Finger Lickin' Rickon

[jeyneofthed'Ubervilles]

Earlier, I brought up the behavioral causes of being a psychopath. But if Wikipedia is to be believed, then Psychopathy is also 60% heritable. While Rickon's father had impeccable impulse control, that of his mother, from whom he got his hair and eyes could be charitably referred to as sub-perfect,

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Earlier, I brought up the behavioral causes of being a psychopath. But if Wikipedia is to be believed, then Psychopathy is also 60% heritable. While Rickon's father had impeccable impulse control, that of his mother, from whom he got his hair and eyes could be charitably referred to as sub-perfect,

Are you ... saying that Catelyn had psychopathic tendencies? :shocked:

[Dr. Pepper]

Earlier, I brought up the behavioral causes of being a psychopath. But if Wikipedia is to be believed, then Psychopathy is also 60% heritable. While Rickon's father had impeccable impulse control, that of his mother, from whom he got his hair and eyes could be charitably referred to as sub-perfect,

Ok, so you might be better off reading a wikipedia entry about childhood development. This might clear up for you why a toddler/pre-schooler is acting in such a way (you know, like his age), with special considerations given for his environment (meaning the huge disruption in his household during a sensitive period of development). Rickon is not of an age where any professional would diagnose him with an anti-social personality disorder. Diagnosis of such disorders is a lot more than just ticking off a few boxes on a list.

I get that you might be interested in learning more about this personality disorder, but it's not applicable here. If you are interested, I'd encourage you to start with the books or articles that were referenced in the wikipedia article you read.

[jeyneofthed'Ubervilles]

Are you ... saying that Catelyn had psychopathic tendencies? :shocked:

I'm saying that human beings are beautiful in elaborately complex ways.

[DreamSongs]

The reality is that a new Westeros is coming and Rickon may have to rule it all by being the King of the North, not the son of Catelyn and Ned. He may need to be every bit as bloodthirsty as the Boltons are historically in their attempts to mimic the Starks.

Hard times call for hard men and this King of the North hasn't had/won't have much of a childhood. Being a 'psychopath' doesn't even play into it. Rickon has to become the Stark version of Roose and Tywin to hold the North. Shaggydog may be the source of fear until Rickon can mature enough to show his own teeth. Which leads to the original thought out 5 year skip that GRRM had planned. A five year skip would make Rickon around 8 years old...around the age of another boy lord we know that demands that bad men must fly.

[The Fallen]

That passage was debated in a previous thread. If I recall correctly, I think the consensus was that it was Shaggydog licking the blood. But it's really hard to say because of the way it was written.

I also don't think Rickon is a psychopath. My four year old daughter throws those kind of tantrums. I also think Shaggydog acts out Rickon's feelings. Bran describes Rickon as being angry all the time and how his hair is unruly, thus Shaggydog having shaggy hair and being the most wild of the wolves.

If there's any foreshadowing, it's probably that Rickon is more like the cold, hard Starks of old.

In plenty of threads we've been referring to Rickon as the Black Wolf.

[ARYa_Nym]

Earlier, I brought up the behavioral causes of being a psychopath. But if Wikipedia is to be believed, then Psychopathy is also 60% heritable. While Rickon's father had impeccable impulse control, that of his mother, from whom he got his hair and eyes could be charitably referred to as sub-perfect,

I do believe you get it from one or both of your parents as well as environmental factors.

But I read in a NY Times article that there's a difference in how they're impulsive.

According to Waschbusch, calculated behavior like L.’s distinguishes so-called “hot-blooded” conduct disorders from more “coldblooded” problems like psychopathy. “Hot-blooded kids tend to act out very impulsively,” he added as we followed the children inside. “One theory is that they’ve got a hyperactive threat-detection system. They’re very fast to recognize anger and fear.” Coldblooded, callous-unemotional children, by contrast, are capable of being impulsive, but their misbehavior more often seems calculated. “Instead of someone who can’t sit still, you get a person who may be hostile when provoked but who also has this ability to be very cold. The attitude is, ‘Let’s see how I can use this situation to my advantage, no matter who gets hurt from that.’ ”

Researchers have linked coldblooded behaviors to low levels of cortisol and below-normal function in the amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes fear and other aversive social emotions, like shame. The desire to avoid those unpleasant feelings, Waschbusch notes, is part of what motivates young children to behave. “Normally, when a 2-year-old pushes his baby sister, and his sister cries, and his parents scold him, those reactions make the kid feel uncomfortable,” Waschbusch continued. “And that discomfort keeps him from doing it again. The difference with the callous-unemotional kids is that they don’t feel uncomfortable. So they don’t develop the same aversion to punishment or to the experience of hurting someone.”

Waschbusch cited one study that compared the criminal records of 23-year-olds with their sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli at age 3. In that study, the 3-year-olds were played a simple tone, then exposed to a brief blast of unpleasant white noise. Though all the children developed the ability to anticipate the burst of noise, most of the toddlers who went on to become criminals as adults didn’t show the same signs of aversion — tensing or sweating — when the advance tone was played.

ETA: But on Rickon I don't even agree with describing him as feral. He's just angry. He still talks and behaves like a normal child to me. I've seen kids who have ended up in juvie way worse than him. Just devilish children. He's just confused and upset.

Are you ... saying that Catelyn had psychopathic tendencies? :shocked:

It's interesting no one has tried to argue that yet since so many try to say Arya has it and is like Catelyn.

[Wat Barleycorn]

I remember that when she first saw SweetRobin, Catelyn was stunned and: "she remembered her own baby, three-year-old Rickon, half the age of this boy and five times as fierce."

It stuck in my mind because "fierce" felt like such an oddly feral thing for a mother to say about her child. Like, spirited, strong, brave, fearless, even wild, those wouldn't have made an impression. But fierce sounds like a kid who is the biter in nursery school, you know? Like, he needs some extra help learning to express his big feelings without putting out another kid's eye.

I originally put it down as an insight into Westerosi martial culture. A kid who was fierce at three wasn't a problem child but a kid you didn't worry about--one who'd build on his tooth-knockin' attitude and do well.

I also thought it was Catelyn minimizing the effect of leaving Rickon after he'd been abandoned by so many others. Like, he'd be OK, he was her fierce Rickon (to be clear, Ned did the same thing--without ever really considering its impact on Rickon--so I don't want to suggest just his mother is somehow guilty of being a bad parent because in a time of crisis she thought she could best help him by leaving.) He has a real family identity as the kid who can take care of himself, and it felt like Robb was the only one who was ever like: "People, Rickon is NOT coping."

But now I wonder if it was intended as our first glimpse how Shaggydog is inside Rickon as much as the other way around?

I worry so much about Rickon.

[Hodor's Dragon]

It's not that unusual for little boys to lick blood--although it's usually their own.

But it's not his own, which makes it slightly unusual. But it's not like this is our only hint that Rickon is a wild beast. That's pretty much the deal on Rickon from the word go. He's savage and difficult to control, and it manifests in his direwolf.

[Et Cetera the Mouse]

I don't think he's psychopathic so much as neglected and left to himself. His family felt like he could take care of himself, so didn't bother to take the time to raise him. Even with a stable family, he'd be the problem child, but less feral. Without family, he's essentially been raised by Shaggydog. Warging may be part of it, with him being able to sense Shaggy's feelings and see his reactions and modify his behavior to imitate Shaggydog. Hopefully Osha is able to channel his wildness into something he can use to his advantage.

[ARYa_Nym]

Well Chiswyck, Jon, Sansa, and Alyn described Arya as fierce. & Catelyn described childbirth as something that just as fierce as men on the battlefield so she could just simply value that word. Plus, she told herself that she must be as fierce and hard as the north in AGoT.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I don't think he's psychopathic so much as neglected and left to himself. His family felt like he could take care of himself, so didn't bother to take the time to raise him. Even with a stable family, he'd be the problem child, but less feral. Without family, he's essentially been raised by Shaggydog. Warging may be part of it, with him being able to sense Shaggy's feelings and see his reactions and modify his behavior to imitate Shaggydog. Hopefully Osha is able to channel his wildness into something he can use to his advantage.

I agree with this. You can't help but notice that each Stark child has ended up in the situation for which they're best-suited. Arya is more tomboyish and self-sufficient, and ended up on the road where she could blend in more easily. Sansa is skilled in courtly behavior and manners, and ends up stuck at court and later pretty much helping to run the Eyrie household. Bran's a greenseer with more openly demonstrated power, and manages to find Bloodraven in the tree. Jon has Robb's upbringing and training but lacked Robb's birthright, and now he's able to lead on the Wall.

So where does that leave Rickon? We know that even as a small child, he's angry, fierce and strong-willed. And oh yes: He has a bigass black direwolf that would rip apart anyone who looked at him cross-eyed. Seems to me like Skagos, however he and Osha ended up there (some think they landed there on their own; I think they may have been sent), is perfect for someone like Rickon. It's an island of hard, fierce, obstinate people. They absolutely go their own way, and they also come across as isolated and old-world enough (more like wildlings than mainland Westerosi) that I can see them being in awe of Rickon and his abilities, or at least coming to support him. When we next see him, Rickon could very well be the Child-Warg King of Cannibal Island.

[The Mother of The Others]

I was not necessarily a subscriber to the Rickon Stark, cannibal prince and slayer of unicorns theory. But.....

After you subscribe, that's when you get the cool membership card to carry in your wallet/purse/bag/clutch/cargo pants pocket.

What this topic made me picture is a happy Stark ending with them all gathered round the fire decorating the Winter tree with glee, and then Rickon eats Sansa.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

That passage was debated in a previous thread. If I recall correctly, I think the consensus was that it was Shaggydog licking the blood. But it's really hard to say because of the way it was written.

I almost wrote this exact thing in the thread, but I reread a few more times and it really is ambiguous, because it uses pronouns and the immediate preceding subject is Rickon. I can't decide whether it was left ambiguous for a reason (i.e. we're truly not meant to know who was doing the licking) or if it was meant to be clear one way or the other and it ended up muddled.

ETA: And yeah the Black Wolf is one of those nicknames that sticks.

[evita mgfs]

Here is my post introducing the much debated quote as evidence - from August 2013 - I shared my work in several threads on the forum.

I have been working on a long writing project in which I am theorizing that the “blood” the direwolves taste emboldens the Stark children. Through TRACKING the blood, I noticed several revelations about Rickon that may foreshadow what is to come.

Rickon is as wild as a “winter’s storm”, says Bran in AGoT, and he adds that Shaggy is “as wild as Rickon”. Child and direwolf mirror one another. Shaggydog infuses Rickon with a wild wolfish spirit. With Shaggy at his side, Rickon visits the crypts at least twice, both times without illumination to guide him. Evidently, Shaggydog can see in the dark, and possibly so can Rickon, an aspect of his god-given talents that his siblings may or may not share. Through Shaggy, Rickon is fearless.

Blood unifies Rickon and Shaggy, the direwolf who has already tasted the blood of two victims. Shaggydog has “bitten Gage on the arm and torn a chunk of meat from Mikken’s thigh” (AGoT 573).

Rickon’s dream about Ned in the crypts is prophetic, a clear and lucid vision of a ghost appearing to his son to ask for a meeting in the crypts of WF. Rickon’s dream is quite similar to the “greendreams” of Jojen Reed whom Bran meets in A Crown of Kings.

Thus, these enigmatic dreams may be the onset of the Stark gifts: warging/greendreaming. Since Bran’s warging and greenseeing are surpassing the capabilities of other greenseers, Rickon may develop a talent for greendreams, a “bonus” gift. Arya can warg Nymeria across the Narrow Sea. Will warging/skinchanging across bodies of water be a Bonus gift unique to Arya or shared by all?

On the day after Bran and Rickon both dream of their father, Rickon “unobserved” frees Shaggydog from his chains. Both disappear into the crypts without a torch. Evidently, the blood Shaggydog samples emboldens both the pup and his four-year-old mate. They feed off one another’s budding powers.

In the darkness boy and wolf patiently await a visitation from Eddard Stark. Meanwhile, Bran tries to visit the crypts, but Hodor is too afraid to go down the spiral stairs. Bran complains to Maester Luwin who generously offers to attend him into the crypts, and since Hodor is afraid, Osha the wildling carries Bran in her arms. Summer goes as well, but he prefers staying close to the bottom of the stairs.

Summer and Hodor are “sensitive” to ghostly spirits, and they are creeped out by the supernatural forces at work.

As Maester Luwin’s torch lights the way for Bran, Summer, Osha, and himself, they arrive at Lord Eddard’s grave.

Maester Luwin “thrust his own arm into the mouth of some giant beast” (734). Unfortunately, the darkness sprang at him [Luwin], snarling” (734). Instead of an empty vault, Shaggydog attacks with ferocity. Shaggydog’s jaws latch onto Luwin’s arm, and Shaggydog’s muzzle glistens wet with blood.

“In the drunken shifting torchlight, they saw Luwin struggling with the direwolf, beating at his muzzle with one hand while the jaws closed on the other” (734).

Bran calls Summer to separate Luwin and Shaggydog, and Rickon calls Shaggydog to heel. Then, Rickon finds his “mean”. Emboldened by Shaggy’s taste of hot blood, Rickon assumes an attitude that denotes authority and he issues a warning to Luwin:

“You let my father be . . . You let him be” (734).

Rickon’s boldness mirrors Shaggy’s boldness in his attack of the Maester. Shaggy perceives a threat, recklessly reacting and attacking an innocent.

Bran soothes Rickon, asking his brother about his dream. Rickon assures Bran that father “promised” he would be home tonight.

Losing his patience for Rickon’s ghost dream, Maester Luwin chastises Rickon for not keeping Shaggydog chained in the kennels. Rickon offers a defiant response that evidences that he has no fear of owning his actions:

“Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers” (734).

Rickon is not squeamish: he pats Shaggy’s bloody nose and jaw, and instead of wiping his fingers on his clothes, Rickon licks Maester Luwin’s blood from his fingers. [see grammar notes at the end of this post explaining thee sentence construction and vague reference error.]

Rickon’s symbolic tasting of human blood, even if transfer from Shaggydog’s muzzle, is an important event that speaks to how the blood motif will play out in the game of thrones . [Excerpt from "The Origins of the Blood Motif"]

Thus, Rickon’s magical powers will prove exceptional, as will those of his siblings. They may share the warging gifts, but Martin hints that the Stark siblings have unique powers that set them apart from one another. For example, Bran controls the wind, and he uses the leaves of the weirwood to speak to Theon and to attract his father’s attention.

Rickon has no fear of the dark “early” on, well in advance of his siblings. The Stark siblings share parallel journeys conquering their fears of the dark.

As early as AGoT, Martin suggests Rickon’s warging/greenseeing powers. Since Rickon does not have a POV, Martin hints at Rickon’s bond with Shaggy, their shared natures, and their mutual wildness through the observations of other POV characters.

Rickon tasting Maester Luwin’s blood in the crypts of Winterfell insinuates Rickon’s “blood-thirsty” nature. Here, Rickon tastes “first blood”, a symbolic initiation in Lord Eddard’s empty grave. Many of these images evoke death, and Rickon and Shaggy are surrounded by death.

GRAMMATICAL CLARIFICATION

PASSAGE UNDER EXAMINATION/ANALYSIS:

“Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers” (734).

“HE” is a vague reference. There are two views of the performer of the action “licked” in the last sentence. Is it Shaggydog who licks Rickon’s fingers? Or Rickon who licks his own fingers?

Grammatically, the passage contains prose narrative interrupted by a direct quote, a separate element with words set apart by opened and closed quotes. See the example:

“Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers” (734).

The antecedent of HE is the subject of the “first” sentence: Rickon. “Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “Rickon Speaks”. “He licked at his fingers”. HE must refer to Rickon for two reasons: it makes sense because “Shaggydog’s muzzle” cannot LICK at his fingers. Second, “he” is a subjective case pronoun that stands in for a noun in a sentence.

The ANTECEDENT for HE should be in the prose narrative that precedes the direct quote. The sentence follows:

“Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood.” The only nouns that HE could refer to are RICKON, MUZZLE, and BLOOD.

RICKON is a male gender; MUZZLE and BLOOD are not masculine and do not qualify as appropriate antecedents for HE.

[averde]

I really like the topic title. Rickon in theory could be a cannibal/ "bad" Stark but I don't think that's something we will see within the length of the current story, Rickon is just too young. It may be seriously implied he is a cannibal and will be a "bad" Stark once he comes of age, if he is alive that it is, but we the readers won't see him actually do it. If he is alive and is brought back to Manderly, Manderly and the Stannis camp will be firmly in control of the child Rickon and his Stark cause, and they won't be letting him feast on the enemy or anything crazy like that and Rickon himself is a small child who won't really be in a position to force the issue no matter how much he really really wants to eat some guys arm.

[Pod The Impaler]

I remember that when she first saw SweetRobin, Catelyn was stunned and: "she remembered her own baby, three-year-old Rickon, half the age of this boy and five times as fierce."

It stuck in my mind because "fierce" felt like such an oddly feral thing for a mother to say about her child. Like, spirited, strong, brave, fearless, even wild, those wouldn't have made an impression. But fierce sounds like a kid who is the biter in nursery school, you know? Like, he needs some extra help learning to express his big feelings without putting out another kid's eye.

I originally put it down as an insight into Westerosi martial culture. A kid who was fierce at three wasn't a problem child but a kid you didn't worry about--one who'd build on his tooth-knockin' attitude and do well.

I also thought it was Catelyn minimizing the effect of leaving Rickon after he'd been abandoned by so many others. ... He has a real family identity as the kid who can take care of himself, and it felt like Robb was the only one who was ever like: "People, Rickon is NOT coping."

I don't think Rickon is the kid who can take care of himself, more like the opposite. Yes Robb called out Catelyn on his neediness, because Rickon was so young, and later Cat was ashamed at having not been there or him.

(And then on top of it, Robb leaves, and then Bran too. His identity is the kid who gets abandoned.)

However, I'm not sure this breeds more ability to look after himself. Luckily, after a time he has Osha, an actual adult who has had kids before, to take care of him. This is better than if he had stayed with Bran and Meera and Jojen (I mean in terms of experience with raising children, not where they were going.)

As a wildling she will not parent him as he's used to, but being so young, he can adjust. Wildling parents are probably fairly harsh about life in general, but I doubt they're all about social rules. Probably more like dominance.

What is funny is that at the start of the series, Catelyn is worried about Rickon being afraid, but Ned is the one who states that the boy is 3 (yes, all of 3) and has to stop being afraid.

Maybe Starks are harder folk, but I'm not sure if Cat's comment about Sweetrobin shows how fierce Rickon is compared to normal children, or if it's just a commentary on how emotionally stunted Robert Arryn is.

Well Chiswyck, Jon, Sansa, and Alyn described Arya as fierce.

I imagine you mean Harwin, not Chiswyck.

Yes, if there's one Stark they all universally describe as ferocious and willful, it's Arya.

[ARYa_Nym]

I imagine you mean Harwin, not Chiswyck.

Yes, if there's one Stark they all universally describe as ferocious and willful, it's Arya.

Nah but to be fair their initial interaction is often missed.

"Arya slashed at the nearest, but he blocked her with a steel-clad arm, and someone else slammed into her and dragged her to the ground., and a third man wrenched the sword from her grasp. When she tried to bite, her teeth snapped shut on cold dirty chainmail. "Oho, a fierce one," the man said, laughing. The blow from his iron-clad fist near knocked her head off"

"...old Chiswyck told them. He was the man she'd tried to bite, who'd called her a fierce little thing and smashed her head with a mailed fist."

[The Bedding]

I really like the topic title. Rickon in theory could be a cannibal/ "bad" Stark but I don't think that's something we will see within the length of the current story, Rickon is just too young. It may be seriously implied he is a cannibal and will be a "bad" Stark once he comes of age, if he is alive that it is, but we the readers won't see him actually do it. If he is alive and is brought back to Manderly, Manderly and the Stannis camp will be firmly in control of the child Rickon and his Stark cause, and they won't be letting him feast on the enemy or anything crazy like that and Rickon himself is a small child who won't really be in a position to force the issue no matter how much he really really wants to eat some guys arm.

No Frey pies for Rikon?

[sweetsunray]

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on psychopathy. Now I really want to stress that while being a psychopath is widely seen as a mental handicap in the modern world, It is also a superpower in some ways, especially if you live in a world where the climate is conducive to the ways of the psychopath. One could argue that Bronn, Tywin, Littlefinger, Varys and Euron all have psychopathic tendencies. Even the most casual observer would notice that this is a list of people who thrive in Westeros.

So I believe that Rickon is and will continue to be a psychopath in the best possible sense of the word. According to Wikipedia, psychopathy is correlated with the following things. being physically neglected, low involvement of the father with the boy and coming from a disrupted family. Check, check and check.

Here's an example of how the ideal personality can differ from one world to another. Psychopaths are prone to violence with poor impulse control and no empathy for their enemies. In a 21st century bar room this is an recipe for trouble, but on a medieval battlefield it's otherwise. As Brienne learned from her master at arms, at the moment of truth, you don't want a voice in the back of your head pleading the humanity of your foeman.

I also believe that Jon and Sansa will serve to check Rickon's worst psychopathic tendencies. It's funny that they were never close, given that they have the biggest hearts. Sansa in particular has shown a facility for dealing with punk-ass brats.

Psychopathy has a genetic factor. It's not a pure nurture thing, it's partly nature. And because it's partly nature, that implies that there usually is bad parenting since one parent may be a psychopath or at least a malignant narcissist as well. Also, one cannot label a person a psychopath until they're 18, and usually have a prehistory of asocial behaviour in the teens. The psychopathic child is a very rare occurrence, but they do occur (they do get another tag though), and TV-series Joffrey falls in that range.

Not all psychopaths kill. Actually the majority don't. Nor are they all sadistic. They do often resemble a 5-year old in their behaviour, temper tantrums and all, especially when someone does not give them what they want.

I don't have any doubt though that Rickon will have serious psychological issues because of being abandoned by both his father, mother, older brother, and eventually even Bran and that this might involve feeling nothing but rage for other humans. He might develop Anti-social-personality-disorder (ASPD):this is the DSM label for characteristics similar to psychopathy but with a bit of wider brush, meaning that all psychopaths are ASPD, but not all ASPD are psychopaths.

Impulsiveness is a factor in psychopathy, but just as much in many other disorders, and not even all personality disorders. What truly determines a psychopath is the inability of affective empathy and feelings of regret and guilt. Their emotional range is very shallow and limited: cold anger and envy. They can act as if they have other emotions, but it usually is way more dramatic (drama is a sign of the shallowness of the emotion). The violence part in the profile is because the first research that led to the definition of psychopathy was purely done on prison inmates. Recent research about psychopathy in "succesful" professions (top level jobs, financial and business, politics, etc) reveals there is a high prevalence there as well, but they display more covert aggression and rarely any criminal past (but lots of affairs, unstable relations, lying, bully and ruthless elbowing to get to the top). And then there is a gender bias: men usually get more often diagnosed as being a psychopath, whereas women are more often diagnosed as being borderliner (which involves more use of passive aggression). Borderliner is another personality disorder (the others apart from ASPD are narcissism and hystrionism). For non-professionals it is very hard to understand exactly what the difference is between them, because they often include the same profile, but in another degree or where one trait gets more precedence than the other. Psychopaths are very skilled in fooling others in remaining undetected: they mirror and act what other people want to see, and it doesn't slip easy either. It just changes for whomever is looking. So, it's most probable that a part of the 'violence' display is partly acted by psychopaths of both genders according to cultural expectations, and thus many female psychopaths are better trained in mimicking empathy and emotionality, and thus end up being diagnozed as borderliner more likely, even though they are psychopaths.

If I were to be asked what makes a psychopath tick it's playing games with people: they want control over others and they use many and varying tools at hand to manipulate the target and "win". Violence is one of those manipulative tools. For example, they may suddenly go in a fit of rage (but this is acted, because their true rage is the cold, calculated kind), slam a window and scare the bejeebus out of the target with that, though the target hasn't been touched or harmed themselves. But it's a reminder or an eye-opener to the target to become fearful of what the other might do them. But they use sex and charm and overload of display of love (called lovebombing) just as well. Or lies. Or pity play and perpetual representation of being a poor misunderstood soul you can save.

What I'm trying to say is that a psychopath is not as much feral as very calculated, and that violence is a tool to them, rather than something they cannot control. A psychopath is very able to control when to be violent or not, despite their impulsiveness (which they can also use as a tool to spike up the drama-rama). What they have a problem with controlling though are their feelings of entitlement and they often self-destruct because of that (see Viserys).