Daeron the Daring

Remind me why does any palestinian want to kill an israeli in 2023.

I don't handwave away anything, but regarding the religious freedom in Israel in 2023, it doesn't bear any meaningful significance. If it does, it shouldn't. Historical grudges, as per you too, aren't a good thing to hold onto. My nation too holds historical grudges very close to their heart, semi-rightful. It is mass-communicated to this day (WW1 stuff), and a central idea to right-wing propaganda. That's what they're good for, sadly. Exercise irony. Plus, the subject was the USA, not Russia or any of its predecessors.

The prosperity of the US (like many other 'western' countries, of course) is inseparable from its past and present of imperialistic exploitation. So allow me to care about that when you gloss over that, and not the unfortunate subjects of russian or chinese imperialism.

The high ground of prosperity which was created by no means of imperialism?

The former expulsion of jews from arabic countries is irrelevant in this scenario. It happened, it was unjust. That doesn't make Israel religiously more free than it is right now, nor is it an excuse to not be. Radicalisation of the citizens of Israel didn't start with Netanyahu, people were becoming more and more radicalised before too (jews and arabs alike), for various reasons. (Edit: Altough it is, obviously, a relevant escalator of the situation) You can actually find evidence for these in surveys that are pretty easy to find. You can look into it yourself (to give more validity to your research), but I can provide links too.

Well, yes, of course. But Israel's level of religious freedom is comparable to that of its neighbouring muslim countries, not the Western World, which you would call democratic. My other examples were to show that being constitutionally secular doesn't mean much alone.

Which in practice can mean a lot of things. In reality, Israel is a religiously very tense country, and without a doubt discriminative based on religion. Denmark is not secular, meanwhile countries like Turkey or Russia are. Or the vocally very anti-immigrant Poland and Hungary. Or my own country, Romania. Being secular doesn't disqualify a country of moving on the spectrum of religious freedom, and religious discrimination. And Israel is not a shining beacon of religious freedom, to say the least.

It feels especially strange because Robert is currently in a race for the Vale with..... noone. He has to run a marathon, sure, but he has the time of his life for that. Now, of course, Littlefinger may need immediate and more extensive control over the Vale for some reason we are yet to be told, but Harry's also a pretty fucking wild card, if you ask me. I mean, it could work, and he might indebt him with Sansa for eternity, but still. Sansa's 'marriage' to Tyrion is no big deal thou. Note that Petyr intended Tyrion to be executed for poisoning Joffrey, but he still has time to have Tyrion dead, or at least considered as such. Dissolvement is pretty possible thou with a lack of consummation, but it's a risk (with Tyrion alive, especially), and Petyr doesn't like that. This situation, however is just strange. It seems similar to that of Roose "I legitimize my bastard I'd let inherit over my dead body" Bolton, since Harry is a nobody, and a betrothal to Robert with a secret promise to Harry would be a much safer bet. That is, if Petyr's unwilling to get rid of Sweetrobin himself, which would be sus either way. It's just another knot on an issue that has a clear solution.

Yea, sure, I get it. But your impression's not on me, nor anyone's. I haven't read all that many psychology books (maybe 3), so I kinda rely on people I know with my opinion here. A more nailed down version of my viewpoint (I base on what some said to me), is that genetical factors are equally important compared to the effect of nurture, but they alone don't make nobody a psychopath or anything alike. (Take this as a technical absolute, not a theoretical one.)

What I said has not referred to genetical factors being nonexistent. We all assume a tone to what we read, based on several factors. You made a wrong assumption, maybe because of the opinions I expressed previously, maybe not, but you did. On the other hand, noone can be a psychopath purely because of genetics. It's really a 50/50. And Joffrey's not considered one by the one person that created him. Goodnight. Sorry I averted the discussion. It's really on me.

Makes it sound as though you are totally excluding that someone could be a 'psychopath' due to genetic/biological factors rather than upbringing and that it is based entirely on upbringing, which I disagree with. My point referred to the idea of people naturally being born as psychopaths. You tought more of it than I expressed, because I never said or implied that genetics cannot be a factor. It very much is.

Psychopathic behaviour is not psychopathy, mostly because it does not necesarilly lead to psychopathy. Period. Children cannot be psychopaths. The term is exclusive to adults. Period. Look up conduct disorder. It's what you'd call psychopathic behaviour in children, and can be a precursor of actual psychopathy. I'm new to the incident, but it seems to me that the very study that established/establishes the meaning of the words you use shies away/forbids the use of these terms on children, including the two persons you mentioned. Psychology specifically looks into what psychopathic symptoms in children mean. And it's not like psychopathy/sociopathy is just about cruelty and a lack of remorse. Plus, not even GRRM calls him anything more than a classic bully from school, and explicitly nothing more. Take this with a grain of salt thou, sometimes I disagree with George too (mainly when he doesn't know the meaning of the terms he uses, but this is completely irrelevant), so I'm not the best candidate to champion with his words. I had my peers back in upper elementary 'play' with street dogs, cats, chickens and turkeys in a way that would sometimes lead to the animals' death. It was animal cruelty of criminal level. Many of them are assholes nowadays, but I wouldn't call any of them psychos or anything close to that today, altough they grew up to be adults now.

No such thing exists.

As someone who spends quite some time with kids: Don't underestimate the cruelty and hatred they can harbor, and how well they can hide it in front of certain people (their parents, most frequently). As somone who knows insanely misnurtured people: Don't underestimate the toll nurture has on you. As a former kid myself: Don't rely on a kid's common sense. Joffrey made the asumption that he should have Bran killed because of what Robert said. Kids make assumptions in the same fashion, not because they are bad (not claiming Joffrey isn't), but because they lack the ability to realise the weight of certain actions and words coming from adults or done by themselves. The 'something wrong' Joffrey had in him wasn't anything more than an insane level of misnurture/lack of nurture. If you let loose the most privileged kid of the Seven Kingdoms, it might turn out this way. Not necesarilly, and I'm not the right person to seek for an answer on why (or if) certain kids have a bigger tendency for being troubled any or many ways, but that doesn't make a child a rotten apple, because children are children, and the mental disorders some and most people put on Joffrey as a tag are unrealistic in nature, because they are modern concepts that cannot be applied on children in the modern world, as far as I'm aware. And Joffrey wasn't a rotten apple. That's my opinion, I guess. (This is a completely separate topic, somewhat reflecting at the original post, but) In a much wider range, I think, Joffrey is part of an issue that's represented on many levels in George's work: That the things we love are often evil in nature as well, which makes our love or hatred for anything hipocrytical. And I'm guilty of that too. Am I really allowed to hate Joffrey while reading a book set up in a never ending feudal world, with the best and worst exploiting millions, often at the same level? In that sense, the only character I feel I have the right to hate is Euron. What he aims at is uncomparable to the level of exploit feudalism throws at people. People like Ramsay just add a few hundred/thousand to a list of millions.

I mean, it could be that there was just simple hesitation. Aerys clearly found everyone unfit to marry his son (until he was somewhat forced to settle for someone), and it may have been common sense to think that Tywin will propose a marriage between the two, so people just didn't want to step in the way. But Rhaegar was in a similar situation to Edmure. Neither him, nor Hoster was in a rush to find a match for the heir to the Riverlands, altough he was the last male in line, and much older than Rhaegar was. Situations like this in medieval times weren't the rule, but they certainly weren't rare.

If I had to put the big six in order (it's gonna be big 6 for me, because I like Sansa's character) it would be like this: Jon, Daenerys, Sansa, Tyrion, Arya, Bran. But in reality, right now, I would get the most excited about a new Bran POV chapter. That I guess tells how much I like all of them. The secondary characters I can't stop appreciating (as characters, not as good persons) are Jaime, Littlefinger, Doran, and Asha and Benjen. Maybe in that order.

You're playing a dirty game.

Okay, I will go that low. That's not the important part. The important part is if Renly rebelled/plotted in mind with the tought that he inevitably has to step over the dead bodies of 3 bastards or the bodies of his niece and two nephews. (Both are insanely bad) You wanna bet which one was it? Buddies share lines.

I guess it's on me that I wasn't specific enough, and took it granted that the message comes through the way I intended. I didn't mean to imply that acts/crimes should be disproportionately excused, but that Joffrey deserves to be treated according to his age just as well, like everyone else. Well, if you mean that age should either be a severing or mitigating factor, then I agree. Well, it's certainly new to me that people can be criminally charged at such young ages. I am somewhat familiar with the legal systems of a couple Eastern European countries, but when I mentioned that I would take role models from a couple developed countries, I was thinking more of Nordic countries than the UK (or God save, the US of A). The problem is that Joffrey, in my opinion, is in fact villified too much. I laid down well enough (I think) why. We can disagree. But I am a hipocryte, I hate Joffrey too (as much as I can hate or love fictional characters. And it dwindles day to day. I am becoming more and more numb and indifferent to the story. It's time, and the only thing easing this is my sister having watched the show recently (I regularly drop book spoilers on her until she status reading them)). George did a good job. But I know there's a higher road, and it sounds really bad (because people hyperfocus on it, when you say it out loud), but Joffrey was a victim of many things, first and foremost her mother.

They are to him. If you fail to realise this much, maybe you should resort to fan fictions.

What? It literally doesn't. Or rather: It shouldn't. Just because you do evil stuff as a 12 yo, it doesnt make you older, nor should it make you be considered older. You're basically saying that Joffrey, or anybody else, loses their right to being (considered) a child for doing (bad) stuff most kids don't. Which makes 0 differene. I tought you were trying to prove me that everybody should be held accountable for what they do. I very much believe that adults should be held accountable for obeying the orders given to them, and also for obeying a child, when they should not have. (That doesn't make Joffrey not guilty of ordering the stuff he did.) I don't remember saying that. I remember saying that Joffrey should always be considered an 11-13 year old boy when measured. Because that's his basic right as much as Sansa's or anyone else's. If you want my perspective on how much he should be held accountable then I can confidently rely on the legal systems of some developed countries, where his childhood background and age would certainly be major factors. But I'm not saying that his murder was unjust, not a necessity, or a bad thing, in the given setting. And if you guys feel like I'm not aware of what Joffrey did, and what Sansa did in comparison, maybe you should stop arguing with me, since I must be entirely out of touch then. If not, then stop throwing it at me like they're arguments.

No. Double standards is lifting someone from the burden of their acts at a certain age, meanwhile not doing the same with someone the same age. You don't let go of the 'crimes' of X just because X's are much better than Y's. Which they are, obviously, and Sansa's not even a comitter of crimes, in my opinion. What I'm saying is that if one is entitled to the excuse of being naive due to age, so does the other. And that's not just Joffrey and Sansa, but every 12 year old.

Which, I guess absolves him of the societal expectiations of being a nice and good person to anyone. Is that how you behave with your 'alleged' cousins and relatives? They gotta prove to you the relation first, to expect anything humane from you? Allow me to go ahead and assume that's not the case.

Never meant to spread the implication of comparability of the two. It's just double standards. Who doesn't? The problem is ignoring what this indicates. We just so happen to have our OP elaborate on why we need to use modern standards on the questions we face in the novels. What I'm saying is that George punishes the reader for hating on Sansa. Instantly. But Joffrey is a victim of his surroundings as well, perhaps of even more. And the realisation can't and shouldn't be as emotional as it is with Sansa (or at all), but there's a point when it's just due.

People hold accountable Joffrey at the same age. I'm saying they both shouldn't be, okay?