Strohl ESFJ argument (REVISED EDITION):
Hello everyone, It’s really jarring how much intuitive bias this website has. Just because he is intelligent, leads in a group, and has a plan doesn’t automatically mean he’s an ENFJ. Ni does not equate to planning NOR intelligence. It is an introverted function that is subjective to stimuli alongside with Si. Based on the dialogue he says in game, it is pretty apparent that he uses more Si than Ni overall, since he internalizes sensations that are happening, and he is sentimental about those sensations if it is important to him. While I can understand that he seemed to use Ni at the first part of the game, I soon realized that he is more of a Si user throughout the entire game. Pardon me if there are grammatical mistakes, since English isn’t my first language.
I'm gonna skip the part explaining Fe dominant since that is already very obvious, so I won’t try to flesh out that part here. I’m gonna explain Si and Ne on this part.
Introverted Sensing (Si):
When first meeting him, you see that he criticizes the ideals of their late king. He said that it would take more than eloquent words and high-minded speech to implement the deceased king’s ideals. This shows a part of him where he is very critical of grand ideals, and he prefers detailed planning on how to implement it. This is a first sign that he prefers to use Si than Ni. Si users tend to be more grounded and detailed than Ni, since Ni usually has a bigger view about situations.
His bond mostly focuses on trying to rebuild his past hometown, and he constantly tries to relive the events that transpired through it, whether it may be his traumas or normal events. He also wants to build a future where everyone gets their ruined cities rebuilt, since he does not want them to happen ever again. In a way, Si thinks about the past, but not just the past. It considers the past as a factor, and also thinks about the future due to the past. This is to tell you that Si does not equate to just thinking about the past. They can think about the future in a practical manner.
Next, he constantly brings up his parents' teachings on doing laundry, cooking, and even honing your swords. This highlights his familiarity with traditional values his parents imposed on him. While you may say that he only does it to cope with his deceased parents, a Si user would be more likely to repeat it due to it valuing familiarity about their experiences. This is not to say that xNxJs don’t do that, but looking at the pattern of sensory behavior he has in the game, this supports his Si usage.
When going to Brilehaven, you are met with him reminiscing on his childhood in that city. "My parents took me once when I was a boy. I remember the day we arrived, and waking up to the smell of the ocean. The place was crowded beyond belief. Everything was so different from our hometown in the countryside.” Another thing, in one of his bonds, Strohl vividly remembers how he met Will, as well as the time where he mentioned that, “The roads were so rough we could hardly keep our arses on our seats, but there you were, reading a book of all things.” In the original description of Si from Jung himself, it is said that, “The introverted sensation type is like a highly sensitized photographic plate. The physical sensitivity to objects and other people takes in every smallest shade and detail—what they look like, how they feel to the touch, their taste and smell and the sounds they make.”. Not only that, Emma Jung had commented on Si itself. Si absorbs every single detail of the sensory experiences outside them, saying that it’s like a person whom you’ve told a joke about in the morning, and they will still probably laugh about it in the night. Those lines show that every single detail of him internalizing sensory experiences into his subjective internal self, attaching personal sentiments due to his parents when they were going to Port Brilehaven, not just remembering the past. This also applies to the time where he remembered travelling alongside Will in the carriage. Si also tends to compare and contrast past and present, since it always looks for discrepancies on what they are used to.
Here are some more quotes from him that indicates Introverted Sensing (Si):
“You used to be able to see the mountains cresting the horizon above the rooftops. It was beautiful. I wish you could have seen it like that.”
“The setting sun is akin to a streak of crimson ink, bleeding its colour into the sky and sea alike.”
“Back in the day, I had to practise over and over until I got a “pop” worthy of a nod. Our village had a big “laundry day” several times a year, and all the people would come together to chat as we laboured away. This takes me back, in a way.”
“In hindsight, I think they were trying to teach me not to take advantage of my title. Wisdom that still serves me to this day. The more time that passes, the more I understand how great my parents were.”
In comparison to an ENFJ, Ni is a function that relies on the unconscious. It produces unconscious images imaging the future or having a personal gut feeling. They are also big-picture thinkers who have a subjective vision at hand. Think about Louis who is an ENTJ. He has a grand plan of turning everyone into humans for the sake of equality due to his trauma, and he does not dwell in the past about it. In comparison to Strohl, he is more focused on trying to rebuild his past glory and the old ruined cities, instead of making a long-term plan that revolutionizes the whole country. You may say that he uses Ni because of the part where he said he can sense danger from the wilderness at the start of the game, but keep in mind all MBTI types can sense things.
At the end of the game, he reminisces about meeting Will in the recruitment center, and he states that he still sees the same about him. There’s just a lot of moments in the game where he constantly uses Si without even trying hard to remember about his past events whether it is about his traumas or not. An ENFJ would literally try harder to internalize and imagine the inner sensations that they experienced, since they have trickster Si. Their Ni-Se paired with either Ti or Te would push those away to make longer-term plans for the future.
Extroverted Intuition (Ne):
He came up with the idea that they should bring a person’s head instead of a monster when he knew that there are bounties that are people too. Everyone else had the same idea when he thought out of the box. Based on his past knowledge, he inferred that bounties also include criminals, hence he proposed the idea of bringing a head of a criminal in the competition to sway the audience.
In his bond, he mentions that, “I’ve been trying to think of ways to outwit Louis, but all my ideas feel full of holes. An idea comes to me, but I end up thinking, “Louis isn’t dumb enough to fall for that”, and I’m stuck from there…” This shows that he is a lower Ne user. Lower intuition users tend to be more insecure about their ideas, since they only use it not as often as high intuition users. The higher the function stack, the more confident you are with it.
Aside from the serious things he does with Ne, his tertiary/childish Ne shows through his jokes. Sure a Ni-Se user can make jokes, but a Si-Ne/Ne-Si user would have an easier time making up jokes at the moment since they utilize Ne and would just blurt out the most random things without even thinking like a Ni user would do at first.
So here’s the thing, Strohl constantly internalizes the feelings and sensations of his past experiences, while they’re just doing the most mundane tasks at hand. An ENFJ would be more likely to talk about abstract concepts, since Ni is their auxiliary function. Literally when even doing the laundry he just casually brings up how much his parents have made him practice laundry, as well as His goals have also changed in his bond, as well as having trouble realizing his own ideals. This signals that he has trickster Ni in his stack, since he doesn’t think about his long-term goals. The moment he noticed the Drakodios negates protective magla and was part of Louis’ plan may seem like Ni-Ti at work, but I think it’s just his pure Ti at work. Introverted thinking looks for logical consistency in all things, hence he deduced that Louis got their team to get the weapon for him in the first place.
This concludes my argument for him. I will add more comments if I continue to find more evidence of him being an ESFJ. (2/2)
Wikipedia. (2024, November, 3). Jungian cognitive functions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_cognitive_functions
Sharp, D. (1987). PERSONALITY TYPES: Jung’s Model of Typology. Wayback Machine.