#but i'd personally love to see some of its capabilities become usable in open world esp since it's siege-focused

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

a miscellaneous thought for future GW2 expansions; it'd be neat if we eventually wound up with one that includes a PvE version of the Warclaw mastery tree to make it relevant outside WvW. it's got a neat concept and some fun skins, but there's not really any reason to ever use it outside that specific game mode since none of its skills carry over into PvE. with siege damage mechanics added to some open world events, it'd be neat to see the og siege mount get an update.

bonus points if the expansion it's included in is Mists-focused, since that'd match up with the Warclaw's current lore, too.

[thebluelemontree]

Hi there! I love your meta. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the fact that the sansa and sandor relationship seems to be a complete secret from everyone. including (especially) littlefinger. i have a few ideas but i'd like to hear your thoughts. :)

Thanks!  Sorry for the long wait.  I think the relationship is well camouflaged for a few good reasons.  Long post ahead.   

Let’s start with Sandor’s life experience at court and what makes him so particularly good at navigating around all the intrigues and informants.  

As far as “players” go, mainly we’re talking about Cersei, Varys, Littlefinger, and Tyrion, the ones who make it their business to learn as much as they can to stay a step ahead of everyone else.  Of course, they don’t consider each other players of equal caliber either.  In LF’s case, he thinks he is the only player; however, there is a common intellectual arrogance and bias among them.  Only a tiny handful of privileged, educated people are playing at the high-stakes table.  They tend to be far more attuned to other players at that table as this is THE game, the only game that really matters.  Other players are people they might consider an obstacle, threat, or a competitive rival for their objectives.  People that display a similar (yet still inferior) level of cunning to their own.    

That bias can lead to blind spots when it comes to how they look at non-players with their small lives and small ambitions.  Generally they are unworthy of interest unless they have something they want or are keys to unlock an advantage against another player.  Then they become a potentially playable pawn.  The next step would be to learn the pawn’s secrets or what motivates them to know how to play them.  They can’t imagine any pawn would be smart enough to be aware of a player making moves on them, let alone be able to put up a successful defense against it or manipulate a player outright.  Granted these people in question are undoubtedly intelligent and there are many who lend themselves easily to becoming pawns; however, I would argue that it’s very easy to manipulate people that already trust you or who want to believe in what you’re selling.  It’s much harder to manipulate shrewd people.  He’d never admit it, but it’s exactly why LF doesn’t even attempt to fuck with Stannis directly.  And very much like Stannis, Sandor has blanket mistrust of everyone starting at a young age.  Growing up around Gregor would also make him more hypervigilant than most, followed by his many years guarding Cersei that would only increase his cynicism.  And that’s really all it takes to immunize yourself against becoming a pawn most of the time:  awareness and a healthy amount of skepticism.          

Sansa is new to this world in AGOT and she comes to it a guileless open book. Cersei can easily figure out how to tease out usable information with Sansa’s innocence and trusting nature.  Littlefinger will later use her love of knights and songs coupled with the pressure of her situation to get her to leave with Dontos.  Again, no one should be congratulating themselves for being smart enough to manipulate a preteen that wears her heart on her sleeve.  Sandor is aware and he does try to educate Sansa that she needs to keep her guard up, learn to lie better to protect herself, trust no one, and use her instincts to figure out the truth behind the lies. 

Sandor Clegane snorted. “Pretty thing, and such a bad liar. A dog can smell a lie, you know. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here … and every one better than you.“  – Sansa II, ACOK.

While he’s otherwise displayed complete loyalty to his masters, Sandor the person has spent his life locked down tighter than a crab’s ass.  It takes a lot of conscious effort to keep all your true thoughts and opinions to yourself.  The mouth twitch reveals how often he suppresses those urges.  “Sandorspeak” is another.  There will be a few moments where some things do slip in front of others, but we’ll get to that later.  He’s also a character that is known for oddly being both imposing and easily recognizable to also making himself almost blend into the background of a scene.  With prying eyes everywhere looking for something of interest to pop up on their radar, being as unassuming as possible is a useful skill.  Sandor is also just as capable of using deception as any player.  I recall a line Varys says to Tyrion:

The eunuch took a cloak from a peg. It was roughspun, sun-faded, and threadbare, but very ample in its cut. “If you will permit me.” When he swept it over Tyrion’s shoulders it enveloped him head to heel, with a cowl that could be pulled forward to drown his face in shadows. “Men see what they expect to see,” Varys said as he fussed and pulled. “Dwarfs are not so common a sight as children, so a child is what they will see. A boy in an old cloak on his father’s horse, going about his father’s business. – Tyrion III, ACOK.

This exact tactic is utilized by Sandor while trying to smuggle Arya into the Twins.  He shrouds his face, changes his vocabulary to sound common, has a plausible backstory to go with it, and he successfully fools Ser Donnel Haigh, a knight that knows him personally.  That’s pretty incredible for a guy with a half-burned face and distinctive rasp.  He pulls it off because he understands how Ser Donnel thinks:

“How come he didn’t know you, then?” Arya asked.

“Because knights are fools, and it would have been beneath him to look twice at some poxy peasant.” He gave the horses a lick with the whip. “Keep your eyes down and your tone respectful and say ser a lot, and most knights will never see you. They pay more mind to horses than to smallfolk. He might have known Stranger if he’d ever seen me ride him.” – Arya X, ASOS.

“Men see what they expect to see” and that goes for the players too.  Of course, we have all the other examples of Sandor knowing how to lie convincingly depending on who he’s talking to.  Speaking of Varys, we know his spies have looked at Sandor at least from time to time.  His position as “Cersei’s dog” makes him a natural person of interest for those seeking an advantage over the queen or prince.  As Varys confirms to Tyrion, the Hound drinks, gambles, and whores on his off time.  Boringly typical manly man stuff befitting his station as a soldier.  No extreme vices or skeletons in the closet that could be used as leverage.  No large outstanding debts.  He can’t be bribed into disloyalty.  He displays no ambitions or greed for more than what he has.  He just seems to be exactly what he looks like on the surface.  A quasi-educated brute that is smart enough to know his place and is content to live on what his masters give him.    

“And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.“  These are Littlefinger’s words to Sansa.  Who else has any inkling that Sandor wants anything beyond what he already has except Sansa?  No one.  I think this line from Littlefinger to Ned shows that Littlefinger in the past has given some thought on how he could possibly move the Hound to become his asset.

“Even a blind man could see the Hound loathed his brother.”

“Ah, but Gregor was his to loathe, not yours to kill. Once Dondarrion lops the summit off our Mountain, the Clegane lands and incomes will pass to Sandor, but I wouldn’t hold my water waiting for his thanks, not that one.” 

If Littlefinger honestly thought he could win Sandor over by having his brother eliminated, he probably would have made it happen already; however, he knows the lands and incomes are not going to cause Sandor to change sides.  Not when that “favor” would come from the likes of Littlefinger with certain expectations for it.  Again, see the Stannis quote which uses similar phrasing of “X won’t be sufficiently grateful for your help.”  Littlefinger steers clear of shrewd people (and you can add Myranda Royce to that list) to begin with.  They don’t want anything he’s selling.  Sandor’s hatred for Gregor isn’t really the useful tool it would seem as there’s no way to capitalize on it.  He’s an apparently uncrackable combination lock.  Because no player can imagine that what Sandor truly wants and lacks is empathy and validation (something that can only come from genuine human connection), he’s not a movable chess piece for any of them.  There are far easier targets with more obvious vulnerabilities to make use of instead like Janos Slynt, Dontos Hollard, and Lancel Lannister.    

There’s also good deal of classism in play here as well.  Like most other people pretty low on the social hierarchy, they tend to be underestimated, overlooked, and ignored by their “betters.”  Indeed, Sandor himself is also convinced it is his lot in life to be nothing more than a guard dog.  There’s no point in wanting anything more than that as it will only lead to rejection or compromising the few principles he has.  This part at least isn’t a deliberate act.  He’s been so consistent at being the Hound for so long that even when he eventually does slip a little when it comes to Sansa, no one is picking it up and examining it.    

Sansa is assumed to be exactly what she appears.  A delicate, helpless, and insipid little girl too cowed by fear to do anything but recite her courtesies and prayers.  As Dontos tells her, being severely underestimated in every way makes her almost invisible and she can use that to her advantage.  

“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”

“Let them. You’re safer that way, sweetling. Queen Cersei and the Imp and Lord Varys and their like, they all watch each other keen as hawks, and pay this one and that one to spy out what the others are doing, but no one ever troubles themselves about Lady Tanda’s daughter, do they?”        

As time goes on, no one really troubles themselves with Sansa either unless there’s a specific reason.  Mostly she’s left alone and free to wander the castle, so there’s no fear that she’s capable of escaping or making allies.  Her maids are Cersei’s spies, but Sansa already guessed that.  Everyone is convinced (well, except Sandor) it’s her dumb, childish piety that drives her to the godswood so much.  Just by their respective circumstances and the plot, Sandor and Sansa were already as individuals hiding in the blind spots of the major players.

With that all said, why would anyone imagine for a second that Sandor and Sansa would have anything to do with each other?  Sandor has been an unwavering loyal Lannister servant since he was a boy and that makes him an enemy of the Starks.  He’s hard, mean, and rough mannered.  His face is considered terrifyingly ugly.  He’s shown no attachments or compassion for any other human being before.  He’s cynical about everything Sansa stands for.  Likewise, Sansa openly admires physically beautiful and gallant knights like Ser Loras.  Everything Sandor is not.  There’s also a huge chasm of class difference between them.  Highborn ladies do not fraternize with lowborn men, especially one as coarse and offensive as the Hound.  It goes without saying that nothing draws more immediate attention in this society than people transgressing class boundaries. There’s just no way either one would speak to the other in a too familiar way in public.  On paper, they could not be more different from each other for the idea to even occur to anyone.

There’s also the very deliberate gradual pacing of the relationship.  It all unfolds very slowly with time, circumstance, and natural chemistry.  It’s a relationship that defies any clear definition or obvious markers that someone could theoretically hone in on.  They both have issues of immaturity and inability to consciously understand what exactly this thing is between them.   Neither one intentionally seeks the other out to initiate more contact nor are they actively trying to further a relationship.  Until the night of the Blackwater, they were always brought together for other reasons not of their making.  Most often it’s because Joffrey commands the presence of both to be there.  Other times it’s pure chance like the serpentine steps or the top of Maegor’s Holdfast.  None of their more intimate conversations take place where there’s a possibility of someone following or overhearing.  If there’s nothing planned or intentional, there’s nothing to draw suspicion.  

There’s just not enough happening in front of witnesses either for a single character to notice a discernable pattern.  Often there are large enough gaps of time between those moments and the witnesses, if there are any, can vary.        

After Sansa II, AGOT (the night of the Hand’s tourney), it won’t be until Sansa VI, AGOT that they actually speak again.  This is the chapter where Sansa is forced out of bed by Joffrey, made to look at her father’s head on the battlement, and Sandor reciprocates empathy and support for her.  I wrote about the specifics of this chapter here.  Joffrey, Meryn Trant, and Arys Oakheart are present for part of it.  This early on, if the Hound’s uncharacteristically softer and gentler behavior was noticed at all, it was probably promptly dismissed as nothing.  Meryn is apathetic to whatever happens and Arys was probably just relieved it wasn’t him ordered to hit Sansa.  After all, it was Joffrey’s order to get Sansa out of bed, which Sandor obeyed.  Dabbing the blood on her lip though?  Perhaps that part was a little strange that Sandor took it upon himself to dab her lip instead of handing her the handkerchief, but then again Joffrey commanded that Sansa wipe the blood from her face.  That’s not enough for anyone to think there’s something going on between them.      

Next would be Joffrey’s nameday tourney in Sansa I, ACOK.  Roughly a few weeks to a month has passed.  Those present are Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen.  I wrote about the subtle Sansan stuff going on here.  The children aren’t going to notice anything and Joffrey is too obtuse.  Lothor Brune (probably already Petyr’s hired sword at this point) and Dontos Hollard are also present.  Sansa made up the story about bad luck to kill a man on your nameday, but it’s the Hound backing up that nonsense that persuades Joffrey to relent for one day.  I don’t think that detail registers with either Lothor or Dontos.  Then Sansa speaks up again to convince Joffrey to make Dontos his fool instead.  It’s Lothor that probably conveys the story without mention of Sandor to Littlefinger, who would then have the idea to use Dontos as a pawn.  Dontos is probably too drunk and too terrified for his life to notice that Sandor also had a small part in saving his life.

It’s also in that chapter that word has reached KL that Jaime has been captured by Robb.  It’s mentioned a few times that if Sansa is harmed or killed, there could be retaliation on Jaime for it.  Because of Sandor’s long personal service and loyalty to Cersei, it would then make sense to frame Sandor’s protective actions toward Sansa as protecting Lannister interests.  During the bread riot, Tyrion orders that the Whitecloaks go back into the city to find Sansa for this reason.  But then Sandor arrives with Sansa in tow and Tyrion hears Sandor say: “The little bird's bleeding. Someone take her back to her cage and see to that cut."  All it sounds like is that Sandor is using a slightly irreverent epithet for a valuable hostage.  There’s no time for Tyrion to even think about that as his attention is quickly drawn away to the fires in Flea Bottom possibly reaching the stores of wildfire.  

Sandor’s actions in the public beating scene in Sansa III, ACOK could be explained the same way.  

"Enough," she heard the Hound rasp.

"No it isn't," the king replied. "Boros, make her naked."    

I think Joffrey is too fixated on mixing violence and sexuality for the first time to really notice Sandor’s defiance.  And giving Sansa his cloak to cover herself came at Tyrion’s prompting.  

And that’s it.  That’s all anyone ever sees.  Sansa never speaks a word to anyone that she ever had any connection to Sandor.  When she’s Alayne Stone, a girl with a completely different past, that part of her life gets partitioned off along with everything that belongs to Sansa Stark.  

You asked me specifically (and especially) about Littlefinger not knowing anything about their relationship.  I don’t think he has any more ability to figure it out than anyone else in KL and somehow failed to do so; however, the parallels between him and Sandor lead me to think that these two will be on opposing sides in the future fight to finally return Sansa to her Stark identity.  Both are from small, humble landed knight houses that were established by their grandfathers.  Both had their childhood idealism shattered in an event that involves almost dying and severe scarring.  They both became cynical towards the system and its institutions.  Both have/had romantic feelings toward a woman too highborn for them.  Not coincidentally those women are a mother and daughter.  Sandor has his Hound identity to be the “butcher” instead of the “meat.”  Petyr has his mockingbird to be the “player” instead of the “pawn.”  There are some really important differences as well.  Just on a basic level, one represents plain, blunt honesty and truth.  The other spins “lies and Arbor gold.”  While Sandor still has the idealist deeply buried under his cynicism, Petyr’s is completely dead.  Sandor finds his purpose in service to others and he is neither greedy nor ambitious.  Petyr’s job may be to serve the crown and he plays up being lowborn and non-threatening, but he lives to only serve himself, acquiring wealth, power, and titles.  Vengeance is a theme of both their stories.  Sandor actually refrained from killing his brother while Littlefinger’s pursuit of vengeance has no boundaries against those he feels have wronged him.  Thousands suffer and die because of him.  It’s possible to go on and on.  It’s clear the two have very similar origins and backstories but have taken very different paths and approaches to life.  Both have Sansa at the center of their journeys.  This should come full circle.  

Yeah, I think he will one day find out about the relationship between Sansa and Sandor and it will land on him like a meteor.  It’s something he could never account for in all his machinations and in the grooming of his perfect daughter-partner-lover.  Think of the burning humiliation and devastation he felt when he “lost” Catelyn to Brandon, then a second time to Ned.  That would be the original wound that festered for over 15 years the point of him kicking off the plot to the ASOIAF series.  Now multiply that by ten when he loses the girl all over again to another canid-sigiled guy with dark hair, gray eyes, and that same plain, Northern face.  I picture this reaction: