All of Sandor Clegane’s stripped dialogue in ASOIAF

I’ve had people ask me to upload this again. It goes along with this meta.

WHY SANDOR HATES TYRION

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

corseque:

(one of the reasons) 

God, if someone’s already mentioned this, I’m going to be sad.

Read More

I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but I have a meta on why Sandor hates Tyrion that’s been sitting in my drafts for more than a year (sigh) in which this is a central point. And I think I might have discussed it with others (headtrip, maybe?) via replies or on LJ or something.

However, though I’ve read those two Sansa and Arya chapters back-to-back probably a dozen times, I had not caught on that the mention in Sansa’s chapter was deliberate for the reader to remember for Arya’s chapter. So thank you so much for finding literary proof for something I had only worked out via inference and intuition before! I really really appreciate it, you’re the best.

(Note that the subject is also brought up in the Tyrion chapter after Arya’s, there’s another point of connection. Also, the sequence of Sansa VI: in which Sansa wonders if Sandor has heard of Joffrey’s death yet; Tyrion X: in which Gregor fights Oberyn; Jaime IX: in which we learn Gregor is dying of poison; Arya XIII: in which Sandor finds out what happened to Joffrey and Sansa, and Gregor’s rats (who haven’t heard the news yet) threaten to take him to wherever Gregor is — is also a very interesting bit of connecting references and topics. And that’s accomplished by excluding Jon/Dany chapters, i.e., removing the ice & fire chapters and just focusing on the game of thrones ones. It’s pretty neat.)

Anyhoo. Now I really need to publish that meta. Thanks again, so much.

edit: Also, I should note my fanfic where Sandor becomes Cersei’s shield takes place right before Jaime returns home and takes Tyrion on that fateful adventure. In it I have Sandor vaguely bothered by Tyrion (for other reasons I’ll get into in that meta), but he doesn’t hate him, he feels something closer to pity than anything else. It’s only after Sandor learns of Tyrion’s wife and what happened to her that his mild dislike would turn into loathing.

You’re welcome! And I dearly want to read your meta!!There are several other reasons they hate each other, of course, and I’d love to hear it from you.

Yeah, it’s been so frustrating to me that this hatred-of-Tyrion-because-of-Tysha thing has been embraced as obvious by people who like and pay attention to Sandor, even though it’s always been hard to explain why the reason seems so obvious.

I’ve been thinking about this discovery over the past few months, and there is just zero other reason for that particular strange, random exchange between Littlefinger and Sansa to exist the way it does. Sansa never thinks about it again! If it had been important for either of these characters, they could have talked about it in the previous chapter and not randomly blurted it out on the boat. I haven’t checked, but I can’t remember another time that Tyrion’s wife is mentioned by someone other than a Lannister family member (read: the books bringing up (as important) how that event would be viewed by outsiders who only heard gossip about it)! It’s just suspicious as hell.

And then later on in the same chapter, Tyrion is associated with Sandor in Sansa’s dream, which subconsciously associates Littlefinger’s comments with Sandor, and then Sandor is associated with Lothor’s protection against sexual violence, further strengthening the association, and so it is that we readers have some very persistent thoughts that blossom in Arya’s chapter.

I love to look at this series with the thought of “Why did GRRM put this here? What is this paragraph serving?” more than anything else. It’s wonderful to be able to have those kind of investigative thoughts about a book, and being rewarded by writing so technically sound and deep that it actually holds up to the scrutiny (and might even be more clever and manipulative than you know).

headtripxhoney replied to your post: WHY SANDOR HATES TYRION

Yup. Also why he says he should’ve done all those awful things to Sansa…BEFORE LEAVING HER FOR THAT DWARF.

I actually was getting so depressed re-reading that chapter that I stopped right before he started to fight, so I didn’t go on to talk about that. But yes, exactly. This is the reason why that chapter seems to baffle so many people, when it’s really quite fucking obvious if you’ve been paying any attention at all, ever, to this character. 

He had a kinship with this girl who represents to him an ideal long thought dead, and this kinship gives him hope at the same time as it shows him his failure. This news of the marriage of this girl-who-is-an-ideal makes him give up on life, make him get into a drunken swordfight with multiple opponents, makes him lay on the side of the road, delirious with fever, crying.

Leaving her to be married to the Imp… it’s like he left every damsel he ever pretended to save as a child be left to that fate. It’s proof that he was right all along, that the world really is shit, and there’s nothing in it that can be kept safe or pure. He’d been arguing that case throughout ACOK with Sansa, trying to convince her to embrace the nihilism he’d made his worldview, but she had in turn broken him with a kind gesture. And he learned that there really was such a thing as a lady, like in the stories. She’d shamed him and proven him wrong, but now it’s like the world itself was trying to prove him right.

Married to the Imp. Of course. That’s what a world as terrible as Sandor had always seen it, would have in store for a proper, courteous lady like Sansa.

WHY SANDOR HATES TYRION

(one of the reasons) 

God, if someone’s already mentioned this, I’m going to be sad.

Meta about the foreshadowing in Sandor and Gregor’s duels in ASOS

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

Complicated.

First and foremost, unlike some fans have speculated, I do not believe Sandor’s father (or grandfather for that matter) was abusive, either to him or to Gregor or to the women in the family. Gregor’s violence, sadism, and psychopathy (if one avoids the literary “he was just born/written that way”) is IMO rooted in a complex of mental and physical issues (seen in the gigantism and the migraines/noise sensitivity); and encouraged by a society that celebrates strong aggressive men with a talent for violence, and also considers women and lower classes to be lesser beings.

And, textually, we know that Sandor’s grandfather was knighted and his father was Tytos Lannister’s squire and also eventually a knight — and yet Sandor’s initial hatred of knights is attributed only to Gregor, and in his childhood he even wanted to be a knight. (Per the text and per GRRM.) And Sandor speaks of his grandfather with respect when relating his family history, and seems to be proud of his house excepting his brother. (“Is being born Clegane a crime?”, using the Clegane arms on his shield, the three dogs story, etc.) So, I feel if there were any truth to the idea that any of the elder Cleganes were abusive, it would have shown in Sandor’s speech or other narration, and as it didn’t, they weren’t.

Also, considering young Sandor’s desire to be a knight, it’s probable he wanted to emulate his father, follow in his footsteps. So, I would think there was once respect there, and almost certainly love. (Especially when Sandor was a very young child.) However… it is without a doubt that Sandor’s father was at minimum negligent in regards to controlling the hyper-violent Gregor, and definitely complicit in the cover-up of the truth of Sandor’s burning. So… there’s complexity there too.

Though it must be realized, Sandor’s father was widowed at a fairly young age (when someone asked where Sandor’s mother was during the whole burning incident, GRRM said she was probably dead), and had three children to manage alone. And here’s his eldest son, his heir, 11 or 12 years old and already six feet tall and inhumanly strong (recall it took three grown men to tear him away from Sandor)… what’s it like to realize your son, your first born, is a monster? That this thing came from you, and hurts your other children, but he’s your heir, he’s still your child… what can you do? This isn’t a world where there’s any kind of treatment for that sort of problem. And so he covered up the truth, he lied, he tried to pretend it didn’t happen. No, Sandor’s father most likely wasn’t abusive — but he was an emotionally compromised, sad man, probably scared to death of his eldest son, with no true ability to protect his other children.

But imagine Sandor, age six or seven — his father was the arbiter of justice in his world, the man who was supposed to protect him, keep him safe, right wrongs — what did this betrayal do to his worldview? Even if Sandor loved him, what was it like to be shown by his father that the strong can get away with whatever they want, that there is no justice, no value in truth? Not just physical, but psychological scarring… a boy’s deep, bitter disappointment in how he once believed the way the world should work (complicated by Gregor’s later knighting by Rhaegar himself) — that’s key to how Sandor Clegane, the Hound, sees the world.

And somewhere around this time, Sandor’s sister was murdered. (Excuse me, “died young under queer circumstances”.) And then, just a few years after Sandor’s burning, Gregor killed their father too. (Oh, sorry, it was a “hunting accident”.) And Sandor left home, that very day, and never returned. (“Not even to visit”, tyvm Ned.) That’s notable, that his father’s murder was what finally made Sandor break away from his home… that there was no longer any reason for him to stay, no hope, no help, no defense at all. It’s no wonder this child (he was younger than 12 when it happened) seized on the Lannisters as a replacement family and became entirely devoted to them. But to them he was only their dog, and, well, we saw what happened when he finally broke that leash.

(By the way, I’ve started to wonder if Sandor initially went to Tywin with some small hopes of getting justice for his father, only to find when he arrived that Gregor had already informed him of his version of the story and was granted the inheritance, etc. One more betrayal of truth and justice…)

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

tumblrofthrones:

amplifyme:

“He’s attracted to her because she’s the thing he can never have.”

That’s straight from David Benioff’s mouth. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve read the same books.

Of all the reasons I can think of for Sandor to be attracted to Sansa, this one is almost completely off my radar. I never thought, reading ACOK, that he wants her because he can never have her. He wants her because she is the living, breathing testament to every story and song about knights and fair maidens he heard when he was a boy, before his brother shoved his face in that fire and burned away not only flesh, but idealism and honor and the possibility of something beautiful and real in an otherwise ugly world. Sandor is attracted to Sansa because she’s not just a pretty little bird who recites all the pretty little things she’s been taught to say. She has a mind and an opinion and she’s not afraid to show him that. He’s attracted to her because she’s offered him compassion and tenderness and empathy. He’s attracted to her because she reminds him that he’s more than just a dog.

Is there a small part of him that thinks he can never have her? I suppose it’s possible, but that didn’t stop him from waiting in her room and offering her protection and a way out of King’s Landing during the Blackwater Bay battle. If he truly thought he could never have her, would he have done that? Would he have waited around, knowing his life was now forfeit, if he didn’t believe in the possibility that Sansa might accept his offer and come with him?

No wonder the Sandor/Sansa dynamic was gutted so badly in the second season of GoT. At least half of the showrunner team is utterly without a clue.

You’re actually saying partly the same thing as Benioff, I think. Sandor wants the thing he can never have- that sweet innocence and hope that Sansa has. Compassion and a positive sort of strength, and a warm safe place- that’s what she is to him, and what he thinks he doesn’t deserve, and so he won’t have. He may want her and that goodness, but he doesn’t actually believe he can have it. He may have tried in Blackwater, when he was drunk and desperate, since he had just walked away from the king, a dangerous act. But I suspect he didn’t really believe she’d take him up on his offer.

Benioff is straight-up wrong about plenty of things but this isn’t one of them. It’s largely a matter of interpretation, so neither of the takes on it- yours or Benioff’s- is wrong.

Pretty much this. The whole clip is illuminating — the songs of knights and fair maidens, the “idealism and honor and the possibility of something beautiful and real in an otherwise ugly world” are the things Sandor feels he can never have, not anymore. He both wants Sansa for these reasons and is angered by these elements of her at the same time. His fundamental conflict in the first two books is the part of him that wants to have and protect these things, and the part of him that wants to break and destroy them, as he himself was broken, perhaps to prove to himself that those ideals were never real and he was a fool for believing in them.

And Sandor’s actions in Sansa’s room at Blackwater is the culmination of that mental conflict. His offer to take her home is never actually stated as such (book version, not show), and he takes her silence/misunderstanding as a rejection, far too easily — because, again, in his mind, someone like him could never have someone like her. He offers to protect her and yet threatens her with a knife; he says he’ll kill anyone that hurts her and yet one of the reasons he was in her room was out of that same mix of desire/destruction (yes, what he told Arya was incite her to kill him, but I believe there was a lot of truth there as well).

But in the end, Sansa’s idealism and goodness and empathy win out over his destructive urges, and Sandor leaves because he knows he’s too ruined and broken for her… tearing off the white cloak of the Kingsguard (knights and honor and protection, all his childhood dreams, torn and stained) as he goes.

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

edralis:

eeba-ism:

My attempt at a book-canon Sandor c:

(you are more than welcome to delete my following ramblings if you want to reblog the pic!)

For me, the only mattering point of difference between Sandor in the books and Rory McCann’s portrayal of him comes down to “hate”. Rory plays a Sandor who’s got a secure lid on his… “issues”, shall we say. It’s is a valid interpretation, because for all his volatility there’s no hard evidence that Sandor hasn’t got himself in check.

But in my head-canon, Sandor is constantly a heartbeat away from completely losing it. He drinks himself blind so that he won’t smash Gregor’s face in first chance he gets, or Joffrey’s face, or Tyrion’s. His scenes from Sansa’s perspective show him at the moments he comes closest to snapping (which I believe has everything to do with her effect on him) — until finally he does snap during the Battle of Blackwater. The fire flips his switch, and no amount of alcohol will un-flip it, and when he realises that, what does he do? He goes to Sansa. I assume with confidence it’s the closest he’s come to being romantic in the entirety of his bitter little life.

It would’ve been so very interesting if Gregor had been in King’s Landing during the Battle of Blackwater. Who would Sandor have picked, I wonder? Probably Gregor. But then… perhaps not?

GRRM placing Gregor elsewhere at that point delays the decision we’re all dying to see Sandor make. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s what it will come to…

Gregor or Sansa. He can’t have both.

… Well, that was a tangent. What was I supposed to be talking about? Yeah — “hate”! Rory McCann is glorious, and I wouldn’t have any other Hound, but, in my mind, Sandor’s eyes are more pits of hell than they are big and beautiful and brown, and that most of all was what I wanted to capture with this sketch :)

Either way, I’d be on him in a second.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

THIS. IS. PERFECT.

lalalqwojewiosegthwgEJGHWU

OMG!!!!!

THOSE EYES! THE MANLY TEARS JUST ABOUT TO START FLOWING!

THE WONDERFULLY MUSCLED TORSO! THE DELICIOUSLY HAIRY CHEST! THE BIG HANDS, CLOSED AROUND THE POMMEL!

THE NOSE! THE SCARS!

THE OBLIGATORY SCOWL! I CAN ALMOST HEAR HIM RASPING “little bird” while being all melodramatic and conflicted and depressed and angry; I can see him mocking her and eyefucking her and hating himself for it; I can see him butchering people in a testosterone and self-hatred fueled rage.

Dammit, this is so wonderful I almost want to cry.

Yes, this is perfect. And focused on the scarred side, which is rather (surprisingly?) rare in accurate book-Sandor art. Mind you I don’t typically visualize book-Sandor with a beard (with stubble yes — but note fanfic can do whatever it likes), but it really works for him here, I think.

And why would I delete the ramblings? I like them. :) It’s interesting to compare book- and tv-Sandor, emotionally… I once theorized that the primary difference between the depictions is that what book-Sandor says, tv-Sandor thinks — which is a way to get around the fact he hasn’t had enough lines, but also, yes, a sign that he may have more of his rage under control. We’ll have to wait for the 3rd season to be sure of this, mind you.

Note regarding the Blackwater and Sansa, I’m not sure it was fully a romantic effort on Sandor’s side, as much as a need to find a better, truer master once he’d cast his lifetime allegiance aside. Of course there was also an element of desire there (and maybe an attempt at romance in the courtly knight-and-maiden sense), and it all got twisted up in his head, but it’s important to note that “I could keep you safe” means things on several different levels. And it’s Sansa’s apparent rejection of this offer (on all its levels), as well as Sandor’s own abandonment of one of his major life purposes (and of course his whole self-realization due to Sansa’s song and her touch), that sends him masterless and purposeless, wandering aimlessly and drunkenly through the Riverlands.

As for Gregor at the Blackwater, I don’t think Sandor would have picked him for certain. Sandor’s relationship with Gregor is interesting, in that he says he wants him dead and he wants to kill him… but when we have one example for sure of when push came to shove, at the Hand’s Tourney, Ned notes that Sandor did not aim his sword at his brother’s unprotected head. And it’s a good question why not (some think Sandor was hoping Robert would step in for justice there), especially considering his words to Sansa the previous night. But I think Sandor wants to pick his battle, so that it fulfills whatever need for justice he has, and apparently defending Loras wasn’t the right time or whatever. And even though I don’t have much context for it, I think that fighting Gregor at the Blackwater would also not have been a proper fulfillment of that particular life motivation. (Also, the fire and stuff. Very bad.)

And, personally, I also think there’s a buried part of Sandor that does not truly want to be a kinslayer, not the way that Gregor is. (4 times over at minimum, if you count the dead wives.) It’s one of the ways, that even with Sandor’s rage and love of killing, where he’s separate from his monstrous brother. And I think whether he consciously realizes it or not, he doesn’t want to go there directly, not even if he says he does.

-book!Sandor drawn by eeba-ism
-meta by nobodysuspectsthebutterfly 

Yep, it all checks out. This may just be my favorite post on tumblr.

It looks like Headtrip and Mindset have been talking about how to write Sandor dialogue in fic while I was temporarily distracted? I would have reblogged your lovely commentary about how he doesn’t curse the way people think he does, but the posts I saw weren’t rebloggable. :/

To make it really easy to figure out how to write Sandor dialogue, HERE IS A HANDY POST WITH ONLY HIS DIALOGUE AND EVERYTHING ELSE CUT OUT.

Read it without the story distracting you, and you’ll probably notice a lot! Even with all the obvious “rasping voice” indicators taken out, GRRM managed to give Sandor a really aggressive, distinct way of speaking.

I’ll talk about it a little bit too much under the read more. Warning for pedantry and really vague spoilers for later books, but probably safe to read for anyone.

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

[SPOILERS FOR A STORM OF SWORDS]

A dog can smell a lie, you know, the Hound had told her once. She could almost hear the rough rasp of his voice. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here, and every one better than you. She wondered what had become of Sandor Clegane. Did he know that they’d killed Joffrey? Would he care? He had been the prince’s sworn shield for years.

— A Storm of Swords, Sansa VI

This chapter of ASOS is so fascinating for so many reasons. (It’s the one with Lysa and Petyr’s wedding, and the old blind dog, and Sansa’s dream, and so on.) But I find this line in particular to be interesting in that:

• Sandor’s words keep coming back to Sansa, to keep her wary
• She wonders where he is, and how he’d react to Joffrey’s death. 

And it’s interesting that she is the only character who thinks this way about him. Both Jaime and Cersei have thoughts about Sandor in AFFC, but note that’s after they hear word of the Saltpans massacre and their thoughts are mostly in reaction to that. And Arya also thinks of Sandor briefly in AFFC, but only about the situation in which she left him.

But Sansa thinks of him as a person, by name, and wonders about his feelings regarding someone he’d been close to for years. It’s certainly because of her empathetic nature, and the way she builds stories around people… but it’s interesting nevertheless. Especially because he is the only one of her King’s Landing connections that she thinks this way about, IIRC.

(Now, what’s really interesting is that when Sandor does hear about Joffrey’s death he doesn’t seem to give a shit… it’s the news of Sansa’s wedding to Tyrion that makes him sit down and get very drunk very quickly. But that’s a different post…)

aSoIaF ponderings..

littlebirdclegane:

wildling-rose:

littlebirdclegane:

wildling-rose:

larockchic:

Anyone have any thoughts on the UnKiss?

Way too many…..

there are people who don’t have thoughts about the unkiss?

I mean…

I’m only slightly obsessed with the UnKiss.

SPOILERS FOR A STORM OF SWORDS

I think it’s interesting to remember that if this kiss truly had taken place, this kiss would have been Sansa’s first kiss.

The rest got lengthy, so I put it under a read more.

(Source: beyondalltowers, via ofhouseadama)

so this is a post where I copy/pasted all the times Sansa Stark thinks about Sandor Clegane when he isn’t around

(and a few other things for my reference - spoilers for the books)