Born To Be Psychopaths?

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

I tried to think of a short and sweet way to summarize this topic, but it was difficult. Basically, I want to discuss what it actually means to be a psychopath (or psychopath), and whether characters in our book that the fandom largely views that way (Tywin, Cersei, Joffrey, Viserys) are actually diagnosable as psychopaths. In addition, I also want to talk about the causes of psychoopathy and whether or not people are born with pre-determined traits to be psychopathic. 

Is Psychopathy Common? 

About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits.  (Burton, B., & Saleh, F. M., Psychiatric Times, Vol. 37, No. 10, 2020)

The above came from an article in the American Psychological Association. It means that only 1% of men, and 0.3% of women have traits that considered psychopathic. That makes it extremely unlikely that of our main cast, all the ones being accused of psychopathy are psychopaths. Unless GRRM made a world where psychopathy is super common, I think that we will have to search for other reasons for why everyone is so callous about human life and so adverse to having empathy for others. 

The Causes of Psychopathy

There are many causes linked to psychopathic behavior, which include genetic, physiological, and environmental causes. My next quote is pretty long, so stick with me : 

“So even if a kid has a very antisocial parent and was at a very high genetic risk, they can knock out that risk if their adoptive parent is very high on positive reinforcement,” Hyde explained. The findings “provide strong evidence that nature and nurture matter,” he added, “and that the right parenting-focused interventions may significantly reduce the risk of early warning signs of future antisocial behavior.”

In recent years, researchers have also identified a second group of youth with traits that look like precursors to psychopathy—those who display anger, hostility, and emotional volatility after experiencing serious traumas. That condition is sometimes called “secondary psychopathy.”

“The idea is that they were not born at particularly high risk for psychopathy,” Marsh explained, “but that truly terrible life experiences caused their development to go awry. You tend not to see the fearless temperament in those kids but rather a lot of emotional dysregulation and anxiety.”

Essentially, this study showed that although psychopathic traits did have a genetic factor, when the children of the parents who had been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder had different parents (adoptive ones without APD), nurture essentially won out.  In addition, another similar disorder known as "secondary psychopathy" was associated with not even having the genetic factors, but simply the environmental ones. A big note here, and important to the conclusions I will eventually draw is that while children with the genetic factor tend to show two big warning signs (lack of emotional response to fear or distress AND more severe and planned out aggression), the kids with secondary psychopathy had a ton of emotional dysregulation and anxiety. Honestly, this is going to be really important to why I think the characters aren't "born bad" as many have said, so maybe I should highlight this more. An important secondary note, is children who are diagnosed with conduct disorder (it's the disorder that those with genetic predisposition to psychopathy are often diagnosed with) often don't grow up to be psychopaths. Another quote : 

However, “these kids are not destined to be psychopaths—in fact, the vast majority will not be,” said Frick.

Other Personality Disorders

Another point to make is, personality disorders come in many forms, of which again,psychopathy/psychopathy is a relatively rare disorder (I already gave the percentages). Of particular note here is a personality disorder I think better fits the bill of what most of the characters in our books normally called psychopaths show traits of : Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Next quote is just from Wikipedia, honestly, this is taking a long time, and I need to clean my fish tanks before my partner gets home, lol : 

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a mental disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a diminished ability to empathize with others' feelings. Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the sub-types of the broader category known as personality disorders.[1][2] It is often comorbid with other mental disorders and associated with significant functional impairment and psychosocial disability.

Not only is narcissistic personality disorder also associated with lack of ability to feel empathy, it more importantly hits up the one of the most important sympoms most of our supposed psychopaths have : Exaggerated feelings of self-importance and excessive need for admiration. All of them have it. Viserys does. Tywin does. Cersei does. Joffrey does. Here is a list below of the common symptoms of NPD. Next to the symptoms I've marked out characters who display these symptoms often : 

Has beliefs about being special and more important than others.    Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Has fantasies about power, success and being attractive to others.    Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Does not understand the needs and feelings of others.    Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Stretches the truth about achievements or talents.      Joffrey (hardcore, he does it constantly), Viserys (even more)
Expects constant praise and wants to be admired.       Joffrey, Cersei, Tywin (he does, even if he acts like he doesn't. so many Reins of Castamere songs)
Feels superior to others and brags about it.      Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Expects favors and advantages without a good reason.     Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Often takes advantage of others.     Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, Tywin
Is jealous of others or believes that others are jealous of them.     Cersei (others were not POV, so its less clear, but I would guess Viserys and Joffrey)

Basically all the symptoms of NPD are fairly spot on to the actions of our characters. I don't even think many in the fandom would argue against them being narcissistic, I merely suggest that it is narcissism that leads to they lack of empathy and disregard for others rather than -psychopathy. Another quote upcoming, and I think this quote directly relates to our characters once again. 

In some people, pathological narcissism may develop from an impaired emotional attachment to primary caregivers (usually parents).[87] That lack of psychological and emotional attachment to a parental figure can result in the child's perception of themselves as unimportant and unconnected to other people, usually, family, community and society. Typically, the child comes to believe that they have a personality defect that makes them unvalued and unwanted;[88] overindulgent, permissive parenting or insensitive and over-controlling parenting are risk factors towards the development of NPD in a child.

I believe unlike the symptoms I will discuss of childhood antisocial personality disorder, ALL of the characters in question have the necessary ingredients to develop narcissistic personality disorder. After all, none of them have strong emotional attachments with their parents. Cersei has issues with Tywin favoring Jaime (that we see directly play out, also she probably repeats these patterns in valuing Joffrey over Tommen). Although Cersei valued Joffrey, Robert did not, and appears to have had almost no relationship with him. Robert quite literally seems to not care about Joffrey all that much. Many people even argued that Aerys didn't have any direct parenting of Viserys, as though parental neglect is not a form of abuse, lol. Tywin, well, we have no idea. So hard to say, but it is common from Westorosi nobility to be fairly derelict when it comes to parenting. 

Conduct Disorder 

Conduct disorder is essentially the childhood version of antisocial behavior disorder. It is what children are diagnosed with, and it holds one of the most important parts of my argument. One of the core conditions of diagnosing conduct disorder is low level of fear. Joffrey is afraid of Arya (we saw it directly). Viserys was afraid I believe even while he committed suicide basically (when he attacked Daenerys and which led to his eventual death). Cersei is terrified of the prophecy she received. Tywin is the only one I think that we see show a lack of fear. Another common aspect of conduct disorder is repeatedly breaking rules (Of our characters, I actually think Joffrey is the only one who was consistently breaking rules. Daenerys talks about Viserys being kinder when he was younger, and getting worse as he aged; Cersei's memories of childhood don't seem to involve her constantly breaking the rules, and Tywin is obsessed with "following the rules" rather than breaking them, even though he is a horrible human being). Even when it comes to Joffrey though, I don't get the feeling he was constantly breaking rules. He usually listens to Cersei other than a few specific instances. I will grant Joffrey seems to be getting worse as time passes, but I still would argue environmental factors (...like getting protected from consequences to his actions for example) contribute heavily to him continuing down these paths. Destruction of property and theft are also common signs of CD. Again, is there any sign that Viserys was destroying others properties or stealing things? (I would suggest not). Cersei as a child - Again, I doubt it. Tywin as a child - Again I doubt it. Granted these are nobles and they do take whatever they want, but I don't think there is a suggestion of any of them doing this. Actually, I will mention, under this catergory, Gregor Clegane is one character I could see having a lot of these symptoms. I would guess he just took whatever he wanted and destroyed others property without care. Moving to the last criteria, it's violence. While as Viserys is a bully when we meet him, Daenerys said he used to be better and got worse. I guess we would have to see more, but I will note Daenerys does not have lots of memories of Viserys being physically violent to her when she was much younger. In comparison, Samwell Tarly does about his father Randall) and Sandar does about Gregor (his brother). Absence of evidence is not evidence, so don't hold me to this, but I do think the suggestion is that Viserys has gotten more violent with time. Joffrey on the other hand, I will admit absolutely does fall under this category. He is violent, and in particular the "cat" incident is absolutely under this catergory, I think Joffrey of all the 4 characters, would be most likely to be diagnosed with CD if I am being honest. Cersei did pinch baby Tyrion's penis, but I don't think there is evidence of her being physically violent constantly as a child (or even as an adult). Granted Cersei is physically weaker than those around her perhaps, but she doesn't beat her children for example. Nor is their a suggestion that Tywin beat his children. Honestly, I think I rambled on too long in this section, I apologize.  

Nazis and How Society Breeds Horrible People

Well, we got to the Nazi section, but it had to happen. Essentially, there were studies done on some of the worst war criminals by psychiatrists. The results found that these horrible horrible people showed no signs of having higher rates of psychopathy then in normal society. I already made this point elsewhere, so I won't belabor it, but the point I am making is that Westeros society is extremely violent, dismissive/unempathetic toward peasants, and could lead to many of the behaviors we see without psychopathy needing to be involved. The reason Tywin, Joffrey, Cersei, or Viserys see others lives as less as important, is they were educated from an early age to believe they were more important than others and that they didn't need to care about "common" people. 

Parenting Styles 

Lets talk parenting. I think one common thing I've noticed since this discussion first began is that people seem to not understand that abuse is fairly complicated. So, what are the most common parenting styles that can contribute to APD (yeah we are going back to APD, I'm all over the place, I know). The two parenting styles that are most commonly associated with the development of APD are authoritarian and permissive parenting style. We will start to authoritarian, but it is the permissive style I think that is particurely notable in our Westerosi examples (as nobility are spoiled). However, Tywin was probably authoritarian. Basically strict rules and extreme punishes when said rules are broken. However, again permissive parenting is just as associated with APD, and pretty much 90% of Westerosi nobility seem to have this parenting style. Basically, let kids do what they want. Let children make their own decisions all the time. Well let's see, Joffrey does what the fuck he wants, all the time. He gets almost no push back for his behavior. We watch as Arya gets punished for Joffrey's mistake quite literally in real time. In the one time we have evidence of Joffrey actually being punished, it was by Robert, and he was authoritarian. We have less evidence for how Viserys was raised, however, based on Viserys being a carbon copy of Joffrey in a lot of ways, and extremely entitled, I don't think it would be shocking if he also had very permissive parenting. Tywin and Cersei we have less clues about, although I see Tywin as being very authoritarian, I also think that he might have let Cersei and Jaime do what they want as long as they were being proper nobles. Considering Tywin thinks its okay to treat all servants like crap all the time, this could have been quite permissive at times. Again, we don't have any idea for Tywin's childhood sadly. 

APD and Caring About What Others Think of You

This one will be short, but it is important. A lot of people with APD show little or no care for how others feel about them. This one is important because Tywin, Cersei, Joffrey, and Viserys all DO care about how others feel about them. Joffrey wants Sansa to be impressed by him. Cersei is upset that Jaime is receding from her, and cares excessively about what Tywin thinks of her. I would also argue she cares about what her children think of her. Although Tywin is the hardest sell here, there is a suggestion he cared what JoAnna thought of him. 

Bigotry And How It Can Make You Unempathetic to Others

Honestly, I've ran out of steam here. Can I just say things I learned as a sociology minor and not do research? Basically, bigotry is associated with a lack of empathy to the group you are bigoted to. Essentially, my point here is that basically 90% of the Westerosi nobility is extremely classist, and lack empathy for the poor. They just don't care about them at all. Not just the characters in question, a huge percentage of the Westerosi don't care about the poor. That is fairly obvious in how many things would be considered war crimes now that are just normalized in Westeros. 

Also, one of the ones that I think people miss is that psychopaths often break social norms. I would argue that a lot of what Tywin, Cersei, Joffrey, and Viserys do....are in line with social norms in Westeros. People sing a song about Tywin's worst atrocity...because that is how normalized it is. Now, that isn't to say all of their behaviors are normalized. The Red Wedding, which Tywin did probably help plan, was against Westerosi norms, Joffrey's tendency to not forgive rebel lords for their crimes (including poor Eddard) goes against norms, Viserys abused Daenerys rather than a peasant and therefore broke social norms, and Cersei's refusal to make alliances (and instead is paranoid of...everyone) goes against nobility norms.

Well, it's time for ole' Lord of Raventree Hall to actually make a point eh? 

Okay, so I've collected a lot of evidence, but then what do I actually conclude.

Conclusion number 1 : I think the characters in question do have many of the traits associated with psychopathy, however, and this is important, not all of them. They often lack some of the main characteristics. All of the characters in question seem to care about some people (even if it is only a few) and do care about how they are perceived. After reading through all the criteria, I'll give everyone this : Joffrey is the closest. He has the most traits and the most red flags in particular. The incident with the cat in particular sticks out. However, sadly, if you thought I had decided to agree with you all, I haven't...see, my argument has always been that the characters developed these traits because of their conditions, society, and especially parenting, and not that they couldn't have some traits of psychopathy. 

Conclusion number 2 : With psychopathy being extremely uncommon in society, it seems unlikely that so many of our main characters would be psychopaths. If they are psychopaths, it seems more likely that being raised (i.e. nurture) would be a bigger risk factor for them developing these traits then nature. One sticking point I've noticed a seem to have is that others raised by the same parents didn't develop the same traits. This point falls kind of weakly by the side in the case of Cersei (Jaime and Tyrion are also kind of horrible people, lol), but in the case of Tywin, Joffrey, and Viserys it does stick. However, as I mentioned in the Conduct Disorder section, most children with conduct disorder given good parenting don't develop into little psychopaths. I.e. As my point has always been, if Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, or Tywin were raised by different parents, it is very possible they would be different people, and even if they were genetically predisposed to APD, they could have still developed into non-psychopathic adults. 

Conclusion number 3 : Permissive parenting is commonly associated with the development of psychopathic traits. I think a lot of people seem to think that only neglectful (actually not associated heavily with psychopathic traits) or authoritarian (is associated) parenting could lead to these traits. Although for certain, history of abuse can heavily effect how children become adults, permissive parenting is widespread and basically the bog-standard for Westerosi nobles. Basically, little noble kids can get away, quite literally, with murder, and yes this is associated with the development of psychopathic traits. Imagine if when little Cersei pinched Tyrion's penis...she was punished for it. Imagine if when Joffrey was being a little shit, he got push back against it. Although we don't see Viserys as a child, I kind of assume he had a similar situation with Joffrey where there was very little push back for his selfish behavior. Tywin...well his dad let everyone walk all over him, so it wouldn't be shocking if he also let Tywin walk all over him and everyone else. I also see this directly in my real life, not research. Spoiled chidden act like little shits. They aren't being physically abused, and they aren't seeing their parents commit murder or something, but they learn basically to be little shits. I remember I had a particular student. He did whatever the fuck he wanted all the time. One time he stepped over a line. It ended up exploding to effect our entire school. Everyone was furious, and I thought he would actually get kicked out of the school. Instead, his dad basically paid to force him back into the school. There was a promise of an apology that never happened. I am not saying this kid was a little psychopath, but he certainly had traits. He didn't care about other students feelings, and was very unemphatic to anyone else's situation. Everyone hated  him (both children and adults), but he did not seem to care at all. However, I think this is important : What if his parents pushed back? What if he had actually had to apologize for his behavior? What if there had been consequences for his actions? I absolutely believe that a different parenting style would have been a huge positive on this kid and could have reset his path in a new direction. I know, I got personal, sorry. 

Conclusion number 4 : Other personality disorders have a lot of overlap with the symptoms of psychopathy. Those personality disorders also importantly are associated with our characters. The nobilities obsession with being important and better than others I think can directly lead to these other personality disorders developing from a young age. They think they are really important, and there is a reason that we don't see similar personalities from more humble characters, because they in order to develop those traits you would need to be treated as a prince/lord from an early age. In particular, I think narcissistic personality disorder is a spot on match for all the characters in question. 

Conclusion number 5 : Society plays heavily into how the characters in question (and other characters in these books) act. Their behavior in many cases is not even illegal or even considered immoral. For example, Tywin sending Gregor into the Riverlands to essentially kill and rape is not really frowned upon. I think most of the behavior in question can essentially be drawn directly from what is considered normal in society, how badly peasants are treated by everyone, and lack of push back at a young age in treating people of lower station horribly. 

Final conclusion : Although some kids could be born with a predisposition to psychopathy, the amount of kids are very small within a population, environmental factors also play heavily into the development of psychopathy, and given different environmental factors most kids originally diagnosed with conduct disorder will not developed APD as adults. Finally, I think other disorders and the social expectation of carelessness/lack of empathy for those of a lower station can be used to explain the behaviors in question without even having to blame APD for said behaviors. 

Bonus Section : Petyr Baelish as the Best Example of An Actual "Born Psychopath"

Okay, let's do it. I just find this one fun. Okay, first off, I mentioned (and it was one of my sticking points in why I don't think the characters in question are psychopaths) is that they all have fear for their safety, are fairly risk adverse (even Cersei doesn't think she is taking risks, she just is an idiot), and care about what others think about them.  Welp, Petyr Baelish takes huge risks constantly. He is basically constantly tossing the dice. He is also very impulsive (tossing Lysa out the moon door comes to mind). Petyr also could care a fig less what anyone thinks about him. I'm not even sure he cared whether Catelyn loved him back or not. He wanted to own Catelyn, and her own thoughts on the matter don't really matter that much to Petyr. Sansa even has a name for the two Petyr's. (One she calls Littlefinger and one Petyr). I would argue what Sansa is observing is Petyr's real personality, and then Petyr's second personality, which he fakes in order to get what he wants (basically I am suggesting the nice version of Petyr is completely fake). Another common sign of actual psychopathy is superficial charm, i.e....Petyr Baelish. Yet another sign is consistently conning people and lying to people (this is just like a simple description of Petyr's personality at this point). Finally, Petyr seems to have received actual parenting (at least I think he did). Although we don't have a ton of actual examples, Catelyn is certainly not a permissive or authoritarian parent (and she presumably learned her parenting skills from Hoster). Petyr, in stark contrast to Joffrey, Viserys, Cersei, and maybe Tywin was not spoiled or allowed to do whatever he wanted. But neither was he abused or over controlled as a child. 

If anyone actually reads this whole thing, I'm sorry. This is like a first draft rather than an actual essay. Anyways, thanks for reading. 

Edit : I want to add one thing. I am not an expert in psychology at all. I took one class in University, and that's that for me. I think I am approaching this from a sociological point of view more than a psychological one, but also perhaps somewhat philosophically? (Note : I do have a minor in sociology...so at least I have some experience in the field). 

Edit Number 2, a quote about Joffrey : “Joff had been fond of the Hound, to be sure, but that was not friendship. He was looking for the father he never found in Robert.” - This implies to me that Joffrey loved Robert and wanted fatherly love and approval from him (I think there other scenes that also imply this). If Joffrey was a born psychopath, I would argue he wouldn't care about this. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[sweetsunray]

Sociapthy is an outdated term.

Psychopathy has a genetic factor. There is no doubt about that. But there are hypothesis and efforts and raising methods advized the past few decades to raise a child which might have been burdened with such genetical factors in a manner to increase its empathic abilities. Per definition no child can be diagnozed as a psychopath. Only adults can be.

Edited October 12, 2023 by sweetsunray

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Sociapthy is an outdated term.

Psychopathy has a genetic factor. There is no doubt about that. But there are hypothesis and efforts and raising methods advized the past few decades to raise a child which might have been burdened with such genetical factors in a manner to increase its empathic abilities. Per definition no child can be diagnozed as a psychopath. Only adults can be.

I just used sociopathy and psychopathy interchangeably admittedly. Some of my sources were using sociopathy and some psychopathy, and I had no idea which term is more accepted amongst experts. 헐, 힘들어, please don't make me go back and change them all to say psychopath, lol. 

I think your latter point is actually kind of partially my point (which is that children are not pre-determined and they could be good given the right circumstances). 

(Note : The Korean essentially means "OMG, I'm tired"...but in like a cute way)

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

I just used sociopathy and psychopathy interchangeably admittedly. Some of my sources were using sociopathy and some psychopathy, and I had no idea which term is more accepted amongst experts. 헐, 힘들어, please don't make me go back and change them all to say psychopath, lol. 

I think your latter point is actually kind of partially my point (which is that children are not pre-determined and they could be good given the right circumstances). 

(Note : The Korean essentially means "OMG, I'm tired"...but in like a cute way)

A source that uses "sociopathy" in a current context is a suspect source. Trained experts will use it only in a historical context, for example "what we used to call 'sociopaths'".

Some laymen sources are good, and may refer to sociopathy, psychopathy and other personality disorders such as narcissism, histrionic, borderline. These sources usually are meant as a help group for (ex)partners or family members who've been traumatized by (work, family or love) relations with a personality disordered person. These sources do not advocate medical diagnosis, but for the traumatized to learn to keep themselves safe from a group of adults who will be harmful for them, how to deal with ongoing conflicts (divorce proceedings, child custody) and advize on raising a child.

The evidence on either side of the argument is out. Some children may end up being raised with warmth and fairness, and love, and still turn out psychopaths. Some risk (grand)children will not be diagnosed. And even some actual diagnosed psychopaths may choose to refrain from doing harm. It's a mixed bag. So, no it's not pre-determined.

Regardless, adults remain responsible for their behavior and choices. Psychopaths have cognitive empathic abilities: they know and learn to know the cues if someone else is in pain or harmed. Hence, they know right from wrong. They lack the emotional component to care about it and often narcistically motivated to put their own needs far above someone else's: hence they have no emotional qualms in harming someone else to get what they want in that moment.

[sweetsunray]

Now, the issue with a literary fictional work is that even if George writes a character with a particular disorder or personality in mind, he does this from his laymen perspective, no matter how well he does it. And most readers, even well informed or experienced readers, are also laymen. In that sense labeling a fictional character with a medical diagnosis seems beside the point.

What we do have for certain adult characters are references to certain behaviors or issues that were in evidence at a young age: Petyr Baelish as a mischievous boy play-acting contrite in Cat's memory, Selmy thinking of Viserys as problematic as a child even, and Joffrey as a minor cutting up a cat and bullying his siblings, Cersei chucking her friend in a well over Jaime, and other examples in Dunk and Egg or Fire & Blood (Aerion, ...). These are all characters who displayed harmful behavior towards siblings and other innocent people or animals at a very young developing age and this behavior did not improve as either a teen or an adult. George therefore is deliberately making them out to have been villains in the making from a very young age.

You may disagree or agree whether this is true in reality or not, but the text is pretty clear in that regard on those characters.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

40 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Now, the issue with a literary fictional work is that even if George writes a character with a particular disorder or personality in mind, he does this from his laymen perspective, no matter how well he does it. And most readers, even well informed or experienced readers, are also laymen. In that sense labeling a fictional character with a medical diagnosis seems beside the point.

What we do have for certain adult characters are references to certain behaviors or issues that were in evidence at a young age: Petyr Baelish as a mischievous boy play-acting contrite in Cat's memory, Selmy thinking of Viserys as problematic as a child even, and Joffrey as a minor cutting up a cat and bullying his siblings, Cersei chucking her friend in a well over Jaime, and other examples in Dunk and Egg or Fire & Blood (Aerion, ...). These are all characters who displayed harmful behavior towards siblings and other innocent people or animals at a very young developing age and this behavior did not improve as either a teen or an adult. George therefore is deliberately making them out to have been villains in the making from a very young age.

You may disagree or agree whether this is true in reality or not, but the text is pretty clear in that regard on those characters.

I am arguing that I think GRRM is suggesting society is to blame for the behaviors. I think that GRRM is criticizing social structures quite often in fact in the text. AFFC is basically just a big criticism of society. I disagree with you analysis of the text, hence why I wrote this. I don't think people are "born to be bad" and I don't think GRRM does either. I think he is taking into account social structures, too. I think that the reason people call people "made" or "crazy" or "born bad" often is because he is suggesting that Westerosi society uses that as an excuse to not look at how social structures in place could lead to bad behaviors (you know,...like real life. that's what is happening in real life, too). The "born bad" concept rather than looking at social conditions is a very common way to excuse not changing negative aspects of society or culture. Blaming individuals rather than the system. And honestly, am I the only one who thinks GRRM is very obviously left-wing, and so therefore it shouldn't be shocking that he would be talking about society this way. 

TLDR : I disagree. I think you are wrong. I think GRRM writes gray characters, and even his worse characters are dark gray, not black, and I don't think GRRM thinks people are born to be bad. 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

I am arguing that I think GRRM is suggesting society is to blame for the behaviors. I think that GRRM is criticizing social structures quite often in fact in the text. AFFC is basically just a big criticism of society. I disagree with you analysis of the text, hence why I wrote this. I don't think people are "born to be bad" and I don't think GRRM does either. I think he is taking into account social structures, too. I think that the reason people call people "made" or "crazy" or "born bad" often is because he is suggesting that Westerosi society uses that as an excuse to not look at how social structures in place could lead to bad behaviors (you know,...like real life. that's what is happening in real life, too). The "born bad" concept rather than looking at social conditions is a very common way to excuse not changing negative aspects of society or culture. Blaming individuals rather than the system. And honestly, am I the only one who thinks GRRM is very obviously left-wing, and so therefore it shouldn't be shocking that he would be talking about society this way. 

TLDR : I disagree. I think you are wrong. I think GRRM writes gray characters, and even his worse characters are dark gray, not black, and I don't think GRRM thinks people are born to be bad.

We do disagree. If it was purely on account of social structures then he wouldn't have siblings brought up in the same privilege almost contradict your stance, and in certain cases he made the problematic siblings the younger ones or part of the family that are not first in line to inherit.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

34 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

We do disagree. If it was purely on account of social structures then he wouldn't have siblings brought up in the same privilege almost contradict your stance, and in certain cases he made the problematic siblings the younger ones or part of the family that are not first in line to inherit.

Again, this isn't how it works. You are repeating that I have already countered in other places. Some children being normal or empathetic does not actually mean anything. If you take like the worst, most horribly abusive parents of all time, and give them 3 kids : 1 of the kids will probably still end up okay. It doesn't prove anything to use siblings to disapprove societal issues. It is the statistical prevalence that is important here. AS I showed, from actual modern statistics, psychopathy is relatively rare...yet a huge percent of the Westerosi nobility is acting in very callous, selfish, unempathetic ways particularly toward the poor. It is widespread. Some people being empathetic does not disprove this at all.

Also, as I've mentioned before, different people respond to trauma in different ways.

The point is...well, let's talk about it. Rhaegar has issues. He notably sounds depressed. He is also somewhat dismissive of his actions and doesn't seem to take responsibility for how he acts or the results those actions could cause. Daenerys, well, she wasn't raised in the same situation as Viserys. Her primary parental figure that she remembers is Ser Willam Darry, not her parents. Later she was raised by Viserys I guess....which is still different than how Viserys was raised. Jaime and Tyrion 100% have some of the same issues as Cersei. They both have narcissistic tendencies, both are callous about the peasantry's life. Kevan and Genna? Honestly, I have no clue. Kevan idiolizes Tywin, and I think certainly I am not certain about his morals. He follows Tywin's orders pretty easily. Genna I have even less clues about. My point is that although the other kids raised in similar conditions are not as bad as them...they all have some overlap. By the way, if you want to crank this all up to 10, we can talk about the Iron Islands, where the society is even MORE likely to disregard others personal freedoms and human life in general. And the Iron Islander characters tend to be more violent, tend to care less about horrible behavior, and in the particular case of Theon, I think you can see a lot of this play out where he literally becomes a worse person trying to impress his family. 

Here one last example : We don't know what Dickon Tarly is like, however, it would not be shocking if he ends up being a sexist, controlling, asshole right? Because that is what Randyll is like, and it's how Randyll is educating Dickon. Samwell, however, is a kind hearted softy. Samwell does not prove that Randyll's parenting is good, or that Randyll taught Sam good lessons baout the world. It just proves that Samwell is amazing and overcame the horrible conditions he was raised in. And if Dickon is an asshole, that doesn't mean Dickon was "born bad", Dickon could have been a normal person if raised by not an abusive jackass of a father. 

Again, to state it for the hundredth time : If Joffrey, Cersei, Viserys, or Tywin were raised by kind, empathetic people, I think they could have ended up normal, or less selfish. They weren't destined to be who they are. they are a result of their society and their upbringing; and others in their family managing to overcome those things do not disprove this at all. 

Edit : I forgot Joffrey. Well, Cersei treats Joffrey and Tommen very different from what we see (and I would guess she treats Myrcella somewhat similarly to Tommen). Honestly, though, Joffrey...might be the character of the 4 with the most callous psycopathic tendencies from an early age, I'll give you that. Still, I think Cersei made it worse, and absolutely no push back to his horrible actions in particular made it worse. Cersei acts like the "cat incident" is no big deal...which is crazed, and that certainly effected Joffrey. What if had parents..who you know, tried to do something about his worst traits and tried to curb them? If, let's say, Joffrey was raised by Ned Stark, no I don't think he would end up the same person as he did. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Lord of Raventree Hall

[sweetsunray]

5 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Some children being normal or empathetic does not actually mean anything. If you take like the worst, most horribly abusive parents of all time, and give them 3 kids : 1 of the kids will probably still end up okay. It doesn't prove anything to use siblings to disapprove societal issues. It is the statistical prevalence that is important here.

AS I showed, from actual modern statistics, psychopathy is relatively rare...yet a huge percent of the Westerosi nobility is acting in very callous, selfish, unempathetic ways particularly toward the poor. It is widespread. Some people being empathetic does not disprove this at all.

Psychopathy is prevalent for 1%. That is not modern statistics. That has always been the case. Hare's definition and marker for psychopathy on his scale (having 30 out of 40) was chosen to fit the 1% marker. It's not new modern statistics that makes IQ of 100 a 50% prevalence. That's exactly what IQ 100 means. Same thing for the diagnosis of psychopathy. 50% of the population will score 0-4 out of 40 on Hare's scale. 1% will score 30 out of 40, and that 1% of the population.

I think you're turning statistical prevalence on its head.

2/3 kids raised in an abusive home will statistically end up empathically okay, 1/3 will not. I've already mentioned that. While 1/3 is 6x higher than the general population, and thus nurture makes things worse, many of these 1/3 will have genetical risk factors. The research for the reverse is too early still to be conclusive evidence. We're talking less than 2 decades of such hypothesises and efforts made with ethical difficulties for control groups. 

Psychopathy is no more widespread in Westeros as it is in our world. But abusers, butchers and killers are rewarded with power in Westeros. Knighthood is an access for psychopaths to gain power. It is the same issue as why the prevalence of psychopathy is higher than 1% in our world in the financial world, politicians and CEOs than in the general population. Psychopaths crave power, and certain systems or environment reward them exactly because they're callous sharks.

But no, Cersei, Viserys, Joffrey, Tywin, Aerion (not an heir, not an awful parent), and many others are not "the norm" for Westerosi nobility. If they were they wouldn't need to "mask" it or pretend to have clean hands. And I hesitate to consider most of them psychopaths anyway, even for an exercise. Sadistic narcissists may be worse than a non sadistic psychopath.

Edited October 12, 2023 by sweetsunray

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

5 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And I hesitate to consider most of them psychopaths anyway, even for an exercise. Sadistic narcissists may be worse than a non sadistic psychopath.

Wait a second. You agree with me?!?! And yet you are nitpicking everything I say? Good god. 

[Skahaz mo Kandaq]

@Lord of Raventree Hall

Viserys was not a psychopath.  To the best of our knowledge, he has never committed murder despite the stress and challenges he was facing.  The Prince was a bully and had a short temper.  But that does not make him one.  Arya is a psychopath.  The author said so during one of his interviews.  It was the author's intentions to create Arya as a psychopath and it doesn't matter whether that fits your listed criteria. 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

My partner asked why I didn't include Gregor, Ramsay, Roose, or Euron. Here are my ideas about that group of 4 : 

Gregor - Maybe. Honestly, I don't know. But maybe. He could be a psychopath  and he could have been born that way. The story of how Sandor's face was burned I think points that direction though. 

Ramsay - I think if he is psychopath, his environment plays a factor. Roose talks about him being corrupted, and generally he seems like someone that was effected by the world in which he grew up. 

Roose - Same as the 4 I talked about, I don't think he is. More of a Narcissist just like them I guess. I admit though I can't think of anyone Roose...cares about. In particular, does he show any pain over Domeric's death? Still I think he is missing many of the traits of a psychopath. 

Euron - Honestly, I think we haven't seen enough of Euron to know. So I don't know. Certainly could be though considering the list of horrible things he has done so far, however, as I mentioned, the Ironborn culture is violent and unempathetic to others, so environment could certainly play a factor. After all, Euron, in all his horriblenes....was voted into power. That's terrifying. 

[Lord Varys]

We don't need a nature vs. nurture debate regarding to the novels. George as a writer would give every single character reasons and internal motivations and explanations as to why they are how they are and why they do what they do if he bothered writing from their point of view.

Even in the cases where we have animal cruelty or bad behavior as children the author would explain why the children were doing that. Joff's actions would make sense if we were in his shoes, ditto with Gregor's or Euron's and, especially, Ramsay's. We could be pretty sure that, for instance, it was revealed that Ramsay was treated very badly by his mother's family for being the get of the rapist and murderer Roose Bolton.

It is kind of badly written though that we have shithead parenting like Ned showing his seven-year-old son how he beheads a guy in person but this doesn't ruin or traumatize or twists people. It is hard to swallow that Cersei and Robert have a Joffrey but Ned and Cat have only well-behaved and noble children ... even more so as blood work and butchery would be more poignant and prominent in the North than at KL - as well as the pressure to be a proper man and deal with those things as a man in the North should.

Ned's example of killing people with your own hands should have produced scores of Joffreys, Ramsays, and Eurons. Yet somehow it does not, at least not in the current generation.

Also, the world as such is a shitty hellhole - and it is not celebrated. It is, at times, an unintentional and badly written caricature of a medieval setting (especially in relation to non-existent agency of the peasants and merchant classes as well as lower nobility). But since it is not celebrated and we should be abhorred by, say, the actions and thoughts of Arya in the Mercy chapter it is clearly a criticism of that world.

[kissdbyfire]

8 hours ago, Skahaz mo Kandaq said:

@Lord of Raventree Hall

Viserys was not a psychopath.  To the best of our knowledge, he has never committed murder despite the stress and challenges he was facing.  The Prince was a bully and had a short temper.  But that does not make him one.  Arya is a psychopath.  The author said so during one of his interviews.  It was the author's intentions to create Arya as a psychopath and it doesn't matter whether that fits your listed criteria. 

I just had an idea.
Trying to show w/ quotes from the books and interviews that these asinine hate posts are totally devoid of proper substance is pointless. Whether b/c of bad faith and intellectual dishonesty or absent reading comprehension skills I do not know, nor do I care. So, instead of looking for quotes and wasting all that time when we know the outcome already, maybe we should just reply to these posts with

FAKE NEWS

[Craving Peaches]

8 hours ago, Skahaz mo Kandaq said:

@Lord of Raventree Hall

Viserys was not a psychopath.  To the best of our knowledge, he has never committed murder despite the stress and challenges he was facing.  The Prince was a bully and had a short temper.  But that does not make him one.  Arya is a psychopath.  The author said so during one of his interviews.  It was the author's intentions to create Arya as a psychopath and it doesn't matter whether that fits your listed criteria. 

That is a load of tripe. There is no evidence that Arya is a psychopath. Read the books.

[kissdbyfire]

5 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

That is a load of tripe. There is no evidence that Arya is a psychopath. Read the books.

Indeed. And here the FAKE NEWS

“The author said so during one of his interviews.  It was the author's intentions to create Arya as apsychopath and it doesn't matter whether that fits your listed criteria.”

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

What George said was, "Yes, I do inhabit my characters. Some of the time, I'm a dwarf. Some of the time I'm an incredibly hot chick riding a dragon. Some of the time I'm a psychopathic 10 year old girl, killing people and slitting their throats." Which I think was an exaggeration on his part. We get Arya's POVs and she doesn't think like a psychopath. Instead, she thinks like a traumatized and grieving little girl who is trying to survive in the middle of a war.

[Nevets]

The funny thing is, if you stated that Arya is a violent and dangerous criminal who kills people for no legitimate reason, and is therefore a threat to public safety, you might actually have a case.  You could at least have an interesting argument on the subject.  But they keep claiming she's insane or psychopathic, which she clearly is not.

 

[kissdbyfire]

7 minutes ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

What George said was, "Yes, I do inhabit my characters. Some of the time, I'm a dwarf. Some of the time I'm an incredibly hot chick riding a dragon. Some of the time I'm a psychopathic 10 year old girl, killing people and slitting their throats." Which I think was an exaggeration on his part. We get Arya's POVs and she doesn't think like a psychopath. Instead, she thinks like a traumatized and grieving little girl who is trying to survive in the middle of a war.

Yes, he was exaggerating for effect, and it’s easy to see that if one is not acting in bad faith. I mean, he refused to say Joff was a psychopath, argued that yes, he’s a nasty little shit but still a child, so we’d never know b/c he never became an adult. To try to argue that he wouldn’t call fucking Joff a psycho but was ok calling Arya one is beyond ludicrous and also just what to expect from some posters. 

[SeanF]

I don’t find it useful to try and determine if a character suffers Anti-social Personality Disorder, because I have no training in that field.

This is a 17th century world (in terms of army sizes and cruelty in war) inserted into a pseudo-medieval society.  Leaders are mostly selfish and cruel, because that is what their world requires of them.  One does not need to speculate about psychiatric disorders.