White, as a general rule, is supposed to signifybrightness, purity, virtue, and innocence—and chastity, as the men of the Kingsguard are supposed to take no wives, sire no sons and hold no lands (like their counterparts in black). But furthermore, white is a color that is to signify good, and the light, and black evil and the darkness.
But unlike black, white is very easy to stain. Efforts must be made to keep from from tarnishing the color. White, like purity and innocence, is hard to retain.
At it’s first mentioned in the text, Sandor’s cloak is described as “snowy.”
In the back of the royal box, Sandor Clegane stood at guard, his hands resting on his swordbelt.The white cloak of the Kingsguard was draped over his broad shoulders and fastened with a jeweled brooch, the snowy cloth looking somehow unnatural against his brown roughspun tunic and studded leather jerkin. “Lady Sansa,” the Hound announced curtly when he saw her.
It is also the only fine thing that Sandor owns. Sandor is (as we all know) a complicated man. He outwardly shirks all societal views of beauty and physicalaccouterments and titles and status symbols, and yet he wears this white cloak, the ultimate status symbol, replete with a “jeweled brooch,” as juxtaposed with his “brown roughspun tunic” and “studded leather jerkin.”
He is man of contradictions. Sandor’s identity problems, to be quite honest, make my head spin sometimes.
He’s not a knight, but he’s the truest knight of them all. He’s a dog, but he can be the most human of them all. He is the hound and a beast and yet finds himself protecting these two young girls for no reason besides the fact he feels obligated to. He wants to protect Sansa’s innocence and he wants to destroy it. He is a butcher and a scared little boy. He shirks all status symbols–except this one.
Because isn’t it what every little boy–ever second son of a landed knight–dreams of? Gregor burned Sandor because he was playing with Gregor’s toy knight. He was looking around nervously as he did so. He knew that the consequences for playing with Gregor’s toy would be harsh, but risked it to play with the knight.
Being a knight of the Kingsguard is the epitome of knighthood.
I don’t want to talk about how Sandor not being a ser and shrugging off chivalry and yet being the most chivalrous and being the most knightly hurts my brain, so I’m hoping you get the paradox that is being presented here. Sandor cannot reconcile the image that he has of himself (the hound, the butcher, the beast) with what has been handed to him–the white cloak.
And the white cloak is quickly tarnished. After the riot, the cloak is described as:
Clegane lifted her to the ground.His white cloak was torn and stained, and blood seeped through a jagged tear in his left sleeve.
Being in the Kingsguard is to be the ultimate knight. But actually serving in the Kingsguard is means giving up chivalry and bravery and justice to whatever your King believes those to be. And we all know Joffrey’s perceptions of just.
The act of being a knight of the Kingsguard, in action, tarnishes the cloak with blood and dirt and grime. Ser Boros Blount strips Sansa naked and beats her. Meryn Trant is amongst the other members of the Kingsguard to beat her. The men of the Kingsguard are forced to harm and maim smallfolk when they are supposed to be dedicated to protecting them. They beat women and kill children. They are all tarnished, all of their cloaks stained with blood and muck.
The only time a white cloak preforms achivalrousact is when Sandor tosses his cloak at Sandor to protect her modesty.
Sandor Clegane unfastened his cloak and tossed it at her. Sansa clutched it against her chest, fists bunched hard in the white wool. The coarse weave was scratchy against her skin, but no velvet had ever felt so fine.
It is then that GRRM simply refers to the article as “white” with no mentioned of “stained” or “bloodied,” and as Sansa says, “no velvet had ever felt so fine.” The white cloak does not have to be stained, but it is by the nature of the wearer’s (and Joffrey’s) actions.
It is also interesting to note that Sandor preforms this action independent of any prompting by Joffrey and of his own will.
Now, this is wear SanSan starts to come in.
For so many years, Sandor has been kept on a leash by the Lannisters. He was comfortable being their muscles, and slept just fine at night doing their dirty work.
Until Sansa Stark came along. (There’s a pain in my chest and I just know it’s her fault that bitch!Sorry, couldn’t help the AVPM reference there, but it’s true. Sandor is an angry teenage boy when it comes to… everything.) Sansa is both thisinfuriatingand precious creature to him. She is everything that Gregor burned away from him and wants back about himself and everything that he loathes in other people. He wants to preserve her innocence and destroy it. (What is the color of innocence and purity again?)
The white cloak has meaning because someone gave it meaning, and Sansa very well ascribes to that meaning, dammit. The Kingsguard were supposed to be true knights, and they weren’t. And yet, the one non-ser on the guard, acts the most like a true knight towards her, saving her from the riot, wiping blood from her lip, covering her with his cloak, offering to rescue her.
Sansa pushes Sandor to be the “true knight.” While mocking her, he also believes in what the white cloak should symbolize. His failure to live up to that ideal pushes him farther away from the Lannisters in his blind attempts toachieveit. For the first time in his life, serving the Lannisters comes directly in conflict with what he wants to do–which is protect Sansa Stark.
We’re going to take a break from that idea for a little bit to examine the Battle of Blackwater, andthat scene.
It is the night of Blackwater that finally makes Sandor break the leash as the Hound, as he reverts to the scared little boy who wanted to play with the doll knight. Drunk and witless, he comes to Sansa and, like a true knight, offers to rescue the maiden fair. Except he does it all wrong and she’s terrified of him and nothing works out.
Sansan recognized the dog’s-head helm of the Hound.A white cloak streamedfrom his shoulders as he rode his horse up the plank onto the deck of Prayer, hacking downanyone who blundered within reach.Outside, a swirling lance of jade light spit at the stars, filling the room with green glare. She saw him for a moment, all black and green, the blood on his face dark as tar, his eyes glowing like a dog’s in the sudden glare. Then the light faded and he was only a hulking darknessin a stained white cloak.
“You won’t get out,” Sansa said. “The queen’s closed up Maegor’s, and the city gates are shut as well.”
“Not to me.I have the white cloak. And I have this.” He patted the pommel of his sword.
But it’s also the closest thing we get to Sandor’s true self. He’s a desperate man. He’s deserted the Lannisters and needs to get out of King’s Landing. He is terrified of the fire. He wants to save Sansa. He’s drunk, and bloodied.
He is at first described as a dog, but by the end of the first paragraph he is reduced to nothing but “a stained white cloak.” He is tarnished and dirty, yes, but he is still a white cloak, and it still means something–it can get them out of the city. In this scene, they both see it for what it is: something, that when paired with a sword and a strong arm, can rule–or at least get them the hell out of the city and save them both. It is political currency, and a symbol of status.
But that isn’t the only way to read the scene. Sandor has the white cloak and is offering Sansa his protection, offering to kill anyone who would hurt her. It that scene Sandor’s identity is, again, a paradox. He is offering the intent of a true knight with the words of a brute, and then flees because he is drunk and scared.
So he takes off the white cloak, and leaves it with Sansa, because he cannot live up to it’s (and her) expectations of him.
Sansa heardcloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps.
But he does not simply unfasten it, like he does when he gives it to Sansa the first time. He rips it off.
But like the first time, Sansa covers herself with it, protects herself with it.
She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire. The sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill wind was blowing, banging the shutters. Sansa was cold.She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering.
The words “twisted up tight” indicates that Sandor balled it up before throwing it to the floor. So–here, he rips it off and mashes it into a twisted mess. He tosses it to her because of Joffrey’s actions (and his “enough” not being enough to stop it) and throws it to the floor (abandoning it, leaving it with her) because he cannot rescue her from the Lannisters again, because of his own faults this time, not just the situation.
But why leave it with Sansa?
Which is where I return to the point I was making before bringing up the Blackwater scene–the cloak means as much, and possibly more, to Sansa than it does to Sandor. Sandor is Sansa’s last chance at romanticizing knighthood and the Kingsguard, and she clings to him and to his cloak desperately.
During the night of Blackwater, she wraps itself around her, despite the fact that it is “stained by blood and fire” and is “torn.” Sansa has learned that there are no true knights and that in life the monsters win–and yet like Sandor, she keeps trying for these unattainable, idealistic ideas of true knights and gracious ladies and fair maidens.
I wish the Hound were here.The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambersto take her from the city, but Sansa had refused.Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering ifshe’d been wise.She had his stained white cloak hidden in a cedar chest beneath her summersilks. She could not say why she’d kept it.
And she keeps the cloak with her, until she is forced to flee King’s Landing. She is a woman who has learned the ways of the world, but keeps the idea of true knights hidden away from what the rest of the worldperceivesher to think. She knows that despite the fact that his cloak may have been stained, Sandor could have protected her.
Sandor, quite literally, left Sansa with the cloak of his protection, twice (I really don’t want to have to make the obvious “third time’s the charm” joke, so do it yourselves). And both times, Sansa donned that protection willingly, whereas for her marriage to Tyrion, she refused to bend to allow him to put it on her shoulders.
From all that we’ve heard of marriages and cloaks, itisn'thard to ascribe some wedding symbolism to the cloak as well, despite the fact that men of the Kingsguard are not to take wives. But in a world where women are bought and sold like chattel, Sansa’s choice to put on Sandor’s cloak is particularly significant, and she keeps it with her like a new bride coming to a new House.
The cloak is not far from Sandor’s mind, either:
And the little bird, your pretty sister,I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her.
But unlike for Sansa, where the cloak represents what she still believes knights (and Sandor) could be, Sandor views his time wearing the white cloak to be a great failure, because in the end he abandoned all that Sansa could have made him and, similarly, what wearing the white cloak could have made him. Because, like Sansa, he believes somewhere deep down inside, that symbols should mean something, and that knights should be true and everybody should get the fate they earn.
Which is why he later begs Arya to kill him, which is why Sandor is self-loathing, which is why Sandor is Sandor.
In conclusion, the white cloak is still around. Sansa may no longer has it, but she thinks of Sandor often, and the Hound is dead and Sandor may be reborn as someone healthy enough to be something close enough to the true knight of Sansa’s dreams, and Sansa may have grown up enough to both value what makes a true knight and realize that close enough really is close enough.
Because both of these characters have had the biggest impact on each other out of the rest–they have marked each other for change, and separated, and have been reborn as other people–people who they are not. But they still have the white cloak, and all the things they once believe in.
And maybe it’s enough.
