BioShock Infinite MBTI and Enneagram — Cornelius Slate
Cornelius Slate is a side character within BioShock Infinite, he’s a disturbed man with an interesting backstory who stands in the way of our protagonists because he wants a worthy death. We’ll be taking a deep look into his history and the history of the battles he took part in.
Dominant Function: Extroverted Thinking
Outspoken, organized, efficient, practical, rigid, stubborn, aggressive, and a leader, Slate bleeds TE dominant traits. To start our analysis on him, we’ll first need to know some of his backstory. Captain Cornelius Slate served in the United States Armed Forces. He participated in several battles but most notably the Battle of Wounded Knee where he became acquainted with Booker DeWitt, The Battle of San Juan Hill which is not mentioned with the game and The Battle of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion on behalf of Columbia who was allied with the U.S. After the battles Slate questioned Comstock’s systematic whitewashing of history. Slate wanted the truth and confronted Comstock. This defiance against the prophet stripped Slate of his rank, publicly branded him a liar, and forced him to work at Finkton. Slate immediately vowed to destroy Comstock. This prompted him to join the Vox populi and united they waged war on Comstock, this action was inspired by a TE-NE loop. His first action was to take over the Hall of Heroes and vandalize it, calling it the Hall of Whores. Comstock is a sellout who changed history. This action was meant to enrage Comstock and make him face a real soldier aka Slate. He believes practical action always trumps political subterfuge and strongly dislikes when anyone isn’t honest or direct. We can identify Slate’s TE-SI traits through his beliefs, and actions he takes against Zachery Hale Comstock. Such as organizing an army who willingly joined him to fight Comstock. Slate also tests Booker DeWitt to see if he can meet his expectations to consider him a worthy soldier by sending hoards of soldiers at him. This impresses Slate since Booker provides his men with the glorious death they seek. Slate only cares for the feelings of his men and can see Booker has no interest in harming him or them. Apparently, this is how Slate has always been he’s been disregarding others and always making enemies as Booker claims.
Auxiliary Function: Introverted Sensing
Before we venture into Cornelius Slate’s SI function, we’ll be looking into the battles Slate was a part of so we can better understand his experiences.
(If you have no interest in history, you can skip this segment)
The Battle Of Wounded Knee or better known as the Wounded Knee Massacre which took place on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. Tensions were high before this battle took place because the U.S. government was seizing Lakota Sioux lands and refused to stop. There was great unrest. Later, a prophet named Wovoka founded the Ghost Dance religion. This caused a movement.
The Ghost Dance movement was associated with Wovoka’s prophecy of an end to white expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, cross-cultural cooperation, and peace. This united the Lakota Sioux peoples, and in 1889 they gathered at Wounded Knee to participle in the Ghost Dance. Fearing large numbers of armed Lakota Sioux peoples, the U.S. military surrounded Wounded Knee and attempted to ban the Ghost Dance ceremony. This failed, and the government sent Indian agency police to arrest Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader whom they suspected in joining the Ghost Dance Movement. This ended in bloodshed and resulted in the death of Sitting Bull. Tensions drastically increased and on the morning of December 28, the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Spotted Elk, a Miniconjou Lakota chief. They demanded Spotted Elk to surrender his peoples weapons, they complied since they did not want violence, they were escorted to Wounded Knee and asked to set up camp there so 7th Calvary could slowly remove their weapons. It’s now December 29 and this is when the massacre would start. No one truly knows who fired the first shot, but some claims mention a misunderstanding broke out between a solider and a Lakota warrior. Thus the bloody massacre had begun. Historians estimate 150—300 Lakota peoples perished in that battle. Half of the casualties were unarmed women and children. While 25 U.S. soldiers died and 39 were wounded. This battle was the last major battle of the American Indian wars.
Our next battle is the Battle of Peking, which took place during the Boxer Rebellion on August 14th to 15th 1900 in Beijing. Before we get into the battle, we need to understand how it started. In the mid-1880s a secret society called the Yìhéquán or the Fists of Harmony and Justice started to gain power within the Qing Dynasty. By 1899 their numbers increased drastically. Their numbers swelled to 50 000 to 100 0000 members, they were now known as the “Boxers” to the rest of the world. They oppressed the Westernization of China and Christian missionary activities being practiced by foreigners. Eventually, the Boxers became violent. They torched Western churches, murder Chinese citizens who practiced Christianity, and attacked foreigners. This kicked off the Boxer Rebellion and lead to the Battle of Peking. The battle was massive over 18 000 soldiers from the British Empire, Russia, France, Japan, Germany, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary joined forces with the Mutual Protection of Southeast China against the Boxers and the Qing Dynasty.
The objective of this battle was to fight their way into the city of “Peking” to rescue 900 foreigners who were captured by the Chinese Army since the 20th of June. Peking had formidable defenses. The city was surrounded by walls that spanned 21 miles with 16 gates. The wall around the inner city was 40 feet tall and 40 feet wide. On the dreadful night of August 13, The Eight-Nation Alliance thought they failed their rescue mission because the sounds of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire could be heard within the city. Within those walls, another battle was taking place. The Pei-Tang cathedral was being sieged by the Boxers and the Chinese army. 28 foreign priests and nuns, 42 French and Italian soldiers, and 3400 Chinese Catholic citizens defended that church. Inside that church 2800 Chinese Christians took shelter. Several hundred people died from starvation and disease, while 66 of the 900 foreigners died and 150 were wounded during that battle. Sadly, the casualties among the Chinese Christians were not recorded. But that’s not all the battle still rages on! It’s now 3:00 am on August 14 that assault from the allies has started, each nation attacks a different gate. First to attack was the Russians who broke formation and took the Americans designated gate. This resulted in the Russian army getting pinned by opposing forces, 26 of their soldiers die and 102 are wounded. The Americans arrive at their gate at 11:03 am to find the Russians pinned down both join forces and scale the walls. By 4:30 pm the siege has ended. There were 60 recorded deaths and 205 wounded within the Eight-Nation Alliance. As a consequence, the city was looted and burned. Many of the nations committed atrocities and even the captured civilians, missionaries and Chinese citizens pillaged the city for all it’s worth. At the end of it all, China had to pay $335 million (over $4 billion in current dollars) plus interest for 39 years, exile the government supporters of the Boxers, and destroy Chinese forts within northern China. The Qing Dynasty would end in 1911 as a consequence of the Boxer Rebellion.
Alright, the history lesson is over, we’ll be returning to the analysis.
Slate took part in both battles. He massacred the Lakota Sioux peoples and set fire to Peking. During that battle, he lost 30 men and his left eye. He’s so obsessed about these battles that he forces Booker and Elizabeth to combat his soldiers through “replicas” of them. These battles also have shaped his personality and identity. Therefore Comstock changing history hurt Slate since he was part of that chaos and he’s the one who suffered. To Slate, you should never change history, especially if you didn't fight within it. Most of the time Slate's SI function is used interchangeably with his TE function. However, his SI function is overdeveloped and refuses to let go of the past. Instead, he’ll drag others into like Booker and Elizabeth. Here are 2 examples influenced by SI usage that involve protagonists. As Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth enter the Hall of Heroes, they spot a grand statue of Zachery Comstock. Slate immediately contacts Booker and remembers him being a true soldier and demands Booker to kill his men.
“All my men have left is a choice: die at the hands of a tin soldier, or a real one!” This forces Booker's hand who has no interest in harming Slate or his men. We can see another example after Booker kills Slate’s men, Slate calls Booker a hero and Booker disagrees. Slate then explains to Booker that if he takes away all parts of Booker DeWitt that Booker tries to erase, then what’s left? Slate is suggesting that our past is exactly what makes us. By deleting your past, you delete yourself. The last example of his SI function can be seen within his attire. To further prove he’s still living in the past and denial, Slate still wears his uniform but with a twist, he has an American flag on his right shoulder and a Pinkerton badge on his eye. It’s possible Slate views the Pinkerton detective agency as an organization that deserves his respect thus uses it to cover his left eye to fill what he’s missing with justice and law.
Tertiary Function: Extroverted Intuition
Slate often ignores the NE function for his dominant TE and auxiliary SI functions but will use it effectively when he feels threatened or wants to prove a point. Slate has a problem with Comstock altering history other than his strong personal feelings towards the subject. Changing history means Comstock is becoming a tyrant and will silence anyone who opposes him, including Slate himself who is a known war hero. Slate proves his point by having Elizabeth and Booker walk-through Comstock’s false history. Slate also ends being correct about Comstock silencing him. His disagreements with the prophet got him arrested and sent to work in Finkton. Slate isn’t dumb though and saw this situation as an opportunity and joined the Vox populi. He knew that after he’d defeat Comstock he’d be labelled as an assassin and would trade Comstock’s lie for another. This suggests that thinks the Vox populi would change history to indoctrinated younger generations as Comstock did. His analysis is completely based on inductive logic and patterns that have occurred in our history. This type of thinking can be seen within individuals who use both TE and NE. TI users rely on deductive and situational logic.
Inferior Function: Introverted Feeling
The FI function is pretty tricky with Slate, since most of his feelings are driven by his past and how he refuses to let go of it. Oh, and he’s also gone completely mad. Naturally, this causes him to become trapped in an FI grip. For Slate, he must remain as true to himself as possible, and he projects this idea onto his soldiers. Slate believes he’s still a soldier, therefore he must do his duty as one, and if that fails he must die as one. Slate and his men believe to die in battle is honorable, but they don’t want to die to fake “Tin men” but rather a real soldier such as Booker DeWitt who’s proven his worth time and time again.
This belief is so extreme that if Booker refuses to kill Slate at the end of the Hall of Heroes battle, he will equate Booker to a heartless “Tin Man” and will allow himself to get captured by Comstock to be tortured into submission. To Slate, if a real soldier like Booker doesn’t kill him then he is not worthy of an honorable death.
Here’s a bonus fact. Ken Levine’s inspiration to create Slate was driven by the pathologizing of soldiers in war. In the end, Cornelius Slate was a victim of his own inner war. An unwavering soldier to the end.
https://youtu.be/jJMc0ishwbs