0:03 Is Sandor Leane the Hound still alive?
0:05 Arya left him to die, but many fans
0:07 think there's enough evidence to be
0:09 pretty sure he is still alive in the
0:12 books. Let's take a look. Hi everyone,
0:13 this is Robert. Welcome to InDeepge
0:15 Geek. If you like theories, background,
0:17 history, and lore about A Song of Ice
0:19 and Fire, the Lord of the Rings, and The
0:20 Witcher, then this is the channel for
0:23 you. Welcome.
0:25 Towards the end of a storm of swords,
0:28 Sandor Clelegane, the Hound, and Arya
0:30 get into a fight with some Lannister
0:32 soldiers at the inn at the crossroads.
0:34 They are triumphant, and Arya gets to
0:36 cross another name off her list, but the
0:38 Hound suffers a number of wounds, some
0:41 of which become infected. Arya dresses
0:43 the wounds for him, but to no avail,
0:45 they keep getting worse. And after
0:47 traveling a little way, they have to
0:49 stop. The Hound, sensing the end is
0:52 near, begs Arya to give him the gift of
0:54 mercy. This is foreshadowed quite a lot
0:56 in their story, by the way. Putting
0:58 someone out of their pain is shown as a
1:00 way to give someone a good death, to be
1:02 kind to them in their last hours. We
1:07 read this. The hounds eyes opened. You
1:09 remember where the heart is? He asked in
1:12 a horse whisper. As still as stone, she
1:16 stood. I I was only Don't lie, he
1:19 growled. I hate liars. I hate gutless
1:23 frauds, even worse. Go on, do it. When
1:26 Arya did not move, he said, "I killed
1:28 your butcher's boy. I cut him near in
1:32 half and laughed about it after."
1:34 At this point, the Hound is clearly
1:36 trying to go Arya. He throws cruel words
1:38 at her to try to make her angry enough
1:41 to end his life. But then we get this.
1:44 Arya stepped away from him. You don't
1:47 deserve the gift of mercy. The hound
1:49 watched her saddle craven through eyes
1:52 bright with fever. Not once did he
1:54 attempt to rise and stop her. But when
1:57 she mounted, he said, "A real wolf would
2:00 finish a wounded animal." "Maybe some
2:02 real wolves will find you," Arya
2:04 thought. "Maybe they'll smell you when
2:07 the sun goes down. Then he would learn
2:10 what wolves did to dogs."
2:13 And ya rides off, leaving him to die.
2:15 And that's the last official look we
2:17 have of the Hound in A Song of Ice and
2:20 Fire. Now, clearly he does return in the
2:23 TV show. But what about the books? Well,
2:25 all goes quiet for nearly a book.
2:27 Intriguingly, we hear several reports of
2:29 him still being in the Riverlands, most
2:31 notably attacking the Salt Pans and
2:33 committing some atrocities there. How do
2:35 people know it is the Hound? He's
2:37 wearing his distinctive houndshaped
2:40 helmet, of course. One of the rumors we
2:42 get or Brienne gets is that the Hound
2:46 has Sansa or possibly Arya. So she sets
2:48 off in search of him. She is led by
2:51 Septton Merbold to the Quietile, a faith
2:53 of the seven commune on a river island
2:55 in the estie of the river Trident,
2:57 accessible only by those who know the
2:59 route. Which is where this all gets
3:01 interesting because the elder brother
3:04 there tells Brienne that he personally
3:07 found the hound as he was dying crying
3:09 and begging for the gift of mercy. He
3:12 says that the hound died there under
3:15 that tree that he buried him in a can
3:18 placing his helm at top it. Sandor Leane
3:21 is now at rest. He says someone else
3:23 must have found that helmet and worn it
3:25 while attacking the salt pans, which
3:28 should end things, but not everything
3:30 stacks up on the quietile. First, there
3:33 is stranger, the hound's horse, which is
3:35 in the stables on the quietile. Fair
3:37 enough. They might have brought it there
3:38 after the hound died, you might think.
3:40 But it is well established that only he
3:43 can ride or handle stranger. It starts
3:45 attacking anyone else who approaches.
3:48 So, how is that horse there, unless the
3:51 hound is also there? Then there is the
3:53 gravedigger. Brienne is taken up to see
3:55 the elder brother, and along the way,
3:57 there is this encounter.
3:59 They passed a liyard where a brother
4:01 bigger than Brienne was struggling to
4:04 dig a grave. From the way he moved, it
4:07 was plain to see that he was lame. As he
4:09 flung a spadeful of the stony soil over
4:11 one shoulder, some chance to spatter
4:13 against their feet. Be more watchful
4:16 there, chided brother Narut. Septton
4:17 Maribold might have gotten a mouthful of
4:21 dirt. The gravedigger lowered his head.
4:23 When dog went to sniff him, he dropped
4:26 his spade and scratched his ear. There
4:29 are lots of clues there. Brienne is big,
4:32 so if someone is bigger than her, they
4:34 are massive and rare, like the Hound.
4:37 The Hound is also likely to be lame in
4:38 some way given the injuries he
4:40 sustained. Being a novice and
4:42 inexperienced fits the timeline here as
4:44 well. And him stooping to scratch the
4:47 ear of a dog, a hound seems like a bit
4:49 of a nod to the careful reader. And in
4:51 case you were wondering, he wore a scarf
4:53 across his face, so there was no chance
4:56 Brienne or anyone would recognize him.
4:58 Then when we examine what the elder
5:01 brother says, things seem less clear-cut
5:03 than they first did. Yes, he says that
5:06 the Hound is dead, but he also refers to
5:08 himself as having died before joining
5:10 the Quiet Isle community. It seems that
5:12 the elder brother was also a soldier who
5:14 reached rock bottom before finding a new
5:16 life on the aisle. He seems to draw a
5:18 distinction between the Hound, the
5:20 identity connected with Sandor's old
5:23 life and the helmet, and Sandor himself.
5:27 The Hound has died. Sandor is at rest,
5:29 he says.
5:31 Many fans, and I'm among them, have
5:33 concluded that the gravedigger is
5:36 Sandor. The elder brother happened upon
5:38 him as he was dying and saved him, and
5:40 in the process they metaphorically
5:43 buried the hound, Sandor's old life, all
5:45 the terrible things he had done, the
5:47 past life he had led. The symbol for
5:50 this past life was his hound helmet. So,
5:54 they left that on the ken. Rog that good
5:56 for little who we first met in the cage
5:58 with Jack and Hagar found it and wore it
6:00 while attacking the salt pans. Then when
6:03 later Brienne kills him, Lem Lemoncloak
6:06 picks it up. Sandor, meanwhile, traveled
6:08 with the elder brother to the quiet
6:09 alisile where he is now performing
6:11 something akin to penitence or
6:13 restitution for the sins of the hound.
6:16 He is digging graves, a very symbolic
6:19 act, perhaps even one for every person
6:21 he killed in his old life, and keeping
6:23 his head down. He is, as the elder
6:27 brother says, at rest.
6:29 We haven't got any 100% strong evidence
6:31 here, but what we do have is rather
6:34 convincing. The Hound is alive, though
6:36 checked out of the main action on an
6:38 inaccessible island and having abandoned
6:41 his old identity. Of course, this is
6:44 probably only maybe halfway or so
6:46 through the story. We have at least two
6:48 massive books left to go and a lot of
6:50 plot. And there are two important things
6:53 to remember here. First, although we may
6:55 like the idea of leaving Sandor in that
6:58 place of rest, his story arc is probably
7:01 not finished. We don't get a POV chapter
7:03 from him, but all we've heard suggests
7:05 that for true peace, he needs to somehow
7:07 come to terms with what happened in his
7:10 youth with his brother, Gregor. That's
7:11 the root of his anger towards his
7:14 brother, his fear of fire, his disdain
7:16 for the knighthood, and so much more. By
7:18 come to terms with it, I don't
7:20 necessarily mean clelegane bowl, a fight
7:22 between the two to settle old scores,
7:24 but instead some kind of reckoning or
7:26 moment of acceptance. The two of them
7:28 are very different now to when they were
7:30 young. The mountain is now Robert
7:32 Strong, the zombie mountain, and the
7:35 hound is now plain old Sandor Clegane.
7:37 Will Sandor react to Robert Strong as he
7:40 had imagined in his younger days or
7:42 perhaps show him mercy? The gift of
7:44 mercy is a strong theme in Sandor's
7:47 tale. So there is unfinished business
7:49 out there. And there is also a lot of
7:51 foreshadowing or simple practical hints
7:54 that the quiet is may not remain quiet
7:56 for much longer. It has survived this
7:58 far in the war ravaged Riverlands
8:00 because you need to know a specific
8:01 route across the mud flats in order to
8:04 get there. But realistically, a few
8:06 people now know that secret, and you can
8:09 get across at high tide on a boat, so
8:11 it's not as isolated as people might
8:14 think. We also know that many have heard
8:16 the rumor that there are rubies and
8:18 riches on the quiet aisle. And to be
8:20 fair, they aren't just rumors. The aisle
8:22 is downstream from the Ruby Ford where
8:24 Robert Baratheon smashed in Rhaegar's
8:26 ruby encrusted breastplate during the
8:28 rebellion. Six of those rubies have
8:30 washed downstream to the aisle over the
8:33 years, and they are only defended by a
8:35 peaceloving community. It must be quite
8:37 tempting for any one of the many bandit
8:39 groups currently operating in the
8:42 Riverlands. So, we can expect an attack
8:44 on the quiet Isle at some point soon by
8:46 someone, perhaps some of the remnants of
8:49 the Brave Companions. How will the Hound
8:52 respond? He is at rest, we're told. But
8:54 will he really just let the people who
8:57 saved him die? or will he find an axe
8:59 and fight back? I suspect that even if
9:02 he does return to his more violent ways,
9:03 the Sandor who emerges from the
9:05 experience will not be the hound we saw
9:07 in the first three books. He will have
9:10 grown and changed. And perhaps the
9:12 symbolic centerpiece of this shift will
9:14 be his helmet. While Sandor has been
9:17 recuperating in silence, the Hound, or
9:19 rather his helmet, has kept on
9:20 committing horrors across the
9:23 Riverlands. Such is his legend that
9:25 everyone just assumes it is him. But
9:27 what better way might there be to
9:29 establish the change in Sandor than
9:32 making him face someone else wearing the
9:34 Hound helmet? Will he need to kill the
9:37 Hound metaphorically or have the option
9:38 to take back his helmet and either
9:41 accept or reject his identity as the
9:43 Hound? There are a lot of possibilities
9:46 here. And if he is changed, how will he
9:48 react to Sansa and Arya if he meets
9:51 either of them? In particular, Arya. He
9:53 acted as a rather dark mentor for her
9:55 through a storm of swords, taking her
9:57 further down a path of normalizing
10:00 murder and vengeance. Since she left
10:02 him, she has gone even further, training
10:04 as a faceless assassin and ticking more
10:06 names off her list, a list that contains
10:09 the mountain. Will the new Sandor
10:12 actually soften her a bit? Help guide
10:14 her to understand that maybe vengeance
10:17 and death aren't the best way to go. It
10:19 would be an unexpected of light in
10:21 this grim, dark tale. But don't rule it
10:25 out. But what do you think? Do you think
10:28 the gravedigger is Sandor? And if so,
10:29 what is in store for him in the rest of
10:31 the story? Let me know in the comments
10:34 below. Did you know that these videos
10:36 are now also available on Spotify? I'm
10:38 uploading my back catalog at the moment.
10:40 So, if you find that an easy way to
10:42 watch these videos, just go there and
10:45 search for InDeepge Geek. If you'd like
10:46 to see more A Song of Ice and Fire
10:48 videos like this one, there's a link to
10:50 my playlist on the left of your screen
10:52 now. Or to support this channel, thank
10:54 you. There's a link to my Patreon page
10:56 on the right of your screen. Thanks for
10:58 watching. That's all for this time. I'll
