Sandor’s placement alongside Arya and Gendry
There’s been a lot of talk about how interesting it is that the Hound keeps appearing in scenes involving Arya-Gendry, or about Arya-Gendry; and how he’s there as a symbolic mediator, representing to Arya the choice between light and dark (Gendry being the light, Sandor being the dark).
And whilst I absolutely agree with that, and think that is a very accurate analysis, these analyses seem to miss out another very important point.
Sandor has known Arya and Gendry - and by ‘Arya and Gendry’ I mean the duo, not the two characters separately - for years. He knew them back when (quote Joe Dempsie) Gendry’s entire stance was “Where Arya goes, Gendry goes.” Yes, he was with Arya on her final journey before Braavos - but people also forget that Sandor was the last person to see Arya actually showing emotion and trust with another human; and that was Gendry.
Think back to the cave scene, where Sandor fights Lord Beric and ‘wins’ but Beric is brought back. This is just after he’s been captured by the Brotherhood, and he knows there’s this dark haired boy hanging around Arya Stark, protecting her (seeing all of them at the inn), but who Arya is also protecting (Arya making sure Gendry is safely out before she tries to walk past Sandor undetected). Then during that cave scene, what’s the dynamic?
Well, Gendry is keeping a beady eye on Arya; and when Sandor wins the fight, Arya charges forward to try and stab him. What does Gendry do? Anticipate Arya’s every move, because he knows her, he knows what she was about to do, and so he absolutely hurtles around that fire to smack into Arya and physically grab her to stop her stabbing Sandor. Gendry keeps a tight hold of Arya on the ground as she shouts “BURN IN HELL” at Sandor; and Sandor would have witnessed Arya go from fighting against Gendry’s arms in that moment, to Arya’s hands move to holding onto Gendry in fear (as Beric had just been resurrected and she didn’t understand what was going on). That moment with Arya and Gendry is a very underrated moment - it speaks volumes of how they know how to anticipate the other, they will protect one another, and they are also a comfort to one another.
And Sandor sees all of this. This is the last time he saw Arya and Gendry together.
They were young, and they certainly loved each other at the time - just not in a way they could put into words, as Arya was too young to understand her feelings, and Gendry was still viewing her as this girl he simply cared deeply for and needed to protect. And Sandor would have seen that and understood that is what they were to each other.
Sandor is clearly aware of this, as he knows Beric sold Gendry to Melisandre. When Beric joins Sandor and Arya on the eve of battle (before she goes away - to find Gendry. Placed next to Sandor, thematically, again), he asks Arya if Beric was on her list. To which she says “For a little while.” He knows the reason for that is Gendry. He’s already seen them reunite - to which Arya’s immediate response was to protect Gendry against Sandor’s ‘bullying’. He knows a lot has changed, but that dynamic he witnessed from years ago, of the two of them protecting each other? That hasn’t changed.
So yes. Sandor is representative of the darkness, whilst Gendry is representative of light. That definitely is being done deliberately - Sandor marks when dark horrible things happened (despite him trying to protect Arya), whereas Gendry is the only person outside of her family she has ever loved and cared for (”I can be your family”).
But Sandor is also the only person who knows and understands who Arya and Gendry are and always have been to each other. That’s why he immediately knows something’s going on with them when he speaks to Gendry. Because he saw how deeply they cared about each other, years ago - they’re just now old enough to understand those feelings. Sandor will be important for bringing the two of them back together, but not just because of him representing darkness and Gendry representing light. But because he is the only person who really, completely, understands how much they mean to each other.
