Arya is not psychotic

[Kalbear]

Where does it say that only the head of the house can execute a deserter? i feel like we've seen plenty of instances of heirs or family members ordering all sorts of people dead.

It was a pretty common feudal custom that only the Lord of the area could order anything. Robb can't order things while Ned is there, and Bran can't while Robb is there. Now you can act as lord - but again, only while you're there. Anything else is unlawful, regardless.

If you were right, the guards of Winterfell would have just killed the deserter. Ned's using Ice wouldn't have mattered, because 'the man who passes the SENTENCE should swing the sword' is what he says. The Winterfell guards had no authority to pass sentence on him - and neither does Arya.

[hackhamster]

Seems like the Starks are some of the only people who care about the NW at all. And what sort of judgment is called for in a NW deserter? There is no trial. The dude is a walking dead man. Why should it matter what lord or noble takes his head off? It's going to come off either way. Its not like a deserter will be sent back to the Wall. Where does it say that only the head of the house can execute a deserter? i feel like we've seen plenty of instances of heirs or family members ordering all sorts of people dead.

Look, she never seems to say to herself "hm, man of the NW, and he's deserting. I must pass judgenent on him!". No, she seems to think, "Hey, I can be all emotionally detached and practice my deadly arts upon him. Nice boots, btw". She is very matter-of-fact about it. This is why she is punished by the Kindly Man, she's overstepped.

[Talleyrand]

It was a pretty common feudal custom that only the Lord of the area could order anything. Robb can't order things while Ned is there, and Bran can't while Robb is there. Now you can act as lord - but again, only while you're there. Anything else is unlawful, regardless.

If you were right, the guards of Winterfell would have just killed the deserter. Ned's using Ice wouldn't have mattered, because 'the man who passes the SENTENCE should swing the sword' is what he says. The Winterfell guards had no authority to pass sentence on him - and neither does Arya.

And the main point. Even if she was Lady of Winterfell, hell even Queen of the Seven Kingdoms she wouldn't have any authority in Braavos. SO basically she murders someone she doesn't even know for what is a crime several thousand miles away

[Xenophon]

Seems like the Starks are some of the only people who care about the NW at all. And what sort of judgment is called for in a NW deserter? There is no trial. The dude is a walking dead man. Why should it matter what lord or noble takes his head off? It's going to come off either way. Its not like a deserter will be sent back to the Wall. Where does it say that only the head of the house can execute a deserter? i feel like we've seen plenty of instances of heirs or family members ordering all sorts of people dead.

GRRM has explained how the legal system of Westeros works in an interview with a law prof. Basically, a lord is the law in his holding, so only he (or his appointed representative) has the right to pass sentences in his domain. Thus, only the head of the house would be legally justified in executing a deserter, if it were viewed as a criminal matter.

Re. whether NW Deserters are ordinary criminals or not, I have no idea. It was a genuine question when I asked if you know whether they are outlaws (in which case anybody can, and possibly should, kill them) or ordinary criminals in which case only a lord can pass sentence on them. I'm not even sure if the concept of outlawry exists in Westeros.

EDIT: as Kalbear points out, Ned's statement makes it pretty clear, the lord must pass the sentence.

As for non-lords ordering people dead, I suspect those were either illegal (like the BWB) or acts of war, where the law wouldn't apply.

[Xcorpyo001]

So explain to us Dareon, then?

Dareon didn't know her.

Dareon, in Braavos, was no threat to the Night's Watch. Or anyone else.

Dareon wasn't a threat to her. He wasn't even aware of her existence. He certainly didn't attack her.

Dareon wasn't on her list. He had done nothing wrong to anyone she knew or cared about.

So why kill Dareon? How is she killing there and being 'forced' to survive? At best you can argue that she's carrying out the will of Ned there, but she didn't execute him or even pronounce his death. She just murdered him.

Now, you could make the argument that we don't know that he was murdered. We don't know that Arya killed him. That's interesting and different. But right now that's not particularly clear, and it's particularly clear we're supposed to think him murdered.

You should also try to explain Sam.

That guy Ned killed at the begging of GoT was no threat to the Night Watch or anybody else, but Ned had to kill him because that was his duty as a Stark.

She believes she's the only Stark left, save from Lord Snow.

She finds a NW brother, Sam, who wants to be on his way to fulfill his duty and she saves his life

She then finds another brother of the NW, Dareon, who's most likely a deserter and who doesn't follow the orders Lord Snow entrusted him with.

-she either executes him for desertion(you don't know that she kills him without talking to him first, and explaining why she does that)

-gives him another chance, and probably a message for Lord Snow.

Many of you probably read the spoiler chapter in which Jon 'kills the child within him'. He 'tortures' Gilly, sends Maester Aemon on a trip that will most likely kill him, switches the babies and puts Gilly's innocent baby in mortal danger. hangs Slynt for insubordination.

If Arya is psychotic for protecting her life or executing a traitor of the NW, the Jon is Ted Bundy of Westeros. He burns little (dead) babies, for crying out loud.

[crosser]

Look, she never seems to say to herself "hm, man of the NW, and he's deserting. I must pass judgenent on him!". No, she seems to think, "Hey, I can be all emotionally detached and practice my deadly arts upon him. Nice boots, btw". She is very matter-of-fact about it. This is why she is punished by the Kindly Man, she's overstepped.

can't assume that she's being punished for overstepping. my interpretation while reading was that the KoM doesn't know she stashed needle and is under the impression that she's thrown away her possessions from her past life in order to finally start her training, whatever that entails.

its all part of her training

[Lasair]

Seems like the Starks are some of the only people who care about the NW at all. And what sort of judgment is called for in a NW deserter? There is no trial. The dude is a walking dead man. Why should it matter what lord or noble takes his head off? It's going to come off either way. Its not like a deserter will be sent back to the Wall. Where does it say that only the head of the house can execute a deserter? i feel like we've seen plenty of instances of heirs or family members ordering all sorts of people dead.

Spot on.

And it's easy to say the "I, wordywordywordy, sentence you to die" bit when you've got several men holding down the deserter for you. Arya carried out the Starks' duty.

No, where I query Arya's actions is with the killing of Weese. He was no nastier than many a boss, and if I recall correctly there's no hint that he was a murderer or a rapist, both of which Chiswyck was. Arya feels remorse over the killing of Weese, but only because she realised she could have put her power to better use, not because he didn't justify the sentence.

I think she's got this message: life is cheap. She's seen so many senseless deaths that when she adds her own drops to the great pool of murders in the world, she doesn't think of it as being anything particularly special.

[Xenophon]

Seems like the Starks are some of the only people who care about the NW at all.

I'm not seeing any evidence for this, you guys. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms may not care as much as the Starks, but they still send criminals north etc. Why do you assume they wouldn't execute NW deserters?

[inkasrain]

Why does Arya have to be either completely insane or absolutely justified in everything she does? She is far from my favorite character, but out of the encyclopedia of gray and tragic characters GRRM has provided for us, her story seems to me one of the saddest and grayest. Boiling down everything she does into either good OR bad seems to me like it seriously undercuts everything Arya has been through.

The saddest part, in my opinion, is the death of the stable hand she kills while escaping the Red Keep. As far as I know, the only person who judges Arya for that death is Arya. She was alone, terrified, desperate and acting utterly on instinct, and yet that's still the moment when she starts to think of herself as a bad person-- as a killer. Arya has done many bad things, but the fact that she starts on that path by considering herself a murderer (to the point that she wonders whether her mother would love her, if she knew about the stableboy) for an act of pure self-defense is just heartbreaking to me.

[Xcorpyo001]

Why does Arya have to be either completely insane or absolutely justified in everything she does? She is far from my favorite character, but out of the encyclopedia of gray and tragic characters GRRM has provided for us, her story seems to me one of the saddest and grayest. Boiling down everything she does into either good OR bad seems to me like it seriously undercuts everything Arya has been through.

The saddest part, in my opinion, is the death of the stable hand she kills while escaping the Red Keep. As far as I know, the only person who judges Arya for that death is Arya. She was alone, terrified, desperate and acting utterly on instinct, and yet that's still the moment when she starts to think of herself as a bad person-- as a killer. Arya has done many bad things, but the fact that she starts on that path by considering herself a murderer (to the point that she wonders whether her mother would love her, if she knew about the stableboy) for an act of pure self-defense is just heartbreaking to me.

:agree:

This sums it up quite well.

Even GRRM states that she's not 'lost to the darkness'. He used other words, but I don't remember exactly what those were.

[Jon Lannister]

Even having reasons to have a list of people she swore to kill, that doesn't change the fact that she killed for the first time when she was 8, and she never stoped since then. She's a child who saw her whole family being murdered. She had to leave the safety of Winterfell to live in Kingslanding, the greatest snake nest in all the Seven Kingdoms. She had a great deal of guilt because of Mikka's death, she saw her father's household being murdered in the Red Keep, and shortly after, her own father was executed. She then had to pretend she was a boy, she dealed with the madness of war when she was around 9 years old, she saw Yoren and all the rest of the company murdered. Then she had that terrifying journey with Gregor Clegane's company, she saw more murder and madness at Harrenhal and then the whole thing with the Brotherhood Without Banners. When she was almost safe with her brother and mother, they were murdered at the Red Wedding, and more madness followed with Sandor Clegane's death. By last, she went to Braavos, a completly different place from all the ones she had gone to and now she's being trained to be a murderer.

All of this hapened in two or three years, between her 8th name day and her 11th. Dealing with so many changes and deaths in a so little period had, certainly, a great impact on her. I believe she's going more mad every day. She's becoming a killer at the age of 11, and she killed with her own hands more than ten men.

[zmflavius]

I agree with the OP to the extent that none of her killings were done "for the lulz" so to speak, which the OP seems to equate with not being psychotic. Lord Varys gives us a number of reasons as to why some of her killings and other actions were not justified. At the same time, she is a girl who has been through several very, very traumatic experiences, so there is some excuse.

BUT

None of this changes the fact that she has murdered close to a dozen people at age ten. This fact by itself is extremely shocking, regardless of the circumstances. In Westeros, even ten-year olds are not expected to have hit lists, or kill people.

And anyways, she is going down the road towards a killer. She at first killed people only when necessary, but eventually, such as when she killed the Bolton guard, she didn't feel any remorse. At all. No matter how much he deserved to die (and this is fairly slim in truth), she still murdered someone without a second thought.

[Drogo]

Inkasrain said everything I tried to say in half the space and with better phrasing. I feel i accidentally lumped myself into the category of people who believe arya is absolutely justified. My mistake. My intent was to prove that Arya may be becoming darker and greyer she is not becoming crazy or bloodthirsty. We can all agree that most if not all of GRRMs characters are shades of gray. It annoyed me so many ppl believe aryra is way beyond being a decent individual again. I feel Arya is no where near the killer people make her out to be. I don't think for an instant Arya is happy with everyone she has killed. Rather she looks at it as something that had to be done so she might see her family again.

If all ends well and Arya is alive an reunited with whatever Starks are around I don't think she'll be the crazy person in the corner mumbling to herself and counting the grains in the wood.

[zmflavius]

Inkasrain said everything I tried to say in half the space and with better phrasing. I feel i accidentally lumped myself into the category of people who believe arya is absolutely justified. My mistake. My intent was to prove that Arya may be becoming darker and greyer she is not becoming crazy or bloodthirsty. We can all agree that most if not all of GRRMs characters are shades of gray. It annoyed me so many ppl believe aryra is way beyond being a decent individual again. I feel Arya is no where near the killer people make her out to be. I don't think for an instant Arya is happy with everyone she has killed. Rather she looks at it as something that had to be done so she might see her family again.

If all ends well and Arya is alive an reunited with whatever Starks are around I don't think she'll be the crazy person in the corner mumbling to herself and counting the grains in the wood.

I suppose that you're right. But I've never heard any people say Arya was becoming crazy or bloodthirsty.

Then again, I've only started seriously browsing and posting here a few months ago.

[Drogo]

BUT

None of this changes the fact that she has murdered close to a dozen people at age ten. This fact by itself is extremely shocking, regardless of the circumstances. In Westeros, even ten-year olds are not expected to have hit lists, or kill people.

And anyways, she is going down the road towards a killer. She at first killed people only when necessary, but eventually, such as when she killed the Bolton guard, she didn't feel any remorse. At all. No matter how much he deserved to die (and this is fairly slim in truth), she still murdered someone without a second thought.

I think there is a fine line between murder and killing, especially in this world. The only people Arya murdered would be the guard, weese and chiswyk. Ill agree Weese prolly didn't deserve to die. But he did threaten to let his dog eat Arya a bunch and she wasn't exactly in a forgiving mood at this point in her life. But Chiswyk got wat he deserved, wouldn't call it murder just outsourced vengeance. The Bolton guard may not of deserved to die but he certainly had to. Arya knew this thats why she didn't second guess it. If she did maybe she wouldn't of been able to go through with it and they'd all of been stuck with the Goat aka ser limbtaker.

[Millardkillmoore]

Arya is on a very dark path. She is an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer. She, a young girl, plans on murdering a large list of people. Whatever they may have done to her, a child has no business plotting to kill so many people. Wanting to see them brought to justice is one thing, but she isn't after justice. She's after revenge. This is not the sign of a healthy mind. It is the sign of an extremely deranged one. Even if she was a grown woman, this would be disturbing. As a child, it's much, much worse.

Of her confirmed kills, two are entirely without justification.

1) The Bolton guard.

To those saying she had no choice, you are simply wrong. I can think of several alternate choices to killing a man in cold blood.

-Sneaking past him.

-Distracting him.

-Disabling him.

-Trying again another night when the sentry might not be as vigilant

-Giving up this plan to flee Harrenhall altogether.

-Revealing her identity and demanding that, as her Brother's bannerman, Roose Bolton take her too him. After all, she had no idea he was planning to betray Robb.

Now, you might say, "But she had no idea that any of these plans would have worked." True, but she didn't know with 100% certitude that she would succeed in murdering the guard either. The problem is that she didn't try any of these alternate plans. She jumped straight to murder. What kind of sane, emotionally-stable person just murders someone because they don't feel like trying other options?

2) Dareon

This is much more simple, straight-forward and indicative of a deeply disturbed mind. She, a little girl, declares herself to be judge, jury, and executioner of another human being. She is not lord or lady of Winterfell or anywhere else. She isn't even in the Seven Kingdoms. Even if she did command Winterfell, she isn't there. She has no authority to deal out justice in Braavos. Yet, she takes it upon herself to decide the fate of a NW deserter and murder him.

These two murders force me to draw some interesting conclusions.

-Arya is a sociopath or on her way to becoming one. No sane or mentally healthy little girl can murder two people in cold blood without any remorse. She doesn't even take any length of time to think on killing people. She just does it as though it is a natural and normal response to both situations.

-She is fundamentally an incredibly selfish person. First, she murders a man not because she had no other choice, but because it was convenient. Then, she kills Dareon purely to satisfy a whim.

-She is a hugely arrogant person who may have a god-complex. In the Bolton case, she clearly decides that she, a highborn girl less than 12 years old, deserves to escape to Riverrun and see her mother. If an innocent man has to die so that she can be happy, so be it. After all, she is a better, more important person than him. In the case of Dareon, she deems herself, a child with zero legal authority, to be the arbiter justice and deserving of deciding the fate of another human being. I think this conclusion is further supported by her constant referring to other characters as stupid. Go back and read her chapters. See how many times she uses that word to describe every character she doesn't like or that disagrees with her. Sansa, Hot Pie, Gendry are just particularly common recipients.

In her defense, Arya has had horrible, incredibly traumatic, and unbelievably disturbing things happen to her. I really can't blame her for what she is (although she was very arrogant even before unpleasant things started happening to her). However, she is not a role model for what a strong female character should be. She is not a sane person. She is definitely not a good person. What she is is a sociopathic, arrogant, selfish murderer who needs to be brought to justice before she can harm more people. Oh, and let's not forget that she voluntarily joined an order of professional assassins so that she can learn the skills necessary for bloody revenge. Totally the sign of a healthy mind.

Edit: My mistake for using the words psychopath and psychotic when I meant sociopath. Thanks for the clarification of terms, Nanelle. It's been a few years since I took a Psych class and I'm a little rusty.

[Jabbywocker]

Interesting conversation guys (even if it has been beaten to death). I noticed a few people are misusing terms like "psychotic", "psychopath, and "sociopath". That's irking me, so I just want to clear up their actual definitions lest my brain implode. I know some people already understand the difference, but this is for those who don't and want to take part in the conversation:

Psychotic - someone who has lost touch with reality. It's a broad term to describe anybody with a sever mental illness. A person experiencing psychosis might have hallucinations, delusions, bizarre beliefs, be overly emotional, or seem very out of their mind. The classic "crazy" person. There are many different types of psychotic disorders. Schizophrenia is a better known example.

Psychopath - a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. They tend to...

Know right from wrong; be rational; have high intelligence; be capable of great charm; seem normal; lack empathy; be incapable of love, caring, or regret; be highly manipulative; see other people as objects to use; have no guilt or remorse; and be outstandingly selfish, egotistical, and deceitful.

Psychopaths (and sociopaths) have Cognitive Empathy - the ability to tell a person has emotion. What they lack is Emotional Empathy (see pain, feel pain), and Compassionate Empathy (the desire to help a person who is hurt). Their Cognitive Empathy is what allows them to be master manipulators. Pcychos and sociopaths can't feel deep emotions (like guilt or love), but they understand what they are and can recognize it in other people.

Sociopath - a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial or psychopathic attitudes and behavior. The term is usually the equivalent of Antisocial Personality Disorder. A sociopath develops psychopathic traits- especially lack of empathy- as a result of environmental influences (like an abusive childhood).

Sociopaths are very similar to psychopaths and the two are often confused for each other. The main difference is that psychopaths are born (thanks to crappy genetics), and sociopaths are made. Plus, sociopaths can't keep up the appearance of a wholesome, totally-not-batshit-insane average Joe like psychopaths can. They're only slightly less unhinged than psychos.

Arya is not psychotic, and definitely not psychopathic. Arguably she could be a sociopath, but I think not. She still retains Emotional and Compassionate Empathy.

In my opinion, as someone said before, she's turning into a female version of Bronn. By the time she's an adult (if she even makes it that far) she'll probably be extremely cynical, a killer, and no doubt suffer from some form of PTSD. She's a child that has been forced into the ugliness of world way too early, and she's coping in the best way she can. Does that justify some of her actions? Certainly not. But I think it makes them understandable.

As for the Bolton guard and Dareon... well, others have already covered that topic and my fingers hurt from typing. All I'll say is their deaths were unnecessary. It's just more evidence for the extremely unhealthy mentality the world has forced her ten-year-old self to take, which I find extremely depressing.

Why does Arya have to be either completely insane or absolutely justified in everything she does? She is far from my favorite character, but out of the encyclopedia of gray and tragic characters GRRM has provided for us, her story seems to me one of the saddest and grayest. Boiling down everything she does into either good OR bad seems to me like it seriously undercuts everything Arya has been through.

The saddest part, in my opinion, is the death of the stable hand she kills while escaping the Red Keep. As far as I know, the only person who judges Arya for that death is Arya. She was alone, terrified, desperate and acting utterly on instinct, and yet that's still the moment when she starts to think of herself as a bad person-- as a killer. Arya has done many bad things, but the fact that she starts on that path by considering herself a murderer (to the point that she wonders whether her mother would love her, if she knew about the stableboy) for an act of pure self-defense is just heartbreaking to me.

QFT.

[KyleLitke]

I guess Ned Stark is a psychopath too, then. He killed a deserter of the Nights Watch too. It's pretty well established in the books and in this world that if you run from the Nights Watch, it's deadsville, population you. Someone was saying how it's a lords duty, blah blah blah...this is not a case where they get a trial. Deserters don't get to have a trial by combat, or a regular trial with a lord looking over them. It's an immediate death sentence, period, and growing up a Stark, Arya knows this. Now you can make the case it isn't her duty, you can make the case she perhaps shouldn't have done it. But that's not what you guys are saying. You guys are making her out to be a nutjob psychopath. As soon as she had good reason to think he was deserting, then by everything that has been told to her, to others, and to us about how that works, he immediately has a death sentence. Whether or not Arya's the one who should have carried it out is a fair question, but to claim it somehow proves she's a murdering nutjob, it doesn't.

Don't look at it from a modern day perspective of everyone gets a fair trial, etc. etc. Deserters from the Nights Watch don't get a trial. Arya just carried out the sentence he immediately earned when he decided to desert. She is not choosing to be judge and jury, there IS no judge and jury. Period. A modern perspective does not work here. Killing is much more commonplace here and the Nights Watch deserters do not get a trial, do not get a judge, do not get a jury. Did she choose to be executioner? Yes, which doesn't surprise me considering she's a Stark and probably heard tons of times about how Ned had to go execute a deserter because anyone who deserts immediately earns a death sentence.

I do agree she has some "issues" if you want to call it that, and she's not exactly a healthy girl of her age. But there's a difference between saying she was forced to grow up WAY too fast and calling her a psycho murdering nutjob.

I'd also point out, to whoever claimed she showed no sympathy...she didn't? I remember her feeling bad about the killing at Harrenhal (or at least recognizing it was bad). And I'm not sure why she should have felt guilty about any of the others (we have no real clue how she felt about Dareon, and even if we did and she felt no remorse, I stress again that I don't think some of you are looking at this from the perspective of someone in that world, where it's firmly established that desertion = immediate death).

[Jojen]

I don't think she's psycho or psychotic...maybe somewhat sociopathic, but given what's she's been through, how could you blame her?

I see her more as becoming a weapon...a sword, as Syrio said.

[Xenophon]

Inkasrain said everything I tried to say in half the space and with better phrasing. I feel i accidentally lumped myself into the category of people who believe arya is absolutely justified. My mistake. My intent was to prove that Arya may be becoming darker and greyer she is not becoming crazy or bloodthirsty.

...

If all ends well and Arya is alive an reunited with whatever Starks are around I don't think she'll be the crazy person in the corner mumbling to herself and counting the grains in the wood.

Yeah, I think you were clear enough about your overall intention; it seems like people mainly took issue with your claim that all her killings were justifiable. Personally, I think she's gone well beyond the point of merely killing for survival or duty, but I don't think this makes her irredeemably evil either. If everything does end well, as you say, she probably won't be completely shell-shocked or crazy, but, IMO, it does seem like she's getting scarred by her experiences. Like Jojen said, she's becoming a sword, an amoral instrument that can be used for either good or evil, and I imagine that involves a certain coarsening of the soul.

I guess Ned Stark is a psychopath too, then. He killed a deserter of the Nights Watch too. It's pretty well established in the books and in this world that if you run from the Nights Watch, it's deadsville, population you. Someone was saying how it's a lords duty, blah blah blah...this is not a case where they get a trial. Deserters don't get to have a trial by combat, or a regular trial with a lord looking over them. It's an immediate death sentence, period, and growing up a Stark, Arya knows this. Now you can make the case it isn't her duty, you can make the case she perhaps shouldn't have done it. But that's not what you guys are saying. You guys are making her out to be a nutjob psychopath.

Who is? Did anyone say she was a nutjob psychopath?

Also you might want to read the blah blah blah more closely. People were arguing precisely what you say they weren't: namely that Arya did not have the legitimate authority to execute a NW deserter. GRRM has explained that only lords have the right to pass sentence, and the text makes it pretty clear that NW deserters must be sentenced to die, not simply killed out of hand.