On most MBTI websites she is one of the famous INTJs, and I tend to agree, at least partially. It's quite possible to consider F instead of T, but the way she solves Lecter's puzzles has pretty much N written all over it.
Not really. Perhaps as a lesser function. That's like saying S's aren't allowed to use their imagination without being N's.
If you truly look at her, she's not really that good at the N stuff. Lechter has to really beat her over the head to get her to think like him; he breathes N, she can't put two and two together. Any N she expresses usually occurs in context of S stimulation.
- She figures out where the pictures of the first girl are because she herself had a dancing music box and knew that a good hiding spot was in the top, underneath the cardboard.
- It takes her forever to figure out that Buffalo Bill is making a woman suit... she only gets it when she sees the dress pattern RIGHT in front of her face.
- She doesn't even see Jame Gumb as a real suspect until the moth lands -- another tangible S-style "clue" that fills her in.
An N person is making all of these hunches as they go, before the tangible evidence is provided. Clarice is much more a dogged, hunt down each little fact sort of person.
The one place where you can say, "Oh she figured out the anagram..." -- well, many xSFJs I've met enjoy doing puzzles like that... logic problems, word rearrangement, crossword puzzles, word finds.
And note the F: She thinks in terms of relationships... relationship to lecter, relationship to her father, relationship to crawford, relationship with her friend, relationship to the icky head of the psych ward... She is constantly thinking about how the victims felt, tangibly, identifying with their feelings. She's not detached; she is very much immersed in a relational web. It colors all of her thinking. She doesn't want to let any of them down.
Really, the biggest thing: An INTJ is one of the least likely types to steal a sheep from a man who trusts her and makes a foolish attempt to free it just by running away carrying it. That's a very big, typical, sentimental SF move -- not an NTJ strategy. At best, the INTJ would have tried to free the lamb "due to the indignity of it" or some sort of universal value... not just because she felt so bad for the vocal suffering of the lamb... and an INTJ would have planned something more likely to succeed, even when so young.
INTJ = Jodie Foster in "Contact." (ironically, the same actress.) If you sense any detachment in Starling, I think it is mostly just a holdover from Foster herself (who is INxJ, I'm sure).
Anyway... sorry for the derail.
* * * *
INTP villains don't do anything except design death machines.
You would find them as the scientist or engineer who discovers the truths and invents the things that a truly motivated villain would use in his/her plans at domination.
(I remember once seeing the "humor" issue of "What if...?" and they had Spiderman facing off against The Philosopher or some other weird villain in a study. Instead of fighting, the villain waxed philosophic as much as BlueWing does, for two entire pages, with Spidey occasionally making a reference to some established philosophical POV, which the villain would then counter... and the strip ended out of boredom for everyone... INTPs just make bad villains. They don't DO anything.
)
One probable INTP hero I remember is the ship's architect in Cameron's "Titanic" movie. Andrews, I think his name was, but he was thoughtful and kind, far-seeing... sort of an actualized INTP. You could sense he had benevolence towards everyone, could see everyone's view, and chose to save Rose and go down with the ship because he felt badly that he had failed in its design and now many lives would be lost... even though he seemed to acknowledge it was not his direct fault and that the ship should have been fine. Just a very sweet, transcendent sort of man.
SPs do seem to dominate the action movie style stories. (Lots of SPs, for example, in the Mission Impossible movie series.)