With the Game of Thrones back in on the air, we wouldn't ever dream of intentionally spoiling the new season for anyone, but one line, muttered in the season premiere by Sandor Clegane, the Hound, jumped out at us: "A man's got to have a code." And while we can't recall the last time we donned a dog-headed helm and rode into battle, we do believe the Hound's thesis is sound — for fantastic errant knights and modern men alike. This isn't new philosophy the same way Game of Thrones on the whole isn't new televised literature. The Hound's an antihero. Like most of them he projects hard-earned physical prowess, intellectual superiority, emotional inferiority, a well-developed chip on his shoulder, a kid sidekick, and badassery and assholery in equal measure. The Hound is Batman is Wolverine is Walter White, etc. The Hound is also Omar Little — a character from The Wire who also likes to harp on codes. Thus we begin. Spoilers for both series ahead.

First off: Have a Code

You don't have to be Ned Stark or Hammurabi, but your code should probably come with stipulations of some sort, typically framed in the form of don'ts rather than dos. For example: "Don't do drugs," or perhaps a more malleable model like "Don't do cocaine," or "Don't do marijuana." Because it's not difficult to find what disgusts you, it's good to use that disgust as a starting point. Early on, Sandor Clegane repeats ad nauseum that he isn't a true knight, partly because he hates his brother, who is one, and partly because he sees the whole class as hypocritical. Omar unflinchingly crusades for the people of the streets because he's grown up in systemic injustice and his grandmother raised him better.

Onto the codes themselves, in our antiheroes' own words.

Sandor, 299 AL: Last week's season premiere "Two Swords."

Arya: Why don't you have any money? Didn't you steal anything from Joffrey before you left?

Sandor: No.

Arya: You're not very smart, are you?

Sandor: I'm not a thief.

Arya: You're fine with murdering little boys, but thieving is beneath you?

Sandor: A man's got to have a code.

Omar, 2006: Season 4, episode 7 "Unto Others" (echoing Season 1).

Omar: If I had known I'd be sharing quarters with all these boys, I probably wouldn't have robbed so many of them.

Bunk: Aw yeah, that golden rule.

Omar: Well, since you feeling all Biblical and righteous and all, you think on this: Now if Omar ain't killed that delivery lady, somebody else did. But you giving him a free walk right now, ain't you?

Bunk: ...

Omar: A man got to have a code.

It shouldn't go unsaid that both mentions of their codes come at moments of frustration: the Hound is hungry and has to put up with Arya, who isn't a very fun traveling companion; and Omar is locked up for a murder he did not commit. You don't just follow a code; you lean on it, too.

Know Thyself, Thy Station, and How to Break Free

In both Sandor and Omar's cases, extracting themselves from their station, at one stage probably doesn't seem like it would be an option, and at a later stage likely feels like the only option. They're both wanted by their respective universe's authorities as well as their fellow criminals — Sandor after he decides he's had enough of Joffrey's idiocy and the inherent corruption in the court (not to mention wildfire); and Omar after, well, becoming a stick-up boy at an age that can't be older than 10, growing into a shotgun-toting spectre of fear, fighting against drug-dealing gangs who are all fighting for the same territory, playing the kingpins against each other.

It's a wonder Omar survived as long as he did, let alone managed to have lovers and see his buddy Butchie semi-regularly. The same goes for the Hound, who's been on the lam with Arya as a deserter for something like months now and is still able to kick the living shit out of Lannister bootlickers at the Inn at the Crossroads. Having the stones to handle yourself without institutional support isn't just worth the extra badass points of railing against the system. It's often the only way you can stay afloat, especially if you're visually distinct. Which brings us to our next item...

Style Is Key

A helm forged to look like the head of a rabid dog and a trenchcoated man carrying a sawed-off shotgun are not images that normal, decent people forget soon. They're also the sorts of mysterious details people share with their friends in hushed whispers on the streets or at the market. Now adding an extra 20 pounds of metal to your head as part of a regular wardrobe seems as impractical as walking around anywhere in public with an unregistered sawed-off shotgun, but dressing the part – for every part – is not new territory for us.

Corollary: Dress appropriately for court.

Remember Those Scars

Both physical and emotional, these are your daily reminders that everything is 100-percent not OK. Scars may fade with time, but often dealing with them in the here and now requires a willpower unused by lesser men.

Omar grew up on the streets of Baltimore (remember this flashback clip?), his character based on a real-life hitman named Donnie Andrews, who did committed a double murder in 1986 to support his heroin addition. In all of his experiences as a gangster he operated by a code of ethics and refused to harm women and children. Moreover, Michael K. Williams, the actor who played Omar, earned his iconic scar in real life in a bar fight where someone pulled a razor blade. And oh yeah, Williams was also addicted to cocaine and went through an identity crisis while embedded in Baltimore where he literally thought he was Omar. (This is what your nerdy friends mean when they refer to how "fucking crazy and real" The Wire was.)

Sandor's scars in the books are even more gruesome, with bits of jawbone exposed, the skin on the other side of his face no longer attached to it, and his entire ear missing. His case is a bit more literal and less true-to-life (as far as we've heard from Mr. Martin), having had his cranium literally shoved into burning coals by his older brother, Gregor. The Hound's scars are a literary red herring older than The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Remember That Confidante

As much as the loner against society archetype works in their favor, it's understood that without some form of human interaction, Omar Little and Sandor Clegane would be monstrous, irredeemable menaces. To wit, Omar has Butchie, his wise, more-or-less blind-ish banker and advisor. Once a month, he also accompanies his grandmother, who raised him and is responsible for much of his moral code, to church.

The closest thing the Hound has to this that we've seen is Sansa Stark, whom he opens up to in a moment of weakness, probable drunkenness, and certain inner turmoil from his traumatic experience of the wildfire. Sandor even offers to take her with him to Winterfell before gruffly explaining that the world of Westeros is full of killers. He's not kind, but he'd never hurt her, and it's telling that in the books, Sansa remembers being kissed by him in this scene, despite it not actually happening.

Keep an Apprentice

HBO

HBO

All lone wolves need cubs to balance them out. For Sandor it might have been Sansa first, but teaming him up with Arya was a masterstroke by George R.R. Martin. Between watching her dad's head get chopped off, losing her (literal spirit-animal) pet direwolf, getting separated from her sister, helplessly sitting like 30 feet away when her mother and brother were coldly murdered and their bodies defiled, and (added bonus in the show) being the only Stark child to actually witness a direwolf death, Arya's basically going insane. She has one thing to cling to, and that's Sandor and the hope that she can fking waste as many Lannister bitches as humanly possible. Sandor encourages this more than tolerates it, gladly throwing her into bar fights and only warning her to just let him know next time she's going to murder someone. For Omar, it was a string of gay lovers and fellow stick-up boys, the first of whom we see is Brandon, the one whose murder sets him off against Omar's one true physical rival...

Keep a Rival

Sandor Clegane and Omar Little both have physical, philosophical, and psychological foils to contend with in the form of Gregor Clegane and Brother Mouzone, respectively. It's through their interactions that we get to see much of our two antiheroes' codes explained, whether by Omar's measured conversation and eventual gunplay with Brother Mouzone, or the Hound swinging his sword to save Loras Tyrell from Gregor's rampaging, horse-slaughtering steel, and the exposition offered by Petyr Baelish on their backstory. The Hound hates his brother for searing his face off in hot coals as much as Omar felt betrayed when he believed Brother Mouzone killed his lover Brandon. As dangerous as both these rivals are, however, both Omar and the Hound wouldn't be the men they become if they didn't interact with them. A great challenger can turn you into a great warrior...if you don't die first.

Keep a Catchphrase

You never know when you need to whip it out.

Be Uncompromising, Inexorable, Impassioned

You've gotta commend their commitment. The Hound utterly despises his older brother and, for a while, is perhaps the highest-positioned actively vocal objector to the entire structure of the ruling classes of Westerosi knights, lords, and kings, but puts up with it for years on end before he finally leaves the service. Omar hunts down drug dealers entirely because he believes it's the only right thing to do in a society whose warring factions have similar amorality and are suffering from the same dry rot. We don't root for these men because they can be assholes — and they can be! We root for them because of scenes like these, where they literally get put on trial. Omar pierces through the crooked prosecutor's grey suit of armor to speak truth (and get at the whole "point" of The Wire), and because the Hound, in his scene, overcomes his fear of fire and manages to carve Beric Dondarrion's flaming sword and Dondarrion himself in two.

In both of these scenes these men are removed from their respective elements and show that they're made of tougher stuff than the crows around them. We grow to care because we admire them more for how they arrive at their solutions, than how they cause problems, as with the Hound killing Mycah the butcher's boy, or Omar accidentally shooting Brother Mouzone.

Don't Forget to Feed Yourself

And showing anyone who gets in the way that you mean business.

And When All Else Fails and No One Listens...

Strike fear into their hearts with song.

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Eric Vilas-Boas Assistant Editor Eric Vilas-Boas is a former editor at Esquire, where he managed the magazine's social media accounts, helped edit the website, and has written stories about comic books, martinis, and Ernest Hemingway's hamburger acumen.

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