teej6

I agree. IMO, the point GRRM makes in the books is that blind adherence to some ancient vows without having any humanity or compassion is not the right thing to do. The likes of Marsh and Selyse could not see the wildlings (including women and children) as humans or see the big picture. They are constraint by their narrow and bigoted views of the world. Marsh conveniently uses the Night’s Watch vows to defend his bigotry and racism, and GRRM clearly shows how Jon counters that argument. Jon has the right of it. His compassion and ability to see the humanity in the Wildlings is what makes him such a wonderful character. And unlike Ned, Jon is not shown to be naive or trusting. His failure was in underestimating the hate in men like Marsh and continued belief in the brotherhood/fraternity of the NW, something that was broken with the murder of Mormont. Aemon’s words on honor and duty are interesting, and by saying love is the bane of honor and duty, I don’t think the author is implying that to be a NW man one must abandon one’s humanity. He just means that choosing duty over the things we hold dear is a hard choice, a choice not everyone can easily make. And no one is tested more in these choices than Jon. We know this from his POV chapters. His love for his family (even though he was never fully part of it) is perhaps his most endearing quality and I for one don’t think GRRM means for this to be a flaw in Jon’s character. And I discount most of @Lord Varys arguments for the disingenuity of them. He will argue that Cersei's (someone who I suspect will be diagnosed as a sociopath) actions are less deplorable than Arya's since she does not kill with her own hands and does not relish killing or hurting others, while we clearly see from the text that Cersei does enjoy hurting her enemies (why she even enjoyed hurting her infant brother). He will in the same breath argue that Arya's actions are deplorable while advocating that Dany should indiscriminately bring down fire and blood on her enemies. Go figure.

Again, most people do not empathize with mass murderers and definitely do not empathize with evil fictional characters. That’s not how peoples brains work. If you can empathize with Hitler as you say, you must be a great empath. Kudos to you. Although, strange that you can do it for a character as vile as Cersei but not for Arya, a traumatized child who is trying to survive in a brutal world.

Lol.Couldn’t agree more.

Yeah by LV’s standards, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and JFK were all bad leaders.

You are confusing empathy with sympathy. Empathy is not something you can feel for everyone as you need to put yourself in the person's shoes to be able to do that. On the other hand, you can sympathize with most anyone. It isn't easy to feel empathy for a person whose character does not conform with your values or morals. For instance, I can feel sympathy for a mass murderer who is about to be executed but I feel no empathy for him. Similarly, I definitely can feel sympathy for Cersei's plight during her walk of shame, but I do not feel empathy for her since I can't understand/justify any of her vile actions (as there is no justification), and as I feel she brought the ugly situation upon herself by her own misdeeds. Again, I am baffled by your so called empathy for Cersei, while judging Arya through a different lens. Double standards? Well, I'll leave it at that.

@Lord Varys I don’t claim to be an expert on the nature of sociopaths or psychopaths, but just a simple search will give you a basic understanding of the two conditions and your definition and understanding is utterly wrong. Here’s a quote from webMD: "A key difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is whether he has a conscience. A psychopath doesn't have a conscience. If he lies to you so he can steal your money, he won't feel any moral qualms, though he may pretend to. A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it's weak. He may know that taking your money is wrong, and he might feel some guilt or remorse, but that won't stop his behavior. Both lack empathy, but a psychopath has less regard for others." The above definitions of these conditions is in complete contrast to what you were stating and how you were interpreting these conditions. I can quote more such definitions if you'd like. Perhaps it's you that needs to do your research before claiming knowledge of something. You call Arya a psychopath, but her character is shown to clearly have a conscience in her POV chapters, she can distinguish between right and wrong, she feels remorse, and she can empathize with random strangers -- all traits noticeably absent in psychopaths. As for the comparison between Arya and Cersei, one has to be blind or truly subjective to see Cersei's character as less of a sociopath than Arya's. Arya is still moved by the misfortunes of others even after all the trauma she has suffered as is evident from her interaction with Sam.

Such an evasive answer from GRRM makes me suspect that perhaps he isn’t.

Exactly! I find it terribly baffling. And this coming from the person who said he can’t understand how my brain processes emotions because I can’t empathize with Cersei’s character. What a joke.

You really don’t know what you’re talking about. Arya is not a psychopath in any definition of the word. She may have sociopathic tendencies but is definitely not a psychopath. The defining characteristic of a psychopath is that he/she does not have a conscience, you know that little voice in your head that says what you are doing is wrong. They are not concerned with the consequences of their actions. We know from Arya’s POV that she is acutely aware of what is wrong/bad, and most times, she is troubled by the consequences of the actions she perceives as wrong. She knows killing a random person is bad and that is why she tries to justify the killing of the insurance agent to herself. These are not the actions of a psychopath. She kills Dareon because in a convoluted way she thinks it’s right and she is enforcing the laws of the North/NW. The reader may find that disturbing but in her mind she believes she’s doing the right thing. She kills Raff because she’s seen first hand the atrocities the man has committed and hated him for it. She is exacting vengence for Lommy and justice for his crimes. Arya’s kills are not random, she does it out of necessity or she does it because she thinks she’s enforcing justice/killing bad people. Psychopaths do not rationalize their kills or seek a motive to kill. Earlier you argued that Cersei is not a sociopath because she knows what’s she is doing is wrong and I stated that sociopaths are able to clearly distinguish between right and wrong unlike psychopaths. Sociopaths do bad things knowing fully well that it is wrong, they just don’t care. They may even feel remorse after the fact, but they quickly dismiss/justify it by blaming others or through excuses. This is exactly what Cersei does. She knows exactly what will happen to Falyse, she just doesn’t care.

GRRM may subvert tropes to an extent but IMO he does not completely destroy the mythological/fantasy tropes. He still uses them a plenty. Ned may have seemed like the hero in AGOT to the readers, but to GRRM he was always meant to be the impetus for the rest of the story. He is the morally upright father figure who is killed unjusty and whose influence would define the lives of his kids — the real protagonists of the story. It was necessary for Ned to die for the story to progress, for his kids to have a growth projectory. Ned is again a classic trope — the dead noble father. In ADWD, Jon may have shown to be less naive and trusting than Ned but he still was a very traditional hero. Him being political does not lessen/negate his decency, and willingness to help others. Unlike you, I don’t think GRRM is going to suddenly break Jon’s narrative and turn him into Darth Jon after his death/near death experience. Jon will be changed but he isn’t going to turn all dark. In the hero’s journey, the hero has to face the “Belly of the Whale” stage where the hero undergoes a metamorphosis that is necessary for his future quest and for him to defeat the forces that threaten his world. This is an essential process in his journey and transformation, and Jon’s arc is following this traditional trajectory.

Exactly! The double standards are so obvious in LV’s posts. I guess that’s why he likes Dany so much.

I wasn’t justifying any of Jaime’s actions or stating he is Aemon the Dragonknight or Duncan the Tall. When/where did I claim that he was manipulated into killing Aerys by Cersei? Don’t put words in my mouth. He was manipulated into joining the KG by Cersei or else he may have ended up marrying the other crazy, Lysa Tully. There are other instances in the text of Cersei manipulating Jaime into doing her bidding. For instance, when Jaime tells Ilyn Payne that Cersei asked Jaime to maime/kill Arya (for the Trident incident w/Joffrey) while they were having sex, or Cersei asking Jaime to kill Tyrion while making out right next to the corpse of Joffrey. And yes, he does feel remorse over the killings of Elia and her children and his inability to protect them from his father, ergo the dream in ASOS. He does feel regret in how he turned out — he wanted to be Arthur Dayne but became the Smiling Knight instead. Jaime knows he’s done some terrible things and in his own way is trying to find some redemption, hence his desire to honor his promise to Catelyn Stark. The point I was making before you went all Jaime is evuuul is that I feel he’s a better person than Cersei, which still doesn’t make his actions any less bad. Anyway, Jamie being good or bad is not the subject of this thread.

I’m not a big fan of Jamie either and I think his pride gets the better of him most times. I agree with you that he plays the victim card and conveniently blames others (like Ned) for his current predicament. He also broke up with Cersei only after finding out about her indiscretions. But you have to realize that his identity is intertwined with that of Cersei’s and I feel he too is written as a victim of Cersei’s manipulation. And, from ASOS onwards, he does begin to feel some sense of remorse for some of his past acts and does attempt to do the right thing (at times). It doesn’t matter if he’s doing this out of a sense of wanting to regain his honor, the fact that he has come to this realization makes all the difference between him and Cersei.

Nope, I don’t feel any empathy for Cersei during her walk of shame and you can wonder all you want as to how my brain processes emotions, but I still say Cersei is not the victim, she’s the one who does the victimizing. This does not mean I’m not disgusted by the punishment itself. I would not want something like that inflicted on anyone, even a person as vile as Cersei but that still does not change the fact that she is a horrible and vile character. Cersei is not a victim, she plays the victim when it suits her. None of her actions are “understandable” as you say or can be justified. Her POV, only reiterates this for me. And give me a break, she sure as hell knows that Qyburn is upto no good with his experiments and Falyse is a goner. The fact that she chooses to ignore it does not make her ignorant of the outcome itself. And FYI, sociopaths are aware of their actions — they are aware that they are hurting others or doing something that is morally wrong, they just don’t care. They have a consience but it seldom affects them as it does normal people. And Cersei does not empathize with anyone. She knows very well that what she is doing is wrong but she doesn’t care, which makes her a sociopath. The love she has for her children is just an extension of the love she feels for herself. This is the same with her love for Jaime.

And Dany can control her emotions? That’s probably why she gave the go ahead to torture the wineshop owner’s daughters (who are most likely innnocent) in front of their father. As to her bringing freedom, tell that to the people of Astapor. I don’t doubt that GRRM has portrayed Dany with heroic intentions up until now (can’t guarantee that it will be the case in future books) but she has flaws so do the Starks, that does not make them any less heroic.