he'll have to come out to confront his fate, and there are plenty of clues which suggest he'll have a relevant role in important events, but I think he'll do everything for love. Matters of the heart will drive him again and he'll be a reluctant knight and a reluctant hero (In my mind,I can see Rory as Sandor nodding to the crowd after defending Loras and winning the tourney : the reluctant hero).

ASOIF is much about honour and we have the most unexpected knights (Jaime the kingsglayer and non-knight Sandor Clegane) in Bran's dream, the one's with the worst reputation. Unless the knight wearing the hound helmet is not Sandor, which is also possible.

We can see the irony but also the beauty of knighthood and the conflicts chivalry and honour may rise through Sandor and Jaime's dilemmas. They are different but also similar, one so beautiful and vain in his golden armour and the other so scarred and fierce in his dull grey armour. Both of them did the unforgivable (killing/attempting to kill a child) but are also brave and strong and have behaved like true knights at least as many times as they've acted as villains.

Both are loyal and faithful to the extreme and are driven by matters of the heart rather than power, greed or political reasons. Jaime renounced Casterly Rock, a family, legitimate children, everything for his love (as twisted as it was). Sandor is supposed to be driven by anger and hate but we know where his heart is, in the right place, though pierced and bleeding, and feeling again after he's fallen for a girl he can't have.

He can't have his love just as Jaime can't have his. If they are the knights in Bran's dream they'll have to confront their giant, which may be the same, or perhaps each of them has to fight his particular giant.

As for Sandor's sentence: ripping her heart out... that's a difficult one, very ambiguous and powerful. Another reference to the heart in Sandor's nightmarish journey to the deepest pits of hell. I'm not sure, but probably that's how he feels himself, as if his own chest had been ripped open and his heart was in her hands. In this scene the man wants to die because he can't take any more suffering,both physical and mental, but probably his inner suffering is the one that's more cruel.

He's a fighter and never gives up but when he heard of Sansa's marriage he surrendered. The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that crude and raw sentence: I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her hear out before leaving her for that dwarf is more about self hatred, pain and hopeless yearning than about violence. Sandor has known nothing but violence and he expresses in violent terms how frustrated, how jealous and forlorn he feels now that he's lost his little bird for ever.

I'm sure he doesn't regret he didn't rape her and killed her, he's just expressing a pain so strong it feels nearly physical, I think it's his own heart the one which feels as if it was being ripped out of his chest, that's why he wants to give up and die by Arya's hand and mercy. I agree with you, he refers to his torn heart and his own death rather than hers.

Edited by MaryaStone, 24 February 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[Caro99]

aluin, on 23 February 2012 - 09:33 AM, said:

My worry is that SanSan relationship cannot be represented on a movie in such a deep profound way.. I just don't expect HBO to satisfy my views on that point.. Well its pity, but in other hand I prefer reading so will just wait for Martin to get things done

i share your worries there aluin. there has been a lot of speculation that they'll adapt the relationship wuite well in the 2nd season to make up for the lack of their scenes in the 1st one, (like the one with LF. why did they take sandor out of it?! ) but i got a little worried after reading rory's interview as he just talks about how he'll be giving advice to sansa to survive and how her beatings will afect him cause he'll recall his own bullying, but hopefully he didn't mention the romance bit to avoid giving away spoilers..?   one can just hope. Good news though!! i've just read that for those getting the blue-ray, an easter egg will contain rory's auditon, and i think GrrM said that rory won the role when he played out the burn tale to sansa, so me might at least get an idea of what that would have been like in the adaptation!!
bgona, i had never thought about how tyrion might be the cause (apart from the sansa issue) for sandor and joffrey to "fall apart" with whatever interactions they had. but since tyrion hired the kettleblacks, who were not only 1 but 3, and with a lot of physical qualities that resembled sandor, he might have hired them specifically to interfere in the prince's relationship with his bodyguard?
and there's been talk about how sandor's helm is still quite important since it's traveling all over westeros and making a reputation for itself, so this let me to wonder how the "hound" nickname started. did sandor started it by creating the dog's helm, or did somebody else named him that??

Edited by Caro99, 23 February 2012 - 11:14 PM.

[R & R]

MaryaStone, on 23 February 2012 - 09:05 PM, said:

Jaime the kinglayer....

Queenlayer, actually.

Right:  making jokes from typos is certainly one of the more hideously trollish behaviours on forums.  In an attempt to make ammends, allow one to concede that you have rapidly at length convinced this reader of Sandor's great heart, perhaps the largest of the myriad of characters in this huge fantasy series.  Sweetly ironic that Martin* chooses to plant it in a vicious killer and bring it off so well.  

It's clear that Sandor's heart, his empathy, derives from his childhood traumas inflicted upon him by, huh, his elder brother.  So even as I was going to go on at length with effusive praise for the contributors to this thread, I'm slammed in the head mid-post about the Gravedigger's healing at the hands of an Elder Brother.  This parallel is so obvious; how'd I miss it?  Has this already been discussed at length?

Anyway, sorry for picking on the typo, but some temptations I'm too weak to resist.


*--> [ offtopic ]  Anyone else tired of all-capping "GRRM" all the time? [ /offtopic ]

[Maroucia]

Caro99, on 23 February 2012 - 09:50 PM, said:

i share your worries there aluin. there has been a lot of speculation that they'll adapt the relationship wuite well in the 2nd season to make up for the lack of their scenes in the 1st one, but i got a little worried after reading an interview with rory where he just talks about how he'll be giving advice to sansa to survive and how her beatings will afect him cause he'll recall his own bullying, but hopefully he didn't mention the romance bit to avoid giving away spoilers..?   one can just hope.
here's the link to the interview. a cute fact is that he likes to feed birds= little bird
http://www.accesshol...d_article_61074

bgona, i had never thought about how tyrion might be the cause (apart from the sansa issue) for sandor and joffrey to "fall apart" with whatever interactions they had. but since tyrion hired the kettleblacks, who were not only 1 but 3, and with a lot of physical qualities that resembled sandor, he might have hired them specifically to interfere in the prince's relationship with his bodyguard?

and there's been talk about how sandor's helm is still quite important since it's traveling all over westeros and making a reputation for itself, so this let me to wonder how the "hound" nickname started. did sandor started it by creating the dog's helm, or did somebody else named him that??

I would think the helm came after, but it’s very hard to say, it’s a little like the chicken or the egg dilemma.
Am I the only one who is actually sad that he lost his helm? Not only because of the bad reputation it’s giving him, but also because I loved that helm? It was so cool looking and scary and I love how they made it on the show! Now, if he decides to get out of QI, he is going to have to get himself another one and it won’t be as fierce…

[littlespider]

R & R, on 23 February 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

It's clear that Sandor's heart, his empathy, derives from his childhood traumas inflicted upon him by, huh, his elder brother.  So even as I was going to go on at length with effusive praise for the contributors to this thread, I'm slammed in the head mid-post about the Gravedigger's healing at the hands of an Elder Brother.  This parallel is so obvious; how'd I miss it?  Has this already been discussed at length?

Not at great length, but it has come up, that EB is a nice replacement figure for Greg, and is hopefully doing the stuff that, like, a real big bro should have done instead of mutilating his face.

I like Elder Brother -- he's a pretty tough dude. I doubt that Sandor would listen to someone who wasn't.

BTW, Maroucia? Badass avatar. That's the Danse Macabre for Women, right?

[Maroucia]

littlespider, on 23 February 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

Not at great length, but it has come up, that EB is a nice replacement figure for Greg, and is hopefully doing the stuff that, like, a real big bro should have done instead of mutilating his face.

I like Elder Brother -- he's a pretty tough dude. I doubt that Sandor would listen to someone who wasn't.

BTW, Maroucia? Badass avatar. That's the Danse Macabre for Women, right?

Thanks!   Yeah, it’s the Danse Macabre of women, the one for noble women to be more precise…

[littlespider]

Maroucia, on 23 February 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

Thanks!   Yeah, it’s the Danse Macabre of women, the one for noble women to be more precise…

That's a pretty badass, morbid little book.

[littlespider]

Oh by the way, you're not the only one that was sad when he lost the helm.

It was like when Gendry lost the bull helmet, a signature item that marks his identity. I think we're being prodded to follow that Sandor is forging a new identity.

I will, however, stubbornly continue to call him by his epithet. Because it is frakking cool.

[R & R]

littlespider, on 23 February 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

I like Elder Brother -- he's a pretty tough dude. I doubt that Sandor would listen to someone who wasn't.

I agree, Sandor wouldn't listen to someone who's not at least as BAMF as he is... other than to little birds who sing sweet songs.

Darn.  I'd love to read about this particular EB's back story.

[childofsummer]

littlespider, on 23 February 2012 - 10:56 PM, said:

Oh by the way, you're not the only one that was sad when he lost the helm.

It was like when Gendry lost the bull helmet, a signature item that marks his identity. I think we're being prodded to follow that Sandor is forging a new identity.

I will, however, stubbornly continue to call him by his epithet. Because it is frakking cool.

I wonder who first called him the Hound?  It sounds strangely like something Jaime would come up with.

[Smiling Jack]

Hi, y'all! I've been lurking, but could no longer resist the raspy siren call. The posts here are always so insightful.

Lost helm = sadness.  I found it even more awesome in AFFC, when we learned it could double as a bucket.

Hearkening real quick back to pages and pages ago, I wanted to drop my two cents into the "Hound as a lover" fountain (really, more as a pleaser in general terms). The feeling of extreme bitterness and resignation that his comments and lessons to Sansa evoke give me the impression that he tried to be liked after escaping Gregor. Maybe he even had as foolish a hope as she did; her sense of freedom and adventure upon leaving Winterfell for KL might mirror his own when fleeing to the Lannisters. He may have taken an approach to being accepted as studious and dedicated as his fighting skills, but failed because of his appearance or some other factor. Given what seems to be the Lannister attitude (based on the treatment of Tyrion), he could have added four new volumes to the Kama Sutra and been a poetry phenomenon in addition to his BAMF-ness, and still been an outcast.

Edited by Smiling Jack, 23 February 2012 - 11:59 PM.

[brashcandy]

Hi Smiling Jack! So many new members have been answering that call lately. Interesting insight that the Hound may have looked for acceptance from the Lannisters, both as a fighter and as a normal young man, but they've only ever seemed to value what his ferocity can achieve.

[Revan Baratheon]

I sometimes wonder how Sandor would have turned out if he was a stark bannermen instead of lannister,and he would have no brother called gregor.(gregor would exist as a lone man loyal to lannister)he might have turned out like Jory then?and been Robb's sworn shield? In which case he wouldve died by book 3

But i would like to see the real man(phsically and mentally) behind that burned face.

(Note:im still not a fan of sandor+Sansa so no "i told u so" comments pls)

[I'dsingforyou]

I love all your post MaryaStone! Especially the 64 thousand dollar question.....

MaryaStone, on 23 February 2012 - 07:37 PM, said:

Why has Martin given so much relevance (see how much he's mentioned) to a character whose motivations are reduced to the private sphere of life?

that's why it would be so bitterly, disappointing if there was no follow though.
Oh and I'm beside myself today over the Rory interview!