Do you still like talking about ASOIAF? see you like SanSan and wanted to know your opinion about something I was reading.I was reading some discussions around Sandor's character and there seems to be a division of opinion about whether he is in fact a total bastard, but he met Sansa (who was the first to give him empathy and kindness) and so he does kind acts but only to her (or when she is near) OR he always had a "good side" somewhere inside him (still a bastard, but I think you get the ideia of what I mean?), but was too comfortable with his view of the world and become totally apathetic to the things around him (until he met Sansa and she kind of challenged his worldview).I thought I'd ask your opinion on this, if you don't mind, because I think you usually have interesting thoughts on things.
George R.R. Martin likes complex, messy characters that are very firmly in the grey area. The full on pure monsters in the story (like Ramsay and his dad) are not as large as the group of grey, or even good, characters, and they usually don't get as much attention. There's a reason we'll see the POV of Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion, but not Tywin - they have more humanity and vulnerability in them, so Martin has something more interesting to work with and develop. He even went as far as saying that even the iconic "A Targaryen is either great or mad" thing is a LIE, because ALL OF THEM did things that could make them look great or mad in people's eyes.
With Sandor in particular, lets get the most ridiculous "take" on the character out of the way: He is not kind ONLY to Sansa or ONLY when she's around. For f*ck's sake, he goes out of his way to remind her of every awful thing he does/thinks in hopes she'll stop giving a damn about him and he can thus stop questioning his entire existence, and is repeatedly exasperated that nothing seems to do the trick.
And while he is kinder to her than to anyone else, he REPEATEDLY proves that he wants to stop being just a killer. We see in an Arya chapter that Sandor wanted to just live in a quiet, peaceful village until the end of his days, but he is kicked out because of his past and is clearly upset about it.
He kidnaps Arya because he wants to return her to the Starks in the hopes that they will take him in. And after the Red Wedding he still saves Arya, and after being VERY cruel to her in trying to get her to accept that her family is dead, he changes his tune literally overnight because, come on, she's a kid and what happened is horrible, he shouldn't have snapped at her and he knows it.
For f*ck's sake, he CRIES confessing his sins Arya when he is "dying", and then changes his ways when he is rescued and taken to the Quiet Isle.
More important, during a public event in which his brother is trying to kill Loras for beating him in a duel, Sandor steps into to the rescue. It would have been THE perfect way to get his revenge on his abuser without any consequence - he'd just be defending himself and another person. No one could truly hold it against him if he had killed Gregor right then and there, not even Sansa. But instead, we are told this:
"Thrice Ned saw Ser Gregor aim savage blows at the hound’s-head helmet, yet not once did Sandor send a cut at his brother’s unprotected face."
George R.R. Martin went as far as creating an two distinct, very easy ways to highlight to the readers that this character has both a human side and a monstruous side - and that the human side would eventually win in this internal conflict.
The first is his identity as "The Hound." It represents his anger, his violent impulses, his willingness to obey unjust orders because it benefits him, his alcohol abuse, his tendency to snap at people for the smallest thing, and his refusal to accept that this behavior is not "just how the world works" and is in fact a problem he needs to work on.
Sandor struggles to let go of "The Hound" even though, as I like reminding people, no one hates that f*cker more than Sandor himself does. He struggles because this bad behavior is a toxic coping mechanism. It was what allowed him to survive in a cruel, unjust world - in an Arya chapter, after WINNING a trial by combat and thus being forgiven for his own sins AND the sins of his brother, we have her describe him as looking like a frightened child after he gets burned. Sansa compares the kiss she's given by Sweet Robin, a little boy that latched onto her, to her imagined kiss with Sandor. The Hound is the mask a frightened, traumatized child that never matured in healthy way hides behind.
We even see Sansa herself adapt parts of "The Hound" into a healthy survival skill - righteous anger at her abusers and their enablers instead of just blind rage at every living thing, suspicion and caution around people until she's sure they can be trusted instead of believing EVERYONE is rotten to the core.
Sandor is called "The Hound" less and less as the books go on, until we reach the point of him being on the Quiet Isle, basically going through that world's equivalent of rehab and therapy, and then hear the very clear message of "The Hound is dead, Sandor Clegane is at rest." We even have an actual bad guy steal his hound helm and see how people are WRONG in assuming that Sandor Clegane is the monster running around raping and killing people because THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS MAN WANTS TO DO WITH HIS LIFE!
And that's despite him saying sh*t like "If you can't fight for yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can" - which brings us to the second way Martin used to highlight the duality of the character: his feelings on what it means to be a TRUE knight.
Sandor will constantly tell Sansa that true knights don't exist, that the very concept is ridiculous, that the world is awful and he's just honest about it, that knights are for killing and that killing is the sweetest thing there is.
Yet he refuses to take on the title when he joins the King's guard. Whether that refusal happens because Sandor doesn't think he deserves the title or because he is disgusted to be in the same class as people like Gregor, he is still letting the truth slip in the moment: deep down, he DOES care about honor, even if just a little. He DOES think there's something wrong with cruel, corrupt men being give praise and status for being "heroes" when they're actually monsters. He DOES have lines he doesn't cross and that nobody can make him change his mind on.
Now, obviously a true knight doesn't get "drunk as a dog", doesn't comment on a 12-year-old girl "having tit* now" (especially not when that girl is noble AND the king's future queen), does work for corrupt lords, doesn't kill an innocent child because a spoiled prince threw a tantrum, and doesn't hold the 12-year-old he is trying to save at knife point during a PTSD episode.
But a true knight would prevent Sansa from killing Joffrey and being punished (and possibly killed) as a consequence, would give her advice on how to protect herself from the King's wrath and from potential manipulators, would scream in protest when she's being beaten and humiliated in public and then give her his cloak to cover herself up, would save her during a riot, would offer to try and get her back to her family - and would accept her refusing that offering - and he would remove his white cloak, the symbol of his honor, to demonstrate he is ashamed of having done something that goes against his code.
Sandor Clegane is a complex, deeply flawed man. He knows it. But he WANTS to be Sansa's knight in shinning armor because, deep down, he shares her beliefs. And she recognizes that, and Martin goes out of his way to show us that she prays for his soul.
"He is notrue knightbut he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him.”
No matter how awful The Hound is, Sansa Stark is never gonna take it as proof that Sandor Clegane didn't deserve justice for what Gregor did to him - not even when she's saying, to his face, that if he doesn't change his ways the Gods will send him to hell. And she's going to call him "Ser" whether he likes it or not, and question why he lets people call him a dog, and will thank him and call him brave whenever he helps her out. He can complain all he wants, she's not gonna stop.
No matter how flawed of a protector he is, Sansa will always remember him as the closest she got to meeting a true knight - to the point that when she's about to be sexually assaulted in a later book and someone saves her, her first instinct is that her savior MUST be Sandor, even though she knows she's either half a continent away or full on dead by now.
And that kindness, understanding and faith in him is what Sandor had always, desperately longed for, but didn't think he would ever get or ever deserve. And for that, he feels he owes Sansa a debt he can never repay, so he is at his kindest to her, and steps up to protect her from Joffrey because he simply can't help himself.
Sandor is not putting on an act for Sansa or changing his behavior only towards her. She is the catalyst for his character arc. He gave her tools to survive, she gave him a REASON to survive.
It's why their last interaction has her wraping his cloak around herself, accepting him as her knight, after singing this song to him:
"Gentle Mother, font of mercySave our sons from war, we prayStay the swords and stay the arrowsLet them know a better dayGentle Mother, strength of womenHelp our daughters through this fraySoothe the wrath and tame the furyTeach us all a kinder way"
Sansa's dynamic with with the Hound - not Sandor, the Hound - was pure "Kill them with kindness." Beauty killed the Beast. Sansa saved Sandor from the Hound, and now he feels it's his duty to protect her.
