Cleganebowl of Game of Thrones – The Mountain Against the Hunting Dog – Explained

For years, many Game of thrones Fans are clamoring to see Sandor Clegane, aka The Hound, and his brother Gregor Clegane, aka The Mountain, face off in an epic match dubbed the "Cleganebowl". They are reputed to be the best fighters of all Westeros, and never. Since the sadistic mountain gave his brother unpleasant facial scars in their childhood, the Dog is thirsty for revenge.

The fifth episode of season eight, "The Bells," finally allowed fans to face a long-awaited wait, as Hound searched for the Mountain as King's Landing collapsed. The resulting battle was indeed epic – while remaining perfectly in tune with the wider themes of the episode, the horrors of war, fire and social and cultural collapse.

You want to know who – if someone has won? Continue reading! But, of course, the spoilers follow.

The idea of ​​a final confrontation between the dog and the mountain is integrated into Game of thrones'Story – and in the end, the dog got his due

The mountain and the dog have always disagreed. Even as a child, Gregor Clegane was a sadistic individual. In the fourth episode of season 1, Littlefinger told Sansa that when they were kids, the mountain had a terrified face in front of a burning fire, leaving her with permanent facial scars and a fear of fire.

We also learned in George R.R. Martin's A song of ice and fire novels, on which Game of thrones is based on the fact that Gregor probably did not limit his violence to his younger brother Sandor; the first novel, A game of thrones, implying that he not only tortured Sandor, but may also have killed their sister and their father in order to more quickly secure his title to the family's land. Sandor fled their family home the day Gregor inherited his legacy and has spent most of his life waiting for the perfect time to finally take revenge.

Where the Hound and the Mountain were once fierce fighters, however, they were both weaker versions of themselves before the fifth episode began. The Hound was still not 100% after a battle that left him almost dead four seasons ago. And the mountain was, uh, a kind of zombie. Moreover, despite what the dog always said – as recently as season seven, he told his zombie brother that "you know who's coming for you", that is to say him – he was uncertain that he even wanted to revenge.

But after his hesitation in the Battle of Winterfell, the goal of the dog seemed clear as he accompanied Arya Stark to King's Landing: she continued her revenge against Cersei and allowed him to face the mountain. And after a last moving moment between Hound and Arya in which he persuaded her to leave for her own safety, the Hound managed to get the face-off against the mountain he had always dreamed of.

HBO

The result? A beautifully filmed sequence in which the two brothers fought amidst collapses of towers and turrets, both perfectly matched. After repeatedly delivering what would normally be the last shots, Sandor realized that the zombie version of his brother was impossible to kill by any means other than fire – which is precisely what Sandor fears most.

Then the dog did the most likeable thing possible: he grabbed danger by fists and threw himself and the castle edge mountain into flames lit by dragons all the way down, eliminating his brother once and for all and dying in what was undoubtedly the "best", most heroic death of Game of thrones until there. RIP, Sandor Clegane: May many chickens be waiting for you in the afterlife.

Thus, the Cleganebowl was complete; and although there were no clear winners, in a way, everyone won.

Cleganebowl has always focused on two things: revenge and memes

SG8970 / Reddit

Over the years, the Cleganebowl has become one of the Game of thrones The longest memes of fandom, with fans who often shouted "become exaggerated!" As they waited for what they hoped would be a real decisive battle between two formidable opponents. (Think about the fight raging between Hound and Ser Brienne in the final of the fourth season, "The Kids".)

According to the venerable Know Your Meme, the idea of ​​the Cleganebowl appeared for the first time in a 4chan thread in 2013, just before Game of thronesThird season debuted. An anonymous fan assumed that the season could involve the hunting dog and the mountain clashing in a fight in which everyone would show their fighting power in a battle to end all battles.

Initially, the proposed fight was part of a whole theory that the Hunting Dog was the "little brother" prophesied to kill Cersei. Over the years, however, this theory began to seem less and less likely and the Cleganebowl idea was developed to refer to any potential fight between mount and dog. A Cleganebowl subreddit was even created in 2014 and is since a reliable source of memes and discussions dedicated to the fight.

Much of Cleganebowl's enjoyment, beyond the bizarre humor of dealing with a fantastic medieval event like a modern sports match, simply anticipated him. This video of fans broadcast a few hours before the broadcast of "The Bells" is a good example:

It also involves a lot of chickens, because Hound really likes chicken.

The dog is one of the Game of thronesThe most popular characters and popularity of Cleganebowl come from both his love for the fandom (and for the actor Rory McCann) and his desire to finally see him avenge the Mountain for what looks like a childhood full of abuse.

But it's unique in most discussions about Game of thrones – like those who finally have to sit on the iron throne – cause a lot of division, while Cleganebowl meme points out one of the few points that most fans can agree on, namely that it would be great to watch an intense fight between two titans of Westerosi.

Cleganebowl does not really match who the Hound is these days – but it was always a triumphal end to his character in the series

HBO

More than eight seasons of Game of thronesthe dog had a slow but significant bow of redemption, as he passed from a violent thug to kings to a hardened loner who had lost all taste for combat, to a man who slowly reinvented himself through community work and struggling with Jon Snow the North – strives to create essentially positive changes after a long life of destruction.

Where the dog was once the epitome of alpha male masculinity, he gradually softened: he developed a penchant for the Stark sisters, especially Arya, and gradually assailed his guilt for his previous violent and selfish actions. The Battle of Winterfell saw him actually tremble for a moment, overwhelmed by both his fear of fire and the reality of the scale of the Army of the Dead. He's no longer the dog we met during the first season and he should not be one either.

Editor-in-chief Angelina Meehan recently posted on Twitter a long reflective thread Hound, although this is mainly his role in Martin's role in Chant of ice and fire books, it's the same for the trajectory of his character in the series. Meehan claims that his character is a study of the harmful impact of toxic masculinity on men like The Hound who are immersed in it and forced to brandish it; it leaves him ultimately devastated, weakened and downright pathetic, before he gradually rebuilds himself as a completely different kind of man. "The dog is dead" she written, referring to a metaphor drawn from books in which the dog seeks to disguise himself as a different man, "is clearly a metaphor for the violent side of his personality. [T]the hat is finished.

Except that on the show, it is clear was not more than.

For Sandor Clegane – a man who has gradually rejected the idea of ​​ultra-violence as a way of life – choosing to return to King's Landing only to avenge his zombie brother could finally be a step backwards in his narrative trajectory. Of course, it offers a potential for catharsis, and it definitely ticks an element of the Game of thrones fanservice bucket list. But is it true for the character?

In the end, it may not have even mattered. The Hound who fought the mountain in "The Bells" was the character whose fans fell in love at first, and that's what they wanted to see out with a bang – or, in this case, a dive. And these fans had their wish.

They also could see the mountain without his head! Look how rude he is!

HBO

So, of course: it was a Cleganebowl started on dubious bases, the two brothers deciding that the moment the city literally collapse was the perfect time to fight to death. But if you want to get into a fan battle that has been missing for all fans for years, there's a much worse way this game could have been.