#this horse is just a SMIDGEON too big

[webcomichorses]

A horse from The Tyrant's Only Perfumer, ep 23

[thebluelemontree]

Why do you think Sandor wanted that song so much? What did it mean to him? Clearly the idea of her singing to him was on his mind for awhile. The song obviously carries symbolic meanings for the reader. But what was its in-universe significance to the man who demanded it? Why was it so important to him that she sing specifically?

It’s part of his childhood idealism and the knight he wanted to be.  The kind that saves fair maidens among other heroic deeds.  The day he saved her in the bread riot was a song come alive for him.  For the first time in his life, Sandor wasn’t just doing his job guarding and carrying out the commands of terrible people.  He was protecting an honest-to-goodness innocent person in need of saving, and Sansa is straight out of central casting as a fair maiden.  From Sansa’s recollection:     

The Hound leapt at them, his sword a blur of steel that trailed a red mist as it swung. When they broke and ran before him he had laughed, his terrible burned face for a moment transformed.  – Sansa IV, ACOK.  

You could read this as nothing more than bloodlust; however, it seems to me his expression was “transformed” from his normal anger into something else.  It’s the presence of anger that Sansa admits is what makes his burned face “terrible,” not so much the scars.  Now that Sansa has a chance to really think about it after some time has passed from the harrowing event, his face was different when he saved her.  I see it as Sandor having a brief moment of elation and pride.  This is what it feels like to be a hero.  This is what his grandfather did for Tytos Lannister.  It’s not all bullshit and children’s stories.  It also tells us Sandor is capable of romanticizing a terrible event, just as Sansa.  He will later fudge the retelling of events to make it seem like the song came as a result of saving Sansa’s life in the riot:  

“… I saved your sister’s life too. The day the mob pulled her off her horse, I cut through them and brought her back to the castle, else she would have gotten what Lollys Stokeworth got. And she sang for me. You didn’t know that, did you? Your sister sang me a sweet little song.“ – Arya IX, ASOS. 

Then later at his death, he will damn himself as no true hero because he failed to protect her from Joffrey.  He botched his own rescue attempt by scaring the daylights out of her.  Because of his frailty and fuck-ups, in his mind, he abandoned her to an even worse fate with Tyrion.  He is the “gutless fraud” he is talking about.  He never deserved that song after all and the way he actually got it shames him to the point he wants to die:

“I hate liars. I hate gutless frauds even worse. Go on, do it.” When Arya did not move, he said, “I killed your butcher’s boy. I cut him near in half, and laughed about it after.” He made a queer sound, and it took her a moment to realize he was sobbing. “And the little bird, your pretty sister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it…”

Sandor tying Sansa’s song to the riot is important, but let’s back up a bit because the seed for the song idea was planted before that.

 . . . ah, you’re still a stupid little bird, aren’t you? Singing all the songs they taught you … sing me a song, why don’t you? Go on. Sing to me. Some song about knights and fair maids. You like knights, don’t you?“ 

He was scaring her. "T-true knights, my lord.”

“True knights,” he mocked. “And I’m no lord, no more than I’m a knight. Do I need to beat that into you?"  Clegane reeled and almost fell.  "Gods,” he swore, “too much wine.”    – Sansa II, ACOK.  [Real smooth there, Sandor]

The dot-dot-dots usually mean a character just had a gear-shifting thought.  This is from their meeting on the serpentine steps.  He’s just noticed she’s “almost a woman” then had to remind himself that no, she’s still too young and immature for that.  Sandor’s drunken, less-inhibited brain is bouncing around like a ping-pong ball between his just-awakened attraction and frantically trying to stomp it out.  He’s over-correcting by calling her a “stupid little bird” because (as reflected in his swaying) how off-balance he is thrown by interacting with her.  Not surprisingly, it’s Sandor who is actually showing his immaturity.  Those ellipses indicate a little light bulb has just turned on and it will become an idea that he really latches on to.  Oh, but he can’t just straight up ask for a song.  No way.  Better frame it as a halfhearted dare instead so she doesn’t think he’s actually interested in something so lame, stupid, and the antithesis of everything he’s preached at her.  She reminds him that it’s true knights that she likes, which he must then beat into his own head that he isn’t even a knight, let alone a true one at this point.  He couldn’t be further from the heroes she looks up to.  The song was a dumb idea anyway, right?  So why can’t he let it go?

I would point out just before Sandor brings up the song again, it’s Sansa that has coaxed a poetic “song” about a hero out of Sandor first without him realizing it (whether he willed it or no):

As they were winding their way up the steps, she said, "Why do you let people call you a dog? You won’t let anyone call you a knight.”

“I like dogs better than knights. My father’s father was kennelmaster at the Rock. One autumn year, Lord Tytos came between a lioness and her prey. The lioness didn’t give a shit that she was Lannister’s own sigil. Bitch tore into my lord’s horse and would have done for my lord too, but my grandfather came up with the hounds. Three of his dogs died running her off. My grandfather lost a leg, so Lannister paid him for it with lands and a towerhouse, and took his son to squire. The three dogs on our banner are the three that died, in the yellow of autumn grass. A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he’ll look you straight in the face."  He cupped her under the jaw, raising her chin, his fingers pinching her painfully. "And that’s more than little birds can do, isn’t it? I never got my song.”

“I … I know a song about Florian and Jonquil.“

"Florian and Jonquil? A fool and his cunt. Spare me. But one day I’ll have a song from you, whether you will it or no.”

“I will sing it for you gladly.”

Sandor Clegane snorted. “Pretty thing, and such a bad liar…”

Dot-dot-dot!!! Sansa doesn’t offer to sing about just any knight saving a maiden.  He never asked for a specific song.  It was her choice.  She offers to sing her favorite song, which makes it a deeply personal gift.  So this scene was actually about an exchange of songs, where Sandor gave one that was personal to him as well.  Sansa’s song is also a romantic one, specifically about a maiden who falls in love with an unconventional knight.  He wasn’t prepared for that, nor can he believe it, and as usual, reacts with knee-jerk cynicism.  She’s so pretty that she has to be lying that she’d ever “gladly” sing a song like that for him.  You might want to follow up with this post on those other connotations of the song too because Sansa dreaming of Sandor in her marriage bed gives another ironic twist on having a song from her whether she “wills it or no.”  Even without the sexual innuendo meaning, singing a song for a man is an intimate act which they are both aware of. It’s a piece of herself that she would give gladly to him “one day” in the future.

The problem that will prevent Sansa from being able to give the song gladly lies in Sandor’s immaturity, neediness, cynicism, and untreated PTSD.  Fast forward to the bread riot when he’s high on feeling like one of those true knights she holds in high regard.  He wanted that validation from her but feels deflated when he doesn’t get it in the way he hoped.

"The little bird still can’t bear to look at me, can she?” The Hound released her. “You were glad enough to see my face when the mob had you, though. Remember?”

…

“I … I should have come to you after,” she said haltingly. “To thank you, for … for saving me … you were so brave.”

“Brave?” His laugh was half a snarl. “A dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats. They had me thirty to one, and not a man of them dared face me.”

So roughly two months have passed (according to the ASOIAF timeline) since the riot and this conversation.  Sansa never even attempted to thank Sandor for saving her, which she acknowledges after some thought that she should have.  For Sandor, it’s a twofold dud.  Not only does he have to remind her, but the thanks she gives is lukewarm and rote.  To be entirely fair, the riot was not a song for Sansa.  She was traumatized by it.  Even the manner in which she was rescued was rife with graphic violence that Sandor doesn’t seem to fully appreciate; however, I’m not sure Sansa would have been so negligent in thanking her rescuer if it had been Ser Loras.  In fact, her nightmare about the riot is an acknowledgment that it wasn’t one of her preferred heroes that saved her.  No one else put themselves between her and the mob.  She would not be alive if it weren’t for the rude asshole with the terrible face standing before her.  A little more gratitude was in order, but Sandor doesn’t make that easy either.  He can’t let on that he cared that much about being her hero or that he was hurt and disappointed by her oversight.  Again, he overcompensates by drastically downplaying it, acting like it’s dumb to make a big deal out of it, and just being an insufferable jerk about everything.  We can see from the way Sandor framed the story to Arya he had fantasized about Sansa reaching out to him post-riot to thank him with a song.  Florian and Jonquil, just like she promised.  It was supposed to be the icing on the cake for his very song-like heroic deed.  And maybe, just maybe, there was a little smidgeon of hope that she reciprocated his romantic feelings thrown in there as well.        

So that leads us to the Blackwater.  It’s always important to keep in mind that Sandor demanded the literal song.  He was never using the word as a euphemism.  He is also in the throes of a major PTSD episode and is not able to comprehend why his behavior is frightening to Sansa.  So why did he have to demand the song at knifepoint?  Why did he demand it at all?  Why was it that important to him at that moment?

“Why did you come here?”

“You promised me a song, little bird. Have you forgotten?”

She didn’t know what he meant. She couldn’t sing for him now, here, with the sky aswirl with fire and men dying in their hundreds and their thousands. “I can’t,” she said. “Let me go, you’re scaring me.”

…

“I could keep you safe,” he rasped. “They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.” He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. “Still can’t bear to look, can you?” she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. “I’ll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said.” His dagger was out, poised at her throat. “Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life."  – Sansa VII, ACOK.

Sandor has deserted during the battle after he could no longer go on fighting surrounded by wildfire. He’s been labeled a craven and desertion is a crime that can be punishable by death.  When he says he’s lost “all,” he means he’s lost his entire sense of self.  Sandor Clegane doesn’t know who he is anymore.  The fearsome Hound has been (in his eyes) unmanned by a half-man without any real martial ability.  His military career and reputation have been torpedoed.  He has no home or position anymore.  Gregor already took everything else.  Everything is crashing down around him, and he’s self-medicating the tidal wave of panic and humiliation with alcohol.  The one person he can go to for comfort and validation is Sansa.  If he can pledge himself to her, abscond from the city with her, be her hero again, then he still has an identity as a warrior and a man.

Sandor had been waiting for her in her room, lying on her bed like a scared little boy seeking some maternal solace.  The way he says “Little Bird, I knew you’d come” sounds more like he had been silently praying for her to rescue him from this place rather than the other way around.  To Sansa, the song is not only an inappropriate thing to ask for at this moment with all the chaos, violence, and uncertainty.  It sounds downright crazy.  He’s covered in blood, drunk, smelling of vomit, skulking around in the dark and grabbing her, but he accuses Sansa of being irrationally afraid as if she has no cause.  He thinks she’s carelessly forgotten the promised song as if that was an obvious and sane answer to her question of why he’s there.  All this suggests how greatly Sandor is disassociating from reality at this moment.     

Offering to protect her and kill anyone that tries to hurt her is as close as Sandor can come to articulating his feelings for her.  Some call it a declaration of love, which I agree that it is, albeit it’s a very misguided expression of love entwined with violence.  He interprets her response to that declaration as her still not being able to look at his disfigurement, even after all that he has done for her and still trying to do.  It makes him furious.  This is where Sandor’s severe PTSD, his desperation to reclaim a sense of self, and his perceived wrongful rejection by her cause him to take a sharp nosedive into his darkest and most cynical beliefs:  that Sansa has finally shown her true colors and she’s proven herself to be just another highborn brat.  All he wanted was just listen to a soft, dulcet voice spinning some beautiful imagery to drown out the sounds of all those screaming, burning men.  All he demanded asked for was to hear her sing about her favorite knight and recall a day when he felt brave and on top of the world.  But damn it, she denied him this one small thing that would help him feel better right now.  Even then he offers up everything he has to take her north, and she spurns it.  No real fair maiden of the songs would ever be so ungrateful and impossible to please.  When she said she’d sing for him gladly, she lied.  She’s a liar.  She saves her songs for handsome faces.  She never intended to keep her promise.  But fuck it, that song is owed to him.  Might as well just take it.  

Sandor is, of course, completely wrong and in the wrong here.  A fact that will dawn on him as soon as the Mother’s Hymn registers in his brain and he can see himself with clarity.  He came to her like a monster, not a hero.  Sansa was right to be afraid of him and to refuse him.  By Sansa touching his face, she is saying he did have her compassion and willingness to comfort him all along.  She even has the grace in her to give it to him now when he least deserves it, which makes her even more of a true lady than she was before.  It was the Hound she rejected, not him.  His anger, fear, and cynicism caused him to see fault in her when there was none. He hurt the person he cared for most in the world and for that he tears off his white cloak, leaving disgusted and ashamed.  The song then becomes a haunting reminder of his worst self rather than his greatest glory.  This is why he finds it so necessary to confess taking the song along with his other failures and bad acts.  To him, it was just as bad as letting Sansa be beaten if that gives you any indication of how seriously Sandor actually takes the meaning of the song.  It was a piece of her that he didn’t have a right to and wasn’t worthy of.  Songs from fair maidens are for heroes and true knights.  Not for a gutless fraud like himself.