Arya is NOT a sociopath

[Alia Atreides]

My understanding has always been that "psychopath" and "sociopath" are just words we use to describe people who are extreme outliers on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to things like empathy and fear response, and that they don't necessarily have precise definitions.

The thing is though, almost anyone can become hardened to the point that their regard for human life becomes severely diminished, so I don't think it's exactly fair to use these words to label a person who has endured continuous, traumatic situations for an extened period of time, especially someone as young as Arya. So no, she's not a sociopath or a psycopath. She's a child soldier.

No there is a classification of both a psychopathic vs sociopathic personality disorder and clear guidelines for both disorders. Arya is neither one and can you expand on the whole child solider theory you just put here; from what I've read she's done any killing of her own free will no one is making her do any of what she is doing. :).

[Berkilak]

You could probably say the same about LF with Sansa.

That's pure ego satisfaction. He couldn't have Cat, so he's trying to take Mini Cat. It's not about Sansa's well-being: he's just trying to heal a wound that's been lingering since his childhood.

[Berkilak]

No there is a classification of both a psychopathic vs sociopathic personality disorder and clear guidelines for both disorders. Arya is neither one and can you expand on the whole child solider theory you just put here; from what I've read she's done any killing of her own free will no one is making her do any of what she is doing. :).

I actually think you could make the case for psychopath for Arya. Definitely not sociopath, though.

[Darksnider05]

I actually think you could make the case for psychopath for Arya. Definitely not sociopath, though.

That is even less backed up than sociopath as at least Arya is attempting to master her emotions. Which has the slightest relevance to a sociopathy.

Biter is a pyschopath.

[Epyon]

I'd add (though this doesn't specifically apply to Arya) that in many character's cases, the normal non fictional norms don't quite apply, when attempting to armchair psychologist diagnose mental illness...

For example: Joffery. It's hard to argue he was a disturbed kid, and at the very least sadistic, but it's hard to look at Joffery and answer whether the concept of understanding right from wrong really applies to him in the same way it does for a everyone else. In an absolute monarchy, the King is always right, even when he's wrong.

As far as Arya being a sociopath, I'm not seeing it. She has feelings and emotions, and things she cares about. She wouldn't, for example, hold on to Needle, if she didn't have that emotional attachment to her past.

The only character from the whole of the series I really think counts as a true sociopath, is Roose Bolton...He strikes me as a person who is only playing the game out of boredom, and seemingly only makes decisions on pure logic (Picked his wife, because she was fat/weighed more... Literally only doesn't murder Ramsey, because of kinslaying taboo/curse)

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Maybe it would be a little less pitiful if she would actually kill somebody relevant to the plot, but that's a different topic.

Her tragedy will be that when she gets to Westeros, everybody from her list will be dead and she won't find a purpose in her life.

[Darksnider05]

Her tragedy will be that when she gets to Westeros, everybody from her list will be dead and she won't find a purpose in her life.

That makes no sense as she has already found many things she enjoys in life that she has been doing in Braavos. Like really at what point has she ever stopped living.

[The Abominable SnowOther]

That's pure ego satisfaction. He couldn't have Cat, so he's trying to take Mini Cat. It's not about Sansa's well-being: he's just trying to heal a wound that's been lingering since his childhood.

So, Ramsay trying to become a "true son" isnt ego satisfaction. Didnt Ramsay kill his brother and try to take his place because of a lingering wound from his childhood, particularly being a "bastard"

[Berkilak]

So, Ramsay trying to become a "true son" isnt ego satisfaction. Didnt Ramsay kill his brother and try to take his place because of a lingering wound from his childhood, particularly being a "bastard"

You make an interesting point. Ramsay, too, could very well be a sociopath. I'm just always read him as genuine in his attempts to please his father. Especially how he takes to flaying, in the true Bolton fashion. More a product of what he thinks is expected of him than being detached from societal norms.

[Alia Atreides]

You make an interesting point. Ramsay, too, could very well be a sociopath. I'm just always read him as genuine in his attempts to please his father. Especially how he takes to flaying, in the true Bolton fashion. More a product of what he thinks is expected of him than being detached from societal norms.

are you serious on that last one? the Bastard reveals in flaying and feeding people to his dogs, breaking a man's spirit into that of a dog in fact less than a dog at least Ramsay sort of likes them just slightly.

[Direpanda]

No there is a classification of both a psychopathic vs sociopathic personality disorder and clear guidelines for both disorders. Arya is neither one and can you expand on the whole child solider theory you just put here; from what I've read she's done any killing of her own free will no one is making her do any of what she is doing. :).

Can you provide me with a source on this? I would be very interested in seeing something that clearly and clinically defines and differentiates these as distinct disorders(apologies, I can't help myself). Everything I've ever read on the subject has been pretty vague and contradictory. Some say they're synonyms, some say they're completly different things but can't seem to draw a clear line between the two. Most throw out a set of characteristics that garner one label or the other (shallow emotions, lacking empathy, ect., ect.), but it all seems rather nebulous to me.

As far as child soldiers go, Arya's family was violently killed and she was tossed out to make her way in a world full of people who do terrible things, just look at some of the major influences in her recent history; Jaqen, The Hound, the people at the House of Black and White, killers all. She's learning how to kill, that's it's useful to kill, and that killing is acceptable. I don't think many real life child soldiers are cases of someone standing behind them with a gun forcing them to shoot someone else. Children are malleable, it can simply be a matter of arming them and giving them a shove in the right direction.

[The Abominable SnowOther]

You make an interesting point. Ramsay, too, could very well be a sociopath. I'm just always read him as genuine in his attempts to please his father. Especially how he takes to flaying, in the true Bolton fashion. More a product of what he thinks is expected of him than being detached from societal norms.

Ahh, I see where your coming but i diasgree. I always read him as just playing the son because of what it might gain him(Flaying people being a bonus) I cant imagine Roose being too happy about Theon and WF no matter the facade he puts up.

[Chatty Duelist]

One problem is that adult definitions don't apply to 11-year-olds. If she goes around killing everyone on her list after becoming an adult you can judge her on adult terms. If anyone on her list is still alive, that is.

Heh.

By the same logic, we should forgive Joffrey because he's just a boy.

[Alia Atreides]

Can you provide me with a source on this? I would be very interested in seeing something that clearly and clinically defines and differentiates these as distinct disorders(apologies, I can't help myself). Everything I've ever read on the subject has been pretty vague and contradictory. Some say they're synonyms, some say they're completly different things but can't seem to draw a clear line between the two. Most throw out a set of characteristics that garner one label or the other (shallow emotions, lacking empathy, ect., ect.), but it all seems rather nebulous to me.

As far as child soldiers go, Arya's family was violently killed and she was tossed out to make her way in a world full of people who do terrible things, just look at some of the major influences in her recent history; Jaqen, The Hound, the people at the House of Black and White, killers all. She's learning how to kill, that's it's useful to kill, and that killing is acceptable. I don't think many real life child soldiers are cases of someone standing behind them with a gun forcing them to shoot someone else. Children are malleable, it can simply be a matter of arming them and giving them a shove in the right direction.

Here are a couple of articles regarding the whole Psychopath vs Sociopath :

http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/112693/psychopathy-versus-sociopathy.pdf

http://www.helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference

A child solider for me is a really touchy subject since most of these "child recruits" say in the Middle East weren't given a choice on if they wanted to become killers they were taken and this was the only choice they now had was to do what they are told.

I am not sure about the whole killing is acceptable part with Arya; condoned perhaps not sure if the people who know she has killed have found it to be acceptable.

[Light a wight tonight]

By the same logic, we should forgive Joffrey because he's just a boy.

Sorry, what you use for logic escapes me. I never mentioned forgiveness. I'm not going to waste time defending something I didn't say.

[Direpanda]

Here are a couple of articles regarding the whole Psychopath vs Sociopath :

http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/112693/psychopathy-versus-sociopathy.pdf

http://www.helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference

A child solider for me is a really touchy subject since most of these "child recruits" say in the Middle East weren't given a choice on if they wanted to become killers they were taken and this was the only choice they now had was to do what they are told.

I am not sure about the whole killing is acceptable part with Arya; condoned perhaps not sure if the people who know she has killed have found it to be acceptable.

Both those links seem to confirm what I was getting at, that the terms are rather ill-defined and often used interchangeably. The first paper seems have been written to specifically adress this issue and the article in the second link actually says: "Sociopathy and psychopathy are terms used in psychology and criminology to refer to subsets of people with antisocial personality traits. Neither is an official diagnostic term; ... Many psychiatrists use the terms interchangeably."

Child soldier may not be the ideal term but I think it's at least somewhat apropos with regard to Arya's situation. Nobody is deliberatly brainwashing her into killing(well... it could be argued that the kindly man and co. are), but she's been in the company of people who kill easily for quite some time and she's been incentivized to become more like them by the ruin of her family.

[The Holy Goat]

As people are wont to remind you on this topic, this is a diagnostic that can only be done on an adult, and "is not" is as much of a diagnostic as "is". And it's not an on/off condition either: you're not either completely normal or a complete monster.

As the "is Sansa a psychopath" thread would have argued, sociopathy/psychopathy, while often correlated with serial murderer, can be linked to behaviour Arya does have, and just like Joffrey did not have the compulsive lying or impulsivity or charm, Arya does have such traits.

It is an on/off situation. If one is a primary psychopath (gonna use psychopath from now on as sociopath is a technically incorrect term), then there's no turning away from it. The lack of empathy, the compulsive lying, the unjustified sense of importance, it will all stick, because the individual in question was born with the condition.

Children who in adult years are diagnosed with ASPD often display some troubling traits in their childhood. Joffrey cutting open a cat to look at the kittens is an example of this. Arya might've been a willful girl before the trouble in the books started, but that's all. She didn't cut cat's open or ruthlessly bully other children. She was wild yet kind, as we can see when we get into her head.

My point with saying that Arya can't be real, primary psychopath, is that one is either born with Antisocial Personality Disorder or one isn't. It's true that one can't give a correct, reliable diagnosis until the brain is fully developed, but that doesn't change the fact it's something the psychopath in question is born with and often show itself in younger years. Arya may be desensitized to death and suffering, but that's something that has arisen due to trauma, and can be healed. Trauma may fuck one up, but it alone does not a psychopath make, ASPD does.

It should of course be noted that while a psychopath might suffer from ASPD, and sufferer of ASPD is not nessecarily a psychopath. Also, one does not need to be a psychopath to be a horrible human being. A genuine fullblown psychopath is perhaps as monstrous a person as one can find (Ramsay Bolton), but other individuals, people with normal cognitive function can be just as horrible, just look at Roose Bolton, or Craster or Qyburn. They are frighteningly unpleasant individuals, but there's nothing truly psychopathic about them.

Generally, when asking if someone is a psychopath, one should first ask if they are capable of feeling genuine emotive empathy for another being. If they are they aren't psychopaths. Arya and Sansa are both more than capable of feeling for other people, or they would never have loved their families as much as they did (they would instead have loved them in the way a spoiled kid likes one of his toys - fun while it last, but if it breaks, oh well).

Arya might be impulsive, but I see no compulsive lying or superficial charm. Instead she is rather honest with what she thinks, and rather blunt in all her interactions with other. Joffrey though... he was a lying little shit, either lying about what he'd done or bragging about what he could do, and he had enough superficial charm to woo Sansa and Margaery and his mother without coming off as overly unpleasant. Also, he was impulsive in his actions and clearly lacked ampathy for others.

[ARYa_Nym]

She's not literally a child soldier but it's an apt comparison. GRRM himself had the intention of her being comparative to them.

But she's already going around killing people and she's learned a lot of the secrets.

Not only in Ice and Fire — we also did this bit in the Wild Cards series, the whole thing of the child solider is a fascinating construct. We have this picture of children [as] so sweet and innocent. I think some of the recent history in Africa and some of the longer history have shown that under the right circumstances, they can become just as dangerous as men, and in some ways more dangerous. On some level, it’s almost a game to them.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/george-r-r-martin-the-complete-unedited-interview-886117845

Repost from somewhere else. You'll see that a lot of it is applicable to Arya.

Africa is the region where the practice of child soldiers is mostly used. Due to constant social and political upheavals in its postcolonial state, children are often left with not much to turn to. This makes them susceptible to rebel groups that want to recruit them. Growing up in such an environment often at times leads children to see joining armed forces as the best option or as a way to keep them safe. Most of the children that are recruited were previously living in impoverished areas.

They are not always forced.

. When a child voluntarily joins an army there is a variety of reasons behind their choice all of which usually stem from said child’s socioeconomic status. “Almost a quarter of …the world’s youth survive on less than a dollar a day. As many as 250 million children live on the street, 211 million children must work to feed themselves and their families, 115 million children have never been to school. A third of all children in Africa suffer from hunger…By 2010, this figure may rise to as many as half…” (Children at War, 39)

Feelings of despair and an inability to protect themselves and their family members might cause them to see an army as a situation where a possible peaceful ending would justify the means taken in order to ensure it. They might see an army as a way to put a stop to all the violence. (Child Soldiers: Understanding the Context, 1269) It becomes a situation of violence begets more violence. These children might be the lone survivors after their whole family was killed. That might cause them to want to get revenge on behalf of their family which then perpetuates the cycle of violence. “Afghan boys cite how they cannot become a “man” until they exact revenge upon those who killed a parent.” (Children at War, 65)

Another one of the main underlying factors as to why children join armies is because they are poor and have no other foreseeable way to gain income. Researchers have found that when they surveyed demobilized soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 61 percent of them did not have an income and most of them lived in large families with six or more siblings. (Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, 14) Children who come from families with a higher socioeconomic status can rely on their parents to pay for their release if they are recruited or they might have political and legal sway to challenge recruitment. Many families avoid this altogether by just sending their children abroad. (The Impact of War on Children, 8)

A citizen of the United Kingdom helped to put the idea of voluntarily joining an army in perspective when he said, “In the army you can go out and see the world…It proved that if you’ve got no qualifications…or if you’ve got them and they’re poor, it proves you don’t have to go and work in a factory. Doing the same thing day in, day out.” (Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, 22) So the army might bring the possibility of excitement and an escape from the mundane life poverty can bring. There might not be jobs available in other fields but the army is always recruiting. The army can bring a level of stability for those who are unsure about how they are going to make it through the day because they don’t have the money for it.

The next major factor as to why children joined armed forces is their family or the lack thereof. For some children, members within the nuclear or extended family might already have set a precedent of joining the army. It might be accepted or even expected of this child to join. If they weren’t in the actual armies they might have still had family members who supported the cause which in turn lead them to be more open to joining. On the other hand, children might have been trying to escape an abusive family life so they turn to armed forces.

In addition, in some parts of the world a child might be forced undergo a custom that they would rather not if they had other options. A Sri Lankan child soldier stated, “It was not because I wanted to join the movement to fight. I wanted to get away from the marriage my parents were planning to force me into.” (Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, 106) Those who don’t have a family might see the army as a way to gain one. There also is a feeling of kinship when they encounter kids of their own age some of which might have been their friends. If most of their friends have joined, a child might succumb to peer pressure because they do not want to feel left out. (Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, 23-26)

The next societal factor is that usually children ranging from adolescents to teenagers want to be seen as “grown up.” To them, joining an army where they get to have guns and wear uniforms would symbolize that they indeed are grown up. Traditional gender roles associated with males such as being a provider, a protector, and having strength can easily influence young boys to want to join an army. “War allows boys to look like men…it is no small thing for a teenage boy to have something that yanks him out of his social floundering and places him, unlaughed at, in the company of heroes.” (Children at War, 66) Growing up in an area that is in constant turmoil and to be in a position where a child feels that they need to join an army requires them to have to grow up prematurely. At the end of the day, many of these children are only voluntary because of their situation. Another child soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Michel, stated, “Involuntarily-if you have nothing-you volunteer for the army. Involuntarily, because the situation requires it.” (Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, 108)

Once children are acquired, they sent to training camps to be trained and indoctrinated. In battle, they are often sent to the frontlines where they must kill, rape, loot against enemies and civilians.

Commanders brutalize children in order to desensitize them so that they will be able to commit atrocities. “Some have been made to kill their own families, while others have been made to engage in cannibalistic or sexual acts with the corpses of enemies killed in battle. Children are often given drugs and alcohol to cloud their emotions as they carry out these crimes.” (Democratic Republic of Congo, 7)

[Ashlesha]

Arya is not a sociopath. She has not killed anyone for fun sake. She does seem to have a moral code for doing so. I think that is perfectly normal for a girl whose father, brother and mother was killed by pure deciet.

[ARYa_Nym]

It should of course be noted that while a psychopath might suffer from ASPD, and sufferer of ASPD is not nessecarily a psychopath. Also, one does not need to be a psychopath to be a horrible human being. A genuine fullblown psychopath is perhaps as monstrous a person as one can find (Ramsay Bolton), but other individuals, people with normal cognitive function can be just as horrible, just look at Roose Bolton, or Craster or Qyburn. They are frighteningly unpleasant individuals, but there's nothing truly psychopathic about them.

That's true. The most violent crimes are committed by psychotics not psychopaths for example. Of course they have the excuse of insanity but not all of the insane will commit violent crimes.