The Will to Change: Rereading Sandor

[Ragnorak]

Cersei tore Robert's will which shows that the Lannisters do not care about legalities that much.

In addition, Ned was legally a traitor who confessed his treason. So, his decrees as the Hand might have been declared illegal in the first place, which leads to the idea that Gregor was attainted and convicted falsely. So, the Lannisters probably didnot need to do anything regarding Gregor.

The Lannisters definitely didn't need to do anything about Gregor-- that's the point. Gregor continued to serve under Tywin and ravage the Riverlands and then seems to have served as the crown's Castellan for Harrenhal during Littlefinger's absence much like Jaime later appoints Ser Bonnifer as Castellan until such time as Littlefinger arrives. The question is whether or not Cersei cared so little for pieces of paper that she neglected to have one written to undo Ned's actions as Hand. It is a small point and one that may never even come up. Ned's actions seem connected to his treason because they are directly connected to the overall Lannister plotting to steal the throne and we as readers know that. But the "official story" has Ned's treason start at Robert's death and the public face of what went on has Gregor's Riverland incursion as an unrelated incident. It is, or certainly can be said to be, a legally valid decree unless it was officially reversed.

While the Lannisters and Cersei in particular may not care a whit for legalities, they are not in a position militarily or politically to ignore other's concerns for such legal issues whether legitimate or feigned. As a hypothetical, Dorne would care very much if an attainted Gregor was chosen to champion the dead Joffrey despite Gregor being attainted for the whole of Joffrey's reign, especially since an attainted Gregor killed Oberyn as the crown's champion. It has the potential to be an embarrassing chain of events for the Lannisters while they are now in a position where they have to care about legalities they were previously free to ignore through raw power. Riverland's lords are the wounded party from Gregor's actions and they are now back in the crown's good graces with Littlefinger as their Lord Paramount. Kevan, Tommen's Regent, is dead and Mace Tyrell is Hand. Robert Strong, who Kevan suspects is Gregor and also suspects Mace and Tarly think is Gregor, is Cersei's champion to be and Dorne is sending Sand Snakes, already suspicious of Gregor's death, to take a seat on the small council and infiltrate the Faith who are supposed to preside over the trial. All of these parties have reason to strike at House Lannister and there are no Lannisters in power at Kings Landing who can ignore a hypothetical legal claim should one be made.

This doesn't mean anything will come of this. It is just one piece of hanging plot fruit that may or may not drop. If it does it will likely impact Sandor's story in some way.

I believe that perhaps understanding what types of attainders there are in-universe, which reflect those of real life attainders of the time, will illustrate the point, Ragnorak, because I'm getting the idea that a distinction is missing here. See above in my reply to Ornitorrinca, where I point out why I believe Sandor becomes the de jure head of his House. The attainder is against Gregor exclusively, not against House Clegane, and it doesn't revert the lands to the crown because those lands aren't of the crown in the first place, but of the Lord Paramount of the Westerlands. The only way they would've been reverted to the crown would have been if the whole of House Clegane had been attainted, which is when the crown has the right to dispose of the lands, though the overlord would have to be involved, likely, since it's in his dominions.

Sandor would've needed to take an oath of fealty to House Lannister as the new head to become formally so, but that's a formality like renewing oaths.

That sounds reasonable. I was thinking of Brightwater Keep going to Mace Tyrell's second son being decided at a small council meeting rather than by Mace the Lord Paramount. That is a bit funny as an example since Mace was attainted too when he backed Renly (but I assumed they were just pretending that didn't happen.) Perhaps it is more accurately viewed as a spoils of war issue than an issue of disposition of an attainted lord's holdings or maybe Mace was putting a thin veneer on it being him stealing Brightwater from Randyl Tarly whose wife seems the next in line to inherit Brightwater.

[Milady of York]

That sounds reasonable. I was thinking of Brightwater Keep going to Mace Tyrell's second son being decided at a small council meeting rather than by Mace the Lord Paramount. That is a bit funny as an example since Mace was attainted too when he backed Renly (but I assumed they were just pretending that didn't happen.) Perhaps it is more accurately viewed as a spoils of war issue than an issue of disposition of an attainted lord's holdings or maybe Mace was putting a thin veneer on it being him stealing Brightwater from Randyl Tarly whose wife seems the next in line to inherit Brightwater.

Oh, I understand now. Good point! Mace is a Lord Paramount, and when someone of that rank is attainted, then it does pertain to the crown to dispose of their holdings, as only the crown is above the high lords. But Clegane is a Knightly House, and sworn directly to the Lannisters with no intermediary overlords, and as such it pertains to the Lannisters to decide what to do with these lands. The crown intervened only because it was a "federal crime" type of infringement in which the vassals of two Lords Paramount are involved in unlawful warfare, and because the Lannisters were one of the accused parties, and the other party appealed to the crown, the "neutrals" here with the right to rule on this.

To expand a bit more on my points about types of attainder, I was specifically referring to their consequences, let me give examples of how attainders went on in England during the Wars of the Roses period and nearabouts; normally, they had two effects:

1. Forfeiture, in which the attainted lost his possessions. It tended to affect the individual, and is the type I had in mind when thinking of Sandor’s case.

2. Corruption of blood, which is what I had in mind when I mentioned that a whole House was barren from inheritance, because with this type of attainder the penalty was extended to the children and family of the individual(s) named in the act, excluding them from inheritance. This was the worst type, it left everyone dispossessed, and is what Sansa so fearfully refers to as “traitor’s blood.” It made the affected people pariahs in society, basically.

[starbird1]

I had never paid attention to that detail before about how Ned had stripped Gregor of his lands and holdings which effectively gave them to Sandor and then the Lannisters being the ones to take that away from him again. Excellent little detail. It already sets up the theme of Sandor's shifting his allegiance from Lannister to Stark. It seems to have almost put Ned in a father figure position to Sandor too which is interesting because as we saw in the scene when he told Sansa of how he truly got his burns, one of the other factors that was so devastating for Sandor was that his own father didn't support him and allowed Gregor to be kept in a position where he would be rewarded despite his horrendous crime. Now Ned in a way has done something to punish Gregor and remove the rewards he's received in a way that Sandor's own father never did. And I know that we are not supposed to get too far ahead of the current chapters, but having this in mind makes me wonder about the remorse Sandor expresses later regarding how he watched them cut off Ned's head and if this even adds more to the guilt he seems to be feeling about that.

I really like your take on this, Elba. I've wondered about Sandor's thoughts on inheriting his family's land and why he didn't take any action in relation to them. I assumed he just let it go by because it was Ned's actions that granted him ownership. Sandor would have certainly been aware that Ned wasn't the most politically astute guy in town, and he would have been privy to Cersei's planned take-down of Ned, so why bother pressing a claim made available to him by a Hand who wasn't going to be in office much longer? Your interpretation makes this so much more heartbreaking.

[brashcandy]

I really like your take on this, Elba. I've wondered about Sandor's thoughts on inheriting his family's land and why he didn't take any action in relation to them. I assumed he just let it go by because it was Ned's actions that granted him ownership. Sandor would have certainly been aware that Ned wasn't the most politically astute guy in town, and he would have been privy to Cersei's planned take-down of Ned, so why bother pressing a claim made available to him by a Hand who wasn't going to be in office much longer? Your interpretation makes this so much more heartbreaking.

Starbirdy!! :love: Welcome back to the board, and glad to see you made it over here. I agree that Ned as Sandor's pseudo father figure has a lot of resonance, even more when you consider the neglect he suffered at his own father's hand; it also fits with Sandor later gaining a much more positive influence in the Elder Brother. You once opined quite brilliantly on Sandor's potential as a father, and I hope this is something we will get to explore in the reread, especially in the context of these revelations and how they relate to his personal development, despite his social one being curtailed.

[DogLover]

I really like your take on this, Elba. I've wondered about Sandor's thoughts on inheriting his family's land and why he didn't take any action in relation to them. I assumed he just let it go by because it was Ned's actions that granted him ownership. Sandor would have certainly been aware that Ned wasn't the most politically astute guy in town, and he would have been privy to Cersei's planned take-down of Ned, so why bother pressing a claim made available to him by a Hand who wasn't going to be in office much longer? Your interpretation makes this so much more heartbreaking.

Starbirdy!! :love: Welcome back to the board, and glad to see you made it over here. I agree that Ned as Sandor's pseudo father figure has a lot of resonance, even more when you consider the neglect he suffered at his own father's hand; it also fits with Sandor later gaining a much more positive influence in the Elder Brother. You once opined quite brilliantly on Sandor's potential as a father, and I hope this is something we will get to explore in the reread, especially in the context of these revelations and how they relate to his personal development, despite his social one being curtailed.

Welcome, Starbird! I've heard much about you (and have read many of your posts) and am thrilled you've rejoined the forum!

Interesting take on Ned as a pseudo father figure to Ned, which Elba put forth. It intersects nicely with Sandor as a pseudo father figure himself, as Cersei thought he was the closest to a father that Joffrey had. I agree with brash that this is worthy of exploration as we move forward, as it's a theme I'm very interested in.

[Milady of York]

I really like your take on this, Elba. I've wondered about Sandor's thoughts on inheriting his family's land and why he didn't take any action in relation to them. I assumed he just let it go by because it was Ned's actions that granted him ownership. Sandor would have certainly been aware that Ned wasn't the most politically astute guy in town, and he would have been privy to Cersei's planned take-down of Ned, so why bother pressing a claim made available to him by a Hand who wasn't going to be in office much longer? Your interpretation makes this so much more heartbreaking.

Welcome to the reread, Starbird. I am very glad that you've come join us at last. I've been wanting to meet you for a long while now, Brash had always spoken so well of you since the early PtP days, wherein I'd had a chance to read some of your interventions.

[followthearrows]

Poking my head in to say hi. I've read the forum threads for quite some time, but this re-read is so fascinating that I figured I wouldn't be able to resist chiming in at some point, so I may as well start posting.

I just got to the part where Sandor smashes Jeyne Poole's door in to bring her to be with Sansa, and whether he did it specifically because she's Sansa's friend or if that was his sense of honor and decency peeking through the chinks in his sooty armor, it's a pretty cool clue re: his nature

I also just noticed something that isn't connected to Sandor, but a sentiment that would resonate with him.

In one of the nearby Bran chapters (after Ned has been arrested, the one where the Karstarks arrive at WF) Bran is asking Maester Luwin how many knights are in the amassed Northern army and Maester Luwin says, "A man's worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before."

It almost makes me hope that Bran will have reason to remember his maester's words at some point in the future.

[brashcandy]

It almost makes me hope that Bran will have reason to remember his maester's words at some point in the future.

Thanks for poking your head in, followthearrows :) It's nice to have you join the thread. Great sentiments on Bran as there's a lot of his story line that evokes Sandor's experiences as a young boy regarding the similar kind of idealism they displayed. As the reread goes on, I believe we'll see a lot more of these parallels and thematic threads being weaved and, given Bran's character prominence in the series, every reason to expect that he might have a deciding influence on Sandor's Northern alliances.

[Milady of York]

I also just noticed something that isn't connected to Sandor, but a sentiment that would resonate with him.In one of the nearby Bran chapters (after Ned has been arrested, the one where the Karstarks arrive at WF) Bran is asking Maester Luwin how many knights are in the amassed Northern army and Maester Luwin says, "A man's worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before."

Welcome, followthearrows! It's always a pleasure when a new lurker decides to join. Please, do chime in whenever possible.

Indeed, Maester Luwin's words will become more relevant in view of what happens in next chapter, when of all the knights and Kingsguard round Joffrey, only the one that doesn't have a ser before his name will do something for a Stark. I would say that the old maester serves the same function with Bran that Sandor did with his elder sister, at least in this instance, instructing another of the two most idealistic and song-loving Starks about the realities of knighthood, although Luwin does it in a softer and kinder manner than the Hound's piercing way, but the purpose and message are the same: knighthood does no true knight make.

[ornitorrinca]

There's another possible reason why Sandor doesn't have lands and a family of his own, the main being plot reasons as the author wanted it that way, but it's something best left for next chapter. Here, however, I do believe that he really didn't have any ambitions about his House's holdings but that doesn't have to do with his loyalty to the Lannisters, rather with his brother himself and his own worldview. There's little merit in getting what's rightfully going to be his anyway, as Gregor's legitimate heir, by way of inheriting it thanks to a royal bill of attainder deeming him a brigand and rebel, and Sandor's words on why Robb should make him a lordling imply that lands and a title is something he'd prefer to have by way of doing something himself, by merits if not regular inheritance.

As others have stated, we never see a reversal of Ned’s decision, so Sandor may still be Head of House, and this may or may not become relevant in the future, but at this point, he knows he won’t see any income or be treated as the Head of his House since no Lannister is going to tell Gregor that he's no longer in charge of the Clegane lands and income. And while I agree that those particular lands might not be very appealing to him and he’d be more interested in achieving status based on his own merits, this is the best way for him to get the lands he was supposed to inherit eventually anyway (unless Gregor had children, which so far was not the case). Ned’s decree at least brings a degree of validation through justice, with Gregor being called out for what he really is. Yet as he is still loyal to the Lannisters, he fights against the person who publicly denounced Gregor (and thereby rewarded Sandor) and fights for the people who don’t even seem to care whether he wanted those lands and who will continue to support Gregor.

I find it doubtful that Littlefinger, the one that misjudged Sandor so badly as to be convinced he'd allow Jaime to defeat him just because he was a Lannister, would be of a sudden so observant as to notice that Sandor wasn't trying to kill Gregor, and would right away therefore reach such conclusions as he's fine with hating him but not fine with killing him. His words suggest, instead, that he knows what everyone else knows: that Sandor really, really hates his brother, which is no secret because Sandor himself hasn't exactly been shy about voicing it to the four winds.

After seeing how he had seriously misjudged Sandor just before in the joust against Jaime, his interest might have been temporarily piqued, causing him to pay more attention to the ensuing fight. Sandor never made his hatred for Gregor a secret, but based on his comment to Sansa and other comments, he was also quite vocal about killing Gregor, regardless of how kinslaying is viewed. Their fight during the Tournament was an opportunity to make good on his professed desire, yet he attempted no such thing. For someone like LF who has heard rumors but has no insight into Sandor’s mind, the conclusion could be that it’s because he doesn’t actually want to kill his brother.

I mean, it’s probably as you said, that he was just voicing what he’s heard, but in the event that LF has anything to do with a confrontation between the two brothers in the future, a presumption about Sandor based on this fight could cause him to err.

Not sure of how exactly we're led to conclude that Sandor was intent on being the first to get at Jeyne, as nothing in the text is pointing out to such a possibility that I can see.

...

With regard to my comment about his saving Jeyne, it was probably badly stated. I did not mean that Sandor feels he is on some sort of mission to save Jeyne Poole. He has bigger, more immediate things to deal with and likely doesn’t think about her at all until he hears or sees her. At some point, however, he ends up outside the door where she is hiding. It’s been established that Jeyne gets hysterical and has trouble calming herself down, so it’s possible he hears a girl crying inside a room and enters the room by using force. It’s also true he may want to check for men hiding in the room and he comes upon her by accident. In any case, he is the first Lannister man to reach Jeyne Poole, otherwise she’d already be dead as per Joffrey's orders. On finding her, he is faced with several options: obey orders and kill her, do nothing and allow her to be killed by the next man to find her, or see that she somehow gets to safety. He goes with the third option. It’s definitely a change from what happened to Mycah. It demonstrates that he is through with child murder, long before dealing with Arya’s reproaches. And he never brings it up, neither to Sansa nor to Arya, as far as we know. He was simply acting honorably.

And of course everything I said about Jeyne’s fate was meant to be viewed from the perspective of a someone who’s read the five existing books, and just a comment on how almost no good deed goes unpunished. It wasn’t a condemnation of Sandor’s actions, and in no way would I expect Sandor to predict the future. It's true that, amongst readers and even amongst his fellow characters, he is often “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.”

[DogLover]

Poking my head in to say hi. I've read the forum threads for quite some time, but this re-read is so fascinating that I figured I wouldn't be able to resist chiming in at some point, so I may as well start posting.

I just got to the part where Sandor smashes Jeyne Poole's door in to bring her to be with Sansa, and whether he did it specifically because she's Sansa's friend or if that was his sense of honor and decency peeking through the chinks in his sooty armor, it's a pretty cool clue re: his nature

I also just noticed something that isn't connected to Sandor, but a sentiment that would resonate with him.

In one of the nearby Bran chapters (after Ned has been arrested, the one where the Karstarks arrive at WF) Bran is asking Maester Luwin how many knights are in the amassed Northern army and Maester Luwin says, "A man's worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before."

It almost makes me hope that Bran will have reason to remember his maester's words at some point in the future.

Welcome, followthearrows! I'm glad you brought up the Maester Luwin quote for reasons already mentioned, as it does relate to Sandor since the theme of knighthood is so significant to his arc. Excellent observation.

I do hope you stick around and chime in when you can. :)

[DogLover]

Poking my head in to say hi. I've read the forum threads for quite some time, but this re-read is so fascinating that I figured I wouldn't be able to resist chiming in at some point, so I may as well start posting.

I just got to the part where Sandor smashes Jeyne Poole's door in to bring her to be with Sansa, and whether he did it specifically because she's Sansa's friend or if that was his sense of honor and decency peeking through the chinks in his sooty armor, it's a pretty cool clue re: his nature

I also just noticed something that isn't connected to Sandor, but a sentiment that would resonate with him.

In one of the nearby Bran chapters (after Ned has been arrested, the one where the Karstarks arrive at WF) Bran is asking Maester Luwin how many knights are in the amassed Northern army and Maester Luwin says, "A man's worth is not marked by a ser before his name. As I have told you a hundred times before."

It almost makes me hope that Bran will have reason to remember his maester's words at some point in the future.

<double post>

[Milady of York]

As others have stated, we never see a reversal of Ned’s decision, so Sandor may still be Head of House, and this may or may not become relevant in the future, but at this point, he knows he won’t see any income or be treated as the Head of his House since no Lannister is going to tell Gregor that he's no longer in charge of the Clegane lands and income. And while I agree that those particular lands might not be very appealing to him and he’d be more interested in achieving status based on his own merits, this is the best way for him to get the lands he was supposed to inherit eventually anyway (unless Gregor had children, which so far was not the case). Ned’s decree at least brings a degree of validation through justice, with Gregor being called out for what he really is. Yet as he is still loyal to the Lannisters, he fights against the person who publicly denounced Gregor (and thereby rewarded Sandor) and fights for the people who don’t even seem to care whether he wanted those lands and who will continue to support Gregor.

I wouldn't agree that Sandor may still be head of his House, because regardless of what the Lannisters did or didn't do with Ned's decree, Sandor entered the Kingsguard shortly after, within days, and that automatically bars him from inheriting anything and if that wasn't enough, he's at present attainted himself upon desertion, so the point is moot anyway. And with regard to this as the best way for him to get the lands but that his loyalty to the Lannisters precluded him from that, besides that the main motivator is his lack of ambition regarding lands and a title, I would like to point out what an act of attainder really means: it's in no way the best manner to inherit lands from anyone, the stain of treason upon a House, even without the "corruption of blood" clause, is damning.

With regard to my comment about his saving Jeyne, it was probably badly stated. I did not mean that Sandor feels he is on some sort of mission to save Jeyne Poole. He has bigger, more immediate things to deal with and likely doesn’t think about her at all until he hears or sees her. At some point, however, he ends up outside the door where she is hiding. It’s been established that Jeyne gets hysterical and has trouble calming herself down, so it’s possible he hears a girl crying inside a room and enters the room by using force. It’s also true he may want to check for men hiding in the room and he comes upon her by accident. In any case, he is the first Lannister man to reach Jeyne Poole, otherwise she’d already be dead as per Joffrey's orders. On finding her, he is faced with several options: obey orders and kill her, do nothing and allow her to be killed by the next man to find her, or see that she somehow gets to safety. He goes with the third option. It’s definitely a change from what happened to Mycah. It demonstrates that he is through with child murder, long before dealing with Arya’s reproaches. And he never brings it up, neither to Sansa nor to Arya, as far as we know. He was simply acting honorably.

And of course everything I said about Jeyne’s fate was meant to be viewed from the perspective of a someone who’s read the five existing books, and just a comment on how almost no good deed goes unpunished. It wasn’t a condemnation of Sandor’s actions, and in no way would I expect Sandor to predict the future. It's true that, amongst readers and even amongst his fellow characters, he is often “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.”

Good clarification, thank you. It did give me an impression that was not meant in the first place, but I do understand your argument now. For a reread, though, it'd say it's always best to go with the perspective of the characters rather than what we readers know, especially because as it's been stressed a lot before, the idea is to go part by part and recalibrate perceptions accordingly.

[DogLover]

There's another possible reason why Sandor doesn't have lands and a family of his own, the main being plot reasons as the author wanted it that way, but it's something best left for next chapter. Here, however, I do believe that he really didn't have any ambitions about his House's holdings but that doesn't have to do with his loyalty to the Lannisters, rather with his brother himself and his own worldview. There's little merit in getting what's rightfully going to be his anyway, as Gregor's legitimate heir, by way of inheriting it thanks to a royal bill of attainder deeming him a brigand and rebel, and Sandor's words on why Robb should make him a lordling imply that lands and a title is something he'd prefer to have by way of doing something himself, by merits if not regular inheritance.

I wouldn't agree that Sandor may still be head of his House, because regardless of what the Lannisters did or didn't do with Ned's decree, Sandor entered the Kingsguard shortly after, within days, and that automatically bars him from inheriting anything and if that wasn't enough, he's at present attainted himself upon desertion, so the point is moot anyway. And with regard to this as the best way for him to get the lands but that his loyalty to the Lannisters precluded him from that, besides that the main motivator is his lack of ambition regarding lands and a title, I would like to point out what an act of attainder really means: it's in no way the best manner to inherit lands from anyone, the stain of treason upon a House, even without the "corruption of blood" clause, is damning.

Excellent points, Milady. Add the fact that Gregor inherited the lands and income in the first place due to patricide, Sandor would certainly have little interest in inheriting the lands based on an act of attainer, as that's not his modus operandi.

[Milady of York]

SANDOR V:

Rise to Kingsguard

• Bran VI (Ch. 53)
  
• Sansa V (Ch. 57)
  
• Jon VIII (Ch. 60)
  
• Arya V (Ch. 65)
  
• Sansa VI (Ch. 67)
  
• Tyrion IX (Ch. 69)
  

SUMMARY

Arya and Sansa had been murdered by the Hound.

So says the first rumour that reaches Robb the Lord and his younger brothers at Winterfell about the fate of their sisters, in AGOT Bran VI, ascribing to Sandor the murder of innocent girls, like a callback to his actions at the Trident.

But a letter from their sister will clarify this falsity: their father is a prisoner, and the girls are alive, the eldest of which is going to be present as a hostage in the first audience of the new king in the splendid throne room, in which the aged Lord Commander is dismissed with a consolation prize of holdings in the Westerlands that’s little more than a veiled attempt at keeping him within Lannister control. Selmy sees through their duplicity, and refuses:

“I am a knight,” he told them. He opened the silver fastenings of his breastplate and let that fall as well. “I shall die a knight.”

“A naked knight, it would seem,” quipped Littlefinger.

They all laughed then, Joffrey on his throne, and the lords standing attendance, Janos Slynt and Queen Cersei and Sandor Clegane and even the other men of the Kingsguard, the five who had been his brothers until a moment ago.

Everyone laughs at him but Sansa, even the Hound. Men “young and strong” are what the new regime wants, and he’s called next to fill in the vacancy by an eager Joffrey who’s behaving smugly as if he’s done his favourite dog the biggest of all favours:

“The king and council have determined that no man in the Seven Kingdoms is more fit to guard and protect His Grace than his sworn shield, Sandor Clegane.”

“How do you like that, dog?” King Joffrey asked.

The Hound’s scarred face was hard to read. He took a long moment to consider. “Why not? I have no lands nor wife to forsake, and who’d care if I did?” The burned side of his mouth twisted. “But I warn you, I’ll say no knight’s vows.”

“The Sworn Brothers of the Kingsguard have always been knights,” Ser Boros said firmly.

“Until now,” the Hound said in his deep rasp, and Ser Boros fell silent.

Take the job, the Hound will. But taking vows as a knight is an embuggerance he won’t suffer kindly, and after Blount’s feeble objection, everyone else accepts that now they’ve got the first non-knight in the Kingsguard; since with Selmy one seminal rule was broken by setting a precedent, breaking another can’t mean much now. Little do the Lannisters imagine what a poor stunt this is in terms of public relations, for the realm won’t receive this news with approving nods, as Lord Mormont tells Jon:

“The message concerned Ser Barristan Selmy. It seems he’s been removed from the Kingsguard. They gave his place to that black dog Clegane, and now Selmy’s wanted for treason. The fools sent some watchmen to seize him, but he slew two of them and escaped.” Mormont snorted, leaving no doubt of his view of men who’d send gold cloaks against a knight as renowned as Barristan the Bold.

In this same audience, Sansa pleads for mercy for her father and the boy-king agrees. The day of the public confession that’d have ended this confrontation between Houses by sending the ex-Hand to the Wall, Arya Stark spots the Hound amongst the people standing near her father at the Sept of Baelor:

Clustered around the doors of the sept, in front of the raised marble pulpit, were a knot of knights and high lords. Joffrey was prominent among them, his raiment all crimson, silk and satin patterned with prancing stags and roaring lions, a gold crown on his head. His queen mother stood beside him in a black mourning gown slashed with crimson, a veil of black diamonds in her hair. Arya recognized the Hound, wearing a snowy white cloak over his dark grey armor, with four of the Kingsguard around him. She saw Varys the eunuch gliding among the lords in soft slippers and a patterned damask robe, and she thought the short man with the silvery cape and pointed beard might be the one who had once fought a duel for Mother.

Upon his fake mea culpa, Lord Eddard is pelted with stones by the crowd, and two Kingsguard move to the front to protect the royals from the stoning. Not the Hound, though, he’s no longer registered in Arya’s field of vision and we are barren from knowing what exactly he saw or did when Eddard fell victim to Joffrey’s “Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!” But perhaps we can guess a few things from this description by Sansa, which contains similarities to his own words at Maegor’s:

Yet those were the best times, for when she dreamed, she dreamed of Father. Waking or sleeping, she saw him, saw the gold cloaks fling him down, saw Ser Ilyn striding forward, unsheathing Ice from the scabbard on his back, saw the moment . . . the moment when . . . she had wanted to look away, she had wanted to, her legs had gone out from under her and she had fallen to her knees, yet somehow she could not turn her head, and all the people were screaming and shouting, and her prince had smiled at her, he’d smiled and she’d felt safe, but only for a heartbeat, until he said those words, and her father’s legs . . . that was what she remembered, his legs, the way they’d jerked when Ser Ilyn . . . when the sword . . .

Joffrey won’t allow a deeply depressed and suicidal Sansa any respite, and demands she be at his appearances in court, ignoring her pleas to be left to mourn in peace:

“If you won’t rise and dress yourself, my Hound will do it for you,” Joffrey said.

“I beg of you, my prince . . .”

“I’m king now. Dog, get her out of bed.”

Sandor Clegane scooped her up around the waist and lifted her off the featherbed as she struggled feebly. Her blanket fell to the floor. Underneath she had only a thin bedgown to cover her nakedness. “Do as you’re bid, child,” Clegane said. “Dress.” He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently.

She puts up some resistance and boldly tells him she hates him, earning the first-ever beating for that. Forced to agree to his demands to avoid more violence, she’s offered by Clegane a valuable piece of advice

“Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.”

“What . . . what does he want? Please, tell me.”

“He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love,” the Hound rasped. “He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way the septa taught you. He wants you to love him . . . and fear him.”

She goes to the throne room as commanded, not before first managing to throw a soft-voiced invective at Meryn Trant without success as she would’ve had it been the Hound escorting her. There is a show of terrible decision-making from her hitherto prince charming going on, for kinghood has freed him from the need to pretend and answer for his behaviour, and neither his mother nor his councillors will open their mouth to object. Of course, Sandor is there too, and he accompanies the king to the battlements, repeating gently once more the advice to comply to save herself from another beating.

On the battlements, Sandor does obey his king’s order to turn round Lord Eddard’s rotting head towards his daughter so she can look at it, but when she refuses to give Joffrey the pleasure of a reaction, he also follows suit and doesn’t humour the king in his taunting:

“Your brother is a traitor too, you know.” He turned Septa Mordane’s head back around. “I remember your brother from Winterfell. My dog called him the lord of the wooden sword. Didn’t you, dog?”

“Did I?” the Hound replied. “I don’t recall.”

Not the first time Joffrey is deprived of sadistic satisfaction by claims of “not remembering,” and he’s further provoked when Sansa outwits him by saying it’s just as likely that her brother will have Joffrey’s head as the other way round like he is bragging, earning her second beating by Trant. In desperation, she contemplates killing Joffrey and herself in one single push and fall, but Sandor gets in her way in a discreet manner that dissimulates to potential onlookers what her true intentions had been:

“Here, girl.” Sandor Clegane knelt before her, between her and Joffrey. With a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he dabbed at the blood welling from her broken lip.

It’s a blessing amongst a myriad of misfortunes for the king’s betrothed that he’s a Kingsguard, but for the king’s grandfather it is a source of vexation, because he’s clever enough to realise his family’s blunder:

His father had not raised his voice, yet Tyrion could see the anger in the gold of his eyes. “And dismissing Selmy, where was the sense in that? Yes, the man was old, but the name of Barristan the Bold still has meaning in the realm. He lent honor to any man he served. Can anyone say the same of the Hound? You feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.” He pointed a finger at Tyrion’s face. “If Cersei cannot curb the boy, you must. And if these councillors are playing us false . . . ”

Thus does Sandor Clegane inaugurate his period of service in the Kingsguard, with the distaste of high lords towards his appointment and going behind his king’s back to protect a hostage as one of his first deeds wearing that snowy cloak.

[Milady of York]

ANALYSIS

THE KING, HIS QUEEN AND HIS BEST (NON-) KNIGHT

In the classic tales of chivalry of the Arthurian cycle and derivations, there’s always one man that rises to become the greatest knight in court and a beloved of both king and peers, whose great deeds include fighting with giants, brigands, dragons, sorcerers, green-eyed courtiers and various assortment of baddies. And, of course, he’ll often be the Chosen One when the time comes to guard his lady queen and champion her against the Malegaunts, Mordreds, Morholts, Morgils . . .

These brave knights frequently earn the love of the queen, of the chaste and unchaste sort both, and when it’s of the latter kind the wrongness of a romantic attachment to her is underscored not only because of the enormity that high treason means for a knight’s repute but also because, to add insult to injury, the king is often a good man. The betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere is made to look even more evil by the fact that King Arthur is a great king, a decent husband and an admired man. Tristan and Isolde’s treacherous love looks even more disastrous and tragic because King Mark is a good if dull king, a well-meaning and affectionate foster father, and a benevolent man. Whatever flaws the kings may have, they’re no bigger than those of any other human being; whatever severe measures they may take, it’s driven by the lovers’ acts.

In contrast to these courtly love stories, we have Martin’s subversions of the Arthurian romances: there are no literal monsters to fight and the enemy is within. Aemon and Naerys had Aegon the Unworthy, Jaime and Rhaella had Aerys the Mad King, Jaime and Cersei had Robert, and Sandor and Sansa have Joffrey. That’s one of two salient differences: that the challenge for the knight comes from his own king first and foremost, which is just as big and difficult a test of loyalty and chivalry for the knight, but doesn’t pose the same moral dilemmas as betraying a good king. The other distinction is the nature of the attachment to the queen, because in the old Round Table tales it’s romantic love regardless of consummation, but that’s not always present in GRRM’s versions: Aemon/Naerys are doomed lovers in the songs and popular Westerosi culture, but not in the histories told in TWOIAF; and the Jaime/Rhaella relationship had not a whiff of romance. That leaves only Jaime/Cersei and Sandor/Sansa as the unmistakable “illicit lovers” figures.

Much has already been discussed about the romance aspect of all king-queen-knight arcs mirroring the Arthurian ones, such as in these two examples. So this time the focus will be rather on knighthood, the all-encompassing theme in Sandor Clegane’s storyline, and how the values it is supposed to contain as well as personal honour codes are put to the test by the need for the knight to protect the queen.

So many vows . . .

When young Sansa so dreamily likened Joffrey dismissing his frightful Hound from her presence to Prince Aemon championing Naerys from scurrilous gossip tainting her honour, she couldn’t have imagined she had assigned the roles wrongly and her “Dragonknight” was really the burnt man sent away. In this context, it’s interesting to note that she’s present in his elevation to Kingsguard, where the first thing she registers is that he’s taken a long time to accept the post, keeping his face unreadable, and his first remark is on a wife and lands. This comes in the wake of Ser Barristan’s tale of giving up a betrothal and his rights to the Selmy lands to pursue his life’s goal of becoming a White Sword, and might have been prompted by that at least in part, but it also alludes to what he’s going to renounce forever, that’s unveiled by the Night’s Watch oath:

“Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”

According to The World of Ice and Fire, this is how the Kingsguard was created by Queen Visenya:

But out of all the tragedy was born one glorious thing: the Sworn Brotherhood of the Kingsguard. When Aegon and Visenya placed prices on the heads of the Dornish lords, many were murdered, and in retaliation the Dornishmen hired their own catspaws and killers. On one occasion in 10 AC, Aegon and Visenya were both attacked in the streets of King’s Landing, and if not for Visenya and Dark Sister, the king might not have survived. Despite this, the king still believed that his guards were sufficient to his defense; Visenya convinced him otherwise. (It is recorded that when Aegon pointed out his guardsmen, Visenya drew Dark Sister and cut his cheek before his guards could react. “Your guards are slow and lazy,” Visenya is reported to have said, and the king was forced to agree.)

It was Visenya, not Aegon, who decided the nature of the Kingsguard. Seven champions for the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, who would all be knights. She modeled their vows upon those of the Night’s Watch, so that they would forfeit all things save their duty to the king.

That tells us what sort of oath Sandor took when he joined the Kingsguard: the same one that Jon Snow and all other Black Brothers took. Poignantly enough, it’s not having a wife the first forfeiture mentioned, also the first that Uncle Benjen mentions to his nephew when he wants to go to the Wall. Sandor, the least ambitious nobleman of the power-hungry and overbearing Lannisters together with Jaime, talks of lands and titles only twice and both times in the context of a woman: here, by pointing out that he’s giving up on any chance of ever marrying, he highlights what matters to him in relation to possessions: a woman and, by extension, a family with her, and later when he talks of the King in the North granting him a lordship, his constant babbling about his hostage’s sister makes it plain that his motivation is again a woman. Similarly, Jaime has this “Bugger Casterly Rock, I want Cersei” attitude to lands and titles that later is updated to “Bugger the Iron Throne, I want Cersei,” thus also making it clear that he doesn’t value possessions by themselves over the woman and what she brings to him.

Both men show parallel regrets, therefore, in that their joining the Kingsguard equals loss of love, and perhaps that factors in on their posterior involvement with their respective queens as an indication that none of them had actually given up on it, vows or no. But whilst Jaime in the end does assume his Lord Commander duties with all that this involves, Sandor walks further and further from these duties until he breaks away and leaves. Interestingly, he ends up finding refuge with the Faith, the one institution in all of Westeros with the power and authority to release a Kingsguard from his vows, as revealed in ASOS Jaime VII:

“Cersei ended that when she replaced Ser Barristan on grounds of age. A suitable gift to the Faith will persuade the High Septon to release you from your vows. Your sister was foolish to dismiss Selmy, admittedly, but now that she has opened the gates—”

“—someone needs to close them again.” Jaime stood. “I am tired of having highborn women kicking pails of shit at me, Father. No one ever asked me if I wanted to be Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, but it seems I am. I have a duty—”

That might have some significance in the future, or it’s a huge coincidence otherwise, as the Elder Brother is also the only one that knows he’s alive and can vouch for him to the Faith—or anyone else for that matter—in relation to the Saltpans incident. It remains to be seen how it turns out, but the possibility is there.

Back to his entrance to the Kingsguard, Sandor steps in for Ser Barristan Selmy, and that’s some big shoes to step in, for the Bold is admired and loved by everyone for his feats whilst Sandor is reviled for his association to an infamous family and his reputation. Selmy brings in the baggage of a glorious reputation that reflects well on whoever he’s serving, and Sandor brings in the contrary. Of Selmy, songs are sung and tales are told that are heard even in the North. But for Sandor, outside of the castle rumours have him killing Sansa and Arya in cold-blood, when the reality is that he’s saved Sansa and “Arya” (Jeyne), and that gives a taste of what sort of stuff is repeated in taverns and towns about him, what those terrible deeds were that those villagers in the remote Vale and the monk of the Quiet Isle heard before meeting him: likely wild and untrue, but for the most part believed because . . . it’s the Hound, after all.

Selmy’s dismissal also has one detail that Sandor will mimic in the future: the striping off of the white cloak in disgust at the status quo. And he’s also the only one in the room that stands up for the Kingsguard first and knighthood second, being mocked in return by all, not least by the Hound, whose opinions on both institutions are low and he is vocal about his lack of respect for them. For example, when Ser Boros challenges him for his refusal to take vows, invoking that the rules state Kingsguard must be knights (confirmed in the passage on how Visenya founded it), Sandor cuts him off with a final “Until now.” So Boros fails to stand up to the Hound in favour of the institution of knighthood and the Kingsguard whose ethos is being so blatantly violated, which makes for a poor show of knightly honour. Ragnorak has one great observation on this, stemming from Tywin’s words to Tyrion upon learning of Sandor’s new status:

“He lent honor to any man he served. Can anyone say the same of the Hound? You feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.”

This again underscores the degree of malfunctioning in knighthood and Kingsguard, for Boros Blount will be eventually relegated by Jaime to the very unknightly task of becoming Tommen's food taster, quite literally being fed scraps from the Lannister table. But putting aside the irregular nature of his nomination, there’s something positive in Sandor being chosen, because when originally the Kingsguard was created with high ideals, the requisite quality that Queen Visenya stressed on, overruling Aegon’s more chivalry-based criterion, was loyalty:

And when Aegon spoke of a grand tourney to choose the first Kingsguard, Visenya dissuaded him, saying he needed more than skill in arms to protect him; he also needed unwavering loyalty. The king entrusted Visenya with selecting the first members of the order, and history shows he was wise to do so: two died defending him, and all served to the end of their days with honour. The White Book recounts their names, as it has recorded the name and deeds of every knight who swore the vows: Ser Corlys Velaryon, the first Lord Commander; Ser Richard Roote; Ser Addison Hill, Bastard of Cornfield; Ser Gregor Goode and Ser Griffith Goode, brothers; Ser Humfrey the Mummer, a hedge knight; and Ser Robin Darklyn, called Darkrobin, the first of many Darklyns to wear the white cloak.

Her pragmatism was shrewdly correct, as the second bolded line demonstrates, in view of how the history of the Kingsguard would become littered with disloyal men. No wonder, therefore, that three centuries later, another Targaryen queen expresses a desire to have bloodriders for her son Rhaego instead of Kingsguard: a bloodrider will die for and with his khal, a Kingsguard won’t die for and with his king.

Joffrey’s garde de corps was not an exception: Mandon Moore and Osmund Kettleblack are of dubious loyalty to the king, just to name a pair of conspicuous cases. And amongst all those men, Sandor is the one whose loyalty nobody suspects for an instant, least of all the prickly Lannisters themselves; it’s the quality that defines him, that makes him be appreciated by his superiors and despised by outsiders, the quality that dissuades every game-player from Varys to Littlefinger to Tyrion from even contemplating the madness of trying to bribe him somehow. In this regard, Sandor does fit the ideal of the royal bodyguard as conceived in its origins, and that he’s no knight just once more elevates him above the others, who are knights but don’t possess this sort of personal honour. It also makes the fact that he forsook his loyalty to the king and regent for the sake of a mistreated girl all the more notable.

Incidentally, having a Gregor Goode amongst the founding members of the Kingsguard is surely meant as an in-joke by GRRM. That name is certainly chuckle-worthy for its oxymoronic ring, as is that said knight had a brother also in the Kingsguard. For additional humour, I’d venture a thought that Ser Humfrey the Mummer could be some oblique allusion to Ser Florian the Fool, the only other knight-jester that we know of.

Knight takes Queen

Seated upon the Iron Throne, his misrule began with small acts of pleasure, but in time his appetites knew no bounds, and his corruption led to acts that haunted the realm for generations.

Thus begynneth the rule of goode kynge Aegon IV . . . But the same could’ve been said of Joffrey, from what we read happens in his first audience as new monarch: he delights in chopping off the hand of a thief, imprisoning a woman for asking permission to bury her lover, sentencing two knights to fight to death for land and having a singer choose between either his fingers or his tongue. “Small acts of pleasure,” indeed. Sadistic pleasure that impels him to drag his betrothed to the battlements in order to see her suffer at the sight of her father’s head. This incident—and the entire day, really—will be for Sandor the first direct test to his Kingsguard vows, which are spelt out by Ser Barristan in ADWD The Queensguard:

The first duty of the Kingsguard was to defend the king from harm or threat. The white knights were sworn to obey the king’s commands as well, to keep his secrets, counsel him when counsel was requested and keep silent when it was not, serve his pleasure and defend his name and honour. Strictly speaking, it was purely the king’s choice whether or not to extend Kingsguard protection to others, even those of royal blood. Some kings thought it right and proper to dispatch Kingsguard to serve and defend their wives and children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins of greater and lesser degree, and occasionally even their lovers, mistresses, and bastards. But others preferred to use household knights and men-at-arms for those purposes, whilst keeping their seven as their own personal guard, never far from their sides.

Let’s see how many of these vows he breaks this day: defend the king from harm? He did, but then he omitted to reveal what the threat had been and who from. Obey the king’s commands? He did some, but dodged others. Keep his secrets? He did, but then he revealed to Sansa the secret to manipulating Joffrey to save herself. Counsel him? He did not, but he also refused to participate when Joffrey looked up to him for validation on Robb. He protected his future queen by decision of the king to extend that protection to her? He did obey when ordered to escort her, but he protected her on his own. It’s interesting that in all three occasions described on-page that Sansa is beaten by the Kingsguard with Sandor being present, he always does something in her favour, whatever he can within the limitations of his station and job. Here, just in one day that Sansa is beaten twice, he intervenes three times to help her directly. For instance, when Joffrey goes to her bedchamber and orders him to take her off bed, he obeys but handles her almost gently, which contrasts with the blow with a mailed glove that she’ll receive from Meryn, and advices her to give the king what he wants. Advice that she will have to remind herself of twice in the course of that day:

But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. “Life is not a song, sweetling,” he’d told her. “You may learn that one day to your sorrow.” In life, the monsters win, she told herself, and now it was the Hound’s voice she heard, a cold rasp, metal on stone. “Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.”

. . . . .

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she murmured. The Hound was right, she thought, I am only a little bird, repeating the words they taught me. The sun had fallen below the western wall, and the stones of the Red Keep glowed dark as blood.

It’s the first of all her lessons from the Hound’s Non-Violent Combat Masterclass, Lesson I: Blind Them with the Polite End. And it’s important because, although this is by no means the first time someone warns her to wake up to the ugliness of reality, it is actually the first time someone tells her what to do to protect herself. Littlefinger just limited himself to some vague “life isn’t a song” remark that is of no use to her at present, and Septa Mordane’s “courtesy is a lady’s armour” mantra is meant as social polish only. But Sandor tells her how to use her best quality, what she is good for and excels at as a means of defence, he teaches her the way of passive resistance, the same way he learnt to use his own qualities as defence and survival method. Later, he’ll tell her also learn to lie better to protect herself, and by giving her both pieces of advice he shows her a way to turn her natural politeness and manners into weapons, thus becoming her first mentor in survival matters.

“I can have Ser Meryn drag you up,” he said. “You won’t like that. You had better do what I say.” Joffrey reached for her, and Sansa cringed away from him, backing into the Hound.

“Do it, girl,” Sandor Clegane told her, pushing her back toward the king. His mouth twitched on the burned side of his face and Sansa could almost hear the rest of it. He’ll have you up there no matter what, so give him what he wants.

That’s the second time he intervenes directly on her behalf, again with the same advice. And after her second beating of the day, ordered when she forgets this advice and defies Joffrey, he still helps her a third time, only that this time he commits high treason himself in doing so. He taints his own sort of honour by forsaking his loyalty to the king in favour of his “queen.”

He spoke to them about what it meant to be a knight. “It is chivalry that makes a true knight, not a sword,” he said. “Without honour, a knight is no more than a common killer. It is better to die with honor than to live without it.”

The third time she’ll be beaten and almost sexually assaulted, he’ll also make an attempt to help her by saying “Enough,” in direct violation of the vow to not counsel the king if not asked first. His intervention is ultimately fruitless, but it’s that he did what counts. And yet, for all that he did everything that was reasonably in his power to help Sansa, he still thinks it wasn’t good and not enough. He still assesses himself rather harshly and is haunted by what he sees as his failure to protect and help his little “queen,” as indicated by his words to Arya in ASOS, when he mentions to her how he “watched them beat your sister bloody too” and “stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her.” He isn’t even taking into account what he did do for her, only what he didn’t do, and he self-flagellates by putting all that in the same category of heinous crimes like killing Mycah and watching Lord Eddard’s beheading, two other instances in which he realistically didn’t have the power to do much anyhow. Jaime Lannister is another “soiled” Kingsguard with the same ghost of an abused queen he failed to protect on his conscience, that of Rhaella Targaryen, as he recalls in AFFC Jaime II:

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me,” they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. “You’re hurting me.” In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.”

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon’s High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

He also did seek a way to protect his queen from abuse by the king, by appealing to an older and more respected knight. But unlike Sandor, he didn’t do anything of his own volition for Rhaella’s sake, even as little as offer some consolation, some advice, find some sneaky way to guard her behind the king’s back as the Hound demonstrated is doable. Instead, he passively takes the advice of Jonothor Darry and shuts up. He chooses his vows above doing what’s right, essentially, and Rhaella goes off to die in childbed as a result from that rape that both he and the greatest knights of the Kingsguard didn’t protect her from. He didn’t protect his next queen, Cersei, from the rapes and beatings she suffered at the hands of Robert either, but in this case he did show a willingness to solve the situation through a second kingslaying and she had a say in keeping him as ignorant as possible with regard to the abuse, going as far as hiding her bruises from him with make-up, just as Sandor’s northern “queen” does with her own bruises.

Barristan has similar failures on his conscience, related to the same queen as Jaime, and his actions plague his honour and drive him to seek redemption in protecting another queen, Daenerys. He even employs similar wording to Sandor’s hard self-assessment when reflecting on his time wearing the white cloak:

In that same cloak he had stood beside the Iron Throne as madness consumed Jaehaerys’s son Aerys. Stood, and saw, and heard, and yet did nothing.

But no. That was not fair. He did his duty. Some nights, Ser Barristan wondered if he had not done that duty too well. He had sworn his vows before the eyes of gods and men, he could not in honour go against them … but the keeping of those vows had grown hard in the last years of King Aerys’s reign. He had seen things that it pained him to recall, and more than once he wondered how much of the blood was on his own hands. If he had not gone into Duskendale to rescue Aerys from Lord Darklyn’s dungeons, the king might well have died there as Tywin Lannister sacked the town. Then Prince Rhaegar would have ascended the Iron Throne, mayhaps to heal the realm. Duskendale had been his finest hour, yet the memory tasted bitter on his tongue.

It was his failures that haunted him at night, though. Jaehaerys, Aerys, Robert. Three dead kings. Rhaegar, who would have been a finer king than any of them. Princess Elia and the children. Aegon just a babe, Rhaenys with her kitten. Dead, every one, yet he still lived, who had sworn to protect them. And now Daenerys, his bright shining child queen. She is not dead. I will not believe it.

Like Selmy, Sandor also saved the life of a king not worth saving, not being aware of the consequences that rescuing Aerys and stopping Sansa from killing Joffrey respectively would have for the realm and for their queens. In that, both men also parallel Aemon the Dragonknight, who fell in action so Aegon IV could live, and that cost Naerys one more year of unwanted marital relations and death in childbirth, plus eventually the Blackfyre rebellions born of the intrafamilial quarrelling. Aemon is also the only one of these knights that was able to protect his queen openly and actively, though not from her unwanted marriage. But then, he was a prince of the blood with all the privileges of the station and was feared by everybody including his kingly brother in addition to being idolised by the commonfolk. All advantages that Sandor didn’t enjoy, and this lack also makes it ironical that the least privileged of our knights would be the one to do more for protecting his queen. Jaime had the resources and privileges of the Lannisters, Selmy had the love of the people and admiring respect of the nobles, assets that can be used for good to various extents, but the Hound’s capital was the sway he held over Joffrey, which can’t be much in the long run as he grew increasingly erratic.

The Kingslayer and Ser Barry’s experiences also provide us with a way to deduce how Sandor could’ve felt about the other crime he witnessed that seems to weigh heavily on him too, that of the execution of his “queen’s” sire. In the previous quote, Selmy states that he “had seen things that it pained him to recall,” and appears to feel his hands are bloody too by reason of inaction. Jaime’s feelings are exactly the same in relation to witnessing the horrible murder of the Starks:

“Lord Rickard demanded trial by combat, and the king granted the request. Stark armoured himself as for battle, thinking to duel one of the Kingsguard. Me, perhaps. Instead they took him to the throne room and suspended him from the rafters while two of Aerys’s pyromancers kindled a blaze beneath him. The king told him that fire was the champion of House Targaryen. So all Lord Rickard needed to do to prove himself innocent of treason was… well, not burn.”

“When the fire was blazing, Brandon was brought in. His hands were chained behind his back, and around his neck was a wet leathern cord attached to a device the king had brought from Tyrosh. His legs were left free, though, and his longsword was set down just beyond his reach.”

“The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning that fire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then his surcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start to cook, Aerys promised… unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but the more he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In the end he strangled himself.”

“As for Lord Rickard, the steel of his breastplate turned cherry-red before the end, and his gold melted off his spurs and dripped down into the fire. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armour and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, ‘You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.’ That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me, all agree.”

For a second time, Jaime is told by an older and seemingly more honourable knight to shut up and be a good little knight. Because of his Kingsguard vows, he again has to passively accept it. And later, he’ll describe how he “went inside” as a defence mechanism to cope with this horror. Did Sandor, the other one to be an eyewitness in the unjust execution of a Lord of Winterfell by an Aegon IV/Aerys II hybrid in lion pelt likewise “go inside” for the same reason? We have no POV from him, but it’s not difficult to infer that it did affect him too: we only have to read what he told Sansa atop Maegor’s Holdfast before the Blackwater, cruel words that nevertheless are so strikingly like what she remembers herself, as well as what he told her sister as mentioned before. If Jaime and Barristan consider that the white cloak soiled them, for Sandor it was more a coup de grâce, as he’d already been “soiled” by the crimson cloak of the Lannisters, the one that he really needed to cast off, and by making the choice the other knights hadn’t been able to—protect his queen—he would find the path out of soiled cloaks eventually.

[Lyanna Stark]

*bounces up and down in excitement*

What a fabulous analysis Milady!

And amongst all those men, Sandor is the one whose loyalty nobody suspects for an instant, least of all the prickly Lannisters themselves; it’s the quality that defines him, that makes him be appreciated by his superiors and despised by outsiders, the quality that dissuades every game-player from Varys to Littlefinger to Tyrion from even contemplating the madness of trying to bribe him somehow. In this regard, Sandor does fit the ideal of the royal bodyguard as conceived in its origins, and that he’s no knight just once more elevates him above the others, who are knights but don’t possess this sort of personal honour. It also makes the fact that he forsook his loyalty to the king and regent for the sake of a mistreated girl all the more notable.

This is such a marvellous little nugget right there. All three Big Game Hunters seem to either ignore Sandor, or find him little more than a single-minded brute. Tyrion charts his movements to see when he is away from Joffrey, but not once does he seriously consider bribing Sandor, or trying to lure him over to his side. Varys and Littlefinger seem to just view him as a non-entity.

It also reminds me of what Ser Dontos later says to Sansa about all the people watching each other, and how nobody watches a fool.

"I hear all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a knight. They talk as though I am not there, and the Spider pays gold for any trifle. I think Moon Boy has been his for years."

...

"Joffrey and his mother say I'm stupid"
"Let them. You're safer that way, sweetling. Queen Cersei and the Imp and Lord Varys and their like, they all watch each other keen as hawks, and pay this one and that one to spy out what the others are doing, but no one ever troubles themselves about Lady Tanda's daughter, do they?"

So in a way, Sandor is hiding in plain sight, as it were. Nobody would suspect him so nobody watches him (at least not in the correct circumstances), and his loyalty is without question. He might not be a fool, but instead he's just a dog.

I also love that you brought up the notion of passive resistance, since it is also often overlooked:

It’s the first of all her lessons from the Hound’s Non-Violent Combat Masterclass, Lesson I: Blind Them with the Polite End. And it’s important because, although this is by no means the first time someone warns her to wake up to the ugliness of reality, it is actually the first time someone tells her what to do to protect herself. Littlefinger just limited himself to some vague “life isn’t a song” remark that is of no use to her at present, and Septa Mordane’s “courtesy is a lady’s armour” mantra is meant as social polish only. But Sandor tells her how to use her best quality, what she is good for and excels at as a means of defence, he teaches her the way of passive resistance, the same way he learnt to use his own qualities as defence and survival method. Later, he’ll tell her also learn to lie better to protect herself, and by giving her both pieces of advice he shows her a way to turn her natural politeness and manners into weapons, thus becoming her first mentor in survival matters.

I don't think it can be overstated how important this is to Sansa and for her navigating the Lannister camp in Kings Landing. Littlefinger as always, doesn't lift his little finger to help her, but Sandor gives her hands on advice when she asks for it. Using that, she is able to build upon it and improve.

It makes you wonder how savvy he actually is at diplomacy, lying and pretending, even though he claims to hate liars. He's shown time and time again that even though he claims to despise liars, he is very adept at lying himself and can do so very quickly and nimbly, helped along further by the fact that everyone seems to regard him as a thick brute with a brain inversely proportional to his muscles. At a guess, he must be pretty good at sounding out Cersei and Joffrey after having spent years in their company, and I imagine a youth spent trying very hard not to offend crazy, murderous Gregor probably assisted him too.

[Dya of Oldstones]

First of all, a much belated thanks Milady for welcoming me to this discussion. I've been following along, but my schedule has gotten a bit hectic and I haven't had the time to go through this with the depth it deserves. It's given me quite a bit to ponder, while trying to keep any comments I make relevant to where we are in the re-read.

It’s the first of all her lessons from the Hound’s Non-Violent Combat Masterclass, Lesson I: Blind Them with the Polite End. And it’s important because, although this is by no means the first time someone warns her to wake up to the ugliness of reality, it is actually the first time someone tells her what to do to protect herself. Littlefinger just limited himself to some vague “life isn’t a song” remark that is of no use to her at present, and Septa Mordane’s “courtesy is a lady’s armour” mantra is meant as social polish only. But Sandor tells her how to use her best quality, what she is good for and excels at as a means of defence, he teaches her the way of passive resistance, the same way he learnt to use his own qualities as defence and survival method. Later, he’ll tell her also learn to lie better to protect herself, and by giving her both pieces of advice he shows her a way to turn her natural politeness and manners into weapons, thus becoming her first mentor in survival matters.

Lyanna Stark got to this before I did, but I have a few small things to add, even while totally agreeing with what she mentioned about his diplomacy skills. Her comments also made me realize how much Littlefinger likes to brag about flying under the radar while Sandor simply lets people see him as a brute while hiding some very valuable skill sets he is able to pass on to both Stark girls.

The small thing I wanted to add is with Sansa and later with Arya, he shows that he is good for seeing people for who they are and what they're good at and advising them based on those observations. Also in contrast to Littlefinger who is trying to mold Sansa into who he wants her to be, this is where we first see Sandor being able to train her for survival based on her own personality and skills.

When I realized the above, I think that was the point in the story where I really started to appreciate Sandor and see he was more than the thuggish sworn shield I met at the beginning of the story.

[brashcandy]

Stunning analysis, Milady of York. To begin where you ended, Sandor finding his way out of soiled cloaks - and Sansa's deciding role in this - seems foreshadowed by the action she takes when she kneels before the king on Barristan's discarded cloak to plead for mercy for her father. As you noted in your summary, Sansa is the only one who feels compassion for the "naked knight" and here she inadvertently finds a way to make use of him, a purpose for his service that was deemed no longer suitable by Queen Cersei and her son. In begging for mercy on Barristan's white cloak, Sansa enables that garment to be symbolically invested with the honour and ideals that Barristan would have spent his life trying to fulfill, but sadly falling short when expected to stand by and watch the madness of the men he served go unchecked. The joke may have brought him some humiliation, yet in ending his tenure with the Lannisters as a naked knight, Barristan has the opportunity to reestablish his own personal sense of honour and duty. As a non-knight replacing the naked knight, Sandor begins his service by challenging the long-held and meaningless codes of the institution; further, even though he is expected to obey and serve his king in everything he does, he begins by displaying kindness and compassion to Sansa when she is ordered to attend Joffrey in court. Perhaps it is significant that instead of the white cloak of his Kingsguard brothers, Sandor is wearing a plain brown doublet and green mantle in that scene.

Jon VIII is one of the chapters listed for our consideration due to one mention of the Hound contained there, but it's noteworthy just how much the entire chapter is relevant for the discussion on vows and love vs. duty that your analysis highlights. First, there's irony in Mormont's reference to Sandor:

"... they gave his place to that black dog Clegane..."

Surely not meant as a compliment by the affronted Lord Commander, however we know that rather than viewing "dog" as an insult, it is "ser" that really disgusts Sandor Clegane, and isn't it interesting that Mormont refers to him as a "black dog" when the Nightswatch are known throughout the realm as the black brothers, and in a chapter where Maester Aemon will speak passionately to Jon on the conflict that arises when a man has to fulfill his duty or answer the call of his family and loved ones? In effect, rather than acting as an epithet towards the Hound, Mormont's statement situates Sandor with the NW and the ideals that those men attempt to uphold while serving under trying circumstances. Indeed, the NW and the Kingsguard are two of the oldest and once respected military type organisations in Westeros, before their sharp decline in recent history, and just as Sandor tries within his means to assist Sansa, there is Yoren in the city helping to rescue Arya.

Lord Tywin also joins Mormont in having his insult towards the Hound reworked to a different purpose by the author. Feeding the dog under the table is precisely what someone does, but it works out to the benefit of the Starks, not the Lannisters:

“I’ve never seen an aurochs,” Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen.

Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. “A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table,” she said, breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread.

Starting with their shared intimacy after the feast at the Hand's tourney, and growing stronger from there when Sandor shows in these chapters that his rough manner is no impediment to genuine concern and care, their "under the table" interludes will have significant impact in shifting the Hound's loyalties.

Maester Aemon's words to Jon can act to fill the silence of the "long moment" Sansa observed Sandor taking to consider Joffrey's offer:

“Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

“The men who formed the Night’s Watch knew that only their courage shielded the realm from the darkness to the north. They knew they must have no divided loyalties to weaken their resolve. So they vowed they would have no wives nor children..."

It would seem that in Sandor's case, divided loyalties were always already present by the time he swore the Kingsguard vows. Like all men, Sandor Clegane has been fashioned for love, and it is this conflict and the personal anguish it causes him that we get to witness going forward.

[Mahaut]

Thanks for this analysis, Milady!

Tywin’s words to Tyrion upon learning of Sandor’s new status:

“He lent honor to any man he served. Can anyone say the same of the Hound? You feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.”

I find this quote really intriguing because it evokes an image that we have already seen twice in AGOT in relation with Jon and Sansa who both feed their direwolf under the table.

Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red eyes staring up at him. "Hungry again?" he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. (Jon, AGOT)

"I've never seen an aurochs," Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen. (Sansa, AGOT)

Although Tywin's quote about Sandor is a criticism it also connects him with the direwolves which are positive figures for the Starks. As a result, it could possibly be another hint pointing at Sandor replacing Lady. The quote also highlights the differences between Starks and Lannisters when it comes to their retainers: unlike the Lannisters, this generation of Starks don't seem to mind eating with them. Another hint at a possible future in the North for Sandor?

But putting aside the irregular nature of his nomination, there’s something positive in Sandor being chosen, because when originally the Kingsguard was created with high ideals, the requisite quality that Queen Visenya stressed on, overruling Aegon’s more chivalry-based criterion, was loyalty:

And when Aegon spoke of a grand tourney to choose the first Kingsguard, Visenya dissuaded him, saying he needed more than skill in arms to protect him; he also needed unwavering loyalty. The king entrusted Visenya with selecting the first members of the order, and history shows he was wise to do so: two died defending him, and all served to the end of their days with honour. The White Book recounts their names, as it has recorded the name and deeds of every knight who swore the vows: Ser Corlys Velaryon, the first Lord Commander; Ser Richard Roote; Ser Addison Hill, Bastard of Cornfield; Ser Gregor Goode and Ser Griffith Goode, brothers; Ser Humfrey the Mummer, a hedge knight; and Ser Robin Darklyn, called Darkrobin, the first of many Darklyns to wear the white cloak.

Excellent catch!

It ties up nicely with our discussion about Sandor following an older ideal of knighthood. It is interesting that the loyalty (a positive quality) that is a source of honour for House Clegane is horribly corrupt by Tywin and the "noble" institution of the Kingsguard.