What, exactly, is wrong with Lysa?

[Priestess from R'hllor]

While Lysa is obviously not mentally healthy, I've started wondering if there's something more there. She seems to show signs of several different personality disorders, most notably paranoid (excessive sensitivity, tendency to bear grudges, constant suspicion, paranoia, delusions), schizotypal (inappropriate behavior, suspicion, social withdrawal, appearing constantly cold, obsession), and avoidant (mistrust, extreme anxiety and shyness, hypersensitivity to criticism, feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, escapism.)

Does she have some kind of personality disorder, or is that just how she is? What do other people think?

[MasterJack]

She is just a weak woman. You dont need to have a mental disorder to be weak.

[Sweet-N-SourRobin]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

[Roose Seal]

She is just a weak woman. You dont need to have a mental disorder to be weak.

I'm pretty sure anyone would be "weak" after sleeping with a man who thought she was her sister, getting pregnant from aforementioned encounter, being given abortive tea, being then forced to marry a man four times her age, being forced to sleep with him, suffering several miscarriages and giving birth to two still borns and STILL being in love with a manipulative sociopath and seeing her husband murdered....

Her character is just a demonstration in how fucked up medieval values were, regarding women and the effect it could have on them.

eta: oops, ninja'ed

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

^ Agree with this assessment. There's absolutely nothing shocking about the fact, given what she's been through, that Lysa is so mentally fucked up.

[Gurkhal]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

Add me to the "We suppor this post"-list.

[Éadaoin]

lol attributing psychological disorders to characters who live in a world where those aforementioned psychological disorders don't even technically exist is one of my favorite things. And that's not sarcasm.

If Lysa lived in our world I'd be willing to bet that she'd be slapped with some kind of PD diagnosis. But would she be the same person?

I don't really think of her as weak, moreso a product of her environment. And I wish she'd been MORE paranoid wrt Littlefinger.

[Sordelor]

To the topic title; you mean was.

[rystine]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

Pretty much.

Also add the fact that she always had to deal with the (correct) suspicion that the man she loved was in love with her sister instead.

[Sweet-N-SourRobin]

Oh and lets not forget that her dad turned around and used that terminated pregnancy as proof his daughter was fertile i.e. had value as a broodmare which is what got her sold to a man twice her age in the first place.

Given her life experience, Lysa had very good reason to be as paranoid as she was.

[TheWizard]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

yeeeeeeeeep

[complexphoenix]

It seems to me that there's something in the blood. Lysa and Catelyn both go insane after losing too many of their children. When we meet her in AGOT, Lysa has had gods-only-know how many miscarriages and stillbirths and has only one son who is weak and sickly, of whom she is insanely overprotective. In other words, she's already gone through the trauma off-page and lost her mind.

Catelyn starts off the series as the proud mother of five healthy children. Over the course of the series she loses them one by one - Arya disappears, Bran and Rickon are apparently killed, Sansa is forced into a marriage with a high likelihood that she'll be killed once she's had a son, and then Robb is cut down right in front of her. Over the course of this ordeal she gets progressively nuttier until she loses it completely and makes her sister look sane by comparison.

[complexphoenix]

Oh and lets not forget that her dad turned around and used that terminated pregnancy as proof his daughter was fertile i.e. had value as a broodmare which is what got her sold to a man twice her age in the first place.

Given her life experience, Lysa had very good reason to be as paranoid as she was.

More than three times her age. She was in her teens, Jon Arryn was well into his 50s.

[bloodofwinterfell]

Her dad dosed her with abortion medicine to terminate her lovechild with Littlefinger.

Then he sold her to a man (Jon Arryn) more than twice her age and hundreds of miles away from anyone she'd ever known or cared about.

Then she had several miscarriages, probably resulting from the after-affects of having been exposed to the abortion medicine in the first place.

She is the illustration of how unfair the medieval/feudal socio-political system is for women and how quickly/completely it can break them.

Basically. And on top of that, she was always jealous Littlefinger loved Catelyn more than her ... which makes it even worse that the last thing she heard was a confirmation of her worst fear ("Only Cat.")

[Kasporio]

Cat's insanity over the loss of every people she ever cared for is not a sign there is mental ailments in the Tully's bloodline.

It would fuck up everybody's mind, save for sociopaths or psychopaths.

Both Cat and Lysa suffered terrible things. Cat was stronger, indeed, but when you are stripped of every reason to live...

Lysa... Hoster Tully was a real dick. He treated her like a mere tool, a mean to an end. Even Petyr and Jaime seemed sorry for her.

I'm glad Baelish killed her. She was too much unpredictable, and useless anyway.

[Djinn]

She just the most obvious example of the hidden dysfunctionality within the Tully family.

[Annara Snow]

lol attributing psychological disorders to characters who live in a world where those aforementioned psychological disorders don't even technically exist is one of my favorite things. And that's not sarcasm.

If Lysa lived in our world I'd be willing to bet that she'd be slapped with some kind of PD diagnosis. But would she be the same person?

I don't really think of her as weak, moreso a product of her environment. And I wish she'd been MORE paranoid wrt Littlefinger.

Eh, you do realize that psychological disorders exist whether or not they're diagnosed? That's like saying cavemen never got ill, because they probably didn't have words for any of the diseases.

[Thendel]

Bipolar disorder - those are my two cents.

[The Fallen]

` Lysa was always messed up. So what that she loved LF, but he didn't reciprocate. Haven't we all been there? I'm not feeling sorry for her foe that.

Being forced to abort is bad, but she shouldn't have gotten pregnant by the LF. She knows the rules, just like every other highborn girl.

She still managed to land a Lord Paramount. Would she rather have gone to live with LF on the Fingers, counting sheep pellets?

I think Lysa was batty from the get. She made bad decisions and couldn't live with the consequences. You have to held accountable for your bad decisions. She was luckier than most.

[So NOT a Maiden Fair]

Cat's insanity over the loss of every people she ever cared for is not a sign there is mental ailments in the Tully's bloodline.

It would fuck up everybody's mind, save for sociopaths or psychopaths.

Both Cat and Lysa suffered terrible things. Cat was stronger, indeed, but when you are stripped of every reason to live...

Lysa... Hoster Tully was a real dick. He treated her like a mere tool, a mean to an end. Even Petyr and Jaime seemed sorry for her.

I'm glad Baelish killed her. She was too much unpredictable, and useless anyway.

I agree with you. I think any mother who loves her children would go totally insane in Cat's situation. She was in a situation of constant stress, far away from all of her children, except for Robb (who was in a war and going to battles).

About Lysa, everything she went through and also the fact she was always in Cat's shadow. Even the man that she loves and got her pregnant thought he was having sex to her sister (I kinda feel sorry for Petyr about that too :frown5: )