Hi!!! love you blog!!! I am re-reading AFFC and it's look like GRRM is foreshadowing and setting up a showdown btween Sandor and Sir Lyle crackhall. Do you think they both you met in TWOW?
Hi and thank you!!! Um... Respectfully, my friend, no. I don’t think that’s what’s happening.
I don’t think Ser Lyle’s (Strongboar’s) statements are a foreshadowing to a confrontation with the real Sandor Clegane anymore than Ser Tanton’s. Well, first of all, Sandor’s story doesn’t have any relevance to Lyle Crakehall. There’s no backstory between them. No conflict to resolve. Strongboar is in it purely for the glory-seeking. Hell, he even wanted a crack at The Blackfish. Hunting notorious outlaws is a means of earning honors and rewards for warriors not currently serving in military campaigns. There’s nothing that feels like his declared intentions have raised the stakes for Sandor in any way. This is a subplot of a subplot involving a tertiary character, which IMO, doesn’t feel like it fits with a redeemed Sandor’s return to the story. But even more than that, there are far better reasons to speculate that Lyle is destined to meet someone else instead.
The biggest sought after fish in the region are Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, the BwB, and the “Mad Dog of the Saltpans.” Rumor has it that all of these guys are in league with each other, which is not true at all, but this belief will be important later. It’s also important to note why this rumor was perpetuated:
"If [Sandor Clegane] is with Dondarrion . . . ?"
"He's not. Alyn is certain of that. Dondarrion's men are looking for him too. They have put out word that they mean to hang him for what he did at Saltpans. They had no part of that. Lord Randyll is putting it about that they did in hopes of turning the commons against Beric and his brotherhood. He will never take the lightning lord so long as the smallfolk are protecting him. -- Brienne V, AFFC.
There are grains of truth but a lot of deliberate misinformation going around. Despite word of Dondarrion being killed by the Mountain, he’s still credited with leading assaults on anyone harming the smallfolk even well after he’s permanently dead. The BwB since broke into two factions, and one is now being led by Lady Stoneheart. Rumors of The Hangwoman, The Silent Sister, and Mother Merciless are just starting to enter the mix with their own partial truths. What matters is that the general consensus is that if you rout out the BwB, you find all the outlaw leaders, including Sandor Clegane.
Of course, Sandor isn’t responsible for the Saltpans massacre. He was misidentified when Rorge stole the Hound’s helm from the cairn. Brienne killed Rorge at the inn at the crossroads while defending the orphans, but the true identity of the one responsible for the massacre is not yet common knowledge outside of the BwB. The Hounds helm found a new owner in Lem “Lemoncloak” of Stoneheart’s band.
"There is nothing good about that helm, nor the men who wore it," said the red priest. "Sandor Clegane was a man in torment, and Rorge a beast in human skin."
"I'm not them.”
"Then why show the world their face? Savage, snarling, twisted . . . is that who you would be, Lem?"
"The sight of it will make my foes afraid."
"The sight of it makes me afraid." -- Brienne VIII, AFFC.
Considering that Sandor is believed to be with the BwB, what do you think the chances are that Lem is being set up to be misidentified as the “Mad Dog of the Saltpans” in the very near future? The answer is high, very high.
To trace Lem’s link to Strongboar, we need to back up a bit to the ASOS Epilogue and the hanging of Merritt Frey near Old Stones. The BwB lured Merritt under the pretense of ransoming his nephew, Petyr Pimple. It ends with the reveal of Lady Stoneheart, her confirming Merritt was a participant in the Red Wedding and Merritt’s hanging. Guess who is holding the other end of the noose when he’s strung up? Lem, identified as a man in a yellow cloak.
Fast forward to Feast when Jaime has dinner with Lady Mariya (Merritt’s widow) and Lady Amerei Frey (Merritt’s daughter) who is now married to Lancel Lannister at Castle Darry. They have a long conversation about who killed Merritt, the Saltpans massacre, and the whereabouts of the BwB.
[Jaime] turned back to Lady Mariya. "The outlaws who killed your husband . . . was it Lord Beric's band?"
"So we thought, at first." Though Lady Mariya's hair was streaked with grey, she was still a handsome woman. "The killers scattered when they left Oldstones. Lord Vypren tracked one band to Fairmarket, but lost them there. Black Walder led hounds and hunters into Hag's Mire after the others. The peasants denied seeing them, but when questioned sharply they sang a different song. They spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore a yellow cloak . . and a woman, cloaked and hooded." -- Jaime IV, AFFC.
Guess who is also sitting at the table? Lyle Crakehall, who will now be on the lookout for the man in the yellow cloak. Surely, if/when he does see this man, he’ll also be wearing the Hound’s helm.
Strongboar filled his cup again. "Lady Mariya, Lady Amerei, your distress has moved me. You have my word, once Riverrun has fallen I shall return to hunt down the Hound and kill him for you. Dogs do not frighten me."
This one should. Both men were large and powerful, but Sandor Clegane was much quicker, and fought with a savagery that Lyle Crakehall could not hope to match.
Lady Amerei was thrilled, however. "You are a true knight, Ser Lyle, to help a lady in distress." -- Jaime IV, AFFC.
And uh, Strongboar might have also thought to sweeten the victory a bit because Amerei has a bit of a reputation and he’s seen her flirting with Jaime across the table as she asked him to hunt the outlaws. As Aunt Genna says “you know why they call her Gatehouse Ami? She raises her portcullis for every knight who happens by.”
Then later after Riverrun is sorted out:
Strongboar was the next to depart. He wanted to return to Darry as he'd promised and fight the outlaws. "We rode across half the bloody realm and for what? So you could make Edmure Tully piss his breeches? There's no song in that. I need a fight. I want the Hound, Jaime. Him, or the marcher lord."
"The Hound's head is yours if you can take it," Jaime said, "but Beric Dondarrion is to be captured alive, so he can be brought back to King's Landing. A thousand people need to see him die, or else he won't stay dead." Strongboar grumbled at that, but finally agreed. -- Jaime VII, AFFC.
Darry’s ownership is currently in limbo since Lancel renounced his lordship and unconsummated marriage to Amerei so he could join the Warrior’s Sons. Genna speculates that Kevan will marry his other son, Martyn, to Amerei instead and claim Darry. But it is worth considering that a second son like Ser Lyle might then hope to wed Amerei himself and gain the lordship of Darry Castle in his own right. What better way to do that than by doing what Lancel could not? He isn’t allowed to kill Beric, but it’s open season on the Hound and he swore as a knight that he would avenge Merrit’s murder by killing the Hound for Mariya and Amerei.
So where is Lem right now? He has to be still around the outskirts of the Fairmarket area since that’s where he was last seen attempting to hang Brienne, Hyle, and Podrick. Brienne then shows up at Pennytree, just west of Fairmarket, where she reunites with Jaime, supposedly to lead him back to Stoneheart and the BwB. Brienne tells Jaime that the Hound has Sansa and that they are located not too far away. "A day's ride. I can take you to her, ser … but you will need to come alone. Elsewise, the Hound will kill her." There were two guards present to witness their exchange.
Darry is half a day’s ride south of the Trident. If Strongboar is in Darry in TWOW, he will probably head north from there after word gets around that Jaime Lannister has gone missing (my guess) while riding out to meet the Hound, his quarry. That would be some powerful motivation to ride fast and headlong into BwB controlled territory, where he would see the man in a yellow cloak with a Hound’s helm. Who would win in that fight? No idea. Maybe one dies, or both. I could definitely see Ser Lyle looking upon the unburned face of a nobody under the helm and realizing he didn’t bag the big prize he desperately wanted all.
