The connecting record
shownundoneA Storm of Swords
Sandor Clegane killed Beric Dondarrion in A Storm of Swords.
Trial by combat in the hollow hill, fought with his own shield alight and strapped to the arm, against a man who lights his blade by cutting his palm. Cleaved him from shoulder to breastbone. Thoros of Myr had him up again before the Hound had left the cave.
What each of them is ranked on
The killer · Sandor Clegane · rank 8
the Hound
Stepped between his brother and the unhorsed Ser Loras Tyrell in the lists and then blocked every savage blow Gregor aimed at his own hound's-head helm, staying on the defensive the whole way through and never once cutting at his brother's unprotected face, and then went to one knee mid-exchange because the king's voice carried over the crowd. The record here is unusually thick and almost all of it depicted: Renly Baratheon put down on the first day of the Hand's tourney and Jaime Lannister on the second pass of the next, led off the field unable to see out of his own helm; a rioting crowd beaten back off Sansa Stark's horse in the capital; Beric Dondarrion opened from sword to shoulder in a trial by combat fought with a burning shield strapped to the arm that held it, by a man who will not go near a fire. Jaime, counting who could physically overpower him, arrives at both Cleganes. He enters the story six or seven years old and already ruined, and leaves the ranked span cut open at the crossroads inn, begging a girl to finish it. Neither end of him is his own doing.
statedA Game of Thrones · ch. 29 (Sansa II)
Tells Sansa that Gregor shoved the side of his face into the coals of a brazier — "I was younger than you, six, maybe seven" — and held him there until three grown men pulled him off.
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 29 (Sansa II)
Unhorses Renly Baratheon on the first day of the Hand's tourney.
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 30 (Eddard VII)
Beats Jaime Lannister on the second pass after nearly losing the first, and Jaime is led off the field unable to see through his mangled helm.
All 16 citations
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 30 (Eddard VII)
Steps between Gregor and the downed Loras Tyrell, stops the savage blows Gregor then aims at his own hound's-head helm without once cutting at his brother's unprotected face, kneels when King Robert shouts, and is given the championship by Loras without a final tilt.
statedA Storm of Swords · ch. 21 (Jaime III)
Jaime rates him among the strongest men alive in Westeros, and believes his own speed and skill would be the answer to it.
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 49 (Eddard XIV)
Kills Cayn among Eddard Stark's household guard during the arrest in the Red Keep.
shownA Clash of Kings · ch. 41 (Tyrion IX)
Cuts the rioting crowd away from Sansa Stark when she is nearly pulled from the saddle, and gets her back inside the walls.
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 34 (Arya VI)
Fights Beric Dondarrion's burning sword in the hollow hill with his own shield alight and strapped to his arm, and cuts through blade, mail and shoulder.
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 52 (Arya XI)
Kills several mounted Frey men outside the castle during the Red Wedding, in the mud and floodwater among the burning pavilions, and knocks Arya Stark senseless to stop her running back into it.
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 74 (Arya XIII)
Kills Polliver at the inn at the crossroads and holds off the Tickler until Arya finishes him, coming out of it wounded in the thigh, ribs, neck and face, with the stump of his burned ear sliced off.
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 74 (Arya XIII)
Begs Arya for the gift of mercy as the wounds go bad, and she leaves him under a tree beside the Trident.
statedA Feast for Crows · ch. 31 (Brienne VI)
The Elder Brother of the Quiet Isle tells Brienne he buried the man himself, and that at the end he wept from the pain and asked for a quick death.
shownGame of Thrones · S01E05 “The Wolf and the Lion”
Steps between Gregor and the unhorsed Loras Tyrell, trades blows with his brother, and stops the moment Robert orders it.
shownGame of Thrones · S03E05 “Kissed by Fire”
With his shield on fire he cuts through Beric Dondarrion's flaming sword, armour and shoulder, and Thoros of Myr prays the man back afterwards.
shownGame of Thrones · S04E01 “Two Swords”
Takes on five of Gregor's men alone in a taproom and, put on the floor with a dagger at his own throat, forces the hand aside and drives the man's head onto his own blade over and over.
shownGame of Thrones · S04E10 “The Children”
Loses a hand-to-hand fight to Brienne of Tarth, who bites off part of his ear, batters him with a rock and puts him over a cliff edge.
The victim · Beric Dondarrion · rank 23
the lightning lord
Rank a fighter at his best hour and Beric Dondarrion is the case that turns the rule inside out, because his best hour arrives after he starts dying. Alive, the novels never show him win anything at all — a name in the procession at the Hand's tourney, a lordling given a hundred men because his rank suited the commission rather than his skill at arms did, and then an ambush in the riverlands that kills most of the party and leaves nobody certain he came out of it. The famous version is built entirely out of the damage: one eye gone, the skull crushed at the temple, a noose scar, a wound clean through the chest, and a sword he sets burning by opening his own palm. Thoros of Myr has brought him back six times by then and says a seventh would finish them both. He still loses the only duel a reader is shown, opened shoulder to breastbone by Sandor Clegane, and he still gets up. On screen the last useful thing he does is hold a corridor full of wights so a girl can reach a door, and it costs him the death that sticks.
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 29 (Sansa II)
Rides in the procession at the Hand's tourney, where Jeyne Poole announces she would marry him on sight.
shownA Game of Thrones · ch. 43 (Eddard XI)
Eddard Stark refuses Loras Tyrell the commission and gives it to Beric instead, putting a hundred men under him to bring Gregor Clegane to the king's justice.
statedA Game of Thrones · ch. 55 (Catelyn VIII)
Tywin Lannister's army ambushes that party and kills most of it, and word reaching Robb Stark is that Beric may have escaped but nobody knows.
All 12 citations
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 34 (Arya VI)
Arya sees what is left of him — one eye gone, part of the skull crushed in, a noose scar at the throat and a terrible wound through the chest.
shownA Storm of Swords · ch. 34 (Arya VI)
Cuts open his own palm with the blade to set it alight, then loses the fight when Sandor Clegane splits him from shoulder to breastbone, and is on his feet again before the Hound has left.
statedA Storm of Swords · ch. 39 (Arya VII)
Asks Thoros how many times he has been brought back; Thoros answers six, and says the seventh may be the end of them both.
statedA Storm of Swords · ch. 39 (Arya VII)
Can no longer remember his own past well enough to find his ancestral seat, and Thoros takes this as proof the Lord of Light is not done with him.
statedA Storm of Swords · ch. 43 (Arya VIII)
The ghost of High Heart calls him the Lord of Corpses because the stink of the grave on him is fresh.
statedA Feast for Crows · ch. 42 (Brienne VIII)
Thoros tells Brienne that Lord Beric's fire has gone out of this world and a grimmer shadow leads the brotherhood in his place.
shownGame of Thrones · S03E05 “Kissed by Fire”
Lights the sword with his own blood, sets Sandor Clegane's shield burning, and is cut down through sword, armour and shoulder before Thoros prays him back.
shownGame of Thrones · S07E06 “Beyond the Wall”
Sets a resurrected snow bear alight with the flaming sword beyond the Wall, and afterwards cauterises Thoros's wounds with the same blade.
shownGame of Thrones · S08E03 “The Long Night”
Loses the flaming sword and is stabbed repeatedly covering the retreat of Arya Stark and Sandor Clegane through the castle corridors, and dies once the great hall doors are shut.
What this does not settle
One death in one work. It is the only place the record puts these two in the same room, and it is evidence about that meeting and nothing wider — not a general matchup, not a rematch, and not a ranking of its own.
The ladder above it is argued from everything either of them has been shown doing; this page is argued from one citation.
Where the two disagree, the disagreement is the point, and it stays visible rather than being resolved by whichever of them happens to be on this page.