If you ask many fans of the show, they will say that the Hound is one of their favorite side characters, though it wasn’t always like this. The Hound started off the series as a bodyguard for the Lannister family and was a ruthless killer who would kill anyone he wanted to or was given the order to. He was a complete loner who preferred the company of booze over people.
This all started to change, however. After walking away from doing the duty of the Lannisters, he found himself sort of renewed, as his character now had more purpose and slowly turned into a good guy with actual good ambitions. Surprisingly, he was left largely good for the most part in the latter 2 seasons of the show, something that can’t be said about most of the characters.
So, let's take a look at the best Hound scenes from the show!
1. The Butcher's Boy (Season 1, Episode 2)
While the actual moment happens off-screen, The Hound ends up killing the Butcher’s boy, Micah, upon the wrongful orders of the Queen and Joffrey. This happened after Joffrey gets humiliated by Arya, so he cooks up an entire excuse in order to incriminate the innocent Micah, who is then killed by the Hound without a second thought. While this isn’t obviously a good thing that he has done, it serves very well to show the kind of person that Sandor used to be.
2. Fighting the Mountain (Season 1, Episode 5)
During the tourney held in honor of Ned, Ser Loras Tyrell unhorses the giant demon Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane, a knight known for his brutality and rage. Upon detecting foul play, Gregor gets ready to kill Loras on the spot, only being stopped by his younger brother Sandor, where they have a small fight showing that both in terms of size and skill, very few people can stand up to the Mountain like the Hound. It also gives us a teaser for the eventual battle much later on.
3. Saving Sansa (Season 2, Episode 6)
Due to how big of an idiot Joffrey is, the Crown then faces many wars. These wars have greatly stretched the rations of the people thin, due to the populace of Kings’ Landing growing hungrier by the day and getting rightfully frustrated at Joffrey. This causes many dangerous riots to break out, leading to the deaths of many civilians and knights. In this confusion, Sansa gets lost but is ultimately saved by Sandor, showing him to be a much kinder person than we first thought.
4. Battle of the Blackwater (Season 2, Episode 9)
The Hound was always renowned for his prowess as a fighter and was said to be an absolute force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, something that he really proved in the Battle of the Blackwater. He was part of the first wave of soldiers and went on an absolute killing spree for a while, also boosting the morale of many of his comrades as well. When he wasn’t fighting, he was drinking on the battlefield so as to be as wild as physically possible in battle.
5. ____ the King (Season 2, Episode 9)
A moment that takes place later on in the very same episode, the Hound starts to think of this as a losing battle and deeply fears the fire on the other side. This causes him to lose all morale and he defects from Joffrey's side and runs away from battle. Upon being questioned why he did this by Tyrion, Sandor has one of the best replies to Tyrion and Joffrey that could have possibly been given. Though he is a brave brute, this scene shows that the Hound cares for his life the most.
6. Fighting Beric (Season 3, Episode 5)
Sandor versus Beric Dondarrion was a very cool fight scene and a surprise for fans of the show. Upon being taken as a prisoner by the Brotherhood without Banners, Sandor chooses to save his own life via trial by combat, which pits him face to face with Beric. The 2 clash in the cave, steel meeting fiery steel in front of Arya and everyone else. The scene ends with Sandor finally killing Beric, but Beric getting the last laugh upon being resurrected.
7. Saving Arya (Season 3, Episode 10)
The Hound is the one who takes Arya to the Twins in order to reunite her with her family, but upon reaching, they see what the Frey’s truly have planned. As the entire Stark party is massacred, Arya tries to run into the castle in confusion, wanting to see her family again after so long. Knowing that this would mean almost certain death for her, the Hound knocks her out and carries her away, saving her life.
8. Reclaiming Needle (Season 4, Episode 1)
Season 4’s first episode has an amazing Hound and Arya scene, where they both stumble upon a tavern that is housing a few Lannister soldiers. One of these soldiers is Polliver, a brute that killed Arya’s friend and stole her beloved sword, Needle. As they’re enjoying their meal, Polliver comes up to the 2 of them and starts talking to them condescendingly, leading to a few great lines by the Hound and then a battle scene where the heroes come out on top.
9. The Hound vs Brienne (Season 4, Episode 10)
In the culmination of the last episode of the 4th season of the show, 2 of the best warriors in the world fight head to head. When Brienne finally catches up to Sandor and Arya, she asks to now be Arya’s protector, something which the Hound doesn’t support at all. This leads to an intense battle on the cliffside, leading to Brienne gaining the upper hand and pushing Sandor down. It ends with Arya visiting the Hound as he lay dying.
The final conversation between them is beautiful as Sandor finally lets Arya go and admits to wanting to protect her the whole time. This is where Arya leaves him to pursue her own path alone, and this is where we see the Hound as we presume him to be dead. It brings to close a fan favorite arc and wraps it up in a very nice way.
10. The Broken Man (Season 6, Episode 7)
After over a season and a half, we find out that Sandor is alive! Not only did he not die after his battle with Brienne, he was found and cared for by some followers of the Seven, which almost completely transformed him into a new man. This version of Sandor now cars for people other than himself and helps them around with building, hunting and foraging, seeing as he is a giant of a man and does a lot of the heavy lifting. This can be seen as sort of the beginning of his redemption arc.
11. Getting revenge on the bandits (Season 6, Episode 8)
The Hound loses his friends to some bandits who then escape. He takes it upon himself to find these bandits and kill them, doing so in spectacular fashion as he alone wipes out an entire party of these murderers. The scene reinforces the idea of Sandor having changed for the better and while he still has his murderous ways, he doesn’t do it for no reason.
12. Joining the Brotherhood (Season 6, Episode 8)
After Sandor gets revenge on the group of outlaws, he finds that their leader and the mastermind behind the whole thing, Lemoncloak, was missing, causing him to continue his search. This is where he meets Beric and the Brotherhood who have the 3 remaining bandits in nooses. Sandor makes a deal with them to kill 2 of the 3, which he does.
This ends with Beric confronting him and telling him that they could use someone like the Hound in their ranks, something which Sandor initially refuses, but ultimately accepts as he now has nowhere else to go and no purpose left. Seeing Sandor join forces with his old enemies was really a great sight to see and gave us a really great team up.
13. North of the Wall (Season 7, Episode 6)
Despite my many problems with season 7 and even this scene in particular, seeing this entire Avengers-style team up was actually really cool. We saw characters interacting that we would otherwise have never thought would meet, as well as characters meeting only a second time after meeting really long ago. In the case of the latter, this was the first time Jon and Sandor were meeting since season 1 and all the talk between them and everyone else was just fun to see.
14. Meeting Gregor (Season 7, Episode 7)
This was a quiet scene at the end of season 7, but it was one that was heavy with subtext. Sandor was known to harbor a deep and intense hatred towards his brother for what was done to him when they were kids and had always said that he would be the one to kill the Mountain. This is the first time they came face to face since season 1, and the moment was very potent as Sandor went right up to his brother's face and promised to kill him.
15. Cleganebowl (Season 8, Episode 5)
This entire season was an absolute nightmare, coming in with the most nonsensical storytelling that literally made it seem like an entirely different show than the one we had been following for the past seasons. Still though, Cleganebowl was awesome. It was the moment where the Clegane brothers finally fought each other after years of hatred and promises of doing it.
The fight was absolutely gorgeous as well, with Drogon flying in the background as the Red Keep was falling apart. They both knew that neither of them was going to survive this moment, but to Sandor it really didn’t matter as he now finally had the means to kill his brother, the one thing he wanted all his life. For this, he even overcame his fear of fire and fought his brother to the death in a brutal fashion which ended with both of them plummeting to their doom.
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