GRRM didn't seem to think Joffrey was a psychopath, just a classic bully

[Cas Stark]

Arya doesn't belong in this conversation since we know she has empathy, sympathy, compassion and has many times extended herself to help others.  We also know that she never exhibited any cruel behavior until after her father was killed and her entire life crashed and burned all in a single day.  We know that she was, prior to these events, a normal, if willful child who exhibited no signs of mental disturbance.

[Lord Varys]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

Arya doesn't belong in this conversation since we know she has empathy, sympathy, compassion and has many times extended herself to help others.  We also know that she never exhibited any cruel behavior until after her father was killed and her entire life crashed and burned all in a single day.  We know that she was, prior to these events, a normal, if willful child who exhibited no signs of mental disturbance.

Yeah, but couldn't Joff have ended at the point where he was standing when he died because of the things he went through?

[SeanF]

I'm not terribly bothered whether Joffrey is a clinical psychopath, or simply a sadistic little shit.  Even by the standards of his class, his time, and his place, his behaviour is revolting. Every POV character who encounters Joffrey, apart from Cersei, views him with disgust.  Even his own        father considers him "a squirt of seed inside Cersei's cunt."

To be honest, I laughed when Joffrey died.  If GRRM intended me to have sympathy for him at that point, he failed.

WRT animals generally, I imagine that very few people treat them as pets.  Rather, they're kept for practical purposes.  Horses for transport, cats for mousing, dogs for guarding and hunting.

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, but couldn't Joff have ended at the point where he was standing when he died because of the things he went through?

What things did he go through?  He had gone through nothing when he killed the cat.  His father hit him, once.  What else did he go through? His mother doted on him and enabled him and excused him.  His father ignored him.  This is unhealthy parenting but it usually doesn't produce monsters who delight in hurting other people.  

He's also an accomplished liar, who is able to fake emotions, like his fake apology to Sansa, when he closes.  Yet another sign of the classic psychopath.

[Protagoras]

If I have to choose between the two, I see Joffrey as a bully simply because I doubt psychopaths exists in the first place.

"Psychopaths have a poor inner sense of right and wrong" Nope, since right and wrong are subjective opinions, based on the society and not objective truths. The only thing the so called psychopaths are doing is breaking the moral standards of their society.

What we have in that case is sociopaths, not psychopaths and I would describe Joffrey as such, since he doesn't seem to follow the rules of his society very well. Indeed, most people in it seem to despise him because of his behaviour. He is having an antisocial personality, but in another society he might fit in better.

That people are "psychos" are a great defense for intellectually weak persons that are unable to take an argument and instead falls back to the well tried method of discrediting your opponent. We want to believe ourself that we are "the good guy", "good people" etc and fail to see that those so called psychos are very much like us, that they see themselves as "good" too. “Psychopath" is just a strong word for a deviant, in the same way that “jerk” describes someone you don’t like and what I see here at most is an antisocial personality who doesn´t fit in, yet gets accused wrongly for having objective defects when it is only opinions in a rather pathetic attempt to create an "objective" standard. Well, in that case - prove that a psychopath will be seen as one in ancient Rome and 17th century Thailand as well as today.

The "lower empathy" logic is just bullshit. Some actions are allowed and some are not. Shouldn´t a banker, who fires staff without thinking of their families be a psychopath too? Shouldn´t the girlfriend/boyfriend who cheats be a psycho too because of the lack of reflection over the victim? No, we as society doesn´t see it that way (So the definition seems to be very fleeting and always target the people we don´t like..hmmm). What we have is selective empathy and we ALL have it (I havn´t so far met a single person who empathize equally towards everyone).

People don´t do "bad things" for reasons "normal people can´t understand". Everyone on this forum is capable to do "bad". Everyone. And I find it funny that despite claiming that psychos are a completely different brand from themselves, the same people also claim that they know how a psychopath think. Some reflection here is needed.

[Knight Of Winter]

28 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

1) Right. I still eat meat on occasion, by the way. But I'm not sitting on so high a horse as to actually defend that practice.

2) There are other hints of animal cruelty if you know where to look. It is said that dogs are usually kicked and beaten so that they know their place (in which they are set apart from the direwolves in Winterfell). You don't get dogs to actually pretty much fear any human they are around if they are not severely chastised for transgressions. This is a society that is based very strongly on the direct exploitations of animals. They are tools and serve a purpose. If they are broken they have to go.

3) Robert was upset about Joff cutting the cat open because he wanted to have kittens. I don't think we can take that as confirmation that Robert would have acted similarly if Joff had just tortured a cat for fun or sport.

4) We all have a moment when we realize what death is, and that it is final. Did Joff already know that when he killed the cat? We don't know. I never cut open a cat, but under the right circumstances I certainly might have - not yet knowing that this was wrong, having already seen many men doing similar things to a variety of animals (cats not necessarily excluded - they were tolerated on medieval farms and in castles, not exactly loved as kittens - if there were too much of them they were drowned).

5) Arya didn't show any empathy for the Bolton soldier, Dareon, or the Braavosi insurance guy she killed. Not to mention that neither of these man had actually done her any harm. Joff, on the other hand, has a pretty good reason to hate both Sansa and the Starks in general, so it is pretty understandable that he lashes out against them. And unlike Arya we are never in his head so we don't know what he actually felt throughout all that.

Arya certainly has developed into a person who could murder people casually and without much remorse. She is right now as good with that kind of thing as Varys and Littlefinger are (e.g. Lysa and Pycelle/Kevan). That doesn't mean she is a psychopath, of course, but she has become a twisted person who doesn't shy away from murder. In fact, he relishes in it and likes to do it (e.g. Raff - she had a good motive there, of course, but she enjoyed it way too much to be a person I'd like to meet in real life).

1) And by "that practice", you refer to humans eating meat? If so, I said that this is not a place for this debate, but do try to accept that different people (in this case - all the meat-eating people) have different standpoint which is not necessarily less worthy than your own.

2) I can't remember that it was stated anywhere that dogs are casually beaten and kicked in Winterfell. Quote, please.

3) So Robert was disgusted with Joffrey's act, but he wouldn't have been disgusted in Joffrey just tortured a cat for fun? So, your argument is that Robert is angry not because Joffrey cut a cat, but because Joffrey wanted a kitten? Surely Joffrey wishing to have kittens would warrant such an angry reaction and slap across the face (which I'm not condoning, btw) ?

4) Ok, so how come we don't have more examples of Westerosi 6 year olds cutting a cat (or doing something similar)? I'd say that this story was clearly and unambiguously meant to be disturbing, both for us readers and characters in-story.

5) As an Arya fan, I'm also disturbed with easiness she kills, or how she usually suggests murder as a first solution. But, LV, comparing her to Joffrey is just so ridiculously off the mark that I don't know how to argue against it without coming off like a smartass. Arya, being traumatised and having seen her clear sense of right and wrong defied by real world on so many occasions, has developed a simple way to deal with it: bad men deserve death. We've seen this with insurance men (FM: Kill him Arya:.., FM: he cheats people Arya: then OK), we've seen this with Raff and we've seen this with Daeron (since any Stark knows that punishment for NW desertion is death). Meanwhile, she helps people, she engages in kind acts, she reacts to wrongness when she sees it, she forms meaningful relationships with other people etc.
 

Meanwhile, how can you apply any of this to Joffrey? He kills people (oh, sorry, he has people killed) purely for fun and his own amusement. He revels in causing pain. He has no qualms about threatening rape. He wants to cause humiliation upon others. He never does anything remotely nice... Do I need to go on? I earnestly hope that you can see differences between Arya and Joffrey, and why one deserves to be called a psychopath, and the other does not.

 

ETA:

19 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'm not terribly bothered whether Joffrey is a clinical psychopath, or simply a sadistic little shit.  Even by the standards of his class, his time, and his place, his behaviour is revolting. Every POV character who encounters Joffrey, apart from Cersei, views him with disgust.  Even his own        father considers him "a squirt of seed inside Cersei's cunt."

To be honest, I laughed when Joffrey died.  If GRRM intended me to have sympathy for him at that point, he failed.

WRT animals generally, I imagine that very few people treat them as pets.  Rather, they're kept for practical purposes.  Horses for transport, cats for mousing, dogs for guarding and hunting.

[Lord Varys]

59 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

What things did he go through?  He had gone through nothing when he killed the cat.  His father hit him, once.  What else did he go through? His mother doted on him and enabled him and excused him.  His father ignored him.  This is unhealthy parenting but it usually doesn't produce monsters who delight in hurting other people.  

He's also an accomplished liar, who is able to fake emotions, like his fake apology to Sansa, when he closes.  Yet another sign of the classic psychopath.

Well, for one Joff also did lose his father to a boar, and then was threatened very directly by both his late father's best friend and his two uncles who both led armies against him.

Granted, he didn't see as much physical violence as Arya, but he may actually have been beaten more often than Arya (who only was beaten herself by Weese and the old wives at Harrenhal). She saw many people treating her and other like shit, but she was neither raped, nor overly brutalized by Gregor and/or his men, right? At least not in a way that was covered in the books.

In addition, we have to keep in mind the general outlook on the worth of the lower classes, animals, etc. Cersei and Robert and the entire court instilled in Joffrey. I don't think he was encouraged and/or got a chance to actually develop healthy attachments or even make friends. That clearly didn't help with his development with his overall mental and emotional state (which was still far from finished when he died).

I'm not saying Joff was a better person than Arya, but while we can see how Arya became a coldblooded murderer George just didn't gave us the a similar transition for Joffrey (who wasn't a coldblooded murderer). Perhaps he was a worse person than Arya to begin with, perhaps not. We'll never know.

Arya's bad childhood/traumatic experiences certainly aren't an excuse for all her murders. They can, perhaps, be seen as mitigating factors in the case of the Bolton guardsman, but not with Dareon, and certainly not with the insurance guy.

Just because we never see Joff doing something nice (actually we do, when he hangs out with Sansa before the episode with Arya and Mycah - did he fake all that? I don't think so - Sansa is pretty hot, after all) doesn't mean he isn't capable of. Had we ever had the chance to see him through the POV of Cersei or even Jaime he would have come off quite differently, I'm sure of that. Tyrion and Sansa weren't exactly the best POVs to show us his good sides.

Kicking dogs is usually mentions during feast scenes in Winterfell. It is not mentioned directly but implied that this is done. I don't have the books with my right now, but it comes up in AGoT, I think, in comparison to the direwolves. The Winterfell dogs supposedly give way when you kick them, whereas a direwolf would never do such a thing. Anyone actually having experiences with real dogs knows that you really have to brutalize dogs for them to not put a fight for something to eat and stuff if you kick them.

In addition we have Chett kicking the dogs at Castle Black when Jon and Sam go to the grove to speak their vows, now that I think of it (it is also mentioned casually because he has to do that to get the dogs close to the corpses of the wights).

This really is standard procedure in Westeros. Just as you occasionally (nearly) kill your horse if you have to deliver an important message. There is a reason why you usually don't give them names. They are not pets.

As to Arya:

I like her too. I just want to point out the fact that we most likely would consider her a very evil and deranged person if he we never were in her mind, and only began following her story in AFfC, or possibly even ASoS.

And I think it can be productive to compare her to Joffrey insofar as both were certainly (also) shaped by their environment.

One can ask whether Arya would have developed into the coldblooded killer she became if she hadn't been continuously been branded as 'the bad girl' back home in Winterfell, constantly trying (and failing) to outshine Sansa? Without Sansa Arya would have had a much better childhood, most likely would have felt much more loved by her parents and her brothers, and subsequently might not have developed some of the personality traits she has now. Not everyone who witnesses the cruelty of war wants and actively tries to became an assassin... And she always had a thing for violence and weapons.

[Cas Stark]

1. Joff was never beaten.  Never.  Ever.  He had a whipping boy.  The single time his father is known to have laid a hand on him was when he killed the cat.

2. If Stannis, not what you'd call a tender hearted guy, and Robert, a hunter, were both disgusted by Joff's killing of the cat, then the obvious conclusion isn't that it wasn't a big deal because there is a lot of what we would call animal cruelty in Westeros, but that it IS a big deal because of the two people whose reactions are known.

3. This isn't true.  Both Theon and Jamie are attached to their horses.  Princess Rhaenys had a pet kitten.  Meribold has "dog". Penny is attached to her dog and her pig. 

3. You're not getting Ned's point.  His point isn't that they kick the dogs at Winterfell, LOL, but that IF you kick a dog enough it will back down and a direwolf never will.  Unless I'm really misremembering the quote.

What good side?  Joff's own father says he'd leave it all and go to Essos except for the idea of leaving Joff and Cersei in charge, and he can't believe Joff could actually be his son.  Come on.  

He was a bad seed.  The evidence for this is everywhere unless one purposely ignores or misinterprets it.

 

[Grissom]

12 hours ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said:

I'm saying it's very unlikely that Joffrey cut the kittens out of the cat while it was still alive.  I do believe he killed the cat, but I don't think that makes him a psychopath or even aberrant among medieval culture.

Yeah it's normal. That's why Robert beat him half to death.

[SeanF]

Joffrey was a cold-blooded murderer.  He shot down people who were protesting for bread, telling them to eat their own dead.  He was safe      behind the walls of the Red Keep, so there can be no argument for self-defence.  He hired a mercenary to kill Bran.  Even more, he was a cold-blooded torturer.  He gave a man a choice between losing his tongue, or his fingers;  he had antlers hammered into the heads of alleged traitors;  Tyrion sent people to receive a taste of "Joffrey's justice." 

He tormented Mycah, and lied about the fight;  he tormented Sansa, and threatened her with rape;  he tormented Ser Dontos, and was only talked out of killing him by keeping him as a his fool.  He planned to present Robb Stark's head to Sansa.  He tormented Tommen.  I could go on and on, but really, it's bizarre to compare him to Arya. 

[Cas Stark]

Here's the direwolf quote.  Um, Ned cautions his children against brutalizing animals.  Just sayin.  LOL.

You must train them as well,” their father said. “You must train them. The kennelmaster will have nothing to do with these monsters, I promise you that. And the gods help you if you neglect them, or brutalize them, or train them badly. These are not dogs to beg for treats and slink off at a kick. A direwolf will rip a man’s arm off his shoulder as easily as a dog will kill a rat. Are you sure you want this.

[Knight Of Winter]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Joffrey was a cold-blooded murderer.  He shot down people who were protesting for bread, telling them to eat their own dead.  He was safe      behind the walls of the Red Keep, so there can be no argument for self-defence.  He hired a mercenary to kill Bran.  Even more, he was a cold-blooded torturer.  He gave a man a choice between losing his tongue, or his fingers;  he had antlers hammered into the heads of alleged traitors;  Tyrion sent people to receive a taste of "Joffrey's justice." 

He tormented Mycah, and lied about the fight;  he tormented Sansa, and threatened her with rape;  he tormented Ser Dontos, and was only talked out of killing him by keeping him as a his fool.  He planned to present Robb Stark's head to Sansa.  He tormented Tommen. 

But, hey, that doesn't make him much different than an ordinay 12-year old, right? 

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

But, hey, that doesn't make him much different than an ordinay 12-year old, right? 

One can argue that torture is widespread in this world, but then, plenty of people call out Daenerys, Stannis, Tyrion etc.  for their willingness to employ torture.

But, one can also find good qualities in those three.  It's unlikely that any of them would murder people simply for protesting about a food shortage (in fact we see both Dany and Tyrion taking measures to try and provide food to the poor).

I see no good qualities at all Joffrey.  And, endless bad qualities.

[Cas Stark]

Just now, SeanF said:

One can argue that torture is widespread in this world, but then, plenty of people call out Daenerys, Stannis, Tyrion etc.  for their willingness to employ torture.

But, one can also find good qualities in those three.  I see no good qualities at all Joffrey.  And, endless bad qualities.

There is also the difference that while a lot of people employ "sharp questioning"....not everyone employs extremely gruesome forms of torture and death, or evinces a Caligula like enjoyment of killing, humiliation and pain.  

[Knight Of Winter]

Though I have a bizarre idea on mind: I'd ask some people to say what exactly Joffrey should have done in order for them to consider him a psychopath/not ordinary bully ? If you asked many random people to list what they view as immoral, I'd bet you'd get pretty similar answers. murder, rape, falsehood, lying and deception, manipulation, cruelty, sadism etc.

Joffrey committed most of these, and gleefully threatened to commit the rest. I honestly don't know what more could he have done in order to be unanimously viewed as a villain of a worst degree.

[Protagoras]

2 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Though I have a bizarre idea on mind: I'd ask some people to say what exactly Joffrey should have done in order for them to consider him a psychopath

Something that will be seen as an immoral act in any society, in any culture and in any time period of the human race regardless of their philosophy and tradition. 

[Sullen]

Thought he was a psycho during my first read, but the more I reflect on it, the more I would tend to agree with George.

He was a little boy with naturally sadistic tendencies, in a society that glorifies violence, with a shitty father he tried to please/emulate, a mother that excused all of his wrong-doings, and a position that allowed him to get away with most of the shit he pulled. Add to that the fact that he is none too bright, and you hardly have to resort to mental illness to explain his behaviour, it's quite normal that he ended up acting the way he did.

In fact, the more I read the books, the more I feel sorry for Joffrey in a way, I think proper parental guidance could have turned him into a better person.

As for his bullying tendencies, I wouldn't say that's out of the ordinary, I come from a family of numerous siblings, and we all did that kind of thing towards one another (which was kind of OK) and towards other children (which was not), but of course not to the same extent. Had either of my siblings (or myself, I suppose) be put in a situation where we were left with infinite power and were encouraged by pretty much everyone everytime we acted out, I wouldn't surprised if we ended up occasionally acting as Joff did.

He's a shit that turned shittier, the product of his environment. The same can't be said for Ramsay, though.

[Sullen]

13 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Though I have a bizarre idea on mind: I'd ask some people to say what exactly Joffrey should have done in order for them to consider him a psychopath/not ordinary bully ? If you asked many random people to list what they view as immoral, I'd bet you'd get pretty similar answers. murder, rape, falsehood, lying and deception, manipulation, cruelty, sadism etc.

Joffrey committed most of these, and gleefully threatened to commit the rest. I honestly don't know what more could he have done in order to be unanimously viewed as a villain of a worst degree.

Personally?

Murder/torture someone his entourage keeps in high esteem gratuitously, simply for the fun of it, and without his environment favouring it.

[Knight Of Winter]

2 minutes ago, Protagoras said:

Something that will be seen as an immoral act in any society, in any culture and in any time period of the human race regardless of their philosophy and tradition. 

The danger with such relativistic approach is that is can pretty much excuse any vile act:

slavery - widely practiced in Rome, during the colonization

murder of people of different religion - very popular in Middle Ages

martial rape - not recognized as a crime until 19th/20th century

murder - acceptable in e.g. slave-owning cultures

blood revenge - was widespread among certain cultures

utter inequality - India's caste system

Yet I hope we can agree that these are, objectively, morally disgusting acts. What was normal before is not okay in present times. Societies change and evolve (hopefully for the better).

 

 

[Protagoras]

12 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

Yet I hope we can agree that these are, objectively, morally disgusting acts. 

No, we can´t.

We, as individuals, can agree on that they are morally disgusting (most likely because we share many norms and values due to the fact that we live in the same time-period), but our subjective POW does not in anyway constitute absolute truth.

We can´t prove that our standpoint is superior to that of the cultures you exemplified, since there is no absolute sense of right and wrong. Indeed, you should reflect over that the values you want to raise to objectivity "surprisingly" are the same values that are a part of our culture today in the exact same way a white supremacist always tend to be white himself (gee, wonder why). Indeed, I would argue that people through history havn´t agreed "proves"/hints me right. Indeed, with the risk of turning this even more meta - that I disagree means I am right because if you were right, I wouldn´t disagree.