the state i am in
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2009
- Messages
- 2,475
- MBTI Type
- infj
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/sp
The thing is, I think he is supposed to be IxFP. That's why he has the music taste & other interests he has. It's all stereotypical INFP stuff. ISFP is ruled out because Se seems totally absent.
The problem is the characters are actually pretty one-dimensional. The shy, sensitive, idealistic, feeling man is mistakenly written too ISFJ, with a shabby INFP veneer thrown on, so that it doesn't add up. I see the confusion in typing extend IRL - INFP profiles confused with ISFJ behavior. He's certainly too accommodating and not aloof enough to be an INFP. On the other hand, his idealism and imagination run rampant, and he does seem to display that need for authenticity and individuality that colors the INFP's demeanor.
Not to say that the writers had anything about MBTI in mind, but you see types pretty clearly in movies/TV/books for a reason - we all recognize them on some level as truths about people's personalities. I feel sure they were aiming for an IxFP and just missed the mark (or the actor did). The character ends up feeling underdeveloped.
you see them going for infp, i see them going for e4. and the actor is an isfj. imagine how much the role would change with an sx infp e4 like heath ledger. his presence, complexity, and inner conflict are so much more expansive. you see joseph gordon levitt in inception as an isfj type character there as well. he's probably so/sx or sp/so?
i also disagree that all infps are aloof. i think the aloofness has much to do with an inferior so instinct (subtype). and especially sp, which is by nature distance, hard to reach, in its own world, etc. a 4w3 infp so/sx looks way way different. or an so/sx infp 9w1.
i see e4 as focused on originality. which is a more specific distinction than authenticity. i see our concept of authenticity as mostly being relevant for Fi. Fi produces its own form of reason, and infps trust that reason bc its their most conscious, complex form of experience. authenticity and "true to yourself" definitely has more of a connotation that speaks to trusting one's own experience more than knowledge derived from communication and language experiences/symbols/shared concepts. i think both infjs and infps as 4w5s want to represent the world uniquely, but their firm hold on their first dom cog process and their eventual expansion to incorporate other balancing facets move them away from so completely identifying with their Ni representation or their Fi truths. i'm not sure if the need for individuality you mention, well, if when you say that you mean originality (e4) or authenticity (Fi). infp 9s seem to be very very serious about promoting individual freedom in the sense that one deserves to be able to reason out their own form of truth apart from the collective. this could be a kind of individuality, freedom for individual belief, but they don't seem as intensively absorbed in comparing themselves to others and identifying with all of the differences they find, oscillating between being extremely understanding and extremely critical, trying to find what is ultimately right and wrong at an individual level (the good-evil dualism).