Hound vs. Mountain "Sandor's Motivation"

[YeniAy_Ottoman]

Hi, Selam!

I'm here with a continuation of this topic. I want to talk about Sandor's motivation for wanting this fight because, as you know, if the gravedigger theory is true, Sandor is no longer the Hound and is trying to find peace. It's a bit like Sansa's prayer for his anger to disappear seems to have been answered...

I'll give "my" answer to that in this thread. It's a theory like everyone else's.

Three years ago I had a thread about Sandor being mythologically a hellhound. It was connected with the underworld and death, and death in our books is connected with ice and Arya is connected with that. So I'm guessing that the Starks are the next family that Sandor will serve. You can read about the theory here.

If you are familiar with both titles, let's continue.

Now... Sandor somehow left his hermit life and went north (hypothetically); Dany, the dragons, the war and the Others arrived... There is no good reason to assume that the Starks will stay where they are, unmoved from the north, as they did in the show, while these struggles take place after all these events.

If you ask me, Dance 2 and the attack of the Others will somehow take place close to each other, so it's possible to see a parallel situation because otherwise it's hard to read about them in the last book. 

I think the Starks will go to KL towards the end of the story and there will be the final battle. I'm expecting a time frame where Cersei has completely lost her children, everything has been taken away from her and we're approaching that crucial final moment where she's waiting for her valonqar...

That's where the Jaime part comes in. Since we've already talked about that, let's go straight back to Sandor and his motivation.

Sandor heard that the Mountain was dead and the anger/grudge that kept him alive became meaningless. If you remember, what kept Arya alive and going was her desire to avenge her family and her hatred for them. If you take that away from her, she too falls into emptiness and loses her will to live. It's the same with Sandor. Yes, the Mountain is alive, but he lives in disguise as Ser Strong, if you can call that living.

It would be bad for his identity to be revealed because he confess to the murder of Elia Martell; the Lannisters to have promised justice, which they did by saying "he's dead" and sending a skull.... So his identity will probably remain hidden until the last moments, so I can't expect Sandor to hear that his brother is alive, at least not anytime soon. As you know, I believe that he will find his way north to the Starks, that he will serve them for a while, so for some reason, when the Starks go south, Sandor will come with them.

Maybe because of the war with the Others, maybe because of the intention to take over the King's Landing under Jon's leadership... maybe for both of them, maybe for some other third reason... whatever the reason, Sandor and the Mountain have to come to the same place because that they will fight. But the author can't have written Sandor just for these two to fight each other and die. He has to add some color to it.

I like the idea of a scene where the Stark girls return to the king's land with an army behind them and show this to Cersei. I have no doubt it will be ironic. The Mountain will remain as Cersei's protection, as always. Sandor will stay with the girls.

Jaime will be somewhere between the two houses, it is enough for now to know that he will be in KL rather than which family he is with at that moment.

That's probably when the Hound will learn that his brother is alive, maybe shortly before... If the Mountain poses a threat not only to Jaime and the Hound, but also to Sansa and Arya, the Hound, in order to protect them both, but especially since Sansa does not have the means to protect herself like Arya and has romantic feelings for her(SanSan theory), is likely to step forward and fight not out of anger at his brother, but to protect his beloved Sansa. Perhaps Sansa is badly wounded and dies, or is only badly wounded and survives, but Sandor does not. I think it is quite possible to see such or similar scenes in the last book.

Another argument in favor of the idea of the Hound dying while protecting Sansa is the Hound's speech to Sansa about dogs, "a dog will not lie to you, it will sacrifice its life to protect you". The Hound is also known as a dog and is someone who will do anything to protect. This could be foreshadowing that if Sansa is in danger, he will die to protect her. Remember that Sandor has already saved her several times, so "protecting and saving Sansa," It seems to be a mission that Sandor has already taken upon himself, and I think the author respects that and shapes his story in that direction.

Another thing that might support this, albeit a very weak argument, is the serpent-steps detail. There was a reader who thought that serpant steps always kill or seriously injure people. It's serpent-steps because they curve like snakes. The High Heart Ghost saw the poison that killed Joffrey as snakes dripping poison from Sansa's hair. So snakes are usually associated with poison and therefore death. Oberyn, nicknamed the Red Viper, also specializes in poison and is deadly.

In the second book, when Sansa secretly goes to the God's Wood , she suddenly encounters Sandor on the serpent-steps and loses her balance by bumping into him, but the Hound catches her by the waist and prevents her from falling, saying: "It's not wise to fall down the stairs, little bird. Do you want to kill us both?" It's natural for him to say that because what did we say? People usually die when they fall down serpent-steps, or people have been killed or even injured here, even Queen Alysanne fell down here and broke her hip. This could perhaps be interpreted as a small reference to their "death", but only if the serpent-steps really has such a reference, otherwise it's just another scene.

TLDR: So in the fight of the three shadows that we saw in Bran's coma dream, Sandor's motivation to fight his brother the Mountain could be to protect Sansa. Sandor will probably die protecting Sansa at the end of this fight.

Thank you for reading.

 

[astarkchoice]

Yeah sandor has clearly being prepping to face his brother. We know he ran off as gregor clearly killed their dad and sister to becomes joffs bodyguard

However gregor is the oldest thus all forces at house clegane awnser to him...sandor cannot expect a fair fight there. Ser gergor always has his men with him.

Its clear sandor is waiting for joffery to be king then he can call on his  master to get the fair fight to the death he wants, robert would probably refuse on the grounds kinslaying is an evil.

[chrisdaw]

Sansa will be accused of Joffrey's murder and demand and receive a trial of Seven and Sandor will be one of her defenders and Strong one who stands for the accuser.

I don't really think the OP really has a grasp on Sandor though. Sandor isn't going to die for Sansa, he's going to reject her, her arc is to go from what he values, a sincere honest and innocent believer, to what he despises, a hypocrite, the best liar in Kings Landing. Eventually her duplicity will become too much for him to stomach and he'll turn his white cloak from her to Arya.

Sandor's loyalty is the litmus test for which sister is worthy of rule, and which is worth dying for.