Game of Thrones as Myth: The Hound as the Archetypal Dark Warrior

What is an archetype? In fantasy and myth, certain types of characters constantly reappear: stalwart Heroes, odd Mentors offering talismans, Threshold Guardians and their tests, and more. In this series, we take a fast and fun look at Game of Thrones characters and what traditional archetypes they fall into. This time: Sandor “The Hound” Clegane.

This series examines how Game of Thrones characters fit into the archetypal frameworks developed by mythologist Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces) and the more modern version by Christopher Vogler (The Writer’s Journey). Both Campbell and Vogler employ the works of psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Along with many other academics, Jung suggested that the archetypes of myth and legend sprang from a human collective unconscious, since they appear in so many different cultures separated by space and time.

"“In describing these common character types, symbols and relationships, the Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung employed the term ‘archetypes,’ meaning ancient terms of personality that are the shared heritage of the human race.” —Christopher Vogler"

Campbell argues that human beings are biologically hardwired to understand the symbolism and expression of character archetypes. Otherwise, we would be incapable of participating in the shared human experience of storytelling.

"“Summoned or not, the God will come.” —Motto over the door of Carl G. Jung’s house"

Knight, Death Devil by Albrecht Durer 1513

As we segue into Game of Thrones, it’s important to remember that archetype is not a straightjacketed category but rather a flexible function of storytelling. Any individual character can (and usually does) express various archetypal traits or even moves from one category to another as the story unfolds.

The Game of Thrones character of Sandor Celegane (the Hound) is one of George R. R. Martin’s most fascinating creations, a traumatized beast who’s committed heinous acts but who nonetheless follows a kind of moral code. Because his character is complex, the Hound has, at different points throughout his journey, expressed traits from a number of different archetypes, including Threshold Guardian, Protector and Destroyer. Today we’ll look at him mainly through the lens of the Dark Warrior archetype.

When we first meet the Hound in “Winter is Coming,” (S1/Ep1), he is a dreadful brute, a frightening near-apparition in black armor and a helmet fashioned after a snarling hound (the Clegane family sigil). At the time, he’s serving as Joffrey’s bodyguard, or sworn shield. The Hound refuses to be knighted or follow anything resembling a chivalric code, although he does follow a somewhat brutal and specific code of personal conduct. He has no stomach for ninnies, even his own charge — notice how uninterested he is in intervening when Tyrion slaps the whimpering Joffrey in “The Kingsroad.”

"“There’s plenty things worse than me. I just understand the way things are.” —Sandor Clegane (“Breaker of Chains,” S4/Ep3)"

We can find a number of parallels between Sandor Clegane and a famous Dark Warrior from Greek myth: Hades, the god of the underworld. Hades was both feared and loathed, and the gates of his realm were guarded by the three-headed hound named Cerberus. According to legend, Hades abducts Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, to join him in the underworld. In Game of Thrones, Sandor abducts Arya, the daughter of a powerful family, for ransom money. The ancient Greek god of war, Ares, also shares aspects of the archetype. Like Sandor, Ares represents the physical prowess needed for victory in war. He is dangerous and nigh-unstoppable.

Although he’s not a knight, Sandor also brings to mind the literary stock character of the Black Knight, a specific kind of Dark Warrior. The Black Knight would paint his plate armor black to obscure his coat of arms and make it impossible for an opponent to recognize him in the field, which allowed him to perform nefarious acts for his lord without witnesses certifying his identity. Although Sandor does temporarily don the armor of the Kingsguard after the removal of Barristan Selmy, he refuses a knighthood and soon returns to wearing his favorite color: black.

This device of black armor as camouflage pops up often in literature, such as when King Richard the Lionhearted travels in disguise in Ivanhoe and the encounter with the hilarious black knight defending the tiny bridge in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also keep in mind the tale of the black-clad King Pellinore confronting the young King Arthur in the Arthurian tales. Pellinore defeats Arthur three times in the joust before breaking Arthur’s sword, and the sorcerer Merlin must cast a spell on Pellinore in order to save Arthur from injury. Pellinore goes on to form a powerful relationship with Arthur. We’ll take a look at this outcome in terms of the Hound-Arya dynamic later.

Typically, Black Knights are anonymous. In the case of Sandor, who is not a true knight, his unwillingness to bear a coat of arms may speak to his sense that he only serves himself and nobody else. This becomes even more pronounced once Sandor abandons Joffrey and the Lannisters after the Battle of Blackwater Bay.

In “The Kingsroad” (S1, Ep2), the Hound rides down and executes Mycah the butcher’s boy on Joffrey’s orders in repayment for a supposed affront to the spoiled prince. This introduces the viewer to the darkest element of the archetype: the willingness to follow orders, no matter how distasteful. (Although Sandor seems to draw the line at killing noble females.) The slaughter of Mycah mirrors the introduction of another dark character, Jaime Lannister, who shoves the young Brandon Stark out a window in the first episode of the series.

Littlefinger tells us a portion of Sandor’s backstory during the Tournament of the Hand in “Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things” (S1, Ep4). When he and his brother Gregor were young, Gregor pressed Sandor’s head into a fire, and Sandor has hated Gregor ever since. At the tournament, Sandor watches Ser Gregor, who IS a knight, defeat Ser Hugh of the Vale in the joust, and is amused when his brother is unseated by Ser Loras Tyrell. When Gregor attempts to kill Ser Loras, Sandor leaps into the fray and crosses swords with his brother, at which point King Robert puts an end to the fracas. Ser Loras announces Sandor as the tournament champion, which makes Sandor both embarrassed and unhappy.

"Loras Tyrell: “I owe you my life, Ser.”Sandor Clegane: “I’m no Ser.”"

Sandor’s childhood trauma leads him to embrace the dark warrior archetype, similar to how Batman (known as the “Dark Knight”) embraces his vendetta against criminals after witnessing his parents’ murders while still very young. Sandor’s terrible facial scarring is the root cause of both his fear of fire (reflecting his wild, primitive side, since all animals are afraid of fire) and his terrible relationship with his monstrous older brother. His disdain for knighthood and chivalry stems directly from the hypocrisy he sees in most “knights,” and the travesty of the dishonorable Gregor having been knighted by Rheagar Targaryen, a paragon of knighthood.

In “Mockingbird” (S4/Ep7), Sandor explains to Arya how his early tragedy shaped him:

"Sandor: “You say your brother (Jon) gave you that sword? My brother gave me this! (points to his burn scars) It was just like you said a while back. He pressed me to the fire like I was a nice, juicy mutton chop.”Arya: “Why?”Sandor: “He 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. And my father who protected him, told everyone my bedding caught fire. You think you’re on your own?”"

Despite his difficulties, Sandor does have good in him, certainly more than his brother. He, like Robert E. Howard’s brutish hero Conan the Barbarian, operates under a raw yet identifiable code. Under the barbaric code of chivalry followed by the Cimmerian Conan, killing of fighters and plundering of cities is acceptable, but rape and the murder of children and innocents are not.

We see part of Sandor’s Dark Warrior code, with elements of the Protector archetype, emerge in his interactions with Sansa Stark. When the insane Joffrey has Sansa stripped and beaten in “Garden of Bones” (S2/Ep4), Sandor steps forward to cover her with his cloak after Tyrion puts a stop to the scene. It’s a small but significant act, a call to dignity when the king and nobles and “knights” are acting undignified. Sandor later saves Sansa from getting raped by rioters during “The Old Gods and the New” (S2,Ep6). Later, when she admonishes him for being “hateful,” he responds with: “You’ll be glad of the hateful things I do some day, when you’re Queen, and I’m all that stands between you and your ‘beloved’ King.” (“A Man Without Honor,” S2/Ep7).

The Battle of Blackwater Bay is a major turning point in the story of Sandor Clegane. While he fights with his usual vigor, he is terrified of the wildfire Tyrion uses against Stannis’ fleet. He leaves the battle, abandoning all loyalty to the Lannisters. “Fuck the Kingsguard, fuck the city, fuck the king!”

On his way out of the city, he stops by Sansa’s room and offers to escort her home to Winterfell. Hopeful that Stannis will protect her when he wins the battle, Sansa refuses, and Sandor outlines his view of the world:

"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 someday. The world is built by killers, so you better get used to looking at them."

Sandor leaves King’s Landing and vanishes into the Riverlands, acting very much in the vein of the Dark Warrior, complete with dark armor. He is a vagabond solider, similar to the real-life Ronin (“he who drifts or wanders”), the Samurai who had no masters.

Sandor is soon captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners, who make him undergo a trial by combat to determine his culpability regarding the murder of Mycah. Sandor defeats Beric Dondarrion (despite Beric’s flaming sword) and is set free. Soon after that, Sandor abducts Arya Stark and sets about trying to ransom her back to whatever family members she still has.

Having already played the parts of a Dark Warrior and Protector, Sandor also serves as a major Threshold Guardian for Arya Stark. He is a temporary captor, a cyclops like Polyphemus in Homer’s Odyssey, who must be overcome in order for the hero (Arya) to continue her quest. But his role in this part of the story is more complicated than that. He and Arya develop a complex, sometimes codependent relationship during their journey, and Sandor saves her life when they stumble into the Red Wedding massacre in “The Rains of Castamere” (S3/Ep9). As their travels continue, he and Arya get involved in a number of bloody skirmishes, often initiated by Arya’s obsession with revenge. Hate is a powerful motivation both characters share, as Sandor tells her in “First of His Name (S4/Ep5): “Hate’s as good a thing as any to keep a person going. Better than most.” (“First of His Name,” S4/Ep5)

The fluidity of the Hound’s character — at one moment a Protector, then a Dark Warrior, etc — makes it tricky to find analogues for him in myth, but there are some dualistic characters who fit the bit. Take the famous Cu Chulainn of the Irish Ulster Cycle, who could present either as a handsome, wise Hercules or as a hideous monster who went on berserker killing sprees, occasionally even massacring his own allies. Both men made their first kills early in their lives: Sandor probably scored his first kill at age 12, during Robert’s Rebellion, while Cu Chuliann cut down his first man at age 5. In another interesting parallel, Cu Chuliann was born with the name Setana, but became known as Cu Chuliann (“Culann’s Hound”) after killing the smith Culann’s massive guard dog (in self-defense). Cu Chuliann stood watch until a new dog could be reared and trained to replace it. A more modern version of Cu Chuliann’s name is “The Hound of Ulster.”

After being defeated by Brienne of Tarth and left for dead by Arya, Sandor reappears in season 6 in the company of Septon Ray and his quiet, non-violent followers. Ray offers Sandor a form of redemption, something Sandor does not believe he deserves. “You didn’t know me back in my time,” Sandor explains. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.” (“The Broken Man” S6/Ep7). Sandor’s respite ends, however, when rogue members of the Brotherhood Without Banners wipe out Ray and his village. Picking up his axe and once again locked up in his bloodthirsty obsession with hate and revenge, Sandor executes the killers alongside Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr, and decides to stick with them on their journey north to help battle the White Walkers.

What awaits Sandor “the Hound” Clegane, our Dark Warrior with a heart of gold? His journey northward could take him down any number of paths. We might find some clues about Sandor’s future in the tale of King Arthur and the black knight, King Pellinore. The two adversaries become friends, Arthur gains the sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, and Pellinore later joins the Knights of the Round Table, becoming instrumental in the quest for the Holy Grail.

Might Sandor reunite with Arya, and if so, how would the reunion go? Will Sandor finally confront his wretched (and now abominable) brother, Gregor? The Hound is one of George R. R. Martin’s great question marks, dreadful yet sympathetic, a damaged brute with innocent blood on his hands. Is the Hound capable of redemption, or worthy of it? Darth Vader, a villainous Star Wars character also traumatized in his youth (by the death of his mother at the hands of Tusken Raiders), managed to save himself somewhat right at the very end. The Hound will likely have an opportunity to make good before his story is over, and he is sympathetic enough to have us rooting for him along the way.

(All quotes by Joseph Campbell are from The Hero with a Thousand Faces unless otherwise noted. All quotes by Christopher Vogler are from The Writer’s Journey unless otherwise noted.)

The Hound as Dark Warrior: Specifics

House: House Clegane, current allegiance to Brotherhood Without Banners
Sigil: Snarling Hound
Animal: Hound
Weapon: Hatred
Nemesis: Gregor Clegane
Sidekick: Arya Stark
Greatest Love: Killing
Greatest strength: Physical Prowess
Greatest Weakness: Fire
Greatest Mystery: Brutal Code of Honor
Color: Black
Tarot Card: Five of Swords
Ice Cream: Any flavor of Mad Dog Ice Cream
Future Prospects (Season 7): He’s not a team player, so that doesn’t bode well. But he is a survivor.

Game of Thrones as Myth: The Hound as the Archetypal Dark Warrior

By Richard E Preston | May 10, 2017

The Hound as Dark Warrior: Specifics

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