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Tolkien

ragashree

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I think JRR Tolkien is fairly easy to type from the available evidence:

INFP

If you think differently, I will be happy to refute this discuss it with you. However, please try to come up with better evidence than the wild semi-informed speculation than I have just been reading in this thread http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/mbti-enneagram-other-personality-matrices/10494-intuitives-mbtic-internet-general-2.html (I have a hangover already today)

Also free to provide supporting evidence if you have any! I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who know more than me about the subject, given the extent of Tolkien fandom. Whether there are any posting on here is another matter, of course...
 
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evidence:
"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

"I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.”

"It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them." (seems more rational like an INTP, as opposed to INFPs who seem to think that everything will be ok if they stick to their values)

"It's wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope." (ditto)

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."


Most of all, I tend to think that fiction authors who make the most distinct characters are more likely to be thinkers. I can always tell when I'm reading a book by an NF because all the characters are NFs, except the bad ones.
 

Night

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INTP.

Nice evidence, booya.
 
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Thanks, Night.

Here's another quote that reeks of INTPness

"Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."
 

Totenkindly

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Actually, J. R. R. Tolkien, whom I regard as either an ESTj or ISTp (socionics), loved languages apparently.

Gawd.

The man was a professional philologist and professor. His translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was a standard for many years and might still be, I haven't checked recently.

It's rather like saying Pete Rose loved baseball or YoYo Ma loved the cello -- just, wow. He was a highly respected professional in a very tiny field regardless of how his Middle Earth works might have succeeded or tanked.

I always saw him as INTP, with an attachment to the concrete world; after all, he fought in a war and went through some hard economic times and didn't have the luxury of always living in his head. he also loved to explore the countryside and lose himself in nature, and it was a crushing blow when England became industrialized; the loss of that world was very powerful to him, and he couldn't escape it, and it comes out when he describes Saruman's ruining of the Shire.

He had the precision of word meanings that's typical of INTP; if you read any of his religious writings and letters, he's got the same style of explanation as an INTP would have; and he's definitely got a coherent large picture of the general overall history of his world that S's don't seem to focus on as much.

He never could even complete his work and was constantly editing and reediting (hence his son Christopher, who is very ST I think, spent years editing his father's notes and papers and releasing them so people could see the "work in progress"). The Silmarilion was never really "finished," he was always unhappy with the ideas and how they balanced each other or didn't.

He suffered horrible writer's block at times, another typical "P" problem; the story sort of had to "write itself" or he couldn't make progress... I think it took 12 years to finish LOTR, and he was stalled at Balin's Tomb for a few years.

You should have seen his arguments with his editors over minor corrections to his text. When everything is "balanced," someone changing something really throws it all off and ruins it; he was very particular about his writing and phrasing, even cantankerous.

And honestly, INTPs tend to be very good at the large epic general overview style of writing, or the mythical feel writing, but not really great at realistic dialog. Tolkien shows a lot of those problems; some of his passages are beautiful and evocative, but much of the Two Towers seemed purposeless and he was sacrificing emotional/dramatic momentum just to appease the mechanics of the story.

He would probably have been the "self-preservationist" style of INTP, not the more dramatic "intimate" sort. He did seem to enjoy people as an idea and loved his children in a "kindly" way and most of all loved to tell them stories, he was also accessible to peers and students at the college on the professional level; but he only ever really opened himself up to a few friends and tended to remain detached anyway, and really liked to close himself up in his house with his wife Edith much of the time to explore his own projects.

I think the contrast shows best when he writes about his religious conversations with Lewis (INTJ), with whom he had been close for some time although later they seemed to grow apart.

EDIT: I wrote all this before I saw Booya's or Night's posts.
 

ragashree

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evidence:
"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

Extroverted intuition

Also comic relief/character revealing device (sounds like a Gandalf comment to a hobbit, though I don't have the book at hand to be sure)

"I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.”

Don't we all get this? All who have ever suffered from intellectual curiosity, at any rate.


"It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them." (seems more rational like an INTP, as opposed to INFPs who seem to think that everything will be ok if they stick to their values)

That would depend on whether you presupposed that said INFP was an actual idiot, I suppose.

"It's wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope." (ditto)

Ditto also ;)

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

Well, I think that should be pretty self-evident to anyone who has ever lived near a live dragon. (Unless you think the use of the word "calculation" means anything in particular, which I don't.)



Most of all, I tend to think that fiction authors who make the most distinct characters are more likely to be thinkers.

Interesting. Do you start by knowing the likely type of a writer before you have actually read anything by them, or do you read a book, decide that you like it, then decide that because you like it the writer is therefore a thinker? If you can't categorically say that you do the former you are likely to be opening yourself to bias towards a preconceived viewpoint.

I can always tell when I'm reading a book by an NF because all the characters are NFs, except the bad ones.

That sounds more like you are reading a book by a bad or indifferent writer, regardless of their type. It's the sort of thing someone would do if they thought the only thing that mattered in life was some kind of vague touchy feely emoting all over the place. One of the qualities that actually defines the better writers is that they are usually able to value a broad range of human qualities and put them into their characters.
 

Venom

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ROFL! Poor INFPs, who the hell do they have left now? I used to think of Tolkien as the best case scenario INFP.


Tolkien is definitely one of my all time favorite writers. He had a knack for going the extra mile in creating a world. I mean, what other fantasy writers do you know that wrote an entire "bible/mythology style" book for his made up world? (im serious, but i forget what its called)
 
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ragashree, I'm sorry I shattered your world. Can we leave it at that?

If it helps, it makes no difference to my sense of self worth whether Tolkien is INTP or not. So you can be sure that I wasn't just disagreeing with you just to crush your dream of him being an INFP.
 

A Schnitzel

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I'm not sure what type he is, but I can guarantee you it's not INFP.

There is very little emotion in his works. There's some implied emotion, but he never expresses it head on.
 

ragashree

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Gawd.

The man was a professional philologist and professor. His translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was a standard for many years and might still be, I haven't checked recently.

It's rather like saying Pete Rose loved baseball or YoYo Ma loved the cello -- just, wow. He was a highly respected professional in a very tiny field regardless of how his Middle Earth works might have succeeded or tanked.

Yeah, some of the silliness on there was just too much for me to take. That's a lot of the reason why I started this thread!

I wouldn't mind INTP as an alternative possibility for Tolkien, as they certainly share a similar communication style and work habits in many respects, but I really do think it's far less likely than INFP. Most of the evidence you present would fit either type pretty well. His extreme perfectionism (emphasis on the extreme, as he never really seemed capable of accepting something as being good enough even when complete) and tendency to become easily discouraged suggests INFP more strongly to me though. His focus on morality and the conflict between good and evil is absolutely at the core of his work, and seem to me to be classic INFP themes. They are probably more evident from reading the Silmarillion and supporting documentation (none of which I have here to quote, unfortunately). I see very little working out of interesting ideas for their own sake within the structure, which always seems to be relating almost relentlessly back to the core values and precepts which are established early on.
 

ragashree

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ragashree, I'm sorry I shattered your world. Can we leave it at that?

If it helps, it makes no difference to my sense of self worth whether Tolkien is INTP or not. So you can be sure that I wasn't just disagreeing with you just to crush your dream of him being an INFP.


Stop being a twit. I was attempting to refute your argument and wasn't in the least insulted or upset by it. If I may say so it is a very NF response to suppose that I WAS upset :devil:
 

ragashree

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I'm not sure what type he is, but I can guarantee you it's not INFP.

There is very little emotion in his works. There's some implied emotion, but he never expresses it head on.

Hem, not expressing feelings directly is a characteristic if Fi as opposed to Fe types, so I don't see that one as holding much water. And even if it did apply more generally, it simply wasn't done for an Englishman of his era to express emotions in a direct manner and would have lost him respect among his peers. This would have been anathema to Tolkien, who relied very heavily on his Oxford literary compatriots for support, encouragement, and an appreciative audience - he seems to have been unable to get much work done in complete isolation despite his reclusiveness, another very INFP trait.
 
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I would think the rich sensory details in his books might indicate an S preference. I've seen him typed as an ESFJ elsewhere.
 

A Schnitzel

WTF is this dude saying?
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Hem, not expressing feelings directly is a characteristic if Fi as opposed to Fe types, so I don't see that one as holding much water. And even if it did apply more generally, it simply wasn't done for an Englishman of his era to express emotions in a direct manner and would have lost him respect among his peers. This would have been anathema to Tolkien, who relied very heavily on his Oxford literary compatriots for support, encouragement, and an appreciative audience - he seems to have been unable to get much work done in complete isolation despite his reclusiveness, another very INFP trait.

Everybody needs inspiration, especially when writing about people. Some of his works had no emotion. The ones that did display more, such as the Hobbit made it more childlike in nature. If I were to hazard a guess would point to weak Fe. INFPs have (at least) fairly well developed developed emotional worlds.

Stop being a twit. I was attempting to refute your argument and wasn't in the least insulted or upset by it. If I may say so it is a very NF response to suppose that I WAS upset :devil:
I doubt she was upset. Frustrated by some weak logic, perhaps.
 

ragashree

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I would think the rich sensory details in his books might indicate an S preference. I've seen him typed as an ESFJ elsewhere.

Interesting point, but it only really seems to be the case in his more popular works written as novels such as the Lord of The Rings and the Hobbit. In the Silmarillion (which he after all regarded as his major work and spent most of his life working on) sensory details, description, and dialogue are by comparison extraordinarily sparse. This was partly due, I have no doubt, to the fact that he was consciously trying to write epic narrative after the style of the Norse sagas; but the very fact that he could vary his style to such an extreme degree in these respects should, I think, make one cautious about inferring too much about his type from style alone.
 

ragashree

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Everybody needs inspiration, especially when writing about people. Some of his works had no emotion. The ones that did display more, such as the Hobbit made it more childlike in nature. If I were to hazard a guess would point to weak Fe. INFPs have (at least) fairly well developed developed emotional worlds.


I doubt she was upset. Frustrated by some weak logic, perhaps.

Yeah, show me the weak logic, don't just state it!
 

Mondo

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booyalab said:
"It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them." (seems more rational like an INTP, as opposed to INFPs who seem to think that everything will be ok if they stick to their values)

INFPs can write like this. As an NF, I certainly don't think everything will be ok if I stick to my values. I stick to my values not necessarily because I think I can avoid what is bad but I have values because it makes my life feel more full- having values gives me a purpose in life.
 

A Schnitzel

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Yeah, show me the weak logic, don't just state it!

Why would I show you? I'm just giving you a hint why she left. I'm wasn't continuing her argument. Like I said, I'm not sure what his type is, but I can assure you he's not Fi dominant.

I think he's probably a Fe type, which cuts out 8 of them.
 

Venom

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Why would I show you? I'm just giving you a hint why she left. I'm wasn't continuing her argument. Like I said, I'm not sure what his type is, but I can assure you he's not Fi dominant.

I think he's probably a Fe type, which cuts out 8 of them.

INFJ could work:

Ni for entire fantasy world complete with 1000s of years of history and mythology

Fe for the Fe stuff you mention

Ti for the making the entire theory of his world make sense
 

Night

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I've yet to see data that contrasts well with booya's/Jennifer's collective rationale.

INTP.
 
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