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The Will to Change: Rereading Sandor


Milady of York

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Gah! I can't keep up with all of these posts!






If he hadn't spoken to Sansa the night before, I'm not convinced both Cleganes would have left the tourney grounds alive. Sansa may have inadvertently saved his life (in the sense of the immediate future, I mean). I don't think his decision to defend Loras and not kill Gregor had so much to do with him being unable to betray the only family member he had left, but that it came directly as a consequence of that conversation and a desire to be better than his brother. Also, while Renly and Jaime both betrayed their brothers, remember that later on, they are betrayed in kind by their brothers (and sister) - Renly by Stannis, resulting in Renly's death and Jaime by Cersei's rejection and Tyrion's lie about Joffrey's death - just as Sandor was betrayed by his brother. By not killing him and also by defeating Renly and Jaime, he distinguishes himself as, maybe not a better person per se, but a stronger-willed man who breaks the mold of "the betrayer getting his comeuppance" that played out with Renly and Jaime.



...OR...These parallels could set up a future settling of the score by Sandor, but only when the time is right and maybe even in keeping with Sansa's prayer for his rage to be gentled. What I am trying to say is that maybe Martin won't provide the crazy violent confrontation so often hoped for by readers, but will still give the much-needed resolution to this conflict in a way we haven't imagined. Anyhow.









Also, a couple of other quick things. First, Sandor sees Sansa safely to her door and tells her if she reveals his secret to anyone, "I'll kill you." Before this particular evening, this would have been frightening. Now that Sansa understands him better, she tends to be fearful for him rather than of him so this would qualify as "Sandorspeak". Interestingly, in the next chapter, before the melee, Robert tells Barristan to "Get out before I kill you." Obviously Robert's threat is toothless; he is not going to kill the Barristan Selmy nor can he - he's too fat and drunk. This reinforces the idea that Sandor's threat should be taken with a grain of salt.






I get the impression that Gregor and Sandor have mostly managed to avoid each other in their adult lives. Sandor ran away from the keep as soon as Gregor inherited it, and Gregor is described as a recluse who only ever leaves his lands for tourney's or wars. I would therefore imagine that Gregor's presence at the tourney would have deeply unsettled Sandor. Sandor's speech about Gregor was completely unprompted by Sansa, Sandor blurted it out on his own accord suggesting that Gregor is very much at the forefront of his mind. Sandor uses rather ominous language too, "I may need to kill my brother tomorrow", it is like the clash between them is inevitable, Sandor knows it, and is gearing himself up for it.



This makes his (lack of) action rather surprising. As mentioned by ornitorrinca, I don't think this is out of brotherly concern and I also wonder the level of influence Sansa has already had on Sandor's behaviour at this early stage of their interactions with regards to his knightly act of protecting Loras. I think the Gregor and Sandor clash is another example of 'Sandorspeak' where Sandor's actions contradict his words. Sandor seems to freely speak about about killing Gregor, and as we discover Sandor has a very good reason to hate his brother yet when presented with an opportunity he maintains a defensive, rather than offensive position.



I anticipate there could be a number of factors at play, the primary being that Sandor is not mentally 'ready' to face Gregor.







“No one could withstand him, “ the Hound rasped. “That’s truth enough. No one could ever withstand Gregor.”


Sandor has mentally placed Gregor as beyond not just the reach of him, but beyond the reach of everyone. To Sandor, defeating Gregor is the unattainable goal, the impossible...but Sandor does manage to withstand him! He stands up to Gregor and more than holds his own in the fight. He is the victim standing up to the playground bully and this is possibly a very significant moment for him. Perhaps it is first babystep in overcoming the impossible ‘aura’ he has placed on Gregor.



In addition, The Elder Brother also says that killing Gregor was the “the bread that nourished him, the fuel that kept his fires burning.” Sandor is fuelled by his hate for his brother, Gregor was what shaped the Hound persona and kept the Hound ticking. That creates an enormous amount of mental pressure, and if Sandor does happen to succeed in killing his brother, then what? These are huge psychological obstacles Sandor needs to overcome.



Fairness also seems to be an important value to Sandor. Sandor has developed his own moral code which governs his ideas of right and wrong. As Beric will later remark that “Sandor Clegane would kill us all gladly, but not in our sleep.” Sandor is an accomplished and experienced fighter, he would have clocked Gregor’s exposed head yet chose not to exploit this weakness. Sandor wants to win fairly, not by cheap tricks, this is something Gregor and the other phoney knights would do. As contradictory as it may sound, I think Sandor would want to murder his brother ‘honourably’.



We should also acknowledge the moral taboo regarding kinslaying in Westeros. It is described as a “sin so terrible it makes me shudder to think of it” however given that Sandor frequently expresses his desire to kill Gregor and “cut his heart out” suggests Sandor is not deterred by the taboo. It is clear from Sandor's story that their relationship is beyond sibling bickering-Sandor truly hates Gregor and I suspect he believes Westeros would be better with Gregor dead and “Ignoble as it was the hope of seeing his brother's blood upon his blade was all this sad and angry creature lived for”, I believe it is likely Sandor would consider it his duty to rid Westeros of Gregor.



In the theme of change, I think Sandor is a complex character with deeply in-bedded self-loathing and bitterness. I think it is clear that Sandor has demons he needs to overcome before he is able to 'conquer' the trauma of his past. With that being said, there are many ways to conquer his past with Gregor, and if he truly wants to move forward he would need to think carefully about which way he chooses to do this (ie. killing Gregor would probably do him more damage in the long run).

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Thanks, DL :) I'm glad you mentioned the silence that stretches for so long as it communicates the gravity of Sandor's testimony and what it took for him to speak it for the first time. Sansa's touch seems to bring him back to the moment, to establish a caring connection that's been so lacking in his life.

Absolutely, and his ragged breath also speaks to how difficult this must have been. Usually, ragged breath is interpreted as being out of breath as a result of physical fatigue, but a walk across the field is not going to shorten the breath of someone who is in such excellent physical shape. It appears that he is on the verge of hyperventilating after recounting such a horrific experience. Sansa's touch most likely prevented a full-blown panic attack.

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I really like this LongRider, as well as the following observations about the symbolism behind these helms. I also wonder if this in any way symbolizes Sandor's lack of avaricious ambition that breeds violence, and that he himself is a victim of, especially in contrast to Renly and Littlefinger. While Sandor comes from humble origins, his elevated status as the prince's sworn shield, as well as a commander of his own men, is based on merit. He earned it because he worked hard and proved his worth. In contrast, Renly will elevate himself by usurping a crown and betraying a brother, and Littlefinger through political machinations that have dire consequences for Sansa's family and the realm at large.

I also get the impression that Sandor is more interested in winning the joust to prove himself a formidable opponent and the best at what he does, and not so much for the gold and that was a "bugger your gold" moment. While Loras also has a desire to be the best, he does resort to trickery, and taking into consideration Renly's "small honour, but 20,000 golds," very much wanted to win the purse as much as the tourney for the sake of proving himself.

Spot on observation, he really does want to win fairly. Tourneys are martial games, and jousting is principally reserved for noblemen, though there can be exceptions for those of common origins, who generally go to the melée and archery contests more than to jousting proper due to the rules and the cost of warhorses and armour required for this exhibition. As these are sports, to win by a display of dexterity and horsemanship can earn you fame as a great warrior in the realm, so winning fairly is key if you want to have a good reputation as a fighter, for there are penalties to be imposed if you use tricks. And when royalty is organising or present, then it's even more important to stay within the fair play rules for the added risk of attracting their disfavour.

The temptation of resorting to trickery is there because of the money, for even if you never win even a single tourney in your life, you still can earn a sizable amount of gold by way of "ransoms," because the rules state that the knight you unhorsed in each tilt forfeits his armour and horse to you. For tourneys, the armour used is usually the flashiest, not the plainer one for battle, which can have gold, silver and gems for decoration in it, and the horses are usually destriers, the most expensive type, ocassionally coursers, and never another type of horse. The defeated knight must pay the victor a certain amount to get his things and horse back, otherwise he'll lose it permanently. You see now why Renly went to offer his golden tine to Sandor, it's a gracious acknowledgement of defeat as well as a way of telling him that his richly gilded things are now his. With just his armour, Sandor had plenty of money already but he doesn't show interest in it, and continues jousting as ferociously as ever, because he wants a chance at the championship. Apart from the money for the winner, he must've also gotten an extra amount of ransom gold for the knights he defeated pre and post Renly, including for the golden armour and imposing charger of Jaime that obviously got ransomed since he still has them afterwards.

On his jumping in to defend Loras, aside what has been said by Brashcandy in her chapter analysis and expanded on by Ragnorak, there's another factor that had a role here: he went ahead also because he was the closest to them that was fully armoured and was big, strong and skilled enough to have a snowball's chance in Valyria of resisting Gregor without ending up squashed like a bug on first blow, and he knew that. The others nearby were smaller men and in no way could have stood up to that Mountain individually, they'd have had to gang up on him twenty-to-one, as they were ready to do when Robert shouted at them to stop. And he fought on the defensive, just blocking and parrying his brother's blows, which must've been even more forceful than normal on account of the fit of blind rage he was in and on account of it being Sandor in front of him. This fight would hardly indicate that he wouldn't have been able to defeat his brother, because he wasn't in it at full capacity, so to speak.

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Absolutely, and his ragged breath also bespeaks to how difficult this must have been. Usually, ragged breath is interpreted as being out of breath as a result of physical fatigue, but a walk across the field is not going to shorten the breath of someone who is in such excellent physical shape. It appears that he is on the verge of hyperventilating after recounting such a horrific experience. Sansa's touch most likely prevented a full-blown panic attack.

Agreed. In thinking of the power of testimony in breaking the culture of silence that permeates Gregor's atrocities and gaining some measure of justice for his victims, we only have to look at how Oberyn Martell approaches the fight for Tyrion's trial by combat. There, he too invokes testimony as a means of confronting Gregor and getting the truth out in the open. Oberyn may not have been personally victimised or traumatised by the Mountain, but his advocating on behalf of Elia and her children is no less effective:

Ser Gregor grunted. He made a ponderous charge to hack at the Dornishman’s head. Prince Oberyn avoided him easily. “You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children.”

“Did you come to talk or to fight?”

“I came to hear you confess.”

[...]

“Be quiet.” Ser Gregor seemed to be moving a little slower, and his greatsword no longer rose quite so high as it had when the contest began. “Shut your bloody mouth.”

“You raped her,” the prince said, moving to the right.

“Enough!” Ser Gregor took two long strides and brought his sword down at Oberyn’s head, but the Dornishman backstepped once more. “You murdered her,” he said.

“SHUT UP!”

Testimony, in effect, empowers the victim and disarms the perpetrator. This is what happens to Sandor on the night he tells Sansa his story and fuels his resistance to Gregor the next day. Sandor didn't get the chance to confront Gregor publicly like Oberyn did, yet he sets himself on the path for healing nonetheless.

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So heartwarming that you finally recognise the utter truth that Stranger deserves a knighthood, Ragnorak.

~~~~snip~~~~

I suggest we go on a "Stranger Watch' to see when the horse is first mentioned by name. The horse, or even possibly horses, Sandor rides in the tourney are not described but alluded too. We don't know if he's riding Stranger or another horse. So when does Stranger first appear? The horse that gets away from him in the bread riots isn't named either. Did Stranger appear before or after that? :uhoh:

hmmmmmm, where in the world is our Stranger? :dunno:

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~~~~snip~~~

If he hadn't spoken to Sansa the night before, I'm not convinced both Cleganes would have left the tourney grounds alive. Sansa may have inadvertently saved his life (in the sense of the immediate future, I mean). I don't think his decision to defend Loras and not kill Gregor had so much to do with him being unable to betray the only family member he had left, but that it came directly as a consequence of that conversation and a desire to be better than his brother. Also, while Renly and Jaime both betrayed their brothers, remember that later on, they are betrayed in kind by their brothers (and sister) - Renly by Stannis, resulting in Renly's death and Jaime by Cersei's rejection and Tyrion's lie about Joffrey's death - just as Sandor was betrayed by his brother. By not killing him and also by defeating Renly and Jaime, he distinguishes himself as, maybe not a better person per se, but a stronger-willed man who breaks the mold of "the betrayer getting his comeuppance" that played out with Renly and Jaime.

...OR...These parallels could set up a future settling of the score by Sandor, but only when the time is right and maybe even in keeping with Sansa's prayer for his rage to be gentled. What I am trying to say is that maybe Martin won't provide the crazy violent confrontation so often hoped for by readers, but will still give the much-needed resolution to this conflict in a way we haven't imagined. Anyhow.

~~~~snap~~~~

I appreciate your comments here. Your idea that his speaking to Sansa, and to have such an emphatic response, would make a difference the next day is one I hadn't thought of, but does make sense. He's not the one being a 'betrayed getting a comeuppance' even tho the opportunity is there.

About the bolded; Yes yes yes!! I hope for a surprise from George as the 'Cleganebowl' or other such violent blah blah blah would be very trite and unsatisfying.

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One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

~~~snip~~~

So in terms of the dream as future gazing (which it definitely seems to be in light of the next passage of the dream dealing with Jon) it could indicate some important actions (not necessarily taken together) on the part of Sandor and Jaime that protect the girls from the "looming giant" of the vision.

I have another thought about Bran's vision and his looming giant. Of the three shadows mentioned, only the last one moves; he opens his visor. So my thought is, could the looming giant represent more than one threat to the Stark girls? Arguments rage in the fandom of the giant's identity; the giant of stone represents LF, the giant with the helmet empty of a head but full of thick black blood represents Robert Strong, ect.

Through the movement in the vision, of opening the helmet, could this action show that the threats be moving from one to another? The fandom, (myself included) has considered the giant to be only one threat, but there certainly are many threats against both the Stark girls.

Any thoughts on this?

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One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

I have another thought about Bran's vision and his looming giant. Of the three shadows mentioned, only the last one moves; he opens his visor. So my thought is, could the looming giant represent more than one threat to the Stark girls? Arguments rage in the fandom of the giant's identity; the giant of stone represents LF, the giant with the helmet empty of a head but full of thick black blood represents Robert Strong, ect.

Through the movement in the vision, of opening the helmet, could this action show that the threats be moving from one to another? The fandom, (myself included) has considered the giant to be only one threat, but there certainly are many threats against both the Stark girls.

Any thoughts on this?

Well, if we consider Avlonnic's vision of Gregor as the toy knight and BrashCandy's description of Littlefinger as pulling the strings of so much that happens, I can see a potential double-giant double-threat. We know, after all, that LF maintains his relationship with Cersei, the person Ser Robert currently represents.

It's also possible to see both men as Russian Nesting Dolls- a threat inside a threat inside a threat. For Arya we have Gregor himself, but a succession of other threats springing from him: Amory Lorch->Polliver, etc.->Vargo, etc.->(now not exactly associated with Gregor but springing from Arya's captivity with him) Roose->The BwB->the Faceless Men. With Sansa, it's LF: he's responsible for Ned's death->Joffrey and her hostage situation/isolation which allows her abuse to happen for so long->Dontos and the escape scheme->Margaery Tyrell and the Willas Scheme->the Tyrion marriage->Olenna and the poison->the current situation in the Vale. Again showing his master pupeteer skills, LF is (probably) behind each of the other characters' appearances and the dangers they present to Sansa. He's a Russian Nesting Doll of himself...ick. Things are getting worse for these girls and they could use someone to help them defend themselves (but not to do all the work for them, though- that may be while they're only shadows in the vision. The girls need to help themselves as well).

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One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

I have another thought about Bran's vision and his looming giant. Of the three shadows mentioned, only the last one moves; he opens his visor. So my thought is, could the looming giant represent more than one threat to the Stark girls? Arguments rage in the fandom of the giant's identity; the giant of stone represents LF, the giant with the helmet empty of a head but full of thick black blood represents Robert Strong, ect.

Through the movement in the vision, of opening the helmet, could this action show that the threats be moving from one to another? The fandom, (myself included) has considered the giant to be only one threat, but there certainly are many threats against both the Stark girls.

Any thoughts on this?

I don't have anything definitive but it is troublesome that we don't feel fully satisfied with regard to the visions of (a) the Black-Blood Giant and (2) the Ice Castle Giant. The description appears to correspond with unGregor as Black-Blood fairly well and to augur confrontations between Gregor and both Jaime and Sandor at some point.

However, a niggling thought leaves me to wonder about Ser Ilyn. With no POV from him, we know little about what is going on inside his head. He is at the Trident with Sandor and Jaime, looming over them both - plus a terrified Sansa. He is described as the ideal headsman, a huge man who lives for nothing but killing, his aspect so fearful as to inspire dread even in Ser Barristan the Bold. His room contains rats and roaches and rotten food. He snicked Ned's head off without a moment's hesitation. His eyes are described in terms similar to those of Roose and Ramsey Bolton. Yikes.

On the other hand, he could be a red herring. Ser Ilyn may be traveling the road of redemption like Jaime and Sandor. He may be another victim of Aerys' paranoia and cruelty - wrenching out his tongue and his person with hot pincers and thrusting him into isolation and demotion. With regard to his eyes, a number of characters including Starks have eyes likened to ice at times, so that means little. His room is a sty but evidently no one directs the housekeeping staff to straighten it and he is unlikely to get a lot of company. Rotten food is expected when a man cannot eat most foods and likely struggles to drink - and probably tries to do so in his room, out of sight. His room may just indicate depression, joylessness and entropy.

Are we told why Gregor's helm has a stone fist on top? Perhaps he is a red herring as well or perhaps, like some other prophecies/visions, more than one person or event meets the criteria.

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LongRider, Ornitorrinca, BrashCandy - This might be a clue as to identifying the giant(s) as well as how Sansa could fulfill the High Heart prophecy of 'slaying a giant' in an ice castle. If one slays a puppet master, what happens to the 'puppets'? Or perhaps a variation along this theme. Hmmmm. You guys stretch my brain.


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Well, if we consider Avlonnic's vision of Gregor as the toy knight and BrashCandy's description of Littlefinger as pulling the strings of so much that happens, I can see a potential double-giant double-threat. We know, after all, that LF maintains his relationship with Cersei, the person Ser Robert currently represents.

It's also possible to see both men as Russian Nesting Dolls- a threat inside a threat inside a threat. For Arya we have Gregor himself, but a succession of other threats springing from him: Amory Lorch->Polliver, etc.->Vargo, etc.->(now not exactly associated with Gregor but springing from Arya's captivity with him) Roose->The BwB->the Faceless Men. With Sansa, it's LF: he's responsible for Ned's death->Joffrey and her hostage situation/isolation which allows her abuse to happen for so long->Dontos and the escape scheme->Margaery Tyrell and the Willas Scheme->the Tyrion marriage->Olenna and the poison->the current situation in the Vale. Again showing his master pupeteer skills, LF is (probably) behind each of the other characters' appearances and the dangers they present to Sansa. He's a Russian Nesting Doll of himself...ick. Things are getting worse for these girls and they could use someone to help them defend themselves (but not to do all the work for them, though- that may be while they're only shadows in the vision. The girls need to help themselves as well).

Russian nesting dolls! That's not a bad idea. I would consider Tywin to be the primary 'doll' for Gregor et all;, tho.

I don't have anything definitive but it is troublesome that we don't feel fully satisfied with regard to the visions of (a) the Black-Blood Giant and (2) the Ice Castle Giant. The description appears to correspond with unGregor as Black-Blood fairly well and to augur confrontations between Gregor and both Jaime and Sandor at some point.

However, a niggling thought leaves me to wonder about Ser Ilyn. With no POV from him, we know little about what is going on inside his head. He is at the Trident with Sandor and Jaime, looming over them both - plus a terrified Sansa. He is described as the ideal headsman, a huge man who lives for nothing but killing, his aspect so fearful as to inspire dread even in Ser Barristan the Bold. His room contains rats and roaches and rotten food. He snicked Ned's head off without a moment's hesitation. His eyes are described in terms similar to those of Roose and Ramsey Bolton. Yikes.

On the other hand, he could be a red herring. Ser Ilyn may be traveling the road of redemption like Jaime and Sandor. He may be another victim of Aerys' paranoia and cruelty - wrenching out his tongue and his person with hot pincers and thrusting him into isolation and demotion. With regard to his eyes, a number of characters including Starks have eyes likened to ice at times, so that means little. His room is a sty but evidently no one directs the housekeeping staff to straighten it and he is unlikely to get a lot of company. Rotten food is expected when a man cannot eat most foods and likely struggles to drink - and probably tries to do so in his room, out of sight. His room may just indicate depression, joylessness and entropy.

Are we told why Gregor's helm has a stone fist on top? Perhaps he is a red herring as well or perhaps, like some other prophecies/visions, more than one person or event meets the criteria.

Ser Ilyn has been mentioned as a possible for the looming giant. He's terrifying I'll admit. However, as the King's Justice, he kills on the King's Command. So in my mind, he wasn't a threat to Ned until Joff said 'Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!" So, for me, I don't see him as the one in the vision, but if the giant represents more than one threat, then yes.

As for his living quarters, LongRider looks around her own....no comment. :blushing:

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Hi all, this is just a gentle reminder to avoid jumping ahead to future chapters. Please stick to current and previous chapters already explored. It’s fine to briefly refer to future events, but please refrain from going in depth, as there will be an opportunity to do so when those chapters are open for analysis. Thank you! :)

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As for his living quarters, LongRider looks around her own....no comment. :blushing:

HAR!

DogLover: Thank you for the reminder and I apologize if I strayed. I didn't realize it and will delete whatever you deem appropriate. And many thanks for such a stimulating thread.

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I suggest we go on a "Stranger Watch' to see when the horse is first mentioned by name. The horse, or even possibly horses, Sandor rides in the tourney are not described but alluded too. We don't know if he's riding Stranger or another horse. So when does Stranger first appear? The horse that gets away from him in the bread riots isn't named either. Did Stranger appear before or after that? :uhoh:

hmmmmmm, where in the world is our Stranger? :dunno:

I believe it would be more appropriate to leave the discussion on Stranger for the ASOS and AFFC chapters, as it's in the former book that he's first described in detail and named, by Arya. That's because, in the earlier books, the horse wasn't plot-important as he would be later for, chiefly amongst other things, identifying the gravedigger, and in the first books he doesn't have a role yet that would warrant such focus on it. The first mention of what type of horse Sandor rides is in Eddard III, when he's coming back from the search with Mycah and Ned notes his horse is a "destrier." And there's no description of what type of horse he was riding in the tourney, but he's first seen by Sansa, who is no horse connoisseur and doesn't like riding, and then by Ned, who doesn't seem to be much of a horse appreciator either and barely bothers to say Jaime's horse was a blood bay, so from this perspective it makes sense that it'd be the better horsewoman of the family that'd take note of Stranger's characteristics.

DogLover: Thank you for the reminder and I apologize if I strayed. I didn't realize it and will delete whatever you deem appropriate. And many thanks for such a stimulating thread.

No need to do that, Avlonnic. The reminder wasn't to single out anybody, just a general reminder, for there's been some straying that I am sure is unintentional, as it's hard to resist jumping ahead when we already know what's coming and the global picture. But the whole ethos of a reread is to go part by part, chapter by chapter, reexamining each to see what there is. That's why it's important that we each do our best to keep within the chapter discussed each week, and for orderliness too, avoiding another unfortunate byproduct of jumping ahead such as discussing too early things that would otherwise go into the weekly chapter analyses. The good thing is, it will become easier to stick to the chapter discussion schedule as we settle into the rereading routine.

I, too, was struck by the depiction of Jaime above. As you noted, it foreshadows Jaime being led blindfolded to the blacksmith (Gendry) and to Stoneheart. Everyone high and low is laughing at him. The one thing Tywin always seemed to fear and hate the most was that anyone would laugh at him or the twins. And "his ornate lion helmet had been twisted around and dented in his fall, and now he could not get it off." Wow. Jaime's Golden Lannister identity has been twisted and he can't get it off. As we will see in the later read, Sandor will be able to remove his Hound 'helm' and move beyond it (but that is something for the later read.) Note: As I recall, Cersei is at the tournament, disguised as the woman in the commons to whom Jaime blows a kiss.

This has been puzzling me for a while, as I'd never heard this before and didn't find anything in the Tourney chapters that would support that. The passage in question is in chapter 30, Eddard VII, and says this:

Sandor Clegane dropped his visor with an audible clang and took up his position. Ser Jaime tossed a kiss to some woman in the commons, gently lowered his visor, and rode to the end of the lists. Both men couched their lances.

There's no indication that it's Cersei, though, from what we can read. Cersei wasn't there during the second day of jousting, be it in the royal dais or in the commons. It's implied that she was there during the first day because it was the inauguration and the royal family had to assist because the Crown was organising, even Myrcella was there as Septa Mordane told Ned when he was doubtful about allowing Sansa to go, and her argument was that since "all the ladies" of the court would go it would be odd for the Hand's daughter to be absent, implying that the women of the royal family were there too. Sansa was too engrossed to notice the Queen's presence and Ned didn't go that day, but later that night in the banquet, she saw Robert and Cersei have a public row in which the king knocked Jaime to the ground, and yelled at the queen, who didn't go to see the jousts next day. And this time, since everyone would've known about the altercation with Robert, it wouldn't look odd for her to not be present as it'd be understandable for everyone that she'd feel too humiliated and furious to go.

It's really hard to see why she'd have to disguise herself as a commoner just to go see her brother joust, and the passage in the text in itself is better understood in the context of a tourney grandiose like few others, such as this one was, where the participants were all parading in their finery and exhibiting their charms for the public, trying to make a favourable impression. Jaime's kisses to the woman in the public makes sense taken alongside Renly with his golden tine for the commons or Loras and his roses for the damsels present: it's public relations, no more. It doesn't necessarily mean that the woman had to be Cersei, no more than Loras' roses meant he preferred women over men, and if even someone as notoriously not charming like Sandor had a chance to get compliments from the public, so can the Kingslayer be just reaching out to the crowd. Also, in Cersei's and Jaime's chapters there is two instances when she disguised herself, but no mention or recollection of this one.

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Jaime's kisses to the woman in the public makes sense taken alongside Renly with his golden tine for the commons or Loras and his roses for the damsels present: it's public relations, no more. It doesn't necessarily mean that the woman had to be Cersei, no more than Loras' roses meant he preferred women over men, and if even someone as notoriously not charming like Sandor had a chance to get compliments from the public, so can the Kingslayer be just reaching out to the crowd. Also, in Cersei's and Jaime's chapters there is two instances when she disguised herself, but no mention or recollection of this one.

It's fitting that as the only one who doesn't play the PR game, Sandor ends up likely being the one participant with someone in the crowd who's genuinely invested in their triumph. Martin keeps the relationship between him and Sansa on an uneven terrain for much of their time together in King's Landing, and as a result it can lead to a lot of misconceptions about just what is the nature and the general characteristics of their bond. However, it's important to underscore how it begins in these early chapters, with the quiet development of trust and support that will become entrenched later on.

LongRider, Ornitorrinca, BrashCandy - This might be a clue as to identifying the giant(s) as well as how Sansa could fulfill the High Heart prophecy of 'slaying a giant' in an ice castle. If one slays a puppet master, what happens to the 'puppets'? Or perhaps a variation along this theme. Hmmmm. You guys stretch my brain.

No need to bust our brains, I think :) Symbolism/foreshadowing can be a shadow on a wall, and as we go ahead more clues might become visible. We've seen this chapter with the tourney holds value for further clarifying these dreams and prophecies, so keeping vigilant as the reread develops is key.

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This has been puzzling me for a while, as I'd never heard this before and didn't find anything in the Tourney chapters that would support that. The passage in question is in chapter 30, Eddard VII, and says this:

Sandor Clegane dropped his visor with an audible clang and took up his position. Ser Jaime tossed a kiss to some woman in the commons, gently lowered his visor, and rode to the end of the lists. Both men couched their lances.

There's no indication that it's Cersei, though, from what we can read.

I always took this as an illustration of how Jaime is flippant. The same goes for Renly with his PR-trick of throwing some gold to the commoners. Sandor is all business though in his unadorned armour and lack of gold, gems and other frippery. In this an in a few other passages which I am eagerly awaiting, he seems to reject the trappings of power to a high degree. I'm sure Sandor could afford more frippery if he wanted to.

In essence, I think it highlights both his disdain of the type of posturing Jaime and Renly are comfortable with, and also that he chooses not to participate in it. (I really like how Jaime starts in the "gold and frippery" category and then moves gradually towards Sandor's "side" in this divide of surface vs interior quality. One of my favourite passages in AFFC is when Jaime appears as if he's been "bleached of all colour".)

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Spot on thoughts, Lyanna, and I agree with you.



Now, since in this chapter his scarring and its origin are described, I’d like to make a thematic comparison of the Hound and the character that was the Proto-Hound. For long, I’ve wondered where from did GRRM draw inspiration for Sandor’s appearance, but it took me time and much wandering about to find out, mainly because I was looking in the wrong place: historical parallels, an automatic thought pattern on my first read of the books, years ago, in contraposition to literary parallels as it should’ve been. Then some years ago, Bubug told me a delightfully amusing thing about the Hound’s face and another unrelated character’s face, and that was the needed first nudge in the right direction, to realising that the sought-after parallel was likely awaiting in fiction and not history. Eventually, I stumbled upon a SSM from 2005, quite by chance looking for something else in the Citadel’s archives here, that made me read a book that acquainted me with our Hound’s literary counterpart.



Finally there’s a chance to share this in the reread. And I’d like to dedicate this write-up to Brashcandy, for the nudges. I promised you this, and a Milady can't get away without always paying her debts.


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A Literary Inspiration for Sandor Clegane



Many others must’ve noticed and commented on this across the decades, the veteran readers here most of all, yet I’ve never seen a detailed write-up on this topic, and I think it’s interesting not only for what it reveals about GRRM’s process of reinventing and recycling old writings but also because the parallels go deeper than it appears from the few existing comments, and there’s some subtle stuff that might be valuable in analysing Sandor. Before I get into these details, a summary of the plot of Dying of the Light, Martin’s first novel, published in 1977, will help to become familiar with the background of the tale and characters:



By the confines of the galaxy, the Fringe, there’s a group of fourteen planetary systems with different cultures and worldviews that have built and colonised fourteen extravagantly large cities on the planet Worlorn, of a free-floating type known as rogue planets, whose unstable orbit is perpetually pushing it farther and farther away from a source of light to support all known life, and is therefore freezing at a good pace. In transit towards the vacuum beyond the Fringe, it passes near a group of stars circling round a gigantic sun-like red star, which gives it enough light to remain habitable for a while more, which is when all nearby interplanetary societies sent their representatives there for as long as the planet stayed close to the light, a period known as Festival of the Fringe. It’s not long before the planet again detaches itself from the red star’s gravity field, going away towards the void, and with the slow dying of the light, the fourteen cities are abandoned en masse as the darkening increases each day, with only a few people staying to live in too-large and too-empty places, each with their own set of rules. One of those dwellings is Larteyn, an enormous city-fortress made of glowstone—a dark stone that absorbs light in the day and casts it back in the night, glowing red as coals—founded by the people from the planet High Kavalaan, a warlike culture that suffered so horrendously from continuous interworld wars and was almost driven to extinction that as a means of survival they developed a rigidly martial social structure in which all men must be warriors and live in holdfasts, city-fortresses originally built underground or carved on solid rock. All Kavalars belong to four holdfast gatherings in their birth planet, and men are customarily grouped in pairs for life, fight and hunt in twos: the higher-ranking male, often a highbond, and his teyn, who’s a shieldmate and companion in a manner that’s evocative of the Theban Sacred Band of antiquity. In their society, women are breeders only, kept in separate quarters in each holdfast reserved for them and children, and men do everything else. Some women, usually outsiders, are married to highbonds and become betheyn or held-wife, and must be shared with the teyn. This society esteems these bonds above all, which they call the bond of iron and fire, and the first duty of a Kavalar is towards his holdfast and his companion, values best encapsulated in their unique way of greeting. For they don’t say good day; instead they do like the Braavosi with their valar morghulis/valar dohaeris, and greet you with “Honour to your holdfast, honour to your teyn.”



To this moribund world arrives the protagonist, Dirk t’Larien, after he receives a whisperjewel, a meaningful gem from his youthful love Gwen Delvano—whom he calls Jenny—asking him to meet her at Worlorn, where she’s doing ecological research on the native versus extraneous flora on the planet. When they were young, both had made a solemn promise to go to each other with help no matter what happened and wherever they might be. Thinking the woman he’s never forgotten is in need of him, and with his nostalgic feelings resurfacing, he leaves his home planet Avalon, discovering on arrival that she’s been married for years to a progressive-minded Kavalar of the Ironjade holdfast called Jaan Vikary. Progressive he may be, and educated as a historian in Avalon, the closest thing to Earth they have that side of the galaxy, but he’s still bonded to a harsh and conflicted teyn, Garse, who resents her. Prodded by Gwen’s insistent long-time friend Arkin Baelish, pardons, Arkin Ruark, that he must rescue her from a marriage he swears she’s miserable in, Dirk goes with her on research expeditions to the semi-dark and perilous Worlorn forest, with a warning to avoid an encounter with the men of a conservative band from the Braith holdfast also dwelling in Larteyn, who go there hunting “mockmen,” non-human demonic beings of their mythos—in reality, deformed survivors of the time of fire, a nuclear war of extermination a rival coalition unleashed in the past on the Kavalars, who survived in the hills and mountains and that those of the holdfasts didn’t recognise as humans and hunted because they believed them to be shapeshifters, mistaking them for an alien slave race used in that war, as Jaan concludes. In the wild, Dirk gets romantic and tries to kiss Gwen, is rejected and told that the woman he loved no longer exists, that he loves an ideal only, and that she might not be wholly happy as betheyn, but the problem is Garse rather than Jaan. Disillusioned, he makes the mistake of listening to Ruark and decides to stay, to save her anyhow, courting disaster willingly.



And disaster enters the stage soon enough, when our Dirk foolishly goes alone to the deserted Larteyn car park looking for transportation to go after Gwen, and finds there an imposing aircar with a canopy in the shape of a wolf’s head, armoured with laser cannons, that he decides to inspect. But before he can get out of it, the owner comes back and he’s caught inside by a man with facial burns.



"Honour to your holdfast, honour to your teyn. I am Bretan Braith Lantry."



Our scarred character is a young man born in a Braith holdfast, whence his name comes. He is second teyn to the recently-widowed Chell Daveson, much older than himself and very unattractive too, a source of amusement and whispers about his motivations for agreeing to the bondage with such an aged specimen. He is so riled up by finding Dirk in his wolf-car that he immediately declares him a “mockman” and challenges him to a duel for the offences. Jaan protects Dirk from the accusations, vouching for his status as human and not “mockman,” and appeals to Kavalar authority to thwart Bretan by claiming Dirk as protected property of his holdfast, therefore untouchable to the others. The duel has to take place nevertheless, with two pairs of duellists, Bretan vs. Dirk and Jaan vs. Chell, yet it doesn’t go as planned because Dirk goes missing. He’s caught with Gwen by the Braiths whilst trying to escape, and she’s injured in the altercation that flares up when the Ironjades arrive, causing Jaan to commit the most dishonourable sin of their culture for her sake: duel-breaking. He attacks his fellow Kavalars to save her, and conflict between the men of the different holdfasts erupts, with Jaan, Gwen and Dirk declared prey to be hunted to death all over Worlorn by the others, led on by Bretan Braith. The youth’s teyn, Chell, perishes during the hunt, and in his grief he takes out his wolf-car’s hitherto unused laser cannons and sets some of the mostly-deserted cities ablaze, completely reducing them to ashes, including the one where the hunted had been taking refuge in and from where they escape alive by a hair’s breadth. During a crazed chase through the impossibly thick forest, pursued by the surviving hunters, Jaan guns Garse down and kills him, not knowing that he’s come to help and isn’t with the hunters. Dirk does know, but on realising Jaan is emotionally crushed by this death, keeps silent. The experience convinces Gwen to stay with Jaan and resume their lives together, without his troubled teyn. Now aware that she never sent the whisperjewel to him, that it had been Ruark, who’d loved Gwen since a past drunken one-night stand she doesn’t recall, had hoped to stir trouble in her marriage so she’d abandon her husband and had likewise betrayed their hiding place to Lantry, almost getting them killed, Dirk feels at a loss upon finding him dead by his own hand. Thinking on what to do now, and tormented by dreams in which he sees Bretan, he finally decides to send word to him that he’ll honour their code duello, and goes to face him in their delayed duel. The outcome is left ambiguous, but considering that the duel is with swords and that Dirk is a near inutile with steel whereas his opponent is a famed duellist, it can be guessed.



When it comes to similitudes between Sandor and Bretan, appearance is the one that leaps off the page first, but others exist: physical similarities and resemblances in personality, three relevant ones for the former and a couple for the latter.



I. Both have half their face burnt and a story behind



The obvious and most remarked on of all parallels, and that prompted a fan to ask Martin directly, as reported in this SSM:



Maltaran asked about comparisons of Bretan Braith (from Dying of the Light) to the Hound.


He said yes, they are similar, but Bretan has much more duality in him, as he is handsome on the unburnt side, while Sandor was only average before the burning.



Just how alike are their facial descriptions? Let’s compare both. Here’s the description of Sandor in AGOT Sansa II:



The right side of his face was gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and a grey eye beneath a heavy brow. His nose was large and hooked, his hair thin, dark. He wore it long and brushed it sideways, because no hair grew on the other side of that face.


The left side of his face was a ruin. His ear had been burned away; there was nothing left but a hole. His eye was still good, but all around it was a twisted mass of scar, slick black flesh hard as leather, pocked with craters and fissured by deep cracks that gleamed red and wet when he moved. Down by his jaw, you could see a hint of bone where the flesh had been seared away.



And here’s the more complete of the two descriptions of Bretan, the one in chapter 6 of Dying of the Light:



His face, his strange half-face, was ugly beyond anything that Dirk had ever seen, but as the day waned and false dusk became real, he found himself getting used to it. When Bretan Braith paced in one direction, he looked utterly normal: a whip-lean youth, full of nervous energy held tightly in check, so tightly that Bretan almost seemed to crackle. His face on that side was unlined and serene; short black curls pressed tightly around his ear and a few ringlets dropped to his shoulder, but he had no hint of a beard. Even his eyebrow was only a faint line above a wide green eye. He appeared almost innocent.


Then, pacing, he would reach the edge of the roof and turn back the way he had come, and everything would be changed. The left side of his face was inhuman, a landscape of twisted plains and angles that no face ought to have. The flesh was seamed in a half-dozen places, and elsewhere it was shiny-slick as enamel. On this side, Bretan had no hair whatsoever, and no ear—only a hole—and the left half of his nose was a small piece of flesh-coloured plastic. His mouth was a lipless slash, and worst of all, it moved. He had a twitch, a grotesque tic, and it touched the left corner of his mouth at intervals and rippled up his bare scalp over the hills of scar tissue.


In the daylight, the Braith’s glowstone eye was as dark as a piece of obsidian. But slowly night was coming, the Helleye sank, and the fires were stirring in his socket. At full darkness, Bretan would be the Helleye, not Worlorn’s tired supergiant of a sun; the glowstone would burn a steady, unwinking red, and the half-face around it would become a black travesty of a skull, a fit home for an eye such as that.



These are the coincidences: both men are hairless on one side of the head, and have only a hole where their ear should be. The left side of their faces are “a ruin” and “inhuman” respectively, confirming that GRRM meant the left side of the character and not the left side of the viewer when he wrote this passage. The landscape/texture of their burns is described similarly in terms of a twisted mass with undulations and cracks and angles which, and this is a very important detail, are brought into sharp relief because of the dim light in both scenes, as in one it’s night and in the other it’s dusk when Sansa and Dirk describe the faces, and darkness adds to the dramatic effect the burns wouldn’t have in full daylight. This is noteworthy because some have taken the description of Sandor’s burns too literally to mean they’re still fresh and oozing, not taking into context the type of artificial light and the angle it fell on, how the mix of light and dimness plays on highlighting the texture of the scars to look that way, and details such as sweating (it had been a hot Summer day after all) and ambient humidity that account for the “wet” appearance.



Another pair of salient aspects to consider in these descriptions is the emotional state of the POV narrators and the intentions of the scarred men. Neither Sansa nor Dirk are at their calmest here: the former is terrified of the Hound, and the latter is aware that he could be killed by the Kavalar; and both Clegane and Lantry are in a tempestuous mood, attempting to scare Sansa and Dirk for different reasons by deliberately forcing them to observe their burns at close range. One turns Sansa by the chin to look at him and the other paces in front of Dirk flaunting his burnt side. Both do achieve their goal, but only momentarily, because once the light is put out and she hears Sandor’s story, Sansa is no longer afraid, and Dirk ceases to be afraid as he comes to realise Bretan is tricking him:



It all seemed very terrifying until you remembered—as Dirk remembered—that it was all quite deliberate. Bretan Braith had not been forced to have a glowstone for an eye; he had chosen it, for his own reasons, and those reasons were not hard to comprehend.



Furthermore, the idea that Sandor’s mouth twitching is an indication of strong emotions and duress rather than just an omnipresent tic gets validated by comparison to Bretan’s exact twitch happening only when he’s furious or distressed, and not the rest of the time. See:



His young teyn made the odd noise again, and the left side of his face twitched. But his laser hand was quite steady.


. . . . .


“Does your truth depend on our reasons, highbond?” Bretan asked harshly. His scarred cheek twitched violently.


. . . . .


The scarred face twitched. “Insult was taken.”


. . . . .


“Here.” A rasp from the darkness. A few meters away a single glowstone shone dimly. Bretan Braith Lantry came forward and stood next to Chell. His face twitched.



There are differences, indeed. For starters, Lantry’s scars are much, much more terrible than Clegane’s. He has lost an eye in his burning, replacing it with one made of glowstone, whereas Sandor saved his eye and it hasn’t been affected besides the scarring round it. Another variation in severity between their burns is underlined by the description of Bretan’s nose and mouth, as he has lost part of his nose and half of his lips, which didn’t happen to the Hound, whose nose is intact and apparently his mouth is mostly too, although the left corner of his lips has been touched by the fire. A third contrast in severity is that Bretan’s face is seamed in a dozen places and the scars are extended down to the neck, making it stiff, and Sandor’s aren’t that massive.



Then there’s the point of comeliness on which GRRM emphasised in his reply. Bretan is a beautiful youngster with green eyes and dark short curls, of whom Garse says half-mockingly and half-seriously is famous everywhere as much for his duelling as for his striking good looks. Yet for all that the characters in-story remark on his beauty, they also don’t hesitate to call him ugly, which does suggest that it’s the scars they’re fixating on when saying that, as happens with Sandor, the gray-eyed and dark-haired one described as average who, despite the author clarifying repeatedly is not monstrously ugly, is nonetheless called ugly as well.



The major difference is sans doute in their physique. Here I must confess that Dying of the Light gave me the weirdest reading experience, because apart from his scars and his voice, his huge size is another of the three identifiers without which Sandor cannot be Sandor. And Bretan isn’t tall or muscled like a maiden’s fantasy but average-height, lithe and graceful, and incredibly handsome to boot, all of which spells out the Knight of Flowers, not the intimidating Hound of the Westerlands. According to Elio, GRRM did admit Loras shares some of Bretan’s characteristics too, and his slim physique and good looks would be one, the other being that Tyrell went on a vengeful killing spree spurred on by Renly’s assassination, echoing Bretan’s destruction of cities over his teyn’s demise. The following could be said of any of them:



“He has a violent way of mourning,” Dirk agreed.



Getting down to the backstory of their burns, Sandor’s is told in detail by himself to Sansa, and even if he’d not talked, we’d still have had some bit of tittle-tattle to ponder on, like the strip of gossip Eddard recalls during the tourney that would’ve been enough to point a finger at Gregor as the suspect. We also know the lifelong impact that the burning had on Sandor, how badly scarred he is on the inside also, as a result of the triple betrayal on the part of a brother that almost killed him, a father that protected the guilty, and a system that rewarded violence done to him. But not a word there is about how Bretan got his scars, not a rumour someone listened to once, nothing. His case leaves us in the same position we’d have been if nothing had been said of the Hound’s burns either: we’d be forever speculating if it was in a battle, a burning assault tower, a house aflame, improper cooking, dragonsbreath, or Moon Boy with a candle for all we know. But fortunately, there’s a clue on which we can base a good guess that, regardless of how it happened, it was an experience that did leave Bretan inwardly scarred too.



Remember that the other characters in the novel muse on why a handsome man like Bretan is bonded to that decrepit Chell? Their conclusions are conspicuously judgemental and do him a disservice, as they go from gold-digging, which is Garse’s belief . . .



“Bretan Braith Lantry is as widely known for his skill in duel as he is for his striking good looks. In truth, he is notorious. I suppose he is here hunting mockmen with Chell, but he is not really much a hunter. He is more comfortable in the death-square than in the wild, from all that I have heard of him. Even his own kethi find him difficult. In addition to being ugly, he took Chell fre-Braith to teyn. Chell was once a highbond of great power and honour. He outlived his betheyn and his original teyn. Today he is a superstitious dodderer with a small mind and great wealth. The holdfast rumours say the wealth is the reason Bretan Braith wears Chell’s iron-and-fire. No one tells this to Bretan openly, of course. He is said to be quite touchy.”



. . . to a desire to cling to the outdated traditions of the Kavalars, which is Dirk’s belief:



They were misfits, he decided, more outcast and more alone than Dirk himself, worldless in a sense, because High Kavalaan had moved beyond them and could be their world no longer. No wonder they came to Worlorn; they belonged here. They and all their ways were dying.


Bretan in particular was a figure of pity, Bretan who tried so hard to be a figure of fear. He was young, perhaps the last true believer, and he might live to see a time when no one felt as he did. Was that why he was teyn to Chell? Because his peers rejected him and his old man’s values? Probably, Dirk decided, and that was grim and sad.



Both assessments miss the target by a mile, though. Neither is the man a gold-digger nor a diehard reactionary. In the epilogue, he talks about his reason for being teyn to Chell, one of the biggest surprises in the book, in my opinion, and unveils the poignant truth:



Bretan slid his weapon back into its holster. “I would have duelled you. In Larteyn, in Challenge, here—it makes no difference. I would have duelled you. I do not believe in mockmen, t’Larien. I have never believed in mockmen. Only in Chell, who wore my bond and somehow did not care about my face.”



Did not care about my face . . . That does sound familiar. And very telling, besides. In absence of a backstory for Bretan, his “half a god, half a monster” appearance adds in the tragedy feel in a way analogous to how his own backstory works with Sandor; it tells of wanting to be loved and accepted, but his face acts as some sort of barrier, until this highbond veteran says a pox on differences and scars, and becomes his teyn. An argument can also be made that the concrete example of Bretan Braith Lantry would suggest that even if Sandor had this beauty, his storyline would’ve been much the same with a beautiful unburnt side/ugly burnt side duality, for handsomeness or plainness don’t make a difference in this regard, not in Martin’s writings, as the real issue has never been looks or the scars in themselves but the circumstances, how it happened.



II. Both will never sound melodious



. . . said in a voice that rasped like sandpaper.


. . . there was a grating rawness to it . . .


. . . he rasped.


. . . made the odd noise again, and the left side of his face twitched.


. . . gave his strange grunt-growl again.


. . . said in his sandpaper growl.


. . . asked harshly.


. . . and the rawness caught in his throat . . .


The twisted, rasping voice of . . .


A rasp from the darkness.


. . . asked in his sandpaper voice.


. . . with his strange voice . . .


. . . in his rasping voice . . .



Time to guess: who is speaking in the lines above, Sandor or Bretan? Correct answer: the latter. But all these lines fit the former so well that we could place his name in them and swear they were pulled out from ASOIAF. The interchangeability is striking, for apart from the most common “rasping voice,” “growled,” “snarled,” “rasped” and “rasp,” the descriptions for Sandor’s voice read like this:



. . . and roared.


. . . said in his deep rasp,


His voice was as rough as the sound of a saw on wood.


. . . a deep voice rasped at . .


. . . like the snarling of dogs in a pit.


. . . rough as a saw on stone.


. . . his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone.


. . . rough, rasping laughter.


. . . laughter was iron scraping over stone.


. . . a sour sound, part rumble and part snarl.


His voice was rough and hard as an iron rasp.


. . . laugh was half a growl.


. . . the rough rasp of his voice . . .


. . . asked in a hoarse whisper.


He made a queer sound. . .



This roughness in the sound is likely caused by damage to the vocal chords by either the smoke of the fire or the burns in the neck. Martin makes it worse for the one that has it bad, however, because there’s a significant difference between their voices: Bretan can’t shout. Due to the thickness of the burns in his neck that have stiffened like a hard collar, his head movements are awkward and jerky, and the damage to his larynx is so serious that his voice is now a few octaves too low on top of being raspy. He can’t raise it louder, when he tries to yell it gets trapped in his throat or breaks and he chokes, sputtering soundlessly:



Bretan whirled and tried to shout. His voice was not capable of it, and he sputtered and choked instead.



No wonder he has to take advantage of other methods of intimidation, then, for who’s going to tremble like a leaf before someone that slim and with a voice hardly above a murmur? On the other hand, Sandor’s voice is raspy as well, but the damage to the throat is lighter and seems to have affected only the timbre, the quality of the sound, and not the pitch range. He can speak and laugh as loud or as low as he pleases, and not have a problem. We see it in Ned’s observations during the tourney, when he notes that Sandor’s laughter is ringing loudest above the din when his brother is unhorsed, after noting the same about Robert, the one with the “commander’s voice” that can be heard by deaf old ladies in Dorne. Arya also will note that the Hound does shout and is heard clearly from afar and above loud noise, like by the ferryman on the opposite riverbank or by herself during the battle outside the Twins. Tellingly, the only time Sandor speaks in a whisper is when he’s given up and thinks he’s going to die, to ask Arya if she remembers where the heart is.



III. Both are ticklish about the proper way to address them



There’s no surer way in Westeros to infuriate the Hound than calling him ser, although he does let it pass occasionally without a fuss. The same combative attitude towards using unsanctioned forms of address is present in the Braith, who doesn’t accept to be called by his first name, and when clueless Dirk tries to explain himself as he’s found trying to . . . borrow his wolf-car, he earns a stinging put-down for doing exactly that:



“Bretan,” he began, in a voice laced by hysteria, but the Kavalar only turned on him and delivered a stinging open-handed blow across the mouth.


“I am not ‘Bretan’ to you,” he said. “Call me Bretan Braith if you must address me, mockman.”



This is reminiscent of the time Sandor slapped the squire at the Crossroads Inn for using the verboten word to address him:



The boy didn’t seem to hear him. “I came for the girls,” he whimpered. “ . . . make me a man, Polly said . . . oh, gods, please, take me to a castle . . . a maester, take me to a maester, my father’s got gold . . . it was only for the girls . . . mercy, ser.”


The Hound gave him a crack across the face that made him scream again. “Don’t call me ser.” He turned back to Arya. “This one is yours, she-wolf. You do it.”



The coincidence isn’t fortuitous. As a matter of fact, both men reject to be addressed that way because of honour. Lack of honour in Sandor’s case, as he believes knights don’t have any and refuses to partake in the hypocrisy of swearing holy oaths that their actions will render as worthy as sheep pellets, thus doesn’t accept the association to knighthood through being called a ser, forcing people to use other forms or his sobriquet. And Bretan’s insistence in a correct form of address emanates from honouring the old customs of his society regarding the duties to kethi and teyn that determine who is allowed this familiarity:



And so too Bretan, who slapped Dirk soundly because he used the wrong form of address, a form permitted only to kethi. Another dying custom, Garse had said; even the highbonds were growing lax. But not Bretan Braith, young and not high at all, who clung to traditions that men generations older than himself had already discarded as dysfunctional.



To a Kavalar, his name is the container of his identity and his values. A glance at their naming traditions sheds light on why it shouldn’t be taken lightly: only their first name is imposed at birth by the kethi, the members of a holdfast, and therefore its exclusive use is for them and for the teyn when they are bonded. Their middle name is the name of their holdfast, determining their group membership and their loyalty. Some of them, those who are highbonds, can choose a second middle name that’s normally an animal. And the surname is chosen by each man individually; they can pick the name of someone they admire from history, someone whose ideas they like or whose deeds they wish to emulate. So, Bretan is the name he got at birth, Braith is his people, and Lantry is the name of his heroic role model; one man, one group, one ideal.



IV. Both notorious fighters have canines as symbols



“He is a liar,” […] said. “Even our dogs smell out his lies.”



No, that wasn’t Sandor lecturing a little bird on how hounds can sniff out lying liars who lie lyingly. It was a certain Lorimaar of the same Braith Gathering as Bretan, complaining about Dirk’s failure to tell the truth, and that passage got recycled by GRRM for one of Clegane’s most iconic lines:



“Pretty thing, and such a bad liar. A dog can smell a lie, you know. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here . . . and every one better than you.”



This is just one instance amongst a few of canines linked to Lantry, whose Braith holdfast has for sigil a white wolf on a purple field. Bretan is the one most adept at taking the sigil as personal identifier, for he dresses in white with a purple wolf on his chest for duelling, unlike the others, and is easy to spot when he’s on the move because his aircar is so conspicuous with that white wolf’s head:



Thoroughly Kavalar, the car was a stubby two-seater with short triangular wings that looked even more useless than the wings on other aircars of High Kavalaan manufacture. It was all silver and white enamel, and the metal canopy was shaped to resemble a wolf's head. Lasercannon were mounted on both sides of the fuselage.


. . . . .


The aircar with the snarling wolf’s-head canopy appeared in the sky just as predicted.



Comparably, Sandor takes his famous black hound’s-head helm as a personal identifier from his family’s coat of arms with the three black dogs on a yellow field. Each of these canines has something that mirrors the other; look at the bolded lines above, and then to these below:



He had lowered the visor on his helm. It was fashioned in the likeness of a snarling black hound, fearsome to behold.


. . . . .


He wore mail and soot-grey plate and his snarling dog’s-head helm.



It’s not just the heads of any placid doggie and any placid wolfie these men are using as badges, it’s the heads of a snarling hound and a snarling wolf. When a canine rumbles or growls, it’s a fair warning signal. But when they bare their fangs and snarl, it indicates they’re very pissed and you best stop and tread with caution if you don’t want to find out firsthand what dogs and wolves do to primates. As metaphor, this snarling conjures up the men’s anger and aggressiveness, the two emotions a snarl is supposed to communicate in animals. It’s more noticeable in Lantry, who is comparatively more impulsive, full of nervous energy and overall more prone to fury. Personality traits is where Sandor and Bretan differ more abysmally, as the former is better fleshed-out, with more layers and a longer, richer arc, but with regard to temper, it’s quite an interesting discovery to ascertain Martin used this small detail of snarling canines for both to symbolise their mental framework induced by their life experience.



V. Both give respectively a kiss for love and a kiss for death



When Dirk consents to engage in duelling, he gets a shock lesson in foreign mores when, instead of the expected handshake or ponderous bow, this happens:



And Bretan Braith Lantry, scarred and one-eyed, his lip half gone—Bretan Braith Lantry kissed Dirk.



It’s plain old Kavalar ceremony. But poor Dirk becomes obsessed with it as he loiters into realising he’d be killed at the duel, and starts having dreams where Bretan appears as a figure on a barge shrouded in dark and leaning on a bared sword, an imagery easily recognisable for what it is: the bargeman Charon who transports the souls of the dead towards the realm of Hades.



Dirk’s own sleep was plagued by recurrent nightmares of the half-faced Braith: Bretan with his strange voice and his glowing eye and his grotesque twitch, Bretan slim and smooth-cheeked and innocent, Bretan the destroyer of cities. Dirk woke from those dreams sweaty and exhausted, twisted in his bed clothes, remembering Gwen’s screams (high shrill laments like the towers of Kryne Lamiya) and the way Bretan looked at him.



Once, he sees himself fighting the young man alone in the dream, and another time he relives the gentlemen’s agreement ritual, dreaming that Lantry gives him “a cold and frightening kiss.” Dirk rightly makes the association that Bretan embodies death, from which he’s been running away for so long, ever since he backtracked on his word, and that his Bargeman’s kiss is one that brings death to him. At first, it’s a dream of terror, of death foretold, but subsequently Martin writes the earliest example of mingling eros and thanatos in an oneiric scenification of an upcoming event, when one of Dirk’s nightmares suddenly turns out different:



Finally he shut off the torch and all sight of his Jenny, and tried to sleep himself. It came in time. But nightmares came with it. He dreamed he was with Gwen, kissing her, holding her closely. But when his lips met hers, it was not Gwen at all; it was Bretan Braith he was kissing, Bretan whose lips were dry and hard, whose glowstone eye flamed frighteningly close in the blackness.



If this has brought to mind memories of another scene written two decades later, in a different book and involving another scarred character, you’re on the right path:



That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion’s eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. “I’ll have a song from you,” he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. “I wish that you were Lady,” she said.



Dirk’s dreams are nightmares in which he is kissed by the personification of death that is Bretan, which originates from the real kiss he gave him to seal the pact to duel, and this nightmare for once gets tempered when Gwen, the woman he loves, appears in it and he’s able to stage in unconscious fantasy what he most desires when awake. He experiences his sweetest wish and then Gwen transforms into Bretan, foreshadowing what will happen eventually. Four chapters after this dream, he shares a heartfelt parting kiss with Gwen when she tells him of her decision to remain by Jaan’s side, which influences in part his own conclusion that “a man ought to have a code too. A friend, a teyn, a cause,” and decides to run no longer from his overdue appointment with the Bargeman:



He brought out the matched blades; straight sabers of Kavalar steel, with glowstones and jade set in the ornate pommels. Bretan chose one and tested it—it moved through the air with a song and a shriek—then stepped back, satisfied, to one corner of the square. He was very still as he waited; for an instant he appeared almost serene, a slim black figure leaning ever so slightly on his sword. Like the bargeman, Dirk thought, and despite himself he glanced wildly at the wolf-car to make certain it had not been transformed into a low barge. His heart was beating hard.



It plays out so much like in his dream, it begins with love and it ends in death, two amongst the most recurrent motifs in Martin’s literary output that he seems to favour writing about together with revenge and honour, from his opera prima to his ongoing opera magna.



Like with Bretan, there’s also death imagery embedded into Sandor by way of the Stranger, that’d be the Westerosi simile to the Bargeman by description and by role. There’s his steed with that name, and his marred face that harks back to the god’s inhuman one as well as his continual walking in and out of shadows. There’s his killer aspect in sending souls to the other side, and then there’s his gravedigger aspect putting bodies to rest. And more seminally, there’s the direct allusion to the Stranger’s kiss:



“I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son. When we find the Imp, we will find the Lady Sansa too. She is not dead . . . but before I am done with her, I promise you, she will be singing to the Stranger, begging for his kiss.”



Sweet Cersei believes that the Stranger’s kiss means exactly the same as the Bargeman’s kiss. But in a droll turnaround, GRRM has made it one of passion instead, through the imagery and structuring the layout of Sansa’s dream as the reverse of Dirk’s: it begins with death and it ends in love, the undesirable transforms into the desirable. For the Hound, there’s no real basis for the kiss he gives in dreams besides Sansa’s own feelings, but just like Bretan had given Dirk plenty of reasons to fear him and reinforced his threat with a real ritual kiss, Sandor definitely has given her clues, loads of them, that she had time to process and interpret. If we take the parallels for what they are, an example of use of literary symbolism as foreshadowing of things to come and we throw in Martin’s remarks that it would mean something, it looks plausible for the author to ultimately make the Stranger’s kiss come to reality like he did with the Bargeman’s.


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Finally there’s a chance to share this in the reread. And I’d like to dedicate this write-up to Brashcandy, for the nudges. I promised you this, and a Milady can't get away without always paying her debts.

:love: Just got through reading, and I am stunned! You mean that all this time I prided myself on reading Fevre Dream, when all the goodies were in Dying of the Light? :drunk: It's an amazing essay, and the revelations into Sandor's character and his relationship with Sansa are so profound and momentous. Thank you for penning this, Milady, and if Martin's publishers notice an increase in Dying of the Light sales, they should look to the Hound's fans.

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