Jump to content

What makes Sandor Clegane awesome.


Rolex Baratheon

Recommended Posts

Sandor is saying (and being viscerally sincere) us all the time (forces us to hear and we are trembling for that):

Put aside social conventions, all these falsehood.

Say what you really feel and (in the case of Sansa almost always. And is for that reason that the Hound is a hard personage:)

Let us do everything we want to do, you and me, the one with the other : their deepest desires, even when it are wild and dark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember, Arya is the first one to wonder that.

(It's why I think the fight at the tavern is so important, she not only saves his life, by force, and against bigger odds, she also helps him from the scene.)

(His complex relation to her sister.)

Unlike Gendry or Hotpie, Sandor is Arya's pack and they are quite a great team. But Arya won't admit that because she hates him for what he did to Mycah even though he won his trial by combat and R'hollor spared him. After the Red Wedding, she asked him to save her mother and she'll go with him but Sandor knows it's a mission impossible. Later, Sandor (maybe trying to console her) wants to talk to her about it but Arya has accepted the truth that her mother is already dead. When they have nowhere else to go, Arya suggested that they could both go to her brother Jon at the Wall but Sandor has his own brother to take care of, too. At the tavern, Arya could have run and leave him to be killed but she saved him instead. She took him out of her death lists and wondered why, but said his name again believing he'll die anyway and she doesn't need to kill him. Arya has accepted the Hound (maybe forgiven) but keeps on finding reason to hate him still (she told him he should have never hit her with the axe and saved her mother before leaving him to die without the gift of mercy). I would like to know Arya's reaction once she finds out that Sandor is still alive (if the theory is true). Maybe the wolf and the dog will team up again. Who knows? Only GRRM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me, Sandor is basically someone who if born in a different family, would have been the perfect knight. Instead, he grew up with Gregor Clegane, who burned off half his face for taking a discarded toy and than got knighted for being big and mean rather than honourable and valiant. That broke the person Sandor might have been and instead turned into a cynical angry man who believes himself to be merely a product of a hypocrite and sadistic world.

Than he meets Sansa, who manages to bring out some of the person Sandor wanted to be, the valiant knight who protects the innocent rather than the ruthless hired killer he grew up to be. Than follows Blackwater, and he breaks again, and I do think he meant to rape Sansa because that is the way of the world, but he becomes unable to do it. Later than with Arya, despite being mean to her and others, he clearly is start to feel empathy for her situation and guilt over what he's done, becoming suicidal, basically begging Arya to finish him off.

The Hound thing seems like a desperate act to make sense of the world where someone like Gregor Clegane can become a knight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of the things that made Sandor Clegane so awesome was he got Joffrey to respect him to the point where he could do things to help Sansa that nobody else would have gotten away with. It is amazing he could have so much pain inside and yet still have compassion in certain circumstances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He is just a great character for many reasons. You can hate him, feel pity, laugh at him in like the same chapter. Also, there are terrible things he can do or say that you can't condone but you understand a bit where it is coming from.

He is a fierce warrior, that is not afraid of anyone or thing, except fire. It was ballsy to leave Joff's service, and he is one of the few that is not afraid of his brother, Gregor.

So it is fascinating that fire gets to him, his achilles heel, and he fears talking to girls. Really, he sounds like an idiot sometimes when he talks to Sansa. There seemed like a few times that when he appeared where she was, some liquid courage was in order beforehand. Even when he talks to Arya regarding Sansa he sounds awkward or inappropriate because he just can't seem to say what he really thinks or feels, so he blurts stuff out. Cringe-inducing, but you feel sort of sorry for him in certain cases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Am I the only one who thinks he never actually wanted to kill Gregor? With Gregor alive he would always have a purpose.

:agree: Maybe he doesn't want to become a Kinslayer after all.

And I so looove his interaction with Arya - one of the best Arya chapters ever!

Arya: "Why do you want to kill your your brother?"

The Hound: "Tell me, do you have a brother you wanted to kill?"

Arya: "None."

The Hound: "A sister maybe?"

Arya is silent…

The Hound: "The SheWolf wants to kill the the Littlebird! Hah! I saved her life and she sang me a sweet little song, you know. You should sing for me, too."

Arya: "You can have all her stupid songs, I don't care! But I can kill your brother for you, if you like? You could have killed him long ago, but you didn't. Maybe you're scared."

The Hound: "Stupid little wolf bitch, what do you know?"

Arya thinks, Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Am I the only one who thinks he never actually wanted to kill Gregor? With Gregor alive he would always have a purpose.

I believe he never wanted to do it,yes. Why I still struggle with this and there are surely more interpretations than one. He did it because he needed the hate to keep him going,he didn't want to become a kinslayer...I believe he didn't want to do it at all. He hates monsters remember.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sandor is a man of many contradictions. It's almost as if he's Everyman, conflicted. He is a knight, but not a knight.

He is a brother, yet not a brother.

He wants a family, but has not had one (not a supportive one).

He is beautiful and ugly.

He wanted a fairy tale life (playing with a knight puppet) and yet lived in a nightmare.

He never felt love after his trauma, but still felt deep respect and yearning for a girl he thought he could never have.

He tries to save another, and is left to die.

He rages against Sansa in an attempt to teach her to wake up, see the world as it is.

He undergoes what appears to be a personal transformation at the hands of monks (if it plays out like we think it is).

He is the underdog we are rooting for to become whole, embrace the world, find love.

If he can do it, we can. While I really love a lot of these characters, Sandor is the one that I find myself rooting for to come around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...