This season of Game of Thrones has been consistent – a word rarely used for a show famous for unexpected twists and turns. The only guaranteed elements in the HBO series based on George RR Martin’s novels are bloody battles and deceit. Season six has been doing more than just delivering on the promise of cringe-worthy violence and unthinkable intrigue – it is bringing characters who were long forgotten or believed dead, back into the storyline one after the other.
The seventh episode, The Broken Man, opened with the satisfying return of Sandor Clegane – strong as before, but probably not as fierce. The last time we saw Sandor (Rory McCann) back in Season 4, Arya Stark left him to die severely injured after a clash with Brienne of Tarth. We had since assumed that he is dead, and, to be honest, his cynicism was being missed. Fortunately, Septon Ray (Ian McShane) has found Sandor and nursed him back to health. Sandor is now a peaceful man of the faith, cutting down trees, wielding an axe to build a church of the Seven Gods, and having poignant conversations about religion, god, redemption and a “greater plan”.
Sandor may be back, but he isn’t the Hound anymore. The younger son of House Clegane of the Westerlands, Sandor or the “Hound” has been a regular character since Season 1. He is ruthless, cynical and generally disrespectful of everything. He carries a facial scar left from when his older brother, the most feared man in Westeros – Gregor Clegane or “The Mountain” – held his face to a burning brazier when they were just children.
Loyal to the Lannisters, Sandor is bodyguard to Prince Joffrey and consequently to his fiancé for the first few seasons, Sansa Stark, for whom he displays creepy, borderline obsessive feelings. When Joffrey takes the throne, Sandor joins the King’s Guard but refuses the knighthood. He defends Joffrey, stands between the sadistic prince and Sansa, and kills Stannis’s men at the Battle of Blackwater in Season 2. But Tyrion Lannister’s use of wildfire to burn down enemy ships drives Sandor out of the city.
Here he meets the other Stark sister, Arya, and both are prisoners of Lord Beric Dondarrion of the Brotherhood without Banners (a group of outlaws defending the common folk, followers of the Lord of Light). The Hound fights them and abducts Arya for ransom. They reach the Stark family only as the massacre called the Red Wedding is being played out. Making their way to the Vale, hoping to hand Arya over to her aunt, the two develop a kind of friendship. In Season 1, the Hound had murdered Arya’s friend, Mycah, and he had since been on her ever-growing kill-list. Over the course of their journey, they bond over swords, murders, and the desire to kill Gregor Clegane. We are fooled into believing that Arya has sympathies for the Hound. But she instead leaves him to die a long drawn and painful death.
The reintroduced Hound seems to be a changed man after this dreadful ordeal. Well, at least till the next episode. The religious group that Sandor had made his new family is butchered by the Brotherhood without Banners (most likely) when the outlaws are refused money or weapons. The last scene of the episode finds an armour-less Hound wielding his axe again, on his way to do the one thing he loves best – killing.
The return of the Hound has led to feverish excitement among Game of Thrones addicts about the event referred to as the “Clegane Bowl” – a brutal fight between Sandor and the unbreakable Frankenstein version of the Mountain. Sandor Clegane has a lot of fight and hate left in him yet. And as Ray tells him – “The gods aren’t done with you.” It’s only a matter of time now.