A simple distinction for the viva: your examiners might have difficult questions for you but they’re not asking them to be difficult.
Difficult questions naturally follow your work. They come from doing something original. They result from writing a book and needing to explore it deeply. They follow the challenges of your research into the particular challenge of your viva.
Neither your external or your internal is purposefully asking difficult questions to make you sweat, to make you worried, to tear your work apart or to bring you down. The viva is not a hazing ritual you have to get through before you’re allowed to call yourself Dr.
Expect difficult questions at your viva – not difficult people.
