Sandor Clegane v.12

[littlespider]

Good calls all around, Ednawolf and Lemoncake. I am also recalling his refusal to remind Sansa that he called Robb the knight of the wooden sword (or something) when Joff reminded him, right in the middle of the Ned's head viewing session. Then there's my favorite hound moment: the nameday tourney, when he praises Tommen for being a brave little guy.

So on the one hand we have a guy who refuses to bully children/smallfolk and is even encouraging to them sometimes (yay!), and on the other hand we have the guy who claims that he's the butcher, killed Mycah, and foraged the farmer on the road to Riverrun (boo!). So what gives? Seems like a couple of possibilities. One, he's brutal and an ass by nature and does his good dog thing when it makes him look good. Or, he's a brutal ass when faced with constraints -- orders from Cersei, the need to get to Riverrun with a convincing ruse.

[brashcandy]

Sandor really does make for interesting character study. On the one hand, he's absolutely fuelled by bloodlust - this is a man that speaks about the joys of killing, and we're definitely supposed to believe him. However, he doesn't seem to kill for killing's sake - it's either following orders, in battle, or when he's attacked or protecting an innocent (all the things we've seen in the series). But I do think the killing of Mycah might have been the first time he ever started to really question what it means to "follow orders", especially later on when he sees the brutal treatment Sansa endures from the KG, and which he was expected to partake in.

Guilt and shame have crushed him by the time he ends up half dead with Arya at the trident, but it says a lot about Sandor that he is even able to feel these emotions. So here's looking forward to thread #13! and more enlightening discussion.