A Song of Tits and Wine (Spoilers!)

[Skalpadda]

Am I? I feel like you to are trying to sell “Technically, it is possible for it to not happen!”.

But do you actually believe it won’t?

Because I would literally bet money on it at this point. Do you guys even remember what happened after the Hound reached the same point in the show? Because it was very GRRM, and it seems very, very unlikely that D&D made that whole bit up.

You mean where he hangs out in a hippie commune and then Lem Lemoncloak and some rogue offshoot the the Brotherhood comes and murders everyone and does buttsex jokes? Seemed very show-y on the whole to me compared to what’s in the book, though Brother Ray’s speech was a good critique of the cycle of violence that felt pretty GRRM-y.

I meant what I said above, I think it could go either way and as I said back when the episode came out I hope it doesn’t.

Arguments against: It’s kinda written as a figurative death in the books. The Hound and Sandor Clegane have died and been resurrected in different men (through the helm Rorge (I think?) takes up). The impression I get both from ASOIAF and the short stories I’ve read is that Martin believes the only way out of vicious violent spirals is to outright reject them and the Hound as it stands in the books would be a pretty good representation of that.

Both brothers have “died” and been “resurrected”, Gregor as a tormented husk at the hands of Qyburn and Sandor potentially free of the Hound persona with the help of the Elder Brother. In a sense Sandor has already “won” and I’d be happy for the books to leave it there.

Arguments for: Well, aforementioned Hollywood writing rules. It is set up as righteous antagonism in the first book and the Hound as the antihero having to defeat one of the most outright evil characters in the books makes sense (though I suspect it would be even more hollow in the books than show given what Gregor has become).

Rorge takes the helm from the Hound’s “grave” and is then killed by Brienne. I think it’s then picked up by Lem Lemoncloak, who in the show is one of the Brotherhood members who murder Sandor’s new hippie friends. We could definitely get a scenario where Sandor ends up fighting “the Hound”. There’s no telling where that goes (Lady Stoneheart isn’t in the show and we don’t know what’s up with Brienne, for starters), maybe he picks up his old persona again, or maybe he’ll reject it. It could be an interesting story either way, if it happens.

[BillButNotBen]

I will admit my memories of the details of the books are a bit fuzzy at times… what with it being rather complex, rather long, having a shed load of characters and also being up to a decade ago that I read them.

But I also feel like The Hound in the show is a different beast the The Hound in the books.
His sarcastic humor and relationship with Arya seemed much more pronounced in the show… leading to him becoming a fan favorite. As such it seems much more likely that he’d return in the TV show.

Nobody wants to consider the whole. Vandelay alluded to the same problem - in the context of the whole, S8 is not bad. It’s a distinct improvement on S7.

I agree that s8 wasn’t as bad as some people (not me!) say. But I was talking about the points that annoyed me and the cleganebowl was one of them. There were also a lot of things I liked in the season, but I wasn’t talking about those.

At what point, before meeting Gregorstein/Ser Robert Strong, does the Hound actually know that? Because I don’t think there is any point where he does. That’s part of why this seems like incredibly dodgy criticism to me.

I’m probably missing something, but IIRC the Hound meets his brother at the Dany/Cersi truce meeting and knows it is him (his identity doesn’t really seem to be much of a secret in the show anyway).

He also decides to ride a very long way, infiltrate a city under siege by dragons and make his way to fight Cersi’s guard, while implying that he knows he’ll die, and also giving the distinct impression that he thinks this will be his last chance to kill The Mountain.

So, I get he want’s revenge, and I get the hollywood logic setting it up that it 'has to be me!".
But it’s basically “i need to go and kill him before he gets killed - and die in the process”.
Which would probably be very poetic and dramatic if it hadn’t been so underwhelming and pointless.

It’s not a make or break point for me… it’s just that it felt shoehorned in for fanservice reasons rather than anything else.

[Skalpadda]

Part two.