Race: Human (Westermen)
Sex: Male
Faction: House Lannister
Rating: 5.9
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Arena Status: Active (S2)
Sandor Clegane, widely feared and famously known as The Hound, is one of the most complex and tragic characters in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Born into House Clegane, a minor Westerosi house sworn to House Lannister, Sandor is the younger brother of Ser Gregor Clegane, also known as The Mountain That Rides. Though never knighted, Sandor's skill in combat, his unmatched ferocity, and his notoriety on and off the battlefield earn him a fearsome reputation across the Seven Kingdoms.
 |
| The Hound, Sandor Clegane |
Brutalized in childhood and scarred both physically and emotionally, Sandor is marked by a burning hatred of his brother, a deep contempt for knighthood, and a persistent struggle with his own identity. From his service to House Lannister as Joffrey Baratheon’s sworn shield, to his relationship with Sansa and Arya Stark, and finally to his ambiguous fate on the Quiet Isle, Sandor’s narrative arc is one of cruelty, trauma, disillusionment—and the possibility of redemption.
What Does Sandor Clegane Look Like?
Sandor is an immense, heavily muscled man with a powerful build and imposing stature. He is described as having dark, lank hair, grey eyes, and a face that evokes fear and revulsion in equal measure. One side of his face is intact—angular and grim—but the other is a grotesque mask of blackened, melted flesh and exposed bone, the result of a childhood incident in which his brother Gregor shoved his head into a brazier. His burned ear is a ruined hole, his eye sits beneath a melted brow, and his lipless mouth twitches when he speaks.
To conceal his injuries, Sandor wears his hair long on the unburned side and typically keeps his expression locked in a sneer. His voice is harsh, rasping, and bitter. His standard armor is plain and blackened by soot, but most iconic is his helmet: sculpted in the shape of a snarling hound’s head, an unintentional parody of the knighthood he despises.
Why Does Sandor Hate Knighthood?
Sandor’s contempt for knights is one of his defining traits. He views the institution of knighthood not as a beacon of honor, but as a thin veil for hypocrisy, cruelty, and corruption. His hatred began in childhood, when his brother Gregor—already a knight in service of House Targaryen—burned his face over a toy and was not punished. That early betrayal of what knighthood was supposed to mean never left him.
Although one of the most capable warriors in Westeros, Sandor pointedly refuses knighthood, rejecting both its vows and its moral pretense. “Spare me your empty little compliments, girl... and your ser’s. I am no knight. I spit on them and their vows,” he tells Sansa. To him, knighthood is a lie—one he refuses to participate in, even when offered a white cloak on the Kingsguard. When Sansa asks why he lets others call him a dog, but not a knight, he replies, “I like dogs better than knights... A hound will die for you, but never lie to you.”
What Role Does Sandor Play in A Game of Thrones?
Sandor first appears in A Game of Thrones as Joffrey Baratheon’s sworn shield, a role that sees him follow the crown prince from Winterfell to King’s Landing. Fiercely loyal to Joffrey despite his disdain for court life, Sandor executes the prince’s orders without question—most infamously when he slaughters Mycah, a young butcher’s boy, after the altercation between Arya and Joffrey. When confronted by Eddard Stark, Sandor replies simply: “He ran. But not very fast.”
Despite this, Sandor’s interactions with Sansa Stark reveal another side of him. He is brutal, crude, and threatening—but also strangely protective. He warns her not to trust in fairy tales, tells her the truth of his scars, and shows flashes of pity, even tenderness, toward her. When Ser Gregor Clegane attacks Ser Loras Tyrell at the Hand’s tourney, Sandor intervenes to stop his brother, earning cheers from the crowd and Sansa’s admiration.
By the time of Robert Baratheon’s death, Sandor plays a central role in the Lannisters’ bloody purge of Ned Stark’s household. Though he remains a killer, he is not without a code. “He is a dog, just as he says,” Sansa thinks, “and yet will savage any man who tries to hurt his masters.”
How Does Sandor Evolve During A Clash of Kings?
In A Clash of Kings, Sandor’s cynicism deepens, but his moral ambiguity sharpens as well. He becomes more openly disgusted with Joffrey, and more conflicted in his treatment of Sansa, to whom he shows a protective instinct. During the riot in King's Landing, he saves her from being raped, later deflecting her thanks by growling, “A dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats.”
As the war escalates, Sandor is thrust into the Battle of the Blackwater. He fights with savage bravery until wildfire—his greatest fear—engulfs the bay. Overwhelmed by trauma and disgust, he abandons his post, denounces Joffrey, and flees the city. Before leaving, he confronts Sansa in her chamber and offers to take her away. When she refuses, he demands a song instead. Though Sansa believes he kissed her that night, the memory remains ambiguous.
What Happens to Sandor in A Storm of Swords?
Sandor reenters the narrative as a fugitive, stripped of his position and name. Captured by the brotherhood without banners and accused of war crimes, he wins his trial by combat against Beric Dondarrion despite his terror of Beric’s flaming sword. Released for lack of evidence, Sandor kidnaps Arya Stark, intending to ransom her to her family.
Their journey through the Riverlands, however, transforms both characters. Sandor acts as a reluctant guardian to Arya, protecting her with gruff indifference. He kills to defend her, teaches her hard lessons, and shows flickers of remorse, especially after the carnage of the Red Wedding. When wounded in a fight at the inn at the crossroads, Arya leaves him to die—refusing him the gift of mercy. He pleads for death, but she walks away. It is the last time she sees him.
Is Sandor Clegane Still Alive in A Feast for Crows?
Sandor’s fate becomes a subject of ambiguity in A Feast for Crows. Reports of the Hound committing atrocities around Saltpans emerge, but Brienne of Tarth eventually learns that these were carried out by men wearing Sandor’s stolen hound helm. On the Quiet Isle, the Elder Brother—a healer and former warrior—claims that Sandor died and was buried. However, readers are shown a towering, silent gravedigger who limps and avoids his burned side—strongly suggesting that Sandor survived and has taken up a monastic life.
The Elder Brother speaks of Sandor as a man “in torment,” who served but found no pride in service, who fought but took no joy in victory. He believes Sandor’s pain was rooted in his hatred—especially for his brother—and that his survival may mark a spiritual rebirth.
What Is the Symbolism Behind Sandor Clegane?
Sandor is a walking contradiction: a killer who despises murderers, a man who craves justice but lives by the sword, a brute who protects innocence even as he mocks it. His relationship with fire—both literal and symbolic—underscores his trauma. Burned by Gregor as a child, he fears fire above all else, yet he walks willingly into the Blackwater to face it again. His role in Arya and Sansa’s arcs is equally significant; he challenges their worldviews, confronts them with harsh truths, and gives each a chance to see behind the monster.
In many ways, Sandor is the embodiment of A Song of Ice and Fire’s moral landscape: a man shaped by cruelty who nevertheless retains a spark of decency, buried beneath layers of rage, pain, and bitter humor.
What Is the Legacy of the Hound?
Though never a knight, never a lord, and perhaps never truly forgiven, Sandor Clegane becomes something larger: a cautionary tale, a symbol of disillusionment, and—possibly—a man on the cusp of peace. His helmet, passed from villain to villain, becomes a symbol not of a person but of a persona, one he may have finally shed. Whether he lives or dies, the Hound’s legacy is marked not by honor or fame, but by survival, truth, and the long, slow road to becoming more than the sum of his scars.
The Hound's Raw Power
Sandor Clegane, known across Westeros as the Hound, receives a Raw Power score of 6.5 out of 10 when assessed across all fantasy universes. This rating reflects his extraordinary physical strength, honed combat instinct, and unmatched brutality in melee engagements. While he lacks any magical or supernatural powers, Sandor consistently demonstrates peak-level performance within the realm of physical conflict. His raw power is grounded entirely in tangible, corporeal force: the sheer weight of a longsword crashing through steel, the endurance to fight with grievous wounds, and the psychological dominance that comes from surviving on blood and rage alone. His ranking reflects his position as a mortal apex predator, but also acknowledges the limits inherent in characters who cannot shape the world through magic or metaphysical force.
Strength
Sandor’s physical might is legendary even among the hardened warriors of Westeros. He is described repeatedly as huge, heavily muscled, and powerful enough to overwhelm armored opponents with raw force. His strikes are brutal, often cleaving through enemies with a warhammer or longsword that lesser men could not wield effectively. His duels are not elegant—they are punishing. When he clashes with Beric Dondarrion in a trial by combat, he defeats a magically enhanced opponent while carrying severe psychological baggage (his fear of fire) and while sustaining burns to his arm. He has also felled multiple armed combatants in open fights, including knights, outlaws, and Frey men-at-arms, even when wounded or drunk. His endurance—marching on injured, bleeding legs while protecting Arya across the Riverlands—is itself a testament to his resilience of body.
Still, Sandor is not a superhuman entity. He is bound by muscle, bone, and fatigue. He can be wounded, exhausted, and ultimately left to die. His strength is at the outer limits of human capability, but it remains fundamentally human. In a multiversal ranking, that places him near the top of the physically grounded tier.
Magical Ability
Sandor Clegane has no magical ability, and this flat zero in the category significantly restricts his total potential. He does not wield sorcery, channel arcane energy, commune with divine forces, or manifest supernatural abilities of any kind. He cannot control the elements, affect minds, or heal wounds through any other means than hard rest and raw grit. Moreover, he does not possess magical artifacts, enchanted armor, or mystical companions. This absence is not a failure of character—his disdain for mysticism and abstract moral codes is central to his identity—but it defines the ceiling of his power. While he has defeated magic-wielders (notably Beric), he has done so entirely through conventional force.
Combat Prowess
Where Sandor truly excels is in pure combat. His skill with weapons—sword, axe, hammer, and dagger—is unquestioned, and his instincts in battle are honed to lethal precision. He does not fight with flair or ceremony; he fights to kill. His dueling history, including engagements with knights like Jaime Lannister, Ser Loras Tyrell, and Beric Dondarrion, showcases a warrior who is both fast and ferociously strong. Notably, he nearly killed his brother Gregor during a tourney fight, a feat few would attempt, let alone survive.
In larger engagements, such as the Battle of the Blackwater, Sandor leads sorties into chaos with effective command presence—until his psychological trauma overtakes him. His effectiveness in combat is only limited by context: tight quarters, overwhelming fire, or conditions that exploit his mental vulnerabilities. On level ground, against nearly any conventional opponent, Sandor Clegane is a dominant and terrifying force. His raw power in combat is not just the sum of his muscle—it’s the product of pain, hatred, and a lifetime on the edge of violence.
The Hound's Tactical Ability
Sandor Clegane earns a Tactical Ability score of 5.0 out of 10, placing him about average when assessed against the full spectrum of fantasy characters across universes. While he possesses undeniable battlefield instincts and exhibits a degree of situational awareness in survival contexts, he is not a strategic planner, nor does he excel at manipulating larger systems or coordinating groups. His skill set is that of a lone fighter or ad hoc protector—brutal, reactive, and deeply personal. Sandor's approach to conflict is grounded in instinct and experience rather than foresight or broader tactical vision. He demonstrates flashes of adaptability and localized decision-making, but lacks the strategic reach and resource coordination to be considered tactically formidable on a larger scale.
Strategic Mind
Sandor is not a battlefield commander, a war tactician, or a planner of campaigns. He thrives in individual encounters and immediate combat decisions, not in complex strategic frameworks. Throughout A Song of Ice and Fire, Sandor is shown to be a powerful tool in the hands of others rather than a guiding hand himself. As Joffrey's sworn shield, his role is reactive. During the Battle of the Blackwater, he fights ferociously against the invading forces of Stannis Baratheon but does so without a broader operational goal. He ultimately flees the battle—not due to cowardice, but due to personal trauma—demonstrating that while effective in the moment, he does not adhere to long-term planning under stress or chaos.
His travel across the Riverlands with Arya Stark further underscores this reactive tendency. He chooses destinations not based on strategic alliances or calculated odds, but on who might pay a ransom or provide shelter. When rebuffed by the villagers near the Vale or cut off from potential routes to the Eyrie, he shifts course based on immediate need, not contingency planning. His decision-making is not inept, but it is unstructured, driven more by pragmatism and brute experience than any coherent strategy.
Resourcefulness
Where Sandor compensates for his lack of strategy is in basic survival resourcefulness. He navigates war-torn Westeros with minimal support, often injured, short on supplies, and pursued or rejected by various factions. He successfully evades the Lannisters, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and later local soldiers hunting the Hound after Saltpans—all without the benefit of allies or infrastructure. His ability to assess the temperament of others, secure lodging or transport through barter or intimidation, and recognize shifting threats reflects a strong instinctual grasp of survival.
He adapts quickly when plans fail—redirecting from ransom attempts to banditry, or changing routes based on closed roads. However, this is functional resourcefulness, not innovative problem-solving. He does not outmaneuver organized threats through clever schemes or invent new methods of engagement. His resourcefulness keeps him alive, but it does not elevate him into the ranks of cunning operatives or battlefield improvisers.
Resource Arsenal
Sandor’s available strategic assets are limited, both by nature and by choice. He is a solitary figure, resistant to alliances and deeply distrustful of others. His disdain for titles, banners, and institutions—especially knighthood—means he forgoes almost every conventional tool of influence or leverage. He does not command troops, advise lords, or even maintain a cadre of loyal followers. His most consistent companion is his warhorse, Stranger, and his most consistent weapon is brute intimidation. While he does acquire and wield arms, armor, and horses effectively, he has no access to magical artifacts, intelligence networks, logistical support, or diplomatic channels.
Even when traveling with Arya, Sandor makes no attempt to build coalitions or secure favor from regional powers. When he confronts Beric Dondarrion, he does so alone, without calling in debts or seeking support. This lack of a resource arsenal dramatically narrows his tactical ceiling. In a universe where strategic power often hinges on command structures, spies, artifacts, or mobility, Sandor operates entirely within a confined sphere of personal strength and direct confrontation.
The Hound's Influence
Sandor Clegane receives an Influence score of 5.0 out of 10, reflecting a narrow but distinct capacity to affect those around him through raw presence, force of personality, and emotional impact. He does not operate as a political actor, inspirational leader, or social manipulator, but he wields an undeniable ability to provoke fear, establish dominance, and imprint lasting impressions. His influence is personal, immediate, and often involuntary—felt in the way others recoil from his disfigurement or respond to his blunt truth-telling. Although lacking formal power or persuasive charm, Sandor shapes key relationships and moments through brute will and symbolic resonance.
Persuasion
Sandor’s persuasive skill is blunt, coercive, and highly situational. He does not excel in dialogue, nor does he seek to change minds through rhetorical appeal or charisma. When he tries to influence others, it is usually through intimidation, threats, or an appeal to brutal honesty. He convinces Arya Stark to travel with him not by reasoned argument, but by physically overpowering her and stating his terms. He does not inspire allegiance or admiration, but he is often obeyed out of a mixture of fear and resignation.
That said, Sandor’s emotional honesty carries weight in unexpected ways. His interactions with Sansa Stark, for instance, show how raw vulnerability—paired with threat—can paradoxically create emotional influence. Sansa never forgets his story, nor the cloak he gave her, nor the way he spoke of the world. When he demands a song from her at knifepoint, the act is terrifying but intimate, and its impact lingers. These rare moments show a man whose sincerity cuts through illusion, even if it rarely persuades in a traditional sense. His persuasive capacity is thus limited, but not absent; it operates through confrontation, not courtship.
Reverence
Sandor does not command awe, devotion, or mythic respect. He is feared, reviled, and often misunderstood. He inspires dread among commoners, particularly children, who recoil at the sight of his burned face and snarling manner. Even his supposed master, King Joffrey, refers to him more as a beast than a man. While respected for his skill in combat and his willingness to enact violence without hesitation, Sandor is not revered. He is tolerated, used, or distrusted, but rarely honored.
There are, however, a few individuals who see past the mask and recognize something deeper. Sansa Stark, again, offers a notable counterpoint: though she is terrified of him, she comes to view him with complexity and even reverence for his grim kind of protection. Brienne of Tarth hears the Elder Brother speak of him as a “tormented soul” deserving of pity. These cases are isolated and private, not cultural or institutional. Sandor Clegane is not a legend; he is a cautionary tale. The aura he carries is not that of reverence, but of moral ambiguity and pain.
Willpower
Willpower is where Sandor’s influence most strongly asserts itself. Despite being shaped by trauma—both physical and emotional—he resists the narrative roles imposed on him. He rejects knighthood, not out of cowardice, but from a deep-seated philosophical conviction. His refusal to swear vows, to wear titles, or to conform to the expectations of those around him is consistent and unyielding. Even when offered positions of status, such as a place in the Kingsguard, he maintains his outsider identity. “I am no knight,” he says, “I spit on them and their vows.”
He also resists external control. Unlike many others in his environment, Sandor cannot be easily manipulated. He is acutely aware of power dynamics and quick to assert his autonomy, often through violence but also through refusal. He quits Joffrey’s service at the height of battle, acts independently of any faction after Blackwater, and refuses to capitulate to the Brotherhood Without Banners or any moral order they claim to represent. This deep resistance to influence, paired with his ability to assert his agency in hostile conditions, raises his willpower profile considerably.
The Hound's Resilience
Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound, receives a Resilience score of 7.0 out of 10, a mark that reflects an impressive ability to survive, recover, and endure physical and psychological hardship across a brutally hostile environment. Unlike more mystically inclined characters, Sandor's resilience is rooted in biological toughness, sheer will, and a hardened psyche forged by lifelong trauma. While he lacks supernatural resistance or regenerative powers, he persistently survives injuries that would incapacitate or kill most mortals, and his arc shows a gradual but genuine capacity to return from both literal and symbolic death. This score, placed in the context of all fantasy characters across universes, acknowledges that while Sandor is not unkillable, his ability to push through pain, trauma, and near-death consequences sets him apart from the median.
Physical Resistance
Clegane’s physical durability is one of his defining attributes. From a young age, he survived an act of extreme violence when his brother Gregor shoved his face into a brazier, leaving him permanently disfigured. The fact that he lived through such an act of facial burning without succumbing to infection or long-term immobilization is itself significant. Over the course of his adult life, Sandor endures a barrage of battlefield injuries without the aid of magical healing. He is wounded during tournaments, battles, and duels—most notably during the War of the Five Kings—and continues to fight through pain, exhaustion, and blood loss with feral persistence.
His physical resistance is further demonstrated in his duel with Brienne of Tarth. In that fight, he sustains multiple grievous injuries including compound fractures and a probable punctured lung, yet he continues to fight with lethal intent until physically overwhelmed. Even after losing, he clings to life in the wild, without proper medical care. His survival from that encounter—through fever, exposure, infection, and starvation—places him in a very high percentile of physical resistance, despite having no supernatural defenses or healing factors.
Magical Resistance
Sandor Clegane has no demonstrated magical resistance in the technical sense—no wards, nullifying auras, or resistances to sorcery. However, it is notable that he exists in a world where magical forces are on the rise, and yet he operates effectively within that environment without succumbing to illusions, compulsion, or divine terror. He is deeply affected by the supernatural, but not paralyzed by it.
He confronts Beric Dondarrion, a resurrected foe wielding a flaming sword—an explicitly magical weapon—and survives the encounter through grit and martial skill. While not resistant to magic per se, Sandor demonstrates the ability to fight through its psychological and symbolic weight. His reaction to fire, rooted in childhood trauma, suggests a psychological vulnerability, but his later encounters with flames—particularly in the context of the final battle against the undead—show him mastering this fear. His resistance to magical threats is psychological rather than structural, and while that limits his score in this category, it doesn't nullify his capacity to function under magical duress.
Longevity
Sandor’s longevity is defined less by chronological duration than by the durability of his presence in a deadly and chaotic world. He has no extended lifespan, no regenerative immortality, no divine patronage. Yet he survives the fall of the monarchy, the collapse of centralized order, and his own symbolic death. After his near-fatal wounds at the hands of Brienne, he is left to die. The Elder Brother of the Quiet Isle claims the Hound is “dead,” and for a time, he is absent from the narrative. But Sandor the man—scarred, hardened, spiritually disoriented—emerges again.
His return is not framed as a resurrection but as a survival against existential odds. He re-enters the world with diminished violence, working alongside a small religious community, and yet when called again to arms, he resumes the path of retribution and war. His ability to disappear from death’s door, recontextualize himself, and return to the battlefield reflects a resilient essence—not one that resists time, but one that recovers identity. Compared to characters with actual immortality or reincarnation, his longevity is limited, but among mortals, he performs exceptionally.
The Hound's Versatility
Sandor Clegane, known widely as the Hound, receives a Versatility score of 6.0 out of 10, reflecting a moderately above-average ability to operate across variable conditions, conflicts, and roles, albeit within a limited skill set. His effectiveness stems not from diverse proficiencies or magical tools, but from a core competency—violent survival—expressed flexibly across drastically changing environments. His world does not reward polymaths; it rewards those who endure, and Sandor does, adapting himself from court dog to fugitive, mercenary, and reluctant protector. In a multiversal context where many characters wield a broad portfolio of talents and shifting identities, Sandor’s adaptability stands out within his lane but struggles to transcend it.
Adaptability
Clegane’s life is defined by transitions that force constant reevaluation of his loyalties, identity, and goals. He begins as a personal bodyguard to the royal family, entrenched in the brutality of political theater, yet abandons that role during the Battle of the Blackwater in open defiance of his king and ideology. This marks a critical moment of internal shift—his survival instinct and conscience overpowering his obligations.
Following his desertion, he drifts into the Riverlands and transitions into a scavenger and sometime protector. His relationship with Arya Stark shows his capacity to shift from a brutal enforcer to a more nuanced, if still dangerous, guardian. He fends off threats, teaches her pragmatic survival, and gradually develops a primitive sense of mutual obligation, indicating that even with limited emotional vocabulary, he adapts behaviorally to new social conditions.
Later, after near-death and convalescence at the Quiet Isle, he reinvents himself again—this time as a laborer under a septon, forsaking violence for a spell before ultimately re-entering the world to confront his unfinished past. Each of these shifts requires Sandor to alter not only his environment but his core self-conception. He never becomes comfortable, but he survives—through skill, flexibility, and an evolving moral compass. That said, he remains squarely limited to violent or survival-based roles. He is not a generalist in skills or domains, which restricts his upper ceiling in this subcategory.
Luck
Clegane’s relationship with luck is ambiguous but relevant. He is not a character for whom improbable fortune consistently manifests in his favor. His life is marred by physical mutilation, emotional abuse, and psychological scarring from childhood onward. However, he also escapes death repeatedly, often under circumstances that imply chance as much as toughness.
When Brienne leaves him for dead after their duel, his survival owes as much to the chance of being found by the Elder Brother as to any plan of his own. Similarly, his escape from the destruction at the Sept of Baelor, and his eventual re-entry into world-shaping events, seem to stem from narrative contingency and grim providence. He is not a chosen one, nor a bearer of fate-marked artifacts, but he benefits from a kind of persistent misfortune that does not quite kill him. His luck is not glamorous, but it is statistically remarkable: he survives despite constant proximity to chaos and doom. Still, the lack of consistent, upward-tilting fortune tempers his score in this category.
Shaved Knuckle in the Hole
Sandor Clegane’s version of the “shaved knuckle in the hole” is not mystical or hidden in conventional terms, but psychological. His hidden reserve lies in the slow accumulation of moral clarity and personal restraint—a capability that emerges only in rare, high-stakes moments. When he chooses not to kill Arya, despite having every reason to do so strategically, or when he hesitates before murdering his brother in the final confrontation, Sandor activates a hidden gear: his capacity to reject reflexive violence in favor of a higher cause or internal boundary. In a world of killers, that becomes a tactical advantage—others expect him to act predictably, and he sometimes doesn’t.
Moreover, he demonstrates a kind of situational improvisation—such as using terrain, intimidation, and brutal candor to his advantage when lacking superior arms or allies. He doesn’t carry surprises in his equipment, but he does in his resolve. His will to act, or not act, often emerges as the final surprise in conflicts that should have had foregone conclusions. It’s not a trump card, but it’s a viable card, and that earns him weight in this final metric.
The Hound's Alignment
Sandor Clegane, more widely known as the Hound, is a human male of Westerosi origin with no subrace distinction, belonging to House Clegane, a knightly house sworn to House Lannister of Casterly Rock. Though technically a landed noble, Sandor was never knighted, and he showed disdain for the institution and its hypocrisy throughout his life. He served as a bodyguard to Prince Joffrey Baratheon, acting as a brutal enforcer under the Lannister regime. Despite this formal affiliation, Sandor never professed ideological loyalty to the crown or the Faith, and his actions consistently put him at odds with the more codified systems of Westerosi power.
Later in the narrative, after deserting King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater, Sandor drifts into exile and serves no consistent faction. At various times he functions as a captor, protector, mercenary, and possible penitent. His affiliations shift fluidly—most notably in his relationship with Arya Stark, and, potentially, in the gravedigger theory, which posits that he survives near-fatal wounds and assumes a life of quiet labor on the Quiet Isle under the care of the Elder Brother. This theory, though not confirmed within the text, is strongly supported by indirect references in A Feast for Crows. The Elder Brother speaks of Sandor as though he has died, yet also hints that "the Hound is dead" while describing a large, broken man now laboring anonymously. This subtle dichotomy—death of the persona, not the man—has led many to believe that Sandor is alive, having symbolically buried his past. The strength of this reading is high, and it significantly influences interpretations of his late-stage character development.
Across his arc, Sandor Clegane evolves from a violent, cynical instrument of tyranny into a man wrestling with guilt, justice, and personal agency. He begins his story willing to kill children if ordered and ends it protecting Arya Stark, refusing to rape or rob innocents, and finally confronting his brother not for glory, but to settle a long-standing trauma. Sandor never idealizes goodness, but he begins to reject cruelty as a guiding principle—a profound shift for a man who once mocked the idea of knights and heroes.
Sandor Clegane’s alignment is best classified as Chaotic Neutral. He rejects traditional moral frameworks like chivalry, religion, and fealty, which places him outside the lawful-neutral-good schema. His disdain for hypocrisy and structured authority defines him; he does not follow the law for its own sake and acts according to personal codes that shift over time. However, his arc shows a clear divergence from evil. While he commits violence freely and often cruelly in his early life, he gradually becomes more introspective and discriminating in its use. He refuses to participate in senseless bloodshed by the end of his arc and seeks withdrawal from the world’s violence rather than domination or vengeance.
His chaotic nature lies in his resistance to authority and unpredictability of action, while his neutrality reflects a moral ambiguity: he does not act out of altruism, nor malice, but personal necessity and, increasingly, personal conscience. Sandor is not a redeemer or destroyer. He is a survivor in flux—one who flouts order, resists dogma, and grudgingly cultivates a self-made ethic. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated character alignment matrix across all planes of existence.
The Hound's Trophy Case
Arena Results
Titles & Postseason Results
Halls of Legend Records
Overall Conclusion on The Hound and Position Across Planes of Existence
Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound, occupies a distinctive position in the hierarchy of power across fantasy universes. His final rating of 5.9 places him within the uppermost tier of grounded, non-magical characters, but clearly short of the apex pantheon of transcendent, reality-altering beings. This rating reflects not only his exceptional martial capabilities but also his limitations in categories that dominate the upper echelons of fantasy power—namely magic, metaphysical manipulation, and command over armies, artifacts, or cosmic forces. Still, within his class—brutal, mortal warriors forged by pain and violence—he is among the most fearsome and psychologically nuanced figures in the genre.
The score reflects balance across five dimensions. His Raw Power is high, rooted in immense physicality, refined combat instinct, and sheer killing efficacy. He is a force of nature in melee engagements, able to defeat skilled knights, outlaws, and resurrected foes. That said, his complete absence of magical ability limits this score from rising further. His Tactical Ability is modest but capable—he is a quick adapter in violent contexts, a brutal improviser rather than a strategist. Sandor is not a commander or planner but functions effectively in small-scale, high-chaos scenarios. His Influence is more passive than active; he inspires fear and respect but does not lead or persuade in a traditional sense. His presence is commanding, but it is defined by disdain, not charisma.
Where Sandor exceeds expectations is in Resilience, a category that measures not only survival but psychological and existential recovery. He endures physical trauma, grievous wounds, and decades of emotional damage without succumbing to nihilism. Even the possible acceptance of a humble life as a gravedigger (as implied but not confirmed by A Feast for Crows) supports the idea of inner reconstruction. His endurance is matched by his Versatility, which is often underestimated. He survives across environments—battlefields, forests, riverlands, freezing mountaintops—and finds ways to remain lethal even when outmatched, injured, or mentally compromised.
His final rating of 5.9 is thus a measure of realism pushed to its limit. Sandor has no claim to godhood, sorcery, or grand command—but within the brutal mechanics of a low-magic universe, he has climbed to the highest rank a mortal man can occupy. This places him roughly at the threshold between elite grounded fighters and the beginning of superhuman classification. If he had any access to sorcery or divine favor, he would likely be a contender for far higher rankings. But as it stands, his score captures both his formidable presence and the hard ceiling of a man who has made his name not by destiny or prophecy, but by surviving the worst the world can offer and still standing. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated power ranking across all planes of existence. This will only be sortable on desktop viewing. The below table shows a summary within the same plane of existence of this article.
