Sandbox / Game Of Thrones - Sandor Clegane

Sandor Clegane

"Hate's as good a thing as any to keep a person going."

Played By: Rory McCann

"There's plenty worse than me. I just understand the way things are."

Called "The Hound," personal bodyguard to Prince Joffrey Baratheon. His brother shoved his face into a fire when he was a child, burning and scarring him horrifically. He's briefly a member of Joffrey's Kingsguard (despite not being a knight) before abandoning Joffrey, the Kingsguard, and the city during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Since then, he's wandered the Riverlands and taken Arya Stark as his captive, hoping to ransom her first to Robb and Catelyn, and, after their deaths, to Lysa Arryn. He encountered Brienne of Tarth and fought her to defend Arya, and was wounded and left for dead.

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Tropes relating to him

• Accidental Misnaming: Tormund calls him "the Dog" rather than the Hound... possibly intentionally.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: His facial burns are much less extensive than they are described in the book series (but still fairly gruesome all the same). Apparently the actor couldn't see out of a truer-to-the-book prosthetic, which would naturally be rather important when filming swordfights.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the novels, he goes to Sansa's room during the Battle of Blackwater with the apparent intention of raping her, holding her down with a knife at her throat. The show makes their confrontation much less frightening, making Sansa's refusal to escape with him much less understandable. In the previous season, he is implied to have killed the butcher's boy Micah by accident and shows no joy in it, whereas in the book he deliberately cut him down and laughs about it.
• Adaptational Villainy: It is heavily implied that Sandor after his injury is living as a peaceful, gravedigging monk in the books, while in the show he continues much of the anger and rage that made up his past.
• Age Lift: From 27 in the books to... late 30s? Although this range could easily be thrown off by his facial scarring and Perma-Stubble, which naturally make him look older than his character probably is. Rory McCann, at 46, is notably older than most of the actors that have played Gregor, who is stated to be five years older than him - and in the case of the most recent (Thor Bjornsson), there's a twenty-year age-gap. (Although, to be fair, the casters were likely looking more at body type than age range.) For the record, in all incarnations, Gregor appears at a glance to be in the mid-30s to 40 at most.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: He's brutal, but unlike Gregor has some sort of morals (see more at Even Evil Has Standards). This only becomes more pronounced over time as Sandor begins to develop more of a conscience and feel more remorse for his crimes, whereas Gregor remains as monstrous as ever.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After being gravely injured fighting Brienne, he asks Arya to Mercy Kill him, and when she refuses he's soon tearfully begging her to do it, then screaming after her when she walks away after robbing him.
• Ambiguous Situation: At the end of Season 4, Sandor is badly wounded and believes that he's finished, but the audience doesn't learn if he actually does die. Made further ambiguous when the Blu-ray's roundtable discussion of actors who were killed off in Season 4 doesn't include Rory McCann. His survival is finally confirmed in Season 6; he was found and brought back to health by Septon Ray. The end of Season 6 has another instance, as it's left open whether he'll join the Brotherhood Without Banners, or go off on his own again. Season 7 confirmed that he has joined them.
• Animal Motifs: In addition the obvious connection between his nickname, former job and sigil there is significance to him becoming a loyal (if reluctant) guardian to Sansa and Arya, as the sigil of their house is a direwolf.
• Anti-Hero: Hovers between Unscrupulous Hero and a Nominal Hero at the end of Season 3 during the Red Wedding where he goes out of his way to save Arya from being slaughtered with her mother and brother (despite there obviously not being a ransom anymore) as well as trying to shield her from the nightmarish aftermath, and is even fully on board with helping her kill a squad of Frey soldiers (so long as she tells him before she tries it again), thus putting him on the "good" side of things. Further, his utter butchery of Polliver's squad in Season 4 seems to be at least partially triggered by how unrepentantly awful they are, on top of their being his brother's men. He moves more firmly into this role after Septon Ray's community is massacred. He's willing to resume his killing again, but targeting people who are far worse than him.
• Anti-Hero Substitute: To Ned Stark where the Stark girls are concerned - he takes to protecting them and in the case of Arya becomes a Parental Substitute outright, teaching her about the world and giving her some lessons on how to fight. It's a bit of a case of Becoming the Mask, since during their travels he has to pretend to be her father a few times. Later he's playing the part of the Boyfriend-Blocking Dad for her when Gendry comes into the picture.
• Anti-Villain: While a brutal warrior, Sandor demonstrates both compassion (primarily towards Sansa) and honour. In Season 3, this is further emphasised by his defection from the Lannisters and his willingness to bring Arya back to her family for a ransom reward despite their mutual hatred.
• Ascended Extra: In the books and the early seasons, Sandor is seen from the perspectives of Ned, Sansa, Arya, and Tyrion. He has his own story starting from Season 6.
• The Atoner: Slowly, but steadily, Sandor is beginning to show remorse for many of his past crimes. This is most evident when he returns to the cottage where he robbed the devout man and left he and his daughter to die. While he does his best to hide it, Thoros sees right through his facade when he's burying them.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Platonic version but Sandor has demonstrated that ever since Season 3, whether he admit or not, he came to love Arya as his surrogate daughter. Throughout the seasons, Sandor has gone out of his way to keep Arya safe, not just physically but mentally as well. This is demonstrated in the penultimate episode, where Sandor sends Arya away from the Red Keep, actually convinces her to drop her revenge against Cersei and warns her to not let revenge dictate one's life, lest one end up hateful and alone like he did. Getting through to her, Arya calls Sandor by his true name for the first and last time, grateful for their companionship and thanking him for what he did. This gets a smile out of him before they part ways forever.
• Badass Boast:
  • Threatens Polliver who did torturing for the Mountain.
    Polliver: You lived your life for the King. You gonna die for some chickens?
    Sandor: Someone is.
  • From "A Man Without Honor"
    Sandor: A dog doesn't need courage to chase off rats.
  • From the Season 7 finale
    Sandor: You know who's coming for you. You have always known.
• Badass and Child Duo: With Arya, though the relationship is tenuous at best.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: The Hound's massive, Ax-Crazy brother Ser Gregor attacks Ser Loras after losing a joust to him. Sandor jumps in and blocks the blow because he hates his brother, not because he cares about Ser Loras. He is impressed with Loras for taking his asshole brother down a peg, and is unwilling to allow the young knight to be murdered for it.
  Sandor: And this is all your idea? Seems every bad idea has some Lannister cunt behind it.
  Tyrion: And some Clegane cunt to help them see it through.
• Battle Cry: One that also happens to be a particularly vulgar threat directed at his own men.
  Sandor: Any man dies with a clean sword, I'll rape his fucking corpse!
• Because You Were Nice to Me: He turns up in Season 6, having been saved and brought back to health by Septon Ray and his people. Though Clegane is gruff and grouchy as ever, it's clear that he cares about them. He is truly horrified later when he finds them butchered by Lem Lemoncloak and the other rogue Brotherhood men. When Sandor retrieves his axe, it's clear that Lem and his buddies done fucked up.
• Beneath the Mask: Arya suggests that for all his talk, he really doesn't like half the things he's been forced to do and acts like a brutal thug and hurls insults around, as a coping mechanism. For his part, the Hound actually is a little bit taken aback by this, suggesting that this might not be too far off the mark.
• Berserk Button: He's not a knight, so don't call him "ser". Really, don't.
  • Naive optimism really pisses him off sometimes. One of his angriest moments in the series is when Brienne offers to take Arya to safety.
    Brienne: Come with me Arya, I will take you to safety.
    Sandor: Safety?! Where the fuck's that?! Her aunt in the Eyrie is dead! Her mother is dead, her father is dead, her brother is dead. Winterfell is a pile of rubble! There is no safety you dumb bitch. If you don't know that by now, you're the wrong one to watch over her.
• BFS: Carries one of these, though only uses it in specific circumstance, such as open battle, or against his brother, who uses an even bigger one. He has a short sword for quick draw.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Saves Sansa single-handedly from an attempted gang rape in "The Old Gods and the New". Heroic music and all.
  • When Gregor's response to losing a joust against Ser Loras Tyrell is to behead his own horse and attack the unarmed Loras with a live blade, Sandor runs in without prompting and fights off Gregor.
  • Halfway through the Long Night, Sandor has another panic attack and gives up fighting. Then, he sees Arya in danger, and immediately snaps out of it. When Arya is pinned down by the wights, Sandor and Beric show up to save her just in time. Sandor himself picks up Arya and carries her to safety.
• Big Eater: In the latter part of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4, Sandor has formed a habit of immediately tucking in to the food of the poor schmucks who get in his way and end up very, very dead or very, very unconscious, which makes sense given he has spent much of his life guarding (and getting paid and fed by) the richest family in Westeros and now he is living rough. Justified, as maintaining the strength in such a large body requires a high energy intake.
• The Big Guy: To Arya while accompanying her. He definitely serves this role while riding with the Brotherhood Without Banners.
• Black Knight: In both appearance and effect. His armor is uniformly ominous black, and like the black knights of historical Europe, he no longer serves a master. Granted, he was never officially a knight, but still. Particularly noticeable after Arya gets a White Stallion, while Sandor rides his dark courser.
• Blood Knight: Insists that "killing's the sweetest thing there is". And he further goes on to say that everyone who has ever done it loves it on some level. May be partially subverted, despite his above quote. Most of his fighting he's done has been a means to an end, and he certainly doesn't glorify the act of killing.
• Brutal Honesty: Some of the things he says to Sansa about her situation are very blunt, but they're not wrong either, and are even good advice in the sense that he was urging her not to have any naïve illusions. For example, when he says he's a good killer and she's upset, he accurately points out that both her father and brother Robb are soldiers and both killed men too, whatever reasons they had for it.
• The Brute: To Joffrey. However, his Screw This, I'm Outta Here at the Battle of Blackwater has put an end to this.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A rather dark example. Sandor is a member of the Kingsguard despite refusing to become a knight (he's the first non Knight to ever join) and wear the Kingsguard uniform, he is also blunt and rather crude unlike most other members. However he is such a fierce fighter that people are willing to overlook this and he is one of the most important Kingsguard members.
• The Bus Came Back: After being presumed dead for all of Season 5 and most of Season 6, he makes a triumphant return in "The Broken Man".
• Cain and Abel: He's the Abel to Gregor's Cain. Gregor burning his face seems to be only the tip of the iceberg between them, and he's more than willing to "defend" Ser Loras. DVD extras reveal that this relationship is actually the basis for why he worked for the Lannisters more directly; he was unwilling to live under the Clegane roof once Gregor became head of the house. He eventually kills both Gregor and himself in the penultimate episode of the series.
• Carry a Big Stick: His first scene in Season 2 has him wielding a mace in a tourney melee.
• The Champion: Is supposed to serve as one to Joffrey. He actually is one towards Sansa. He offers to protect her from the brunt of Joffrey's malice, but admits he might not succeed. By the end of Season 3, he can be considered a champion for Arya Stark.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Cluster C-Bomb. One of the most foul-mouthed characters in the series. "Cunt" seems to be his favorite word.
• Combat Pragmatist: Watch him when he fights Polliver's men. He spends almost as much time punching his enemies in the face as he does tearing them apart with his sword — to say nothing of the man whose crotch he rips out. It speaks volumes of how little he thinks of honorable knightly standards.
  Sandor: Your friend is dead and Meryn Trant's not, because Trant had armor and a big fucking sword.
• Composite Character
  • He, rather than Vargo Hoat (or his show counterpart Locke), gets his ear bitten off by Brienne. Though this is after he escaped losing an ear in the fight with Polliver's men as in the books, so it evens out.
  • Like Victarion Greyjoy, Sandor is a big brute of a man being told by a follower of the Lord of Light (Beric instead of Moqorro) that he has some great destiny ahead of him.
  • He gets his Sir Swears-a-Lot personality from Shitmouth, who like Sandor, is gruff and vulgar while also having Pet the Dog moments.
• Country Matters: A big fan of this.
• Crippling Overspecialization: He's a powerful fighter when fighting single opponents or small groups, which makes sense considering that he was literally bred to be the Lannisters' guard. However, he does poorly in open battles. In every battle he was in he started out strong, but eventually got sensory overload and shut down.
• The Cynic: Shows his rather justified apathy and world-weariness in almost every conversation.
• Dangerous Deserter: How the Lannisters regard him, especially after news of his slaughter of Polliver and his goons reaches the Small Council, after which Lord Tywin puts a sufficiently large bounty on him to tempt any idiot to take a shot at the Hound.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • He's quite blunt and not at all subtle about it, but Sandor gets a bit of snark in every now and again.
    Sandor: Of course you named your sword.
    Arya: Lots of people name their swords.
    Sandor: Lots of cunts.
  • Following his return in Season 6, The Hound somehow got even snarkier. Particularly while chasing down the murderers of Septon Ray.
    Rogue: Fuck you!
    Sandor: Those are your last words? "Fuck you"? Come on, you can do better.
    Rogue: ...Cunt!
    Sandor: You're shit at dying, you know that?
  • Later...
    Sandor: There was a time I would have killed all seven of you just to gut these three.
    Thoros: (Amused) You're getting old, Clegane.
    Sandor: He's not. (Kicks out stool, hanging Septon Ray's murderer.)
• Declaration of Protection:
  • With Sansa. He genuinely despises the abuse she goes through, saves her from an Attempted Rape and clearly states he's going to protect her from Joffrey when they'll eventually marry.
    Sandor: You'll be glad of the hateful things I do, one day, when you are Queen and I will be all that stands between you and your beloved King.
  • He makes another, more subtle declaration about Arya during a confrontation with Brienne.
    Sandor: There’s no safety, you dumb bitch. If you don’t know that by now, you’re the wrong one to watch over her.
    Brienne: And that's what you're doing? Watching over her?
    Sandor: Aye, that's what I'm doing.
• Defector from Decadence: He has enough of the Lannisters and leaves them in "Blackwater".
• Despair Event Horizon: Sandor is in this state for most of the series, ever since his brother was knighted despite burning Sandor's face and murdering their sister. This made Sandor lose any shred of idealism, and develop the Hound as a persona (similar to Tyrion). He keeps his trauma and sadness hidden under layers of cynicism, snark, and brutality. Whenever the mask of stoicism falls, what we see is a scared, broken man who has lost all hope.
• Diagonal Cut: Cuts two people in half during the battle of Blackwater, one like this, one clean across the belly.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": People often mistake him for a knight and call him "Ser". He doesn't like this, since he hates knights, particularly because his brother is a vicious murderer but gets away with it because he's "an annointed knight".
• The Dreaded: Not quite as much as his brother, but he's more than capable of making an entire room full of happy go lucky Lannister soldiers go silent as the grave when he enters.
• Dual Wielding: Subverted. Although he typically carries two swords: a BFS slung over his back and a normal sword at his hip, he never uses them simultaneously. The normal sword is seen more in combat, while the BFS is reserved for whenever he fights his brother Gregor.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Facing down his evil, zombified brother Gregor in a brutal, prolonged Duel to the Death amongst the ruins of the collapsing Red Keep, before tackling him so the Cleganes will plunge to their deaths together in a Mutual Kill.
• Ear Ache: Has his ear bitten off by Brienne, when they fight over Arya in "The Children".
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch:
  • In "Blackwater", Bronn and some gold cloaks and Lannister soldiers are drinking, singing, and whoring in a tavern, expecting Stannis' siege. Then Sandor Clegane enters with a guy, and he motions to two guys to get out from their table. They don't even say a single word and go. One of them tries to take his mug of ale with him, but the Hound calmy takes it from his hands, sits, and starts drinking. Pure alpha dog.
  • Pulls this intimidation technique on Polliver shortly before slaughtering him and three or four of his men, complete with Badass Boast.
    Polliver: You don't seem to understand the situation.
    Sandor: I understand that if any more words come pouring out your cunt mouth, I'm going to have to eat every fucking chicken in this room.
• Establishing Character Moment: While he's in the first episode, he doesn't actually do anything until the end of the second, where he murders Mycah and shows absolutely no remorse. His lack of action in the first episode can be one as well; when Tyrion slaps his royal nephew for being an obnoxious brat, he just stands there and watches with no intervention despite supposedly being Joffrey's bodyguard.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Despite his taste for violence and death, he defends Ser Loras from his brother Gregor when the latter goes batshit and immediately goes on one knee after being told to by the King while dodging his brother's sword in the process, and goes against Joffrey's orders to protect Sansa. At one point, he actually abandons Joffrey's side to find and rescue Sansa in the middle of a massive riot.
  • Even though he's not going to get a ransom payment for Arya — what with her mother and brother being killed — Sandor doesn't leave her behind in the chaos of the Red Wedding. When he sees what the Freys have done to Robb's corpse, he is horrified, and quickly leaves so Arya doesn't have to witness any more of it, and when she later kills a Frey soldier in front of the rest of his unit, he gladly slaughters them, only slightly irritated that Arya didn't tell him first.
  • In the first episode of Season 4, Arya asks why Sandor didn't steal anything of Joffrey's when he fled King's Landing. His response? 'A man's got to have a code.' He backpedals on this two episodes later, stealing a farmer's money after he and his daughter had given them food and shelter and offered work. It says something about how deeply buried his decency is that the most heroic thing he does during the scene is to leave them alive after he robs them. Arya points out that he said he's not a thief, and the Hound simply tells her "I wasn't."
    • He also justifies his theft by claiming the farmer was too soft and wouldn't survive anyway. Sadly he was correct with that dark observation. It is very notable that when he later finds the corpses of the farmer and his daughter, he feels profound guilt for what he did to the point of personally burying their skeletons despite the freezing weather at the time.
  • He also has a subtle but very clear dislike towards seeing the women he cares even slightly about abused or hurt, with him going out of his way to protect Sansa in King's Landing from rioters (and promising to do the same from Joffrey) and in Season 4, his butchering of a squad of his brother's men was partially triggered by Polliver offering to trade food in return for being able to rape Arya.
  • He's not a fan of casual sadism. His kills, whilst brutal, are always quick - with the exception of the Brotherhood outlaws and Lem Lemoncloak, who thoroughly deserved it. Furthermore, he's visibly disgusted by Joffrey's sadism, rarely lifting a finger to help the king and abandoning him when the opportunity presents itself.
  • He is visibly distraught by the sight of the dead villagers and Brother Ray hanging at the end of 6x07, though by this point he's more of an Anti-Hero.
• Eye Scream: This nearly happens to him during his fight with Gregor, aka The Mountain. While he manages to prevent fully losing his eyes, they are bloodied from the strain of fighting off Gregor and Sandor uses the last of his strength and remainder of his vision to shove both himself and his brother to their deaths.
• Fat and Skinny: The Skinny to Gregor's Fat. Downplayed in that both men are muscular giants, but Sandor has a leaner, more traditional build while Gregor is slightly larger and much bulkier.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His fear of fire always gets the best of him, it causes him to abandon the Battle of Blackwater and it renders him usless against the bear wight during the venture North of the wall.
  • His fatalistic worldview has screwed him over many times and caused him to pick a fight with Brienne due to thinking she was allied with the Lannisters — to be fair, Jaime Lannister did give her that sword after all. That particular encounter incapacitated him for the better part of two years. In the Battle against the Undead, Sandor is hit with a bad Heroic BSoD and despairs on how pointless the fight is, since they are fighting death itself...up until he sees Arya being chased by Wights, that is.
• Face Your Fears: Despite being terrified of fire, he still manages to win when Beric Dondarrion fights him with a Flaming Sword.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Littlefinger tells Sansa that the Hound's scars come from his brother pushing his face into a fire when he was eight-years-old because he played with one of Gregor's toys, implying it's a reason for his roughness. Sandor openly suggests that the incident marked him psychologically even more than physically when he relates the story to Arya.
    Sandor: My brother gave me this. Pressed me to the fire like I was a nice juicy mutton chop. Thought I stole one of his toys. I didn't steal it. I was just playing with it. The pain was bad. The smell was worse. But the worst thing was that it was my brother who did it. My father, who protected him, told everyone my bedding caught fire. You think you're on your own?
  • His attitude towards Sansa (and to a lesser extent, Arya) could be partially because they remind him of his younger sister whom was murdered by Gregor years ago.
• Genius Bruiser: Not only is he one of the greatest fighters in the show, he also knows how to survive in a horrible place like Westeros. Almost everything he says, even if it's mean, is correct.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: His horribly disfigured face can be... off-putting to say the least.
  Sandor: (to Sansa) Look at me! Stannis is a killer. The Lannisters are killers. Your father was a killer. Your brother is a killer. Your sons will be killers some day. The world is built by killers, so you better get used to looking at them.
• Hates Being Touched: He'll usually bark at people to stop touching him or to go away if they get too close to him. There is an exception to this rule, and that's Sansa Stark.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: In the fourth season finale, he does truly act to selflessly protect Arya, taking on a strong foe believing she's tied to the Lannisters. This gets him badly wounded and abandoned by Arya. Subverted later when he survives and they forgive one another when they meet again, showing no hard feelings.
• Heel–Face Turn: Deserts Joffrey and the Lannisters in "Blackwater".
• Heroic Second Wind: During his Heroic BSoD in "The Long Night", Sandor seems all but ready to give up...until Beric points out that Arya's still fighting. When Sandor sees the Stark girl fleeing for her life from Wights, he immediately gets up and runs after them.
• He's Back!: When Sandor returns in "The Broken Man", he seems to have renounced violence and is living his life as a peaceful and humble villager. But then the Brotherhood Without Banners slaughters his friends, and the Hound returns with a vengeance.
• Hyper-Awareness: Often demonstrates shades of this, presumably honed by having been around Lannisters for so long. He notices the riot in King's Landing before it even breaks out and in "The Rains of Castamere", as soon as the guard began to act suspicious, immediately figured out exactly what's about to go down at the wedding. He's also able to spot a Valryian steel sword and quickly piece together that Brienne of Tarth has been equipped by a Lannister, having spent so much time around their men.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: His reaction to seeing a man burn to death in front of him during the Battle of the Blackwater.
  Sandor: Fuck the water. Bring me wine.
• Insistent Terminology.
  Sandor: I am no Ser.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Arya, eventually, after much hate and heartbreak between them.
• Irony: Sandor, a man with an intense fear of fire after his brother burnt his face many years ago, ends up joining up with the Brotherhood Without Banners, who worship the Lord of Light whose will they believe can be seen within fire. He's well aware of the irony in this one.
• Jerkass: Unrepentantly so, at least at the start of the series. Later appearances reveal that he is more of a Tragic Villain who is not without standards.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A heart of rusted bronze but especially prominent after joining Septon Ray's crew, particularly when he vows to avenge their deaths. This is shown again during his warmer interactions with Sansa in Season 8.
• Jerkass Has a Point: His Kick the Dog moments with Arya, while unpleasant, serve to teach her how to survive in a Crapsack World like Westeros, especially given how her family was decimated by those not willing to play by the rules.
• Just Following Orders: How he justifies his crimes when he's put on trial by the Brotherhood, including killing Mycah, as he had to obey Joffrey's commands.
• Kick the Dog:
  • His murder of Mycah the Butcher's Boy.
    Sandor: He ran... but not very fast.
  • Applies to the Stark guardsmen that he butchers in the throne room once Slynt has betrayed Ned. Also a case of Punch-Clock Villain.
  • After winning his Trial By Combat and being acquitted of Mycah's murder he needlessly mocks Arya, who has to be restrained from killing him.
    Sandor: Looks like the Gods like me more than your Butcher's Boy.
  • Taken in by a man and his young daughter and trusted under Sacred Hospitality, he beats up the man and steals what few valuables he has. Arya gives him a brief but impassioned "The Reason You Suck" Speech for it.
• Knight in Sour Armor: More than hinted that despite his Blood Knight exterior he's this underneath. It becomes more evident in season 6 and beyond. Sandor is as bad-tempered and cynical as ever, but he keeps fighting for a cause that's bigger than him because he understands precisely what is at stake.
• Lady and Knight: The closest thing you get in the Game of Thrones setting, with Sansa as the Lady.
• Last of His Kind: Sandor Clegane is the last recruit of the Brotherhood Without Banners and he becomes the last of the Brotherhood after the Long Night, dying in battle facing Gregor Clegane, the man the Brotherhood was dispatched by Ned Stark to hunt down in Season 1.
• Lightning Bruiser: Sandor is a big guy, but he moves quickly. This is how he's become such a feared swordsman, and how he stands toe-to-toe with Gregor at the Tourney of the Hand.
• Lima Syndrome: Ends up identifying with Sansa (a hostage in King's Landing) and Arya who is kidnapped by the Hound for ransom. It looks like Arya is starting to bond with him in return, but that turns out not to be the case — though she does start to sympathise with him, her hatred for him due to Mycah's death and her contempt for his more petty actions (such as robbing the poor farmer) mean that she is not quite able to truly make peace with him. Ultimately, she grants him Cruel Mercy because he wants to be given a Mercy Kill, and Arya doesn't want him going out on his own terms given all the things he'd done up until then.
• Made of Iron: He can take a lot of punishment as shown in his fight with Brienne and Gregor. When Biter jump and bites him Sandor takes it almost like a mosquito bite and snap his neck.
• Meta Casting: Rory McCann is known for his solitary and transient lifestyle, almost like Sandor... or at least, Sandor after deserting the Lannisters.
• Multi-Melee Master: Initially, he's fond of carrying around a longsword, greatsword anddagger. The first scene of Season 2 has him using a mace in a tourney duel. In season 6, he uses a woodcutter's axe to kill the guys who destroyed the village he'd settled into after his fight with Brienne. Against the undead, he makes use of Gendry's warhammer as well as a pair of Dragonglass hatchets. At the beginning of Season 8 he has a Dragonglass battle axe forged by Gendry.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He has this reaction when returning to the farm from Season 4 only to find that the old peasant and his daughter killed themselves so they wouldn't starve to death. He is immediately broken with guilt for having stolen from them and proceeds to bury their remains.
• Named Weapons: Not a fan. Possibly exacerbated by Joffrey giving his swords delightful names like 'Hearteater' and then never actually using them.
  Sandor: Needle? Of course you named your sword.
  Arya: Lots of people name their swords.
  Sandor: Lots of cunts.
• Neck Lift: In "The Old Gods And The New", he does this to one of the men trying to rape Sansa. Then he disembowels the man with his dagger.
• Noble Demon:
  • The Hound does not lie. When the Brotherhood tries to blame Gregor's crimes on him, he rebukes the accusation, but when they bring his actual crimes he admits to them without hesitation.
  • When Arya snaps and kills a Frey soldier out of revenge (and food and fire). Sandor pulls her aside afterwards and tells her if she ever does that again... at least warn him first.
• Not Quite Dead: He managed to hang on after his duel with Brienne, and survived to return in Season 6.
• Only Sane Man: Tries and fails to deal with Arya's psychotic bouts. This really says more about her than him.
• Opt Out: In "Second Sons", when Arya thinks he's taking her back to King's Landing, he makes it clear he's no longer allied with the Lannisters:
  Sandor: Fuck Joffrey! Fuck the Queen!
• Papa Wolf: At first he views Arya as nothing more than an annoying brat to ransom, but he subconsciously grows very protective of her over time:
  • He decides to attack Polliver after Polliver reveals his intent to rape Arya.
  • He fights Brienne (and almost gets killed as a result) because he doesn't think she'll be capable of protecting Arya from the Lannisters.
  • He overcomes his fear of fire to save Arya from the wights.
  • A small example, but he gives Gendry a subtle (and hilarious) Death Glare when he asks where Arya is. While he approves of their relationship and encourages Gendry to go for it, he still comes off as a bit of a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad in this scene.
  • He sends Arya away when the Red Keep starts to collapse, because he doesn't want her to throw away her life for revenge like he's doing. Arya thanks him for this, fully forgiving the Hound and putting any animosity between them to rest. Sandor smiles at this, then they part ways forever, never seeing each other again...
• Parental Substitute: To Arya. Whether she cares to admit it or not, Arya grows to see him as a father figure since during their time traveling together, she learns from him how to become ruthless and savvy enough for the environment they live in for survival purposes, as well as learning to empathize with Sandor's tragic background, thus leading Arya to remove him from her "list of names". This works in reverse as well, since Arya becomes someone worthwhile for Sandor to protect and watch over, having grown disillusioned with the Knight life and the lack of decent people in the world. This makes it especially hard when she is forced to leave Sandor behind at his request in the penultimate episode of the series. Fighting back tears, she thanks Sandor for all that he's done for her.
• Percussive Therapy: This is at least part of the reason why he does so much work with Ray and the villagers, as he's clearly blowing off steam. It seems to do him some good, as he is much more calm and even-tempered when we see him in Season 6. It was probably the closest thing he had to therapy his entire life.
• Pet the Dog:
  • It becomes exceedingly clear that he cares a lot about Sansa; despite being gruff to her, he treats her kindly, and even asks her to flee the city with him in "Blackwater". And then he offers to take Arya to the Freys to meet up with her mother and brother despite the fact that he knows Arya would rather kill him. Then he saves her at the Red Wedding, despite having no reason to do so.
  • After discovering the corpses of the farmer and girl he robbed in Season 4, he is saddened by their fate and gives them a proper burial. Unable to recall the Faith of the Seven funeral rites, he simply declares that they both "deserved better" than what they received.
  • Despite incessantly snarking at Beric and Thoros over the course of his association with the Brotherhood, Sandor does his best to comfort Beric when Thoros succumbs to hypothermia during the wight-hunting expedition.
  • When he meets Brienne of Tarth again at the Dragon Pit for the first time in years he, almost congratulatory, tells her she'd come the closest anyone's ever come to actually killing him. And when Brienne tells him that Arya is alive, back home at Winterfell, and a more deadly fighter than either of them put together, he positively beams with pride.
  • In the penultimate episode, he tells Arya that she needs to give up on hatred, lest she end up like him, and talks her out of the suicide mission they're on.
• The Power of Hate: Septon Ray remarks that Sandor's wounds should have killed him several times over, and asks what kept Sandor alive. Sandor replies "hate." He realizes the toxicity of fully living this way and manages to talk some sense into Arya during the penultimate episodes, not wanting her to throw away her life and her state of mind for the sake of pointless revenge.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When he finds some of the men who murdered Septon Ray, he splits the last one's nutsack with an axe, then begins interrogating him. The man screams, "Fuck you!" Sandor replies, "Really? 'Fuck you?' That's your last words?" The man then stutters, "Cunt!" Sandor replies, "You're shit at dying, you know that?" before hacking the man's skull in two.
• Progressively Prettier: The makeup job becomes much less pronounced with each advancing season after 2, which coincides with his becoming a (marginally) more sympathetic character.
• Properly Paranoid: Being around Lannisters all the time, tends to have this effect.
• Prophetic Names: Who’s pack does “The Hound” run with once he turns ‘feral?’ The ‘wolves’.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Looks like one. While he blatantly admits that he loves killing, he's also completely obedient to whoever he's serving and has a soft spot for Sansa, showing her small kindnesses wherever he can. He also stood up to his brother's attempt to kill Loras. He's also rather decent to Arya, who tried to kill him on at least two occasions.
• Put on a Bus: He missed out on the entirety of Season 5 and the first half of 6.
• Rage Helm: His helmet looks like a snarling dog.
• Ramming Always Works: He kills himself and Gregor by spearing the latter through a wall and falling into a dragonfire.
• Red Baron: Nicknamed "The Hound" for his gruff but loyal character and the snarling dog helmet he uses.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: He's a better person after his near-death experience, but it hasn't softened him up very much. He even considers Beric and company "a bunch of Nancys" because they won't let him execute the outlaws who massacred his village with his axe. He didn't deride them as weak because they wouldn't let him execute them — they were going to execute them — he jeered at them for not letting him torture them a bit first.
• Retired Badass: He looks to be at peace with Septon Ray and his followers, and seriously considers just giving up his hate and living a normal life. The Brotherhood Without Banners derails that, though.
• The Rival: He and Bronn have a lot in common, as he points out. He'd also rather like to rip Bronn's head off for no other reason than Bronn working for Tyrion and being a bit grating on the nerves.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He finds himself forced to help Arya carry out her own on Frey soldiers after the Red Wedding. In Season 6, after the massacre of the smallfolk building the sept and Brother Ray's hanging, Sandor resolves to go on one of these against renegades of the Brotherhood Without Banners.
• Robbing the Dead: He is quite pragmatic about death and is seen several times taking food from people he has killed or who happen to be dead. Most often it's food, or once he took boots from a guy he executed by hanging.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: They call him "The Hound" for a reason. He's an expert at locating and tracking people. He's even able to find and rescue Sansa in the middle of a riot in King's Landing.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • At the Battle of Blackwater.
    Sandor: Fuck the Kingsguard. Fuck the city. Fuck the King.
  • DVD extras for Season 2 show that this was actually the reason he served the Lannisters more directly in the first place; the day his father died and Gregor took over their family keep, he got the hell out of there and rode to Casterly Rock.
• Self-Proclaimed Knight: He is an inversion of this trope. He's totally eligible to be a knight, but isn't because he doesn't want to. He views the entire institution of Knighthood to be deeply hypocritical because they claim to have lofty ideals yet monsters like his brother are knighted without issue.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Even if he wasn't this before, the Battle of the Blackwater (specifically the Blackwater being on fire) really screwed him up.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Few characters on the show swear more than he does. "Fuck the King" or some variation thereof is practically his Catchphrase.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: To Tyrion. But considering the nastiness of the Lannister faction as a whole, it also resembles an Odd Friendship, especially in regards to protecting Sansa and being annoyed at Joffrey. And as of Season 3, he's shaping up to be this to Arya.
• The Snark Knight: Has a fatalistic view of the world, expressed through either complaints or snarky zings.
• So Proud of You:
  • While Arya isn't around to see it, he genuinely beams when Brienne tells him that she doesn't think the Stark girl needs protecting anymore. While their reunion at Winterfell in Season 8 bristles with tension, it becomes clear quickly that it's mostly preformative on both their parts and each of them are quietly impressed at how far they've both come.
  • This his also reaction when Sansa tells him that she had her abusive rapist of an ex-husband fed to his own hounds, even laughing about it before telling his Little Bird that she's grown up.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: His unpleasant personality is rooted from the traumatic incident in his youth that literally burned all the idealism out of him, as well as the lingering guilt for some of the things he has done in life. Tormund outright says he has "sad eyes."
• The Stoic: The most emotion you get out of Sandor comes from brief flickers of expression on his face.
• Sword and Fist: Sandor's combat style is brutal and underhanded. He's almost as likely to swing with a fist as he is with his sword. This is best shown in his fights against Polliver and his men and Brienne.
• Taking You with Me: He dies tossing himself and Gregor from the ruins of the Red Keep into the dragonfire burning King's Landing.
• That Man Is Dead: While Sandor Clegane may have survived the fight and the fall at the end of Season 4, Brienne killed "the Hound". Until the Brotherhood unintentionally resurrected it.
• Think Nothing of It: He refuses to be thanked or complimented for saving Sansa.
• Took a Level in Kindness: When returning in Season 6, he's still pretty cynical but is less of a Jerkass and tries to leave his past behind him to lead a normal life. Even when he returns to being "the Hound" while he's partly motivated by revenge he's also at least partly motivated to avenge the innocents he was living among, pushing him more in an Anti-Hero direction than before.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sandor has a memetic love of chicken.
• Tragic Villain: As he tells Arya, Sandor has no one who loves him, with his only living family being his Ax-Crazy psychopath of a brother who burned half of Sandor's face off when they were children, and whom Sandor despises. The Hound is by no standard a nice person, but he's led a horrible life.
• Tranquil Fury: A particularly brutal example. Sandor rarely shows any emotion while slaughtering people. When he rescues Sansa from would-be rapists he does so with a grim, emotionless expression while ruthlessly gutting the rioters.
• Two-Faced: One half of his face was horribly burned by Gregor.
• Troll: Deliberately goads Polliver into attacking him after Polliver boasts about being able to rape and murder with impunity under his brother's command. (And for offering him food in exchange for raping Arya.)
  • Taunts Arya with Syrio Forel's death, mocking her that her 'real killer' was supposedly killed by Meryn Trant and getting amused by her angry retorts.
• Undying Loyalty: "The Long Night" makes it clear, despite hitting the Despair Event Horizon, the man will fight through fire and the undead for Arya Stark.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Even at his least villainous, Sandor has no qualms with ruthless actions that benefit himself.
• Violent Glaswegian: Shades of this. He claims to greatly enjoy violence and killing — the guilt-free killing of fighting other soldiers who are trying to kill you first. He will only fight someone once given an excuse, though once given an excuse he will happily rip your guts out. Still, instead of a hair-trigger temper, he's much more Tranquil Fury. Of course, Rory McCann is authentically Glaswegian himself, and while he massively tones down his native accent (which one might call explosively Scottish) to play Sandor, it's still quite audible.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Thoros. They've clearly known each other a long time (both living in King's Landing and being part of Robert Baratheon's court) and understand each other's quirks, to the extent that when Sandor tries to insult or berate Thoros, he barely reacts. Sandor is clearly upset when Thoros dies, even going so far as to try and comfort Beric, who he has an even more hostile relationship with up to that point.
• Walking Spoiler:Brienne didn't kill him, and he returns in Season 6.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Due to how he got his own burns, he is uncharacteristically unnerved by the sight of wildfire during "Blackwater". Visibly shaken he then threatens the man leading the fire arrow volleys that he'll strangle him with his own entrails should any land near him. The final straw however is when he sees a man burning alive charging toward him. It causes him to freeze up, quit from the battlefield and demand a strong drink. Probably also the reason why, when its demanded to return to the defense, he tells the Kingsguard and Joffrey to go fuck themselves.
  • He does deal with it considerably better in Season 3 when Beric Dondarrion attacks him with a flaming sword — he even wins the duel!
  • He eventually joins the Brotherhood Without Banners, and remarks: "It's my fucking luck that I end up with a band of fire worshippers."
  • During the venture beyond the Wall, Sandor is too terrified to even defend himself from an undead polar bear because the bear is swathed in flames, having been hit by Beric's Flaming Sword. As such, Thoros has to shove Sandor out the way and fight the bear himself, an action that ends up costing Thoros his life.
• Why Won't You Die?: When his attacks to Gregor, including impaling him with his sword, do absolutely nothing to slow him down, all Sandor can do is screaming at him to, "FUCKING DIE!!" before deciding to tackle Gregor into the Red Keep miles below, into the giant inferno left behind by Drogon.
• Worf Had the Flu: He gets bitten near the end of Season 4 and the wound festers because he won't let Arya cauterize it. Arya points out that Sandor got a lot slower because of it and he's clearly not at his best when he fights Brienne.
  • A case of Truth in Television as bite wounds inflicted by humans are notoriously prone to becoming infected.
• Worthy Opponent: He lets Brienne know that he sees her as this when they meet again at the end of Season 7, noting that she came closer to killing him than anyone else.
• Would Hit a Girl: In "Blackwater", Sandor notes that he has put several women in the ground, and that Bronn has, too. In "The Children", he fights Brienne and doesn't pull any punches at all, even going far enough to kick her in the lady parts.
• Would Hurt a Child: Killed Mycah the Butcher's Boy when Joffrey commanded it. When he learns Arya did the deed that Mycah was accused of, he says he should have killed her.
  • He also punches Arya in the face at one point while she's Water Dancing, knocking her to the floor and giving her a split lip. Though in all fairness, he largely did this to demonstrate his point to her, about the tradeoffs of power vs speed: she outmaneuvered him with fast Water Dancing moves and a light rapier...only for her stab to accomplish nothing, because he was wearing heavy armor, and her fast moves didn't help block the raw power of a heavy mailed fist.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: After his rather impressive battle with Brienne of Tarth in the Season 4 finale; he tries to pull this on Arya, so that she would give him a quick death, by commenting on what he did to her friend Mycah the butcher's boy and talking of how he should have raped Sansa. It doesn't work at all, and he is left screaming for Arya to come and kill him.