I agree. Calling Roose a vampire is reductive.

Well, I'm definitely not an expert, but one of the main criteria is an inability to empathise with the pain of others, to display contempt for others' feelings of distress or readily taking advantage of them. Although, I suppose that kinda sums up most of the characters in the series.

My point is simply that Arya frequently displays empathy and acts of compassion towards people she meets, and that, at least in this chapter, her actions are understandable.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting and stimulating discussion.

Yeah, I don't think we are likely to change each others minds on this.
I would just say that I don't think of mental health/illness as a binary but as a spectrum and in my (very amaetur) opinion Arya is on the unfortunate side of that spectrum, though certainly not at the very far end.

Well I agree with this

I agree with that too. I guess we'll have to wait until the final books come out to make an ultimate assessment but to me having us fall out of love with Arya due to her actions seems much more compelling as a story element than making us feel that she's right in pursuing revenge above anything else and somehow is still a character we should root for.

You can still root for her and not approve of all of her actions. But yes I agree.

Arya is clearly insane at this point imo. She's able to dehumanize many people and kill seemingly for no reason other than personal gain and profit. GRRM had made us like that because we're so desperate for a vessel of revenge and haven't really received it yet in the overall plot. The little we do get does come from Arya so I think her whole arc is a mind fuck by GRRM and is really brilliant story telling.

He does much of the same for Jaime. Jaime is generally a scumbag. He's had an incestual relationship that has resulted in children. He was willing to murder a child to cover it up, in his mind he's dehumanized much of humanity. Yet, we get upset when a tv show "assassinates" his character, we look at him and see him to be this long suffering, somehow cool guy. Again, the brilliance of GRRM's story telling. Ned seemed like an honorable man but that honor also made him a dick, for instance in his instant assumption Jaime wanted the throne after he killed the man who murdered Ned's dad. Ned doesn't seem to have much compassion or humanity, he's a slave to duty seemingly. But we perceive him somehow as this bright light.

Anyhoo, I don't think we'll be able to make many judgment by series' end. This is a gray world with gray characters and gray plots. These are people who, within their own view of honor and love, act in ways they think is "right" and "proper". I don't think we're supposed to love or not love them. GRRM is taking us on a trip, making us feel things and in the end I think the only judgment will be to ask ourselves "did I enjoy that story?" Which we all have probably already answered.