Arya's mental illness

[Jaenara Belarys]

When an eleven year old child considers death to be the norm, something is a bit......cracked up in that brain. Hopefully, though ASOIAF isn't known for really being hopeful, Arya still has a little bit of good stuff squirreled away. 

 

 

 

[Walda]

Arya has feelings. She showed grief for the murder of Mycha by the Hound, and blamed herself for arming him. She saw her father's guard slaughtered in the Tower of the Hand before killing the stable boy, who did not make it clear he would take her to the queen alive.

She reflects guiltily on the death of the stableboy on more than one occassion,  thinking King Robb might not want her back because of it. She hopes another stableboy at Harrenhal won't be hurt for supplying her with horses, but after observing life under people like the Tickler and Weese, she knew he would be.

We see that she doesn't kill every time she is threatened, or for her own convenience. When the larger chuldren of Fleabottom bully her, needle stays in her belt. When Lommy and Hot Pie bully her, she uses her wooden sword in deliberately non-leathal ways. She doesn't attempt to assassinate Chiswyck or Raff or the Tickler when they capture her. She saved Rorge, Biter, and Jacqen when Gendry left them to die. She kept Weasal alive as best she could, too.

With the Tickler, Chiswyk, Weese, and the Onion Soup, she was being groomed into thinking like an assassin and killing for gain rather than reacting to threats to her own person.

She realises too late that she could have ended the war by killing Lord Tywin. I am not sure she was right. Melisandre with her leeches supposedly killed Joffrey, Balon, and Robb. Melisandre had apparently killed Renly and Ser Cortnay Penrose. There is no denying the strategic gains of killing those kings and securing Storm's End for Stannis, but then other kings spring up and take the soldiers and the peace from Stannis. Arya doesn't give a damn when Lorch is fed to the bear, but the guy was on her list for killing Yoren, whom she grieves.

Arya does and doesn't become a more strategic killer after Weese dies. She used tactics to kill the guard to escape Harrenhal, where she felt she would be killed if she remained under Hoat. She took Gendry and Hot Pie away with her, even though niether of them felt the threat she did. She feels guilty about this killing too. We learn later that only three of the staff they were in were still alive when Jaime returned to Harrenhal. It seems to me Arya looked ahead and made a rational assessment of the risk. She took one life but saved three.

She has no reason to feel guilty about killing Ser Amory's men at the holdfast by the lake. They were attacking neutrals, children, and she was only one in a purely defensive force that was only trying to escape attack. Yet she does feel remorse, for the boy of Jon's age dead and armless at the time, and later for all the men they killed collectively. Neither Gendry or Hot Pie show any sign of remorse for the men they killed in ACoK Ch 14 Arya IV. In fact, Gendry suggests she saves the donkeys before Rorge, Biter, and Jacqen. Hot Pie  would have left the crying girl behind, and Gendry only took her at Arya's insistenced. Are they crazed psychopaths for that?

When Arya was with the Hound, he taught her a new kind of killing

Quote

“You want me dead that bad? Then do it, wolf girl. Shove it in. It’s cleaner than fire.”

(ASoS, Ch 53 Arya XI)

Clegane teaches her mercy killing. Although the next time he begs her for mercy she leaves him to live or die on his own, she kills the pimply squire who attacked her mercifully. Not the Tickler, though, who attacked Sandor Clegane and ignored her.

Dareon's death was something different again. She learnt that Lady Lysa had been pushed from her tower by a singer, then came upon the singer singing of a lady who defenestrated herself. He confessed to her that it had been Lord Snow's command that he left on the Lady Ushanora. He made it clear he had got silver at the Green Eel, and met captains and owners there as well. That he had abandoned his black brothers and had the means but no intention to aid his brothers.

Cat is not threatened by Dareon, he is no risk to her. She didn't have to kill him. I suppose in her time with Yoren she could be said to be one of the Night's Watch, or maybe she is taking the side of her favourite brother. Still, she did not have to kill him.

We are not sure exactly how she killed him. I would guess his body was in the place that Gyleno identified as the best place to catch eels. It is on the way to the Inn of the Green Eel, which is on the opposite side of the harbor to the gates of drowned town, which would be my second guess. She has a barrow, so she can cart a body some way if needs must. She has a finger knife and knew how to slit a throat before that. But this is a new type of killing for her. She decides to do it for herself, well ahead of time, and not in self-defence.

Her next killing is part of her training, done under orders. She is more subtle with the binder-seller, using a poisoned dragon from Westeros, her finger knife cutting a ship-owner's purse.

She didn't choose her target, but like Dareon it is a premeditated and calculated murder. In all her chapters we see her reasoning. And we can compare her observations in AFfC Ch 34 Cat of the Canals with Sam's in point of view in AFfC Ch 26 Sam III. It seems to me they share a reality, that she is not delusional.

Really, the idea that Arya's transformation into a remorseless assassin is a descent into madness, is a lazy, sexist trope. The Hound killed a man at twelve, and didn't stop there. He tells Sansa killing is the sweetest thing there is. Why are we not talking about his descent into madness?

Sandor points out that Eddard also kills, and we know Eddard executed Gared in cold blood,  and in the heat of the moment killed Treagar and ran down another Lannister guard after Jaime Lannister had ordered them to do him no harm.

Later, Sansa claims that the pain in Ned's leg is affecting his judgement, and there are signs in his own point of view that he is not always in his right mind because of it, with his swimming head swimming and apparently prophetic dreams. That is no excuse for his earlier killings, though it might be his excuse for sending Beric out to slay Gregor on the testimony of Innkeeper Joss.

Unlike Eddard, we have the advantage of Chiswyk's alternative history of Gregor's time at Sherrer (ACoK Ch 30 Arya VII). According to Chiswyk, there were eight of them, not hundreds. Joss the Innkeep knew who Gregor was, asked how he had fared in the joust at the Tourney of the Hand. Nobody died, but Layna was savagely gang-raped. It was too wet to burn the holdfast at Sherrer and the water was too high to cross at Mummer's Ford. The stone bridge right next to the Inn seems to have been passable, but Clegane preferred to stay there untill the water went down, rather than progress to Wendish town or anywhere else. From the account Varys gives of Wendish Town in AGoT Ch 43 Eddard XI, the brigands at Wendish town behave more like the Brave Companions than Clegane's men, although, as this is their first assault in Westeros, neither Eddard nor the people of Sherrer could have known this.

Eddard could only observe the way Vance, Piper, and Darry had herded these people to the Red Keep without allowing them so much as a change of clothes. He could only hear the cynical questions and comments of the Small Council. We all know he is not fond of solving puzzles or especially quick-witted. His leg was troubling him. But I have not heard anyone speak of his descent into madness, although in-book, Varys, Sansa, and Petyr Baelish question his choice of Lord Beric.

The idea that women are less mentally robust and kill because they are sad and ill, while men are sane and hard-headed commanders of war and seasoned soldiers is not exactly original. 

While the Song of Ice and Fire is not entirely free of this stale cliché, I think GRRM is not doing this with Arya. Mostly because Arya seems to observe accurately and act rationally.

Cersei certainly does seem to be doing a descent into madness. Catelyn has had bouts of less than sane behaviour. Dany's arc has been interpreted as her becoming the Mad Queen, and I can see how one could think so, there is evidence to support it, although I personally don't think that is what is happening in her arc either.

But I just don't see where Arya is losing it. @Rondo, maybe you could highlight a few specific quotes that reveal this developing madness, perhaps?

I don't think being depressed by Mycah's death really counts - grief is not a mental illness. I would exclude instances where she is fighting with others, or fighting in self-defence too, unless you can show some type of madness in her that is significantly different to her fellow fighters/attackers.

For example, when Catelyn fought against the clansmen of the Mountains of the Moon (AGoT Ch 31 Tyrion IV ), she seemed as sane as Tyrion, Bronn, Chiggen, Ser Rodrik, et al. But when she and Summer killed the catspaw (AGoT Ch 14 Catelyn III), there is evidence in her conversation with Robb immediately before that Catelyn is not reasoning rationally or perceiving things the way a sane person would. In both instances she killed, but killing is not in itself proof of insanity. Or if it is, there are a lot of crazier characters than Arya, so what's your point?

I am aware GRRM has male points of view that seem less than sane too - Theon definitely. Maybe "on wings of a song" Victarion,  too. Or perhaps I just have difficulty digesting the Ironborn culture. Euron, Aeron, and Balon all seem quite mad to me. But Asha and the Reader seems quite sane. Although Gwynesse and Alannys are unquestionably mad, really nothing more than old madwoman in the Reader's attic.

Sam is neurotic, Barristan misremembers things, and Bran's abilities and disabilities are odd even when they are not explicitly magical. I am not sure what to make of Hotah, who seems to think in hulk-speech. Perhaps he really is simple. But they all seem sane enough to me, as does Sansa the unkisser and Brienne the freakishly strong. 

But Arya seems sane like Jon Snow - a mind like a steel trap, a natural flair for strategy, born with a desire to train for battle even in a summer of peace. Perhaps that last is not so much nature as the nurture of Eddard 'Winter is Coming' Stark. He was the one that told Jon and Robb they needed commander's voices. He was the one who chose Syrio to teach Arya the way of the Water Dancer.

On 9/27/2021 at 7:16 AM, Rondo said:

How and who will stop Arya?

I think Arya is going to end up in her mother's arms. Beric had vowed to do that for her, and gave Lady Stoneheart his dying breath to achieve that (or maybe just gave her the breath of life: "Lord Beric's fire has gone out of this world, I fear" is more ambiguous than "the Hound is dead and buried". If Sandor Clegane is the grave digger on the Quiet Isle in spite of what Thoros says in AFfC Ch 42 Brienne VIII, then there is nothing to stop the Lighting Lord striking again).

Fwiw, it seems to me that Catelyn is destined to give Arya the kiss of life before her own mission on earth is complete, and Beric's vow fufilled.

TL;DR Arya seems sane to me.

[SeanF]

On 10/7/2021 at 12:10 AM, Rondo said:

There were more moral choices.  She could live quietly and put all of that behind her.  She had a choice.  She has choices.  She chose to become a killer.  

Perhaps, but none of that really takes into account what she’s been through.  I think very many of us would choose the same, in her shoes

[SeanF]

@WaldaYes, there’s a huge weight of cultural bias that views killing as men’s’ work, so that women who kill are deemed mad, unnatural.

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

1 hour ago, Walda said:

Arya has feelings. She showed grief for the murder of Mycha by the Hound, and blamed herself for arming him. She saw her father's guard slaughtered in the Tower of the Hand before killing the stable boy, who did not make it clear he would take her to the queen alive.

She reflects guiltily on the death of the stableboy on more than one occassion,  thinking King Robb might not want her back because of it. She hopes another stableboy at Harrenhal won't be hurt for supplying her with horses, but after observing life under people like the Tickler and Weese, she knew he would be.

We see that she doesn't kill every time she is threatened, or for her own convenience. When the larger chuldren of Fleabottom bully her, needle stays in her belt. When Lommy and Hot Pie bully her, she uses her wooden sword in deliberately non-leathal ways. She doesn't attempt to assassinate Chiswyck or Raff or the Tickler when they capture her. She saved Rorge, Biter, and Jacqen when Gendry left them to die. She kept Weasal alive as best she could, too.

With the Tickler, Chiswyk, Weese, and the Onion Soup, she was being groomed into thinking like an assassin and killing for gain rather than reacting to threats to her own person.

She realises too late that she could have ended the war by killing Lord Tywin. I am not sure she was right. Melisandre with her leeches supposedly killed Joffrey, Balon, and Robb. Melisandre had apparently killed Renly and Ser Cortnay Penrose. There is no denying the strategic gains of killing those kings and securing Storm's End for Stannis, but then other kings spring up and take the soldiers and the peace from Stannis. Arya doesn't give a damn when Lorch is fed to the bear, but the guy was on her list for killing Yoren, whom she grieves.

Arya does and doesn't become a more strategic killer after Weese dies. She used tactics to kill the guard to escape Harrenhal, where she felt she would be killed if she remained under Hoat. She took Gendry and Hot Pie away with her, even though niether of them felt the threat she did. She feels guilty about this killing too. We learn later that only three of the staff they were in were still alive when Jaime returned to Harrenhal. It seems to me Arya looked ahead and made a rational assessment of the risk. She took one life but saved three.

She has no reason to feel guilty about killing Ser Amory's men at the holdfast by the lake. They were attacking neutrals, children, and she was only one in a purely defensive force that was only trying to escape attack. Yet she does feel remorse, for the boy of Jon's age dead and armless at the time, and later for all the men they killed collectively. Neither Gendry or Hot Pie show any sign of remorse for the men they killed in ACoK Ch 14 Arya IV. In fact, Gendry suggests she saves the donkeys before Rorge, Biter, and Jacqen. Hot Pie  would have left the crying girl behind, and Gendry only took her at Arya's insistenced. Are they crazed psychopaths for that?

When Arya was with the Hound, he taught her a new kind of killing

(ASoS, Ch 53 Arya XI)

Clegane teaches her mercy killing. Although the next time he begs her for mercy she leaves him to live or die on his own, she kills the pimply squire who attacked her mercifully. Not the Tickler, though, who attacked Sandor Clegane and ignored her.

Dareon's death was something different again. She learnt that Lady Lysa had been pushed from her tower by a singer, then came upon the singer singing of a lady who defenestrated herself. He confessed to her that it had been Lord Snow's command that he left on the Lady Ushanora. He made it clear he had got silver at the Green Eel, and met captains and owners there as well. That he had abandoned his black brothers and had the means but no intention to aid his brothers.

Cat is not threatened by Dareon, he is no risk to her. She didn't have to kill him. I suppose in her time with Yoren she could be said to be one of the Night's Watch, or maybe she is taking the side of her favourite brother. Still, she did not have to kill him.

We are not sure exactly how she killed him. I would guess his body was in the place that Gyleno identified as the best place to catch eels. It is on the way to the Inn of the Green Eel, which is on the opposite side of the harbor to the gates of drowned town, which would be my second guess. She has a barrow, so she can cart a body some way if needs must. She has a finger knife and knew how to slit a throat before that. But this is a new type of killing for her. She decides to do it for herself, well ahead of time, and not in self-defence.

Her next killing is part of her training, done under orders. She is more subtle with the binder-seller, using a poisoned dragon from Westeros, her finger knife cutting a ship-owner's purse.

She didn't choose her target, but like Dareon it is a premeditated and calculated murder. In all her chapters we see her reasoning. And we can compare her observations in AFfC Ch 34 Cat of the Canals with Sam's in point of view in AFfC Ch 26 Sam III. It seems to me they share a reality, that she is not delusional.

Really, the idea that Arya's transformation into a remorseless assassin is a descent into madness, is a lazy, sexist trope. The Hound killed a man at twelve, and didn't stop there. He tells Sansa killing is the sweetest thing there is. Why are we not talking about his descent into madness?

Sandor points out that Eddard also kills, and we know Eddard executed Gared in cold blood,  and in the heat of the moment killed Treagar and ran down another Lannister guard after Jaime Lannister had ordered them to do him no harm.

Later, Sansa claims that the pain in Ned's leg is affecting his judgement, and there are signs in his own point of view that he is not always in his right mind because of it, with his swimming head swimming and apparently prophetic dreams. That is no excuse for his earlier killings, though it might be his excuse for sending Beric out to slay Gregor on the testimony of Innkeeper Joss.

Unlike Eddard, we have the advantage of Chiswyk's alternative history of Gregor's time at Sherrer (ACoK Ch 30 Arya VII). According to Chiswyk, there were eight of them, not hundreds. Joss the Innkeep knew who Gregor was, asked how he had fared in the joust at the Tourney of the Hand. Nobody died, but Layna was savagely gang-raped. It was too wet to burn the holdfast at Sherrer and the water was too high to cross at Mummer's Ford. The stone bridge right next to the Inn seems to have been passable, but Clegane preferred to stay there untill the water went down, rather than progress to Wendish town or anywhere else. From the account Varys gives of Wendish Town in AGoT Ch 43 Eddard XI, the brigands at Wendish town behave more like the Brave Companions than Clegane's men, although, as this is their first assault in Westeros, neither Eddard nor the people of Sherrer could have known this.

Eddard could only observe the way Vance, Piper, and Darry had herded these people to the Red Keep without allowing them so much as a change of clothes. He could only hear the cynical questions and comments of the Small Council. We all know he is not fond of solving puzzles or especially quick-witted. His leg was troubling him. But I have not heard anyone speak of his descent into madness, although in-book, Varys, Sansa, and Petyr Baelish question his choice of Lord Beric.

The idea that women are less mentally robust and kill because they are sad and ill, while men are sane and hard-headed commanders of war and seasoned soldiers is not exactly original. 

While the Song of Ice and Fire is not entirely free of this stale cliché, I think GRRM is not doing this with Arya. Mostly because Arya seems to observe accurately and act rationally.

Cersei certainly does seem to be doing a descent into madness. Catelyn has had bouts of less than sane behaviour. Dany's arc has been interpreted as her becoming the Mad Queen, and I can see how one could think so, there is evidence to support it, although I personally don't think that is what is happening in her arc either.

But I just don't see where Arya is losing it. @Rondo, maybe you could highlight a few specific quotes that reveal this developing madness, perhaps?

I don't think being depressed by Mycah's death really counts - grief is not a mental illness. I would exclude instances where she is fighting with others, or fighting in self-defence too, unless you can show some type of madness in her that is significantly different to her fellow fighters/attackers.

For example, when Catelyn fought against the clansmen of the Mountains of the Moon (AGoT Ch 31 Tyrion IV ), she seemed as sane as Tyrion, Bronn, Chiggen, Ser Rodrik, et al. But when she and Summer killed the catspaw (AGoT Ch 14 Catelyn III), there is evidence in her conversation with Robb immediately before that Catelyn is not reasoning rationally or perceiving things the way a sane person would. In both instances she killed, but killing is not in itself proof of insanity. Or if it is, there are a lot of crazier characters than Arya, so what's your point?

I am aware GRRM has male points of view that seem less than sane too - Theon definitely. Maybe "on wings of a song" Victarion,  too. Or perhaps I just have difficulty digesting the Ironborn culture. Euron, Aeron, and Balon all seem quite mad to me. But Asha and the Reader seems quite sane. Although Gwynesse and Alannys are unquestionably mad, really nothing more than old madwoman in the Reader's attic.

Sam is neurotic, Barristan misremembers things, and Bran's abilities and disabilities are odd even when they are not explicitly magical. I am not sure what to make of Hotah, who seems to think in hulk-speech. Perhaps he really is simple. But they all seem sane enough to me, as does Sansa the unkisser and Brienne the freakishly strong. 

But Arya seems sane like Jon Snow - a mind like a steel trap, a natural flair for strategy, born with a desire to train for battle even in a summer of peace. Perhaps that last is not so much nature as the nurture of Eddard 'Winter is Coming' Stark. He was the one that told Jon and Robb they needed commander's voices. He was the one who chose Syrio to teach Arya the way of the Water Dancer.

I think Arya is going to end up in her mother's arms. Beric had vowed to do that for her, and gave Lady Stoneheart his dying breath to achieve that (or maybe just gave her the breath of life: "Lord Beric's fire has gone out of this world, I fear" is more ambiguous than "the Hound is dead and buried". If Sandor Clegane is the grave digger on the Quiet Isle in spite of what Thoros says in AFfC Ch 42 Brienne VIII, then there is nothing to stop the Lighting Lord striking again).

Fwiw, it seems to me that Catelyn is destined to give Arya the kiss of life before her own mission on earth is complete, and Beric's vow fufilled.

TL;DR Arya seems sane to me.

Dude, agree with everything you said. Arya is not mentally insane. There are character much more insane then Arya. Arya is a very morally light character throughout ASOS. In AFFc and ADWD she becomes morally grey.

[The Commentator]

On 9/28/2021 at 5:18 PM, EggBlue said:

I think Arya's future will be extremely dark. she is clearly hurt and she doesn't know right from wrong . after all how would she? she has been on her own in middle of a war from an early age. but if we wanna go for a bittersweet ending for her probably someone she loves or someone who loves her would have to put an end to her wrong doings either by killing her or anything else not a cult like faceless men or any of their enemies for that matter since that makes her a martyr and the real tragedy would be lost

Gendry

[The Commentator]

16 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

When an eleven year old child considers death to be the norm, something is a bit......cracked up in that brain. Hopefully, though ASOIAF isn't known for really being hopeful, Arya still has a little bit of good stuff squirreled away. 

 

 

 

Nah, it’s better story if Arya continues her progression to madness. 

[Rondo]

On 10/8/2021 at 12:05 AM, SeanF said:

Perhaps, but none of that really takes into account what she’s been through.  I think very many of us would choose the same, in her shoes

Most people would not.  It is the rare person who would make the same choice as Arya.  Many suffer injustice in Westeros and they don't enroll themselves into the Murder University.  Face it, Arya is insane.  

[Firefae]

Depressed and traumatized =/= "mad"

Otherwise pretty much everyone in Westeros is mad.

At worst you can say she has a bad coping mechanism.

 

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

3 hours ago, Rondo said:

Most people would not.  It is the rare person who would make the same choice as Arya.  Many suffer injustice in Westeros and they don't enroll themselves into the Murder University.  Face it, Arya is insane.  

They don't have that option? I think a lot of people would join the faceless men if they had the option to?

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

Just now, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

They don't have that option? I think a lot of people would join the faceless men if they had the option to?

Jaqen gives her the coin because he sees potential in her.

[remiel6]

Arya composing a list of her future targets, ignores the sheer number of people she has already killed. The girl is what ten years old and before she even walks into the house of black and white, she has killed perhaps ten people, maybe more. She kills the boy in the stables. she kills several people in the battle at the castle where she frees Jaquin? can't remember how to spell his name, lol. She kills the guard at Harenhell to get everyone out. She kills two people at the crossroads inn where Sandor is wounded (Perhaps fatally we don't know). So to focus on the unhealthy nature of her "hit list" is to ignore the fact that she is perhaps the most accomplished killers in the book series. 

I love the character of Arya, I think she is a very fascinating character. I would also admit she is likely suffering some kind of mental illness, how would you not be. For gods sake she has not just gone to train to be an assassin, she has gone to a temple to train to worship a god of death, the stranger. This is not a normal girl. 

That  being said, she's the one character I'm certain survives the book series, she's survived everything else that's happened to her. I'm upset the way the TV series basically neutered the character from what she is in the books. 

 

As for Evil, I don't think she evil in the sense that she does not have evil motives, she is not Cersei. She however is not really "good" either. Good is a difficult question in this series as "goodness" is not a common trait amongst many of the characters. The most good characters are Brienne and Jon Snow. Jamie is attempting to redeem himself, even he did a good deed in killing his king, though he will not be remembered as doing good. 

Daenerys thinks she's good, but she is not. She does things that she thinks good people are suppose to do, but all the cities she has taken, fall to pieces. She also made the proverbial deal with the devil to keep her husband alive. 

 

[Darth Sidious]

8 hours ago, Firefae said:

Depressed and traumatized =/= "mad"

Otherwise pretty much everyone in Westeros is mad.

At worst you can say she has a bad coping mechanism.

 

Traumatized and depressed she may be. But most people like that don’t go around murdering people. Arya murdered the old  man and Dareon. She baited and murdered Rafford. She keeps a Hit List of people to kill. Arya has gone mad and homicidal. She is a lunatic who belongs in an insane asylum. 

[Jaenara Belarys]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Eldon Tyrell said:

Traumatized and depressed she may be. But most people like that don’t go around murdering people. Arya murdered the old  man and Dareon. She baited and murdered Rafford. She keeps a Hit List of people to kill. Arya has gone mad and homicidal. She is a lunatic who belongs in an insane asylum. 

Well, sir, as soon as you find the nearest insane asylum in a medieval setting. 

[Walda]

5 hours ago, Dr. Eldon Tyrell said:

most people like that don’t go around murdering people. Arya murdered the old  man and Dareon . She baited and murdered Rafford. She keeps a Hit List of people to kill. Arya has gone mad and homicidal. She is a lunatic who belongs in an insane asylum. 

ok, so is Tyrion a lunatic who belongs in an insane asylum?

He keeps a Hit List

Quote

Tyrion had made a special effort to learn all their names, so he might thank them later for their tender treatment of him. A Lannister always paid his debts. Kurleket would learn that someday, as would his friends Lharys and Mohor, and the good Ser Willis, and the sellswords Bronn and Chiggen. He planned an especially sharp lesson for Marillion, him of the woodharp and the sweet tenor voice, who was struggling so manfully to rhyme imp with gimp and limp so he could make a song of this outrage.

(AGoT Ch 38 Tyrion V)

Unlike Arya, he has a resentful dispositon and has dreamed of harming his family since childhood

Quote

“I used to start fires in the bowels of Casterly Rock and stare at the flames for hours, pretending they were dragonfire. Sometimes I’d imagine my father burning. At other times, my sister.”

(AGoT Ch 19 Jon III)

I personally think that Tyrion didn't know he was reading the flames, just as Jon didn't know his vision of Ben Stark lying dead was prophetic and not a well of resentment coming to consciousness, tapped by Tyrion. But, like Dany's magical experiences, it can be read both ways.

Tyrion unambiguously murdered Tywin and Shae, he did a bait and switch on Symond. He knew his father intended he take the black when he killed him.

He knew too that leaving Shae in King's Landing without provision, as a servant in his own household, made the risk of Tywin discovering her extremely high. Yet he wouldn't give her her fungible assets so she could flee when she needed to, as he did (Odd, how she seems to have whored for him without payment the whole time - more like a mistress than a whore). He didn't let her stay with Lollys,  where she could be aided to escape by connections like Varys or Ser Tallard. He knew his father had promised to hang her if he brought her to King's Landing, before he brought her to King's Landing. She didn't. 

He has murdered since then, and has somehow managed to get Penny enslaved against Jorah's inclination ... and if she wasn't Jorah's slave, she is certainly Yezzen's. He is really callous about the fates of Pretty Pig and Penny's big grey dog (that he doesn't even bother registering the name of, as she never asks him to ride it, so it is nothing to him, it was only the closest family member Penny still had living.)

He has a general grudge against women, and a disgust of slaves, especially sex slaves. He tells people he wants to rape his sister. He has less tolerance for mockery directed at him than Arya, but he has a mocking mouth on him. 

There is no doubt he is traumatised by the deaths of his father and of Shae, and the news that his first wife (who he knew was a virgin when he married and faithful while he was with her) was not a whore after all, and therefore did not deserve the gang-rape his father ordered, that he took part in. (His reaction has the tacit assumption that sex workers deserve to be raped, and the notion that if you throw some money at the person you rape, or their owner/pimp, or promise to, or someone else said they promised to on your behalf, then they are a whore, and it's impossible to distinguish transactional sex from rape. Note too that there was no sign that he was reluctant to rape her at the time, and for thirteen years after, the whole of Joffrey's lifetime, his memories of his first wife might have started with a sweet song or a gentle breeze, but invariably ended with the bitter reminder that she had been false, a liar and a whore who never loved him. His only regret about her come-uppance was that he told Shae and Bronn about it, until Jaime confessed that he was the liar, not Tysha.

After Jaime's confession, Tyrion's regrets take the form of agreeing with his father that Tysha went wherever whores go, because Tywin's word is golden. And, by Tyrion's own logic, using that as a pretext to rape a sex-slave in a sex-slave brothel. That is what he does with the only time he could freely chose where he went, from the time of Joffrey's wedding to his walk to the camp of the Second Sons.

So we have some signs of distorted thinking and unpleasant obsessions in Tywin's point of view, some indications that he is not always thinking or acting rationally, and that this distorted thinking results in him doing harm to women he decides are whores.

Given he has just joined a sell-sword company and selected some arms and armor, there is every chance he intends to kill, even though Brown Ben has given him an administrative position and ordered him to keep out of the way. Although it is not insane to arm himself, given he is in a seige camp, with armed ships arriving on one side, and a sally clearly imminent on the other - the Yunkai have every  reason to expect the Meereenese to attack when, after the Queen died, they gave the King Groleo's head and instead of the dragons being slaughtered, they were released.  

Tyrion might simply be practical to arm himself for battle, and Penny short-sighted not to take it seriously, and to be relegated to the role of camp-follower by him and the sexist mores of the camp when she could be finding a way out of there.

But honestly, do you think Tyrion is heading for homicidal madness, or for dragon-riding conquest? 

There were lunatic asylums in the medieval world, although we have not really seen such in Westeros (maybe the Quiet Isle is an asylum, but not exclusively for the insane). I would think it unlikely that Arya will be unable to escape any lock-up, and again, where are the signs that she is not thinking clearly? Murder is not insanity. And at the moment she has the protection of being an acolyte of the House of Black and White. Which, if murder is madness, might be some type of asylum.

Arya seems to me to be destined to return to Westeros with her ninja tricks. Just as Bran has spent the same time training to be a wizard with BloodRaven, and Sansa has trained under Littlefinger to be a player in the Game of Thrones. Jon was learning to command an army, and Dany to rule an empire. Not sure what Rickon has been learning, but if he is on Skagos, and not et, I am guessing he'll know more of the Old Ways than Jon does, that he will speak the Old Tongue and warg old school.

So, I think Arya is returning to Westeros. I think she is reuniting with her mother, and her direwolf, and regaining her Stark identity (that she never really managed to shake).

I would be shocked if she didn't kill more people.

There is also some foreshadowing for her to join forces with Sansa, and Bran, and Rickon. But it seems really dark - like they are only going to pack together when they are all dead, and Jon, Catelyn, Eddard, and Robb will be part of the pack too, with maybe only Ghost alive on the other side. I say 'pack' but the foreshadowing more often suggests the direwolf siblings will become an unkindness of ravens, or a murder of crows.

TL:DR Show me where Arya is insane

[Darth Sidious]

5 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Well, sir, as soon as you find the nearest insane asylum in a medieval setting. 

The closest thing they have is a dungeon. Qyburn might take an interest in Arya’s madness. 

[EggBlue]

6 hours ago, Walda said:

But honestly, do you think Tyrion is heading for homicidal madness, or for dragon-riding conquest? 

homicidal madness

[Lady_Qohor]

11 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Well, sir, as soon as you find the nearest insane asylum in a medieval setting. 

Some medieval Western hospitals, churches and monasteries did take care of the mentally ill, so in theory Arya being in a temple setting is exactly where she should be (it's just unfortunate that her particular temple is run by paid assassins.) 

Of course some of the best healthcare (including mental healthcare) during the middle ages took place in the Middle East. As such, maybe Arya should head to Slavers Bay where the doctors are probably a lot more advanced?

[SeanF]

22 hours ago, Rondo said:

Most people would not.  It is the rare person who would make the same choice as Arya.  Many suffer injustice in Westeros and they don't enroll themselves into the Murder University.  Face it, Arya is insane.  

Most people leading middle class lives in a peaceful society would not.

People living on their wits in a medieval world at war would act differently.

People who suffer injustice in this world take brutal vengeance, when they get the chance.

[Jaenara Belarys]

12 hours ago, Dr. Eldon Tyrell said:

The closest thing they have is a dungeon. Qyburn might take an interest in Arya’s madness. 

What about Cersei? With how she's going, I'm fairly certain she's likely to bring a few pots of wildfire. 

6 hours ago, Lady_Qohor said:

Of course some of the best healthcare (including mental healthcare) during the middle ages took place in the Middle East. As such, maybe Arya should head to Slavers Bay where the doctors are probably a lot more advanced?

Slaver's Bay? Where'd you get that?