With the final season of Game of Thrones swiftly approaching, Debra Minoff and Susannah McCullough of The Take take the opportunity to inscribe another chapter of their ongoing analysis regarding the flawed characters of the ongoing series. They take a look at Gregor Clegane aka “The Mountain” and his complete embodiment all that is brutally violent within his world, how he mirrors the vengeful instincts of Cersei Lannister, how he taunts his enemies with his cruelty and his very complicated relationship with his brother Sandor Clegane aka “The Hound”, who finds out for himself that he is a much better man than he ever thought.
For many years the Hound embraces his own violent impulses and doesn’t concern himself with honor making him not much different from his brother…So in Sandor, we see a profile of the victim of violence who tragically ends up adopting that violence as a result of their trauma. Over time though, his cynicism isn’t enough to swallow up his better nature. When he sees good people threatened like Sansa and Arya he reveals an instinct to do the honorable thing and eventually stops denying that it matters to be on the right side.