Is The Hound Returning To Game Of Thrones?
05/29/2016 03:00 pm EDT
Tonight's episode of Game of Thrones, "Blood of My Blood," has an interesting line in its synopsis. The line reads "An old foe comes back into the picture." The word "foe" is a curious one to use for Game of Thrones, because it immediately leaves you wondering, "Whose foe?" There are so many divergent plotlines and perspectives represented in the series' narrative that simply referring to someone as a "foe" seems overly simplistic. That said, we have an idea of who this "foe" may be: Sandor "The Hound" Clegane.
Last we saw of Sandor Clegane, Arya Stark had left him for dead on the side of the road after an encounter with Brienne of Tarth that did not go his way. However, based on how things have gone down in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, there's a chance that the Hound survived that encounter after all. In the novels, Brienne isn't the one who wounds the Hound. Instead, it's an infected wound from the previous scuffle at the Inn that catches up with Sandor.
Meanwhile, Brienne is searching for Sansa Stark, whom she believes to be in the custody of the Hound. She makes her way to a monastery on the Quiet Isle where she meets a man who goes by the name Elder Brother. Elder Brother corrects Brienne's information, telling her it was Arya Stark with the Hound and not Sansa, and claims that the Hound died in his arms while begging for the "gift of mercy." He says the Hound bequeathed him his war stallion, Stranger, which Elder Brother renamed Driftwood, finding the original name too blasphemous. Elder Brother claims to have buried the Hound and left Sandor's dog-shaped helm as a marker, but notes that the helm was stolen, and that someone else is pillaging and raping the countryside in the guise of the Hound.
Brienne has no reason not to believe Elder Brother, but fans suspect that he is speaking metaphorically rather than literally. Several religious novices live and work at Elder Brother's monastery, and fans believe one of them, specifically a gravedigger, is Sandor Clegane. The "death" Elder Brother speaks of would then be a kind of transition from Sandor's old life to his new one as a religious ascetic.
The gravedigger is described as a large man who, like all of the novices, wears a scarf that could potentially hide the Hound's burns. Some fans have speculated that he may have been tasked with digging a grave for every person he has killed in order to atone for his sins.
With Brienne now on her way to the Riverlands to gather the Blackfish's Tully forces, it's possible that she will make a stop at the Quiet Isle, revealing t audiences that the Hound is still among the living. From there it would be possible that the High Sparrow summon the Hound, being that he is a religious man now, to fight on the Sparrow's behalf against Ser Robert Strong, a.k.a. Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane, facilitating the brother vs. brother "Clegane Bowl" that fans have been longing for.
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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