Will Cleganebowl Finally Happen In Game Of Thrones Season 7?

Move over, R + L = J. With Jon Snow’s secret parentage confirmed by the Season 6 finale, one of the most lively threads of (semi-serious) Game of Thrones fan speculation centers on the the hypothetical grudge match known as Cleganebowl. But what the hell is a Cleganebowl, and can we actually expect to see it happen on the show this season? Let’s break it down.

Cleganebowl refers to a long-awaited showdown between two brothers, Sandor “the Hound” Clegane and Gregor “the Mountain” Clegane. There’s a longstanding, seething hatred between the two men, stemming from their childhood.

Perhaps you’ve noticed how the right side of Sandor’s face looks like spilled oatmeal. Way back in Season 1, Littlefinger tells Sansa that when the Cleganes were boys, Sandor dared to play with one of Gregor’s discarded toys. Without warning, Gregor grabbed his younger brother and held him in a roaring flame “while his face melted” as punishment. (This incident also explains why Sandor panics at the sight of fire in Season 2’s Battle of Blackwater Bay.) Sandor also talks about this incident with both Sansa and Arya at later points in the HBO series.

A fight between the Hound and the Mountain would be a clash of Westerosi titans; the Clegane brothers are big, jacked mofos. It’s hard to imagine any other character on the show going head-to-head with either one and emerging unscathed.

Brienne of Tarth defeated Sandor in single combat in the Season 4 finale, but he came into the fight considerably weakened, and him falling off a cliff certainly helped matters. Brienne took a whole lot of punishment during that battle, and it doesn’t seem likely she could manage to take down the Hound in good health.

Even before he became Cersei’s pet Franken-zombie, Gregor also was not to be trifled with. He's basically the roughest, toughest fighter in all of Westeros, even bigger and meaner than the Hound. Remember what the Mountain did to to Oberyn Martell earlier in Season 4? Oof.

Seeing Sandor take revenge on his sadistic older brother would undoubtedly be satisfying. Though he’s gruff and intimidating, the Hound kept a watchful eye over Sansa when she was a captive of the Lannisters in King’s Landing, and traveled with Arya in Seasons 3 and 4, even preventing her from meeting the same fate as Robb and Catelyn at the Red Wedding. Over the years, the Hound’s proven himself to be weirdly loveable, even someone to root for. After all, it’s tough to hate a guy who loves chicken this much.

via GIPHY

But an event "we'd like to see" isn't necessarily what's best for the show, and it's also worth remembering Cleganebowl’s become a kind of tongue-in-cheek shorthand for the GoT fan community, poking fun at its love of tinfoil-hat theories and the challenge of predicting what the showrunners have up their sleeves. For instance, heading into Seasons 5 and 6 of the series, fans on the GoT subreddit and other forums predicted that Cersei’s trial by the Faith Militant would culminate in trial by combat, which would in turn give rise to the epic Clegane vs. Clegane battle royale. Those predictions didn't pan out, but Cersei destroying the Sept is hardly a disappointing alternative to Cleganebowl. It was even better than what fans had hooped for.

Its also debatable whether Cleganebowl would be satisfying at this point. Zombie Mountain can’t talk, so we don’t know how much of Gregor still exists inside that meaty noggin. It’s not clear seeing his brother again would prompt any kind of recognition in Gregor, let alone regret or remorse. Zombie Mountain’s current “life” seems to be a fate worse than death or defeat, and in that sense Sandor has already won.

With the overall story of Game of Thrones moving rapidly toward endgame, it’s not totally clear the show can pull off Cleganebowl in a way that feels essential to the plot, satisfies hardcore fans and doesn’t stoop to the level of fan service. After all, it would be easy for the writers to say they’ve already done a face-off between these two: the Season 1 skirmish where Sandor steps in to defend Sir Loras from Gregor’s attack after a joust.

How likely is it the Clegane brothers will cross paths in Season 7? At first glance, not very. Last we saw Sandor, he was headed north with the Brotherhood Without Banners, including Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr. We see Sandor in a snowy environment in the second Season 7 trailer, presumably with Jon and the Brotherhood in Winterfell and eventually beyond the Wall. With Gregor in King's Landing, it seems the brothers won’t be anywhere near one another.

But before you let the hype fires die, take another look at that second Season 7 trailer. At around the 1:20 mark, we see a silhouetted figure drawing a broadsword. His scraggly hair and stature seem very reminiscent of the Hound. This image, duplicated below, seems to come from a scene in a much warmer, presumably southern location.

Assuming this is the Hound (and to be clear, we’ve got no official confirmation it is), where does it make sense for him to go down south? And which of the major locations in the region would have some kind of arena like this? It doesn't look like the King's Landing arena where Oberyn fought the Mountain in Season 4.

Perhaps this is somewhere around Dany’s new turf in Dragonstone, which we've seen snippets of in the Season 7 trailers. A more interesting possibility, though, is that this is a wholly new location for the show: the Targaryen’s old Dragonpit near King’s Landing. In the books, we learn that Cersei keeps some of her Wildfire stash there, so it's plausible she might need to restock after blowing up the Sept.

The second trailer features a brief shot of Cersei (around 0:25) standing in front of what appears to be a dragon skull; this could be taken from a scene the basements of King's Landing, but it just might be a shot from the bowels of the Dragonpit. We're getting into heavy “maybe” territory, but if the Hound is indeed in the south at some point and Cersei’s got some business in the Dragonpit, the possibility of a Cleganebowl happening there suddenly seems like a possibility, if a remote one.

Then again, the team behind Game of Thrones is canny enough to anticipate how hopeful fans might interpret the above image of maybe-the-Hound, and delights in upending the audience's expectations. As such, it’s very possible we could see the story move in such a way that the Clegane brothers never meet again. Perhaps the Hound dies north of the Wall, or the Mountain perishes beside Mad Queen Cersei during a desperate last stand in King’s Landing or Casterly Rock.

Do you think we’ll finally see Cleganebowl in Game of Thrones Season 7? Which of the Clegane brothers do you think would emerge the victor? Let us know in the comments!