Always...
Sandor Clegane aka The Hound from George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series (perhaps better known now as HBO’s “Game of Thrones” series). For today’s Month of Love challenge.
“I was younger than you, six, maybe seven. A woodcarver set up shop in the village under my father’s keep, and to buy favor he sent us gifts. The old man made marvelous toys. I don’t remember what I got, but it was Gregor’s gift I wanted. A wooden knight, all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings, so you could make him fight. Gregor is five years older than me, the toy was nothing to him, he was already a squire, near six foot tall and muscled like an ox. So I took his knight, but there was no joy to it, I tell you. I was scared all the while, and true enough, he found me. There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed. “
-Sandor Clegane
Guys… guys… “Northern Lights and Midnight Sun” by Ownsariver… it’s… it’s just so awesome. I can’t stop drawing it. I know there is no Sansa in here, but next time I sketch explode off this Fic there will be BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME.
(Only on part 20- no spoilers, I’m trying to savor)
PS- Notice how this is a Sansan fic and Sansan is my OTP and ALMOST ALL OF THIS IS JAMIE AND BRIENNE?! That’s how unbelievably adorable they are in this.
ASOIAF Challenge - Most Powerful Lines Part III (8-13/13)
“Tell Jorah…”
——————
“Reek, it rhymes with…”
——————
“We should have stayed in the cave.”
——————
“Ned loves my hair.”
——————
“I dreamed of you.”
——————
“He was no true knight.”
One of my favorite Sandor’s fanarts, though I don’t know the source.
It’s one of my favorites too! It was my wallpaper for a while- it’s by the author of The Punchline is Machoism- she is on tumble here: http://coelasquid.tumblr.com/
ASOIAF Challenge - Most Powerful Lines Part II (2-7/13)
“Oh, I know, I know.”
——————
“I could keep you safe.”
——————
“Is there gold in the village?”
——————
“Promise me, Ned.”
——————
“A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall made of ice and filled the air with sweetness.”
——————
“And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.”
You’ll be glad of the hateful things I do one day when you’re Queen.
↳ Game of Thrones 2.07
This was really a pretty awesome and surprising turn of dialog. I mean he says he’ll stand between her and Joff- that’s crazy, nothing even close to that happened outside of Blackwater in the books, and not only that, but he’ll do hateful things to stand between them like shattering Joff to pieces.
UHG! And his face when she leaves! It’s like all he wants is to grab her and go but he can’t and he has to maintain this disposition for the sake of her. Oof
Can we just take a moment in silence to appreciate how insanely handsome Rory was in this episode. Heavy breathing is allowed.
OMGOD I AM SCREAMING RIGHT NOWWWWWWWWW
REBLOGGING TWICE BECAUSE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD
MY HEART HURTS
IT ACTUALLY HURTS
I WAS SO RESIGNED TO THEM JUST NOT SHOWING ANY SCENES WITH THEM - AND RESIGNED TO THEM NOT LETTING SANDOR SAY A GODDAMN WORD AND IT WAS DEPRESSING ME
and making me incredibly resentful of minor charactersBUT LOOK THIS PICTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT LOOKS LIKE HE’S BEING TERRIFYING! IN CHARACTER! OH MY HEART PLEASE
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
PS- She must like 3 stairs higher than him… but doesn’t seem to be, unless he is kneeling…. kneeling, and being close to her face„ and making her look at it…. IS THIS REAL LIFE?!
![corseque:
[Spoilers for A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords]
That’s interesting - I’ve always felt the same way about his honesty. I always thought it was a bit ironic for his catchphrase to be “a dog will die for you, but never lie to you,” when he lies to himself and other people quite often…
But I suppose that goes with what I’ve always said about him. He’s not the loyal, honest, bloodthirsty, merciless, Hound… he’s just a human being, crushed under the weight of a truly shitty feudal system.
Whatever he says things like “I might be a killer, but at least I’m honest” or “I might be a monster, but at least I didn’t hit Sansa” or “I might have done terrible things, but I saved your life” or “I might have failed before, but I could keep you safe…” etc etc
…he’s just equivocating to stay alive and sane, really. It must be nearly impossible to live with the memories of things he’s done. He created an entire persona to help him live with it. The tragedy of this character is the lengths he has to go to convince himself it’s okay when he has to adopt the morality of Westeros’ shitty feudal system, when that system demands him to be a monster. The tragedy of this character is later, how lost he is when he no longer has a place in that same feudal system that made him a monster to begin with… He’s left a monster, wandering, with nothing to show for it, and attacked for his former loyalty to that feudal system (by Beric Dondarrion et al.).
I don’t think blind feudal loyalty is very valuable from a modern perspective - even Davos “Loyalty” Seaworth wasn’t loyal to Stannis when it came to Edric Storm… And any value judgments about feudal loyalty should be made only after reading Septon Meribald’s speech about Broken Men.
I think when left to his own devices, Sandor does show a more admirable kind of loyalty than the blind feudal loyalty he showed the Lannisters - he doesn’t leave Arya behind even when she loses value to him. Wolfdog packmates 4 lyfe.
In regards to this whole Sandor and loyalty thing I think it really exemplifies his self-hatred and his subconscious but desperate desire to find something true and good in the world. The truth is that he is often seeking out loyalty to his own sense of morality (anti-bullying, etc) but he hates himself too much to admit that he and his instincts are some thing that he is loyal to. The idea that he has an internal sense of justice is something he rages against the idea of a cut and dry morality such as that mythical variety present in knights and now dashed from his adolescent mind- but at the same time he still clings to that desperately in a deep place and tries to find it in others because he considers himself too unworthy / too experienced in the harshness of the world to trust with a code of morality that should be followed in a chivalrous way… but he grasps at it all the time without realizing.
I think the thing about his morality/loyalty is that it is at constant war with his expectations. He goes between “be loyal because that’s all you can be- a sworn sword to protect something and kill it’s enemies” (that’s the, I have no morals, there is no morality POV) and “there are good things and good people and I will be there for them, I could even become one of them by saving them” (that’s the childhood soul peeking out that the morality he has always held even if he denies it). The later rules shockingly more that he likes to think that it does, it’s almost like sober Sandor is full of the world’s ugliness and drunk Sandor gets all dreamy, haha I have no idea if that is an exact correlation but it does seem to come out that way sometimes (… I forget if he was drunk when he gives Sansa the whole ‘killing is the only truth’ speech on the rooftop’).
But in regards to Joffrey it’s just another example of those two things battling each other, and also I think he sees things in Joffrey that I’m sure he saw in Gregor as a child, psychopathic tendencies like hurting animals and such and that shuts him down pretty fast.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ox4nFP1G1qgz7buo1_500.gif)
[Spoilers for A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords]
That’s interesting - I’ve always felt the same way about his honesty. I always thought it was a bit ironic for his catchphrase to be “a dog will die for you, but never lie to you,” when he lies to himself and other people quite often…
But I suppose that goes with what I’ve always said about him. He’s not the loyal, honest, bloodthirsty, merciless, Hound… he’s just a human being, crushed under the weight of a truly shitty feudal system.
Whatever he says things like “I might be a killer, but at least I’m honest” or “I might be a monster, but at least I didn’t hit Sansa” or “I might have done terrible things, but I saved your life” or “I might have failed before, but I could keep you safe…” etc etc
…he’s just equivocating to stay alive and sane, really. It must be nearly impossible to live with the memories of things he’s done. He created an entire persona to help him live with it. The tragedy of this character is the lengths he has to go to convince himself it’s okay when he has to adopt the morality of Westeros’ shitty feudal system, when that system demands him to be a monster. The tragedy of this character is later, how lost he is when he no longer has a place in that same feudal system that made him a monster to begin with… He’s left a monster, wandering, with nothing to show for it, and attacked for his former loyalty to that feudal system (by Beric Dondarrion et al.).
I don’t think blind feudal loyalty is very valuable from a modern perspective - even Davos “Loyalty” Seaworth wasn’t loyal to Stannis when it came to Edric Storm… And any value judgments about feudal loyalty should be made only after reading Septon Meribald’s speech about Broken Men.
I think when left to his own devices, Sandor does show a more admirable kind of loyalty than the blind feudal loyalty he showed the Lannisters - he doesn’t leave Arya behind even when she loses value to him. Wolfdog packmates 4 lyfe.
In regards to this whole Sandor and loyalty thing I think it really exemplifies his self-hatred and his subconscious but desperate desire to find something true and good in the world. The truth is that he is often seeking out loyalty to his own sense of morality (anti-bullying, etc) but he hates himself too much to admit that he and his instincts are some thing that he is loyal to. The idea that he has an internal sense of justice is something he rages against the idea of a cut and dry morality such as that mythical variety present in knights and now dashed from his adolescent mind- but at the same time he still clings to that desperately in a deep place and tries to find it in others because he considers himself too unworthy / too experienced in the harshness of the world to trust with a code of morality that should be followed in a chivalrous way… but he grasps at it all the time without realizing.
I think the thing about his morality/loyalty is that it is at constant war with his expectations. He goes between “be loyal because that’s all you can be- a sworn sword to protect something and kill it’s enemies” (that’s the, I have no morals, there is no morality POV) and “there are good things and good people and I will be there for them, I could even become one of them by saving them” (that’s the childhood soul peeking out that the morality he has always held even if he denies it). The later rules shockingly more that he likes to think that it does, it’s almost like sober Sandor is full of the world’s ugliness and drunk Sandor gets all dreamy, haha I have no idea if that is an exact correlation but it does seem to come out that way sometimes (… I forget if he was drunk when he gives Sansa the whole ‘killing is the only truth’ speech on the rooftop’).
But in regards to Joffrey it’s just another example of those two things battling each other, and also I think he sees things in Joffrey that I’m sure he saw in Gregor as a child, psychopathic tendencies like hurting animals and such and that shuts him down pretty fast.
