Heroes & Villains of MBTI

Finding the good and the evil of our personalities in our favorite stories. Run by an INFP.

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my understanding of the functions and what they discern

Te: effective vs ineffective

Ti: logical vs illogical

Fe: good vs bad

Fi: right vs wrong

Se: What's available and how it fits together

Si: what's familiar and can be expected

Ne: many possibilities derived from experience

Ni: likely course based on current circumstances

so am I starting to get this yet or nah?

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The Future of Star Trek MBTI (a possible blog name change/spin-off)

Thanks to everyone who followed the DS9 MBTI series!

As was obvious by my constant fanboy-ing in every post, I love the show, and it was fun to share the love with all of you. Typing all the Star Trek was one of my top priorities when starting this blog, and lately I’ve considered changing the title and format to be exclusively about Trek characters.

What think you all?

Not that there aren’t other series and characters I’d like to write about, but there are plenty of good MBTI character blogs out covering everything, and I feel redundant most days. Star Trek wasn’t getting covered as thoroughly as I wanted to see, so I did it myself. I’m only one writer, and I like to write long-form profiles, whereas other blogs like Funky or Theatre MBTI have whole teams of mods and contributors writing shorter, punchier profiles every day. One of my series can take me weeks to complete.

Voyager will certainly be on its way eventually, but it could literally be months.

I’m also trying to be a screenwriter in LA, and that’s got to take priority over blogging.

My proposal is that I open the blog up to requests for minor characters from across the franchise that weren’t covered in the major series. Don’t know how much demand there is for that, but leave me a message or reply if you think I should make it so. Alternatively, I might just spin off a sub-blog, in true franchise fashion, and re-blog all the Star Trek character profiles I’ve run so far, to fill the time until Voyager.

My hailing frequencies are open to suggestions.

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Clue MBTI: The Intuitive Functions

Mr. Green: Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

(According to the “real” ending, Mr. Green is not who he pretends to be, but let’s go with the character he’s acting as for the majority of the story.)

Mr. Green is nervous and chatty and prone to random conceptual leaps—“Mrs. Peacock was a man?!” He’s had to live his whole life under a pretense, acting out a part that everyone wants to see. He’s the one chosen to distract the cop, making up idle conversation while the others hide the bodies. He connects the dots during dinner conversation that all of them work in the government, and wonders what it could mean. In the real ending, he’s first to arrive at the conclusion that Wadsworth is really Mr. Boddy. He slaps Mrs. Peacock because it seems like a good idea at the time, and he’s kind of awkward in his own body, often falling prey to clumsiness.

Best Suggestion: ENFP

Wadsworth: Introverted Intuition (Ni)

Wadsworth has one goal for the evening—to dispense with his accomplices and tighten the noose on his blackmail victims. For this he invents a whole evening of shadowplay, a complex plan to push his dinner guests toward murder. He assigns each of them colorful names, possibly related to how he visualizes their individual personalities in his imagination. Or maybe as if he’s picturing them as pawns on a gameboard. Though he’s confident of his plot, he can become just as panicked as anyone else when the environment changes too quickly—when the lights go out, he mistakes a shower faucet for a doorknob. He walks, or rather runs, the company through the night’s events, appearing to have solved the crime when actually he already predicted what everyone would do. For all his foresight, he fails to react in the moment when Mr. Green gets the drop on him and ends his crime spree.

Best Suggestion: INFJ

(Not really sure that Wadsworth is actually an Ni-user, but I think this paints a decent portrait of the cognitive function as if he were.)

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Clue MBTI: The Sensing Functions

Miss Scarlet: Extraverted Sensing (Se)

Miss Scarlet uses her sultry good looks to her advantage. When her car breaks down on the way up to the mansion, she shows a little leg to an oncoming car and hitches a ride. She isn’t shy at all about her line of work, and when everyone else is protesting their innocence, she proudly owns up to running an escort service. She sees nothing wrong in profiting from the world’s oldest profession, catering to the very natural needs all men have. She’s smart and capable, but sometimes misses the point of the absurd wordplay in conversation (“Why would he want to kill you in public?”). Scarlet’s the least panicky and frightened of any in the group (at least at first), unintimidated by her eerie surroundings and seemingly eager to see what plays out.

Best Suggestion: ESFP

Yvette: Introverted Sensing (Si)

I hate to use the servant as the example of Si, but bear with me here. Yvette is a stand-in for the many trusty stewards in old-fashioned murder mysteries, knowledgeable and competent and attentive to detail. They’re studied experts at various handy skills. They’re the ones who have been around forever and know every nook and cranny of their home. They know its history, too, and all the good, juicy stories about the locals. Yvette gathers information for her employers (both Mr. Boddy and Miss Scarlet), and she’s trusted to execute the careful steps of Wadsworth’s plot. She tends to the order of the house, and has a great deal of seasoned experience in her, um, profession. She’s afraid of the dark, and grows more anxious and terrified as the evening spirals beyond the expected plan.

Best Suggestion: ISFJ

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Clue MBTI: The Feeling Functions

Mrs. Peacock: Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

Mrs. Peacock is determined that everyone have a good time, despite the mysterious circumstances of their invitations, and breaks the ice with dinner conversation to cut through the silent awkwardness. She’s a great hostess, a skill she used to throw parties that kept her husband socially connected with the right people. She depends on appearing socially respectable, expressing disgust at Green and Plum’s alleged sexual deviancy while denying her own crimes. She’s loud and expressive with her feelings, and constantly blurts out things she shouldn’t without thinking. When the Evangelist comes to the house, Peacock rushes to hurry him away, for fear that he will become another victim in the rash of murders.

Best Suggestion: ESFJ

Mrs. White: Introverted Feeling (Fi)

Mrs. White is seething with rage from within—flames on the sides of her head!--but you’d never know it to look at her cool, icy exterior. She’s vain and self-absorbed and believes men should be as disposable as Kleenex, tossed away when she’s done with them. She feels no remorse after the death of her husband, just happiness at having her own life back. She recognizes Yvette as the woman who cheated with her husband, but denies she was jealous. In fact, she hated Yvette and waits for the right opportunity to strangle the life out of her.

Best Suggestion: ISFP

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Clue MBTI: The Thinking Functions

Colonel Mustard: Extraverted Thinking (Te)

Col. Mustard organizes everyone into search parties and tries to get control of a chaotic situation. He’s a military man who wants to do things by a strict, military standard, especially when everyone else is freaking out. He understands that if they split into pairs, one of them might be paired with the killer and thus get killed themselves, but it seems like a simple way to find out who the killer is. This is war, after all, and they have to win despite the risk of casualties. He directs the piling of the corpses on the sofas, pointing out the optimal way to get them to fit when the others struggle to position them properly. He demands straight answers from Wadsworth about who is in the house, and gets frustrated with the complicated replies.

Best Suggestion: ESTJ

Professor Plum: Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Professor Plum analyzes people for a living, and tends to reduce them to a series of logical principles. After Mrs. Peacock rambles on at dinner, he picks apart her behavior and diagnoses her with a form of insecurity. When the others are trying to figure out which of the weapons they were given was used to kill Mr. Boddy, Plum reasons that it might have been something else entirely—poison! In the “real” ending, Plum is the one who kills Mr. Boddy (who’s actually Mr. Boddy’s butler posing as Mr. Boddy; it’s complicated), but his plan is needlessly complex, first faking Boddy’s death and then sneaking back when no one is looking to kill him for real a second time.

Best Suggestion: INTP

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Clue: The Movie MBTI

How do you solve a mystery like the cognitive functions?

CLUE is packed with colorful characters, and while I don’t think proper typings are possible, they each make good stand-ins for the individual cognitive functions. So, rather than write full profiles for this series, I’ll cover the dominant function for each suspect in the house. Consider it a fun primer on the functions (and for more straight-forward, academic descriptions of the functions, click through the links below).

Granted, these are comically exaggerated examples, but think of it as holding your detective’s magnifying glass up to a specimen to get a good, close look. It’s as easy as 1 + 1 + 2 + 1…or 1 + 2 + 2 + 1…Never mind!

(With apologies to my IxxJ readers, I confess that I stretched a bit for the Ni and Si characters, but I hope it’s still informative and entertaining.)

Info on cognitive functions:

FunkyMBTIFiction-cognitivefunctions

Understanding the 8 Cognitive Processes

MBTI Resources Index

MBTI-Notes Overview of Cognitive Functions

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ENFJ: Dukat, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ENFJ – the Giver, the Mentor, the Believer

I’ve no idea if it says anything about the franchise that the biggest nemeses in two different Star Treks are ENFJs. Even TNG had Lore, the ENFJ cult leader. Seems like Star Trek may have a running theme about the dangers of following crazed, charismatic leaders with big but empty promises.

(P.S. I feel really gross using my cheesy terms like “Believer” and “The Garden Fountain” for someone like Dukat, but that’s the format.)

Dominant Function: (Fe) Extraverted Feeling, “The Garden Fountain”

Gul Dukat needs to be loved. We all do, of course. Dukat, however, lives and breathes off the adoration, honor, praise, and hero-worship of others—which he never gets.

Back when he was made Prefect of Bajor during the Occupation, Dukat believed a gentler approach was needed. He enacted policies to ease the burden on labor camp workers, but strangely, the Bajorans failed to show appreciation for his compassion. They seemed to dislike being occupied by an invading force no matter how nice he was about it. They continued to resist him, and Dukat felt compelled to strike back and punish their ingratitude.

This cycle describes much of Dukat’s life and career. He wants to lead, but when his subjects or fellow leaders don’t like him, he struggles. He either overcompensates and looks desperate, or lashes out and becomes the angry tyrant he claims not to be.

Dukat is ready to kill Ziyal, his secret half-Bajoran daughter with a Bajoran woman, to preserve his reputation in the Union. He makes a hard choice to keep her alive and accept the disgrace, and then spends the rest of her short life trying to make sure she knows him as a good man. She falls for it (largely, I believe, because she is an ENFJ as well, as least in her final incarnation), and when she’s killed, Dukat loses the last attachment he had to any kind of innocence.

Nevertheless, Dukat is a skilled orator who can see which way the political wind is blowing and talk his way into positions of influence and power. He works his way up from disgrace as the Prefect of Bajor, then again after the reveal of Ziyal, this time masterminding Cardassia’s alliance with the Dominion. He gives fantastically inspiring speeches to the Cardassian people, promising a return to greatness and a purifying of the Union from the presence of its enemies.

And when that role fails him, he appoints himself leader of a cult of gullible Bajorans in the ways of the Pah-wraiths. His final con finds him seducing the Kai herself into believing he’s a simple Bajoran farmer, leading her down his dark path with flattery and appeals to her ego. The two Fe-doms decide that Bajor is worthy of neither of them, and must be destroyed.

Dukat gets exactly nowhere trying to seduce the two Fi-dom leaders of DS9. He makes continued creepy advances on Kira, hoping to win her heart, but she resists (especially when he reveals that he had a relationship with her mother, which makes him more attracted to her and her more disgusted by him). He straight up kidnaps a wounded Captain Sisko and pretends to care for him on a deserted planet, hoping that Sisko will finally see how wonderful a person he is; but Sisko isn’t having it, ultimately deciding that there is nothing redeemable at all about the man.

Auxiliary Function: (Ni) Introverted Intuition, “The Labyrinth”

Dukat survives despite repeated failure thanks to his ability to see a way forward in any situation. No matter how far he falls, Dukat has a vision to climb back to power—crusading against rogue Klingons in order to avenge the honor of Cardassia, or allying the Union with the Dominion, which temporarily makes him the leader of one of the greatest powers in the Quadrant. He believes in the superiority of the Cardassian people, and their sovereign right to rule the galaxy, which justifies any decision he makes that causes harm or distress to inferior races like the Bajorans.

He’s completely deluded about his own importance, idealizing all his actions into a mythology of a great man unappreciated in his time. Any criticism that cuts at that vision makes him defensive and angry. While his foresight can sometimes make him a canny political strategist, his overconfidence can also blind him to his enemy’s moves—for instance, when he’s stranded on DS9 by a security program left there by his superiors, who distrusted his loyalty.

Dukat’s final ploy involves following the path of the Pah-wraiths, the devils of Bajoran religion, in an ultimate grab for cosmic power.

Tertiary Function: (Se) Extraverted Intuition, “The Kitchens”

Dukat’s Se sometimes leads to him running through aggressive loop behavior, enacting more extreme measures and harsh punishments to gain control of his image. He can make ruthless decisions in the moment, and fight his way out of a corner. Despite being a devoted husband and father, he enjoys the company of Bajoran comfort women, which leads to his affair with Kira’s mother and his illegitimate daughter. He’s wily and quick, and survives no less than five assassination attempts during his tenure as Prefect of Bajor.

Inferior Function: (Ti) Introverted Thinking, “The Laboratory”

Like all Cardassians, Dukat was raised with strict mental discipline, and can even resist the intrusion of a Vulcan mind meld. That said, he lacks the ability to examine his obsessions critically, and melts down rather quickly when robbed of his goals. After Ziyal is killed, he loses his mind and can no longer function as anything but a purely emotional, rage-driven creature.

His biggest personal breakthrough is to realize at last that the Bajoran people will never love him. He decides they are weak, inferior creatures who don’t deserve his love. It’s their fault—and Sisko’s, and Kira’s, and everyone else’s—for not understanding him.

Dukat enacts a plan to wipe out Bajor, eventually ending up defeated by Sisko and knocked into some sort of cosmic hellscape, where he no doubt spends eternity blaming everyone in the galaxy for his failures.

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INFJ: Weyoun, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

INFJ – the Counselor, the Seer, the Defender

Wait, haven’t we seen this guy before? No, it’s not because Weyoun is a clone, it’s because Jeffrey Combs played another DS9 villain, Brunt. They even appeared in the same episode once, though sadly, not in the same scene.

Two Weyouns once appeared in the same episode, too, because the character we know as Weyoun is actually a series of clones (Weyouns 4-8 during the run of DS9, to be specific). However, because he’s genetically engineered to do his job perfectly, he always has the same personality, even when he turns out “defective.” In MBTI, your type is generally a function of nature rather than nurture—you are wired the way you’re wired no matter what, though personal experience will influence how your functions manifest. In Weyoun’s case, his “nature” is embedded in his DNA by those who “nurture” him, the Founders he reveres as gods.

Dominant Function: (Ni) Introverted Intuition, “The Labyrinth”

Weyoun believes in the mythos of the Dominion—that the Founders are gods who bring order to the galaxy. He believes that the Dominion will endure for thousands of years after the Federation is gone, and works to advance their holdings and influence with every move he makes. He believes that his goals are divinely inspired by the Founders, perfect and not to be questioned.

Even the defective Weyoun 6 still holds the Founders in awe and reverence, even though he awakens from the cloning process with the inexplicable idea that the Dominion’s war efforts are wrong.

Weyoun always works with a hidden agenda, a far-sighted goal for the Dominion’s gain—Bashir’s genetically engineered friends can tell that he’s thinking big picture, years or centuries ahead. He arranges peace-talks with the Federation over a new proposed border, playing nice and taking an apparently disadvantageous deal when actually it will give the Dominion access to a planet with a fungus helpful to their Ketracel-white production. He and Sisko make small talk about the minefield Starfleet has put up in front of the wormhole, but both Intuitives know that the real meaning of the conversation is that they’re about to go to war.

Weyoun sizes people up quickly, searching for the clue that will give him the advantage over his diplomatic targets. Damar accuses the whole Weyoun line of having an innate flaw of overconfidence, never doubting the success of their vision. The final Weyoun understands immediately when Damar’s rebellion destroys a cloning facility, that Damar’s true goal is to keep any more Weyouns from being made.

(Although do we seriously believe Weyoun doesn’t have more copies of himself squirreled away somewhere? Please.)

Auxiliary Function: (Fe) Extraverted Feeling, “The Garden Fountain”

The Dominion’s aim is to conquer and subdue all worlds in the galaxy, but Weyoun makes it sound like a wonderful club that you’d be silly not to join.

Weyoun speaks with grace and eloquence, aiming for compromise and mutually beneficial agreements (in fact, his negotiating tactics have a lot in common with those of Quark, an ESFJ). He’s politically adept, and genuinely tries to have good working relationships even with those he disagrees with. In diplomatic discussions, he can play wounded as well as confident, keeping his adversaries off balance so he can emotionally ply them to get what he wants.

Weyoun orchestrates the alliance with the Breen, treating them like old friends as soon as the deal is made. This infuriates Damar, who Weyoun snubs in order to keep him in his place. When the Cardassians start rebelling, Weyoun gives grand speeches about the spirit of cooperation. He feigns sadness that he has to order mass executions in order to ensure obedience, gaslighting the people into believing their deaths are their own fault.

The “defective” Weyoun 6 still wants the Dominion to succeed, but he also wants peace for all people. He can’t completely betray the Founders, and so he defects to Odo, the only Founder on the opposite side of the war, hoping to start a process that will convince the other Founders to change the Dominion’s course. He fails, but still desires Odo’s favor and blessing before he dies.

Weyoun's emotionally manipulative tactics do have consequences.

Weyoun 5 dies in a mysterious transporter accident, possibly arranged after Damar got sick of his arrogance. Weyoun 7 gets himself killed after prodding Ezri about her feelings for Bashir, thus enraging Worf, who snaps his neck. Weyoun 8 gets himself killed after mocking Damar’s rebellion, and the destruction of the planet, prompting Garak to shoot him.

He dies in service to his Founder, loyal to the end.

(But again, there are more of him, right?)

Tertiary Function: (Ti) Introverted Thinking, “The Laboratory”

Weyoun can be cold and direct when he needs to be, as when he demands the removal of the minefield. He quickly segues into flattering persuasion mode afterward, of course. He delivers sharp insults when necessary as well, never afraid to call out Dukat’s tiresome egotism or Damar’s stupidity. He incisively interrogates the intruding Jake and Nog, assuming they’re conspiring against him, but when they lead him to Dr. Giger’s immortality machine, he’s intrigued by the mad scientist’s ideas.

Auxiliary Function: (Se) Extraverted Sensing, “The Kitchens”

The Founders did not see fit to create the Vorta with a sense of aesthetics. With his weak eyes, Weyoun can’t appreciate art, though he does try. He examines Ziyal’s paintings and asks Kira if they’re “good.” She’s not helpful, and Weyoun decides if the Founders had needed him to enjoy art to do his job, they’d have programmed him with the ability.

Weyoun 6, however, decides to indulge when he defects. Freed from the constraints of his duty, he goes a little crazy trying all kinds of new foods from the replicator. He takes particular delight in pepperoni pizza. The normal Weyoun disdains his working partner Damar for his obvious drunkenness, while at the same time appearing to have a secret hope of watching the captive Worf and Ezri “comfort each other.”

No wonder Worf snapped his neck.

Fortunately, there’s another Weyoun waiting to take his place, because the universe can’t get rid of him that easily (I believe in Weyoun 9, is what I’m saying).

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ESTJ: The Founder, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ESTJ – the Director, the Achiever, the Optimizer

When we type a villain, we usually expect their inferior function to be their fatal weakness. For Te-doms, the stereotype is that they have no moral oversight to their actions. By contrast, the intimidating Founder has a very clear moral vision--she believes she is absolutely entitled to wield control over other, lesser species.

Another of DS9’s ESTJ villains, the meddling Brunt, acts the same way. He enforces the laws of Ferengi society with an aggressive sense of justice. Just like a weak inferior-Te user might use faulty logic to defend their subjective beliefs, inferior-Fi can provide the comfort of self-righteousness to an over-controlling ExTJ.

(This character was never given a name on the show. Instead, she was referred to in dialogue and in the credits as simply, “Female Changeling.” That’s super clunky and annoying to type over and over, so for simplicity’s sake, I’m just calling her “The Founder.”)

Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

The Founder’s major directive is to bring every civilization she meets under the control of the Dominion. She sees it as her calling to bring order to a galaxy racked with chaos. Solids, she believes, don’t know enough to govern themselves, and so the Founders must lead.

The Founders exert control over their realm through their minions, the loyal Vorta and Jem’Hadar. Both races are genetically engineered to be obedient without question, and to view the Founders as gods. For further control, the Jem’Hadar are engineered to be addicted to a drug called Ketracel-white, which only their “gods” provide.

The Founder is supremely confident and implacable even in the face of setbacks. She always believes the Dominion will succeed, and repeatedly tells her enemies how doomed to failure their efforts are. She’s completely intolerant of failure and incompetence, and grows more demanding with her subordinates as the war drags on.

Auxiliary Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Millennia ago, Changelings were hunted down by solids who feared and distrusted them. The survivors formed the Dominion, and began conquering the solids in an effort to ensure that they were never persecuted again. The Founder sees all non-shapeshifters through the lens of this story, and won’t accept them as anything other than dangerous, small-minded brutes.

She finds existence as a humanoid limiting compared to the way she lives when she’s at home in the Great Link. Though she describes the Link to Odo in abstract terms, I don’t think this puts it outside the realm of sensory experience. Si, because it’s personal to the user, can feel abstract and hard to describe, like any other Introverted function.

Odo’s Si-experience is usually of being in one form, while The Founder has been many different shapes and beings over the centuries. She can replicate anything or anyone down to the last tactile detail, and shares the experience of all the other Changelings she’s with in the Link, who have also taken many forms. Thus her life experience is multi-faceted and expansive, and she very naturally feels that she is wiser and has more understanding of the universe than solids trapped in one form. That she refuses to consider their perspective until Odo links with her betrays the hidden rigidity of her thinking.

Tertiary Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

The Founder takes pride in being a shapeshifter, and gets bored and frustrated having to stay in the shape of a humanoid for too long. She pushes Odo to think outside the box (or bucket) of his bipedal existence, to experience the essence of different objects and lifeforms. She uses language that sounds mysterious and abstract to him as she describes life in the Great Link, hinting that she may be not so much an individual, but a “drop” of the Great Link that “becomes the ocean” when she returns.

On the other hand, the Founder’s ideas of humanoids have solidified, if you will, and she will not be moved in her perception. She tries love-making in the humanoid style, and is not impressed. When she’s infected with a wasting disease by Starfleet’s secretive Section 31, this only confirms her cynical view of humans. As her war efforts begin to fail, she begins to loop, ordering the swift execution and re-cloning of her Vorta scientists to provide a fresh perspective on their work to cure her.

Inferior Function: (Fi) Introverted Function, “The Deep Well”

The Founder pursues her mission to dominate the galaxy with an air of moral superiority. She believes that Changelings are a higher life-form than all non-changelings, giving the Founders the right and duty to conquer. She needs allies like the Breen and the Cardassians to build her forces, but she still views them with disdain, and will manipulate them to serve her purposes.

Her greater mission, beyond conquering the Alpha Quadrant, is to bring Odo home. She’s tender and patient with him, repeatedly inviting him to return to the Link. She and the other Founders feel forced to punish Odo for breaking their one rule—that no Changeling ever harms another Changeling—but once his time is served, she once again entreats him to join their ranks. Though he has chosen life with the solids, she assures him that he will always be a Changeling in the eyes of his people.

The Founder grows testy as the infection breaks her down, and the Alpha Quadrant refuses to surrender to her will. She denies her condition at first, not wishing to show weakness, but then she stops caring how anyone sees her. She bullies, criticizes, threatens, and abuses her subordinates. She orders mass executions of Cardassians to punish the insurgent movement, and then orders the whole planet wiped out when it looks like the Dominion has lost.

When at last Odo links with her, sharing the cure for her infection as well as his more tolerant perspective on the solids, the Founder surrenders. She signs a peace treaty to end the war, and voluntarily submits herself to imprisonment for her war crimes. Even so, she keeps her head held high.

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ISTJ: Michael Eddington, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ISTJ – the Inspector, the Steward, the Trustee

Eddington undergoes a major character switch when he becomes a villain. After a couple of years serving quietly in the background, he jumps ship (or station, as it were), and goes rogue. He’s more aggressive and dramatic as a crusading Maquis than he was as a law-abiding Starfleet officer, leading me to believe he’s operating out of his lower functions when he makes the change. Eddington sees himself as the hero of his own story, but to Starfleet and Sisko, he’s a terrorist.

Dominant Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

At first, Eddington seems like a good old-fashioned, reliable Starfleet officer. He joined with the ambition of being a captain, like everyone else, but ended up in security. That department doesn’t typically lead to command, but he still stuck to his job and did it well. Sisko asks him why he doesn’t just transfer over to the command division, but Eddington doesn’t seem interested in a big change at this point.

Of course, that could just be because he has other things brewing.

Eddington eventually reveals himself as a leader in the Maquis, a terrorist group dedicated to protecting Federation colonists left behind in Cardassian territory after new borders are drawn. The Maquis, and Eddington, don’t believe they should have to leave their homes for any reason. Though they’re offered many alternatives, they hold their ground and refuse to leave no matter how poor their living conditions grow.

Eddington appreciates the real, hand-grown, fresh food he raises and eats as a Maquis. He doesn’t like the taste of replicated food, and recognizes the exact menu selection he’s given as a prisoner. His whole existence as a Maquis feels more natural to him than his outward presentation as a Starfleet officer.

On the run from Sisko, Eddington relates their entire cat-and-mouse game to his favorite book, Les Miserables. He’s the persecuted Valjean, and Sisko’s the obsessive Javert. He makes Sisko read the book to understand his perspective—and Sisko plays along, doing all the villainous things Eddington expects of him until Eddington surrenders.

Once the Maquis are wiped out by the Dominion, Eddington feels he has nothing left to lose. He grows nihilistic and cynical and sits around waiting to die. Sisko tests his death-wish, and Eddington comes around long enough to help him out on one last mission.

He keeps a family heirloom, a two-hundred-year-old “Lucky Loonie” coin from Canada, as a good luck token, though he seems to have left it behind when he defected.

His last word when he goes out in a blaze of glory is the name of his wife.

Auxiliary Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

Eddington is originally assigned to DS9 to provide greater Starfleet control and influence over security operations. This means getting in Odo’s way a lot, although he means no hard feelings about it—it’s just his job. He has the same attitude when he sabotages the Defiant under orders from a Starfleet admiral. He’s just doing his duty, stopping the Defiant from carrying out a mission they were ordered not to do, and he’s very careful not to cripple the ship entirely. Once O’Brien fixes the sabotage, Eddington actually continues serving on the bridge, dutifully fulfilling his function.

Eddington self-sacrificially performs his service as an officer, which probably leads to his discontent over the years. He promises to Sisko that he’s willing to escort a high-ranking ambassador off the bridge against his will if his duty calls for it. He stays behind in the Defiant’s Engineering to help Jadzia prevent a warp core breach even though he’s badly burned—in fact he’s the last officer to leave the scene after the problem is fixed.

Despite his apparent low-key nature, Eddington admits upon Sisko’s promotion that he is a man obsessed with rank and title. When he defects, he in effect gets his own promotion, going from humble security officer to a sort of general in the Maquis, a man respected and followed by many. He feels personally responsible for not being there to lead his people when they’re attacked by the Dominion.

Eddington engineers a masterful heist when he defects, making off with a shipment of industrial replicators for the Maquis, while diverting suspicion, and the crew, to Kasidy Yates.

Tertiary Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Even Sisko admits once he’s gone, that although Eddington was a traitor to Starfleet, he was loyal to what he believed in. Eddington sees the Maquis’ cause as noble and pure, and anyone who opposes it as on the wrong side of the fight. He feels no guilt for the civilian ships or populations they destroy, as he has a very similar stance to Kira’s “all Cardassians (or Starfleet officers) are guilty” speech.

In his Starfleet life, Eddington pretends to have no strong conviction about the Maquis. Just before he springs his trap, he still claims to be solely devoted to his Starfleet duty, only chasing down Maquis because that’s his assignment. Everyone believes him because that’s just the kind of guy he is.

Strangely, Eddington introduces himself when he first arrives on the station as “here to make friends.” Not a typical Fi-user statement, but he really does seem to be a simple, friendly person who wants to do right by his job—and that means being friends with his co-workers. After he defects, he accuses Sisko of being driven by ego, but it’s hard to deny that Eddington seems to have gotten a little worn out with playing nice and normal all the time.

Extraverted Intuition: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Eddington’s clever and wily, and anticipates every contingency for his heist, planning an escape route and leaving bugs in the computers. He pretends to have no desire to leave prison to help Sisko, waiting until he’s dragged out of jail to go on the mission, just so Sisko won’t suspect that he actually wants to go so he can see his wife again. And he’s plenty creative in his old job too, like when he problem-solves in the moment by beaming the crew into holosuite characters after a transporter accident.

Eddington explains that he was once loyal to the uniform like Sisko, but he began questioning everything he believed after seeing the Federation’s treatment of the Maquis. He dramatically compares the Federation to the Borg, who assimilate others and expect everyone to play along. He aggrandizes his crusade, playing up his own mythos and tragedy, and Sisko calls out his ambitious desire to lead soldiers in glorious, doomed battle.

Eddington gets what he wanted in the end, dying in a flurry of enemy weapons fire while defending his people, fulfilling his fantasy of martyrdom.

(My main theory for Eddington is that he lived dutifully out of the top of his functional stack for most of his life, before the stress of seeing his home abandoned and abused forced him into his lower functions as a response. You could read him just the opposite, I suppose, as a meek Perceiver who was just waiting for the right cause to be a crusader. His Fi seems more strident to me, though, in a way that I’ve seen in other ISTJs who hit upon a sudden moral realization about something late in life.)

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

ESFJ: Winn Adami, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ESFJ – the Provider, the Facilitator, the Caretaker

A smiling, self-righteous old lady enters the place our family of misfit characters calls home and immediately sets everyone on edge with her overbearing rules and conspiratorial grabs for power.

Nope, we’re not profiling Dolores Umbridge today. It’s Star Trek’s own Space Pope, the chillingly wicked Kai Winn. DS9 has some truly lovely Fe-doms on board, but Winn brings the Mean Girl-ness to a religious level.

Dominant Function: (Fe) Extraverted Feeling, “The Garden Fountain”

When Winn Adami first saw the wormhole—or the Gates of the Celestial Temple, as her people believe them to be—she felt nothing. All her fellow Bajorans around her, however, reacted in awe, and Winn felt she had to display the proper response. She never has a personal experience with the Prophets her entire life, but rather loops through her Fe-Ne, playing along with the Bajoran faith to pretend that she believes what everyone else believes.

Her rise to power is driven by her need to be seen as more righteous than others despite her insecurities. She finds it deeply distasteful that the Prophets chose an outsider like Sisko as their Emissary. She can’t even get out of his shadow after she ascends to Bajor’s highest religious position. Winn speaks sweetly even to her enemies—perhaps more so—and passive-aggressively insults those she dislikes, always acting shocked when someone (usually Kira) calls out her true motives.

Winn does try to do some good. As a young ranjen, she convinced her superior to take a more active role in fighting the Cardassians, and was able to use gemstones from the tabernacle to bribe Cardassians for small acts of kindness. This saved a precious handful of lives. She confronts Kira for acting like only the members of the Resistance put up any kind of fight during the Occupation.

Winn is outspoken as head of her order, though she’s disappointed that they don’t have as influential a voice as she thinks they should. She sees the Federation and its allies as intruders who will negatively influence Bajoran culture, and leads a boycott against Keiko’s school on charges of blasphemy. The whole show is secretly an assassination plot against Vedek Bareil, her chief rival for the position of Kai, and a more progressive and popular leader than she is.

Whenever someone else threatens to steal her spotlight, Winn’s conspiratorial wheels start churning. She supports the return of the long-lost Akorem Laan as the new Emissary rather than Sisko—that he brings back the traditional caste system doesn’t hurt either. She digs up dirt on Bareil during the election for Kai, which wins her the position, and then makes friends with him when she needs his assistance to negotiate a peace treaty with Cardassia. He’s mortally wounded during the process, and Winn pretends to care about his physical well-being just long enough to complete the talks.

Then she decides he should die with dignity.

Shortly thereafter, Winn wiggles her way into the temporary position of First Minister, a blatant and dangerous combo of church and state. When Kira and former resistance leader Shakaar stand up to her, Winn acts deeply offended. But she quickly offers a statement of support for Shakaar once he’s elected the new First Minister.

Winn briefly begins to come around to Sisko when he discovers the lost Bajoran city of B’Hala. She helps him through his troubling visions, showing true concern and care, and really seems to speak from the heart when confronting Kira about her distrust of her motives and courage. Her diplomatic skills even shine when she negotiates a non-aggression pact between Bajor and the Dominion, assuring the obsequious Weyoun that they are nothing alike, “Nothing at all.”

But Winn’s insecurity gets the best of her, and she returns to her old ways when Sisko tries to unleash the Reckoning. She just can’t live with the idea that Bajor’s fate would be decided by a foreigner, and so she interrupts the process, claiming she did it to save Sisko’s son. Once she starts receiving visions from the Pah-wraiths, Winn tries one more time to redeem herself by confessing her problem—and her pride—to Kira.

Kira recommends that Winn step down, and the Kai feels immediately insulted that she should give up her position after years of faithful service. She resents that the Prophets have never personally spoken to her, and refuses to humble herself to them. Eventually, she gives herself over to the Pah-wraiths, and to a relationship with Dukat, and together they plot the destruction of Bajor.

Traditionally, XNTJs are the ones typed as the villains who want to destroy everything, but when an Fe-dom villain decides that everyone must pay, everyone better watch out.

Auxiliary Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

It’s easy to forget that every Bajoran we meet on DS9 only recently came out of a period of great suffering. Winn keeps her condescending composure quite well, but she tells Kira that she remembers “each and every beating” the Cardassians gave her during the Occupation. Though she’s never known the touch of the Prophets, Winn’s resilience in these times seems to serve as the one true touchstone of her faith.

That her endurance is never rewarded by the Prophets angers her deeply. Perhaps she’s looping too hard to appreciate her own personal experiences, reaching for an idealized religious experience that she imagines everyone else has had. When she finally turns on the Prophets, it’s after years of feeling neglected by them.

Till then, Winn holds to the orthodox practices of the Bajoran faith. She doesn’t want non-Bajoran scientific principles taught in the school, and she supports the old caste system during its brief return. She’s distrustful of outsiders and wishes the Prophets had chosen a Bajoran (maybe her?) as their Emissary.

Tertiary Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Winn’s a master of pretense, quickly changing allies and stories to go with the flow of public opinion. Her ambition pushes her into greater positions of power, often before she’s had the experience to know what to do once she gets there. Though she’s initially frightened at the thought of leaving the religious establishment she spent her life in—and allying herself with Bajor’s greatest enemy—once she gives up the Prophets for the Pah-wraiths, she feels a delicious freedom she’s never known before.

Inferior Function: (Ti) Introverted Thinking, “The Laboratory”

In private moments, Winn will sometimes let down her smiling façade and bite back at those who dare criticize her. She’s anxious and panicky in moments when she realizes her ambition has bitten off more than she can chew, and can't discern her options. She’s cold and calculating in her grabs for power, and can dismiss the lives she must step on in order to get where she believes she deserves to be. Once her faith fails her, she sees the hard truth of her own hypocrisy, and then blames all her problems on the Prophets and the Bajoran people themselves.

In her final moments, she recognizes her error, and helps Sisko fight Dukat, moments before the Pah-wraiths incinerate her.

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

DS9 MBTI: Villains Week

And now, the wicked week we’ve all been waiting for. Star Trek’s never been short on good villains, but DS9 truly presents an embarrassment of riches. What makes these villains great is how much time we get to spend with them as characters, learning their flaws and their strengths, and sometimes seeing shimmers of grace within their personalities that might have led to redemption if things had gone differently.

In the Original Series, Kirk’s nemesis was an Ni-user with an ego as big as his own. The Next Generation found the stern, commanding Picard squaring off against an unpredictable, trickster Perceiver type. On Deep Space Nine, our Fi-dom-led crew fights for their freedom against a series of Judgers who wield their power over others for nefarious means.

It’s a big, scary galaxy out there, especially with these guys in it.

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

DS9 MBTI VIPs

DS9’s just bursting at the seams with memorable characters—the family, friends, and enemies that populate the corridors and make the station feel like a live, busy place. Not all of them spend enough time on board to provide material for a full profile, and most of them leave us just as they get interesting. So here’s a quick round up of some of the VIPs who have visited DS9, with my best guess as to their types.

(Note: I realized just I finished this post that all but two of these characters are dead by the end of the series. Well, two-and-a-half, depending on your perception of Opaka’s situation. DS9’s a nice place to live, but a dangerous place to visit.)

Tora Ziyal

It’s my theory that Ziyal actually changes type, because she was recast twice and reinvented just before her final arc.

Ziyal-A (Cyia Batten) is a young but tough girl who’s survived growing up in a prisoner-of-war camp, and finds herself in a weird limbo even after being rescued, thanks to her mixed heritage and the fact that her father is a monster. She’s guarded and naïve in equal measure, ready to fight but not quite steady on her feet. Kira sort of adopts her like a little sister, and I very much think she sees her younger self in Ziyal.

Ziyal-B (Tracy Middendorf) is roughly the same, observing Garak quietly from a distance before making the first move. She tells him she grew up alone and doesn’t need the company of another Cardassian, but he’s welcome to join her nonetheless.

Best guess for original Ziyal: ISFP

Ziyal-C is played by an older actress (Melanie Smith) to make her relationship with Garak less creepy (no dice), and she’s outgoing, chipper, and over-trusting. She’s a bit deluded about her father’s true nature, whereas original Ziyal understood but stuck by him because he was her only family bond. She shows great artistic talent (I really like Ziyal’s artwork, actually), but she leaves the art school on Bajor because she can sense that no one likes or accepts her. She really just wants her father and Kira to stop fighting and get along.

She is, by the writers’ own admission, an innocent puppy crafted specifically to gain the audience’s sympathy before they killed her off. A daughter-in-the-fridge, if you will.

Best guess for final Ziyal: Fe-dom, probably ENFJ

(I love original Ziyal to pieces. The actress was quiet yet intense. The next actress was okay, but was doing a weird accent. The third actress referred to her character in interviews as “Tora,” which sounds like no one explained how her character’s Bajoran name worked. She would have been fine in any other role, but lacked the interesting edge of Ziyal-A.)

Damar - ESTJ

Damar spends a lot of time in the background before rising to the occasion at the end of the saga. It’s one of DS9’s great magic tricks that he was cast early on with barely a line of dialogue in anticipation of a greater storyline down the road. Damar hangs back from the major action at first, acting moody and reserved because he’s drinking his conscience away—so I see inferior-Fi at work there.

Damar is otherwise a traditional family man and a loyal Cardassian, and once his family and his world are betrayed by their supposed allies, he puts down the bottle and leads a revolution. His leadership turns him into a legend almost overnight, but he does have a lot to learn from Kira about the new way they have to fight—rebel-style, not regular military. He eventually drives the Dominion off his planet, at the cost of his own life.Dominion off his planet, at the cost of his own life.

Bill Ross - ISTJ

Admiral Ross is a low-key, trusty old officer, one of the few higher-ups to break the “Every Admiral in Starfleet is a Crazy Person” trend. He does make a couple of dicey calls—helping a Section 31 operation and supporting the Romulans’ base near Bajor—but they’re all in service to his duty to the Federation.

Opaka - INFJ

I hate to go with the stereotype here, but Bajor’s great religious leader is a very obvious Ni-dom. The Kai sees everything though a spiritual lens, and bases her decisions on what she believes is her destiny—or Sisko’s. She makes a tough call for the greater good of the Bajoran people, sacrificing the life of her son in order to save many more, and she gives up her life on Bajor to help a planet of people she’s just met find peace.

(And I promise I’ll stop geeking out about the technically-non-canon post-TV novels, but her given name in them is Sulan, which I think is perfect and lovely.)

Bareil Antos - INFJ

Another spiritual stereotype, but it fits. Bareil takes a calm, spiritually-minded approach to life, and tries to help the anxious ISFP Kira calm down and see the bigger picture of her existence. Of course, he happily indulges in the sensual side of their relationship, too. He’s willing to take the fall for Opaka’s sacrifice of her son to avoid tarnishing her legendary reputation, and then he ends up sacrificing his own life by working himself to death helping Winn complete peace negotiations with the Cardassians.

Gowron - ESTP

The Chancellor of the Klingon Empire lives with a very damaged version of Se-dom. He’s more reactive than pro-active, constantly striking out at those that insult and threaten him (tertiary-Fe). He plunges his people into war based on a vaguely defined paranoia about Changelings (inferior-Ni), and seems to forget that Picard helped him gain his throne as soon as he has power, making up a whole new mythology about his ascent to leadership.

When Martok’s popularity starts to overshadow his own, Gowron takes over the fleet in the middle of the Dominion War and assigns Martok to dangerous missions in an effort to get him killed (tertiary-Fe again). He’s nowhere near the strategist or commander that Martok is (disorganized, damaged Ti-aux, probably not even in use since he’s most likely looping through his Extraverted functions), and the Klingons start losing badly.

Any parallels to real-life leadership are purely coincidental, but uncanny.

Gowron won’t acknowledge the reality of the situation, so Worf—who basically handed Gowron the throne many years ago by taking out his rival—takes Gowron down and hands the mantle to Martok.

Kurn – ESTP

Kurn is action-driven and wily, a hot-headed younger brother to the stoic Worf who’s nonetheless a strong commander in his own right. He boards the Enterprise under a pretense, provoking Worf until he’s sure he can reveal their family connection. The two brothers fight for their family’s honor, and Kurn reluctantly obeys Worf’s wishes to turn his back on him and pretend they’re not related in order to protect himself. Once they clear their father’s name and get to fight together, Kurn’s overjoyed and wishes they had been able to be brothers from the start.

He’s farsighted enough to see the dangers Gowron poses to the Empire, impetuous enough to want to kill him right away, but cautious enough to follow his older brother’s guidance and wait the situation out. Unfortunately, once Gowron dissolves their house, Kurn loses all hope for the future and tries to kill himself. Trying to start a new life under Starfleet/Bajoran military discipline does not suit him at all.

So (*ugh*) Worf wipes his memory and sends him off with a new family. Shortly before their house’s honor is restored again.

Sorry, Kurn. You put up a good fight.

Luther Sloane – INTJ

It’s hard to tell if the Sloane we meet in the Section 31 episodes is the real Luther Sloane, or some sort of crazy person who managed to put up an organized façade to carry out his nefarious schemes. Despite an arresting performance by William Sadler, he’s pretty much a standard INTJ villain, with plans worked out hundreds of steps in advance, with far-reaching objectives only he comprehends. His morality extends only to keeping the Federation safe and secure, by any means necessary.

Enabran Tain – INTJ

As the leader of the Obsidian Order, Tain’s another INTJ supervillain, but with mastermind chops that would have put Sloane to shame if they ever met. He sees the impending threat of the Dominion and comes out of retirement to put together a combined Cardassian-Romulan task force to pre-emptively strike at the Founders. He has a handful of old colleagues assassinated so that they won’t interfere, and is willing to kill Garak, too. He’ll never admit that Garak was his son, because a man like him can’t have that kind of emotional liability. When his secret task force is ambushed by an overwhelming Jem’Hadar fleet, Tain has a meltdown over his failure to foresee this outcome.

Vic Fontaine – ESFJ

He’s just an old-fashioned lounge singer, baby, with a hundred stories to tell about the glory days of Vegas. He’s always there with a listening ear and simple advice when someone walks in with a broken heart. Vic somehow understands that he’s a hologram, and transcends his programming to hop holosuites and manipulate Kira and Odo together in spite of themselves. He’s excited by the new, round-the-clock life Nog offers him, though it tires him out quite a bit. Raise a glass, and try to figure out how he exists as an actual human in the Mirror Universe.

Morn

He’s an Extravert, don’t you know? You can’t shut this guy up.

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

INFP: Keiko Ishikawa-O’Brien, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

INFP – the Healer, the Dreamer, the Clarifier

Keiko O’Brien put up with a lot, and never really got her due. She joined the crew way back in TNG, then left her career to cross over with her husband Miles to DS9, highlighting the show’s themes of family life and diversity. Once the focus shifted to the O’Brien-Bashir bromance (which, to be clear, I think is wonderful), our intrepid botanist went neglected.

Most of her episodes catch Keiko on her bad days, bickering with her husband or worrying what to do with her life. It was tough deciding whether she was always in the grip, or just aggressively using her higher functions. When we see her on good days, she’s obviously smart, sweet, and crazy in love with an Irish engineer who’s as stubborn as she is.

Dominant Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Keiko and Miles love each other deeply in a way that’s obvious to everyone, but also a little inexplicable given how often they seem to be at odds. They clash in the hard-headed way of two Fi-users exasperated with constant compromise. His Fi is lower, so he has trouble working out how to emotionally respond, while her higher Fi wants to be understood without having to explain itself (as an INFP who has dated two ISTJs, I can assure you this never happens in real life…ahem).

Their marriage isn’t easy, but it’s interesting to note that Keiko never brings up the option of separation once she’s committed to Miles. She’s mama-bear protective of her husband and kids on the multiple occasions when various outer space phenomena threaten them, as they do often to Starfleet types. She argues loud for her husband’s innocence when he’s unjustly accused by the Cardassians, and she has a gut feeling that he’s still alive after he’s apparently killed. She has to hold in her feelings when interacting with Miles’ imposter, but the creepiness proves overwhelming, and she makes excuses to get away.

Keiko will stick to what she believes outside of her family life, too. She feels that the kids on DS9 need education, so she starts a school. Vedek Winn tries to shut her down for teaching the scientific explanation about the wormhole without the religious story, but Keiko refuses to budge. She takes in a Cardassian war orphan, and pulls her husband aside during dinner to confront him over his bigoted behavior toward the boy.

They may sound argumentative to those outside the O’Brien household, but Miles declares that Keiko is the most supportive person he knows. When Lwaxana’s telepathic illness causes various members of the crew to randomly fall in love with each other, nothing happens to Keiko and Miles. The others were affected because of latent attractions they held unconsciously, but the O’Briens’ internal compasses point only at each other.

Auxiliary Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Keiko is willing to pick up and move their family to DS9 for the sake of Miles’ career, and after a few weeks of boredom, she finds something productive to do and throws herself into the project. She protests Vedek Winn’s intrusion into her classroom because she sees her job as opening the minds of her students and exposing them to new and diverse ideas. When her unborn child has to be transplanted into Kira after an accident, Keiko just rolls with the new situation, inviting Nerys to live with them during the pregnancy and learning the Bajoran birthing ritual.

When we first meet her, Keiko’s freaking out over her impending marriage to Miles. She backs out, then re-commits, changing her mind virtually every few hours. She knows she loves Miles, but she’s anxious about making the right decision for her life.

This is the frustrating thing with Fi+Ne. Every types’ functions push and pull against each other, particularly when they’re far apart in the stack. It’s how the MBTI model explains the inner contradictions we all have, and helps us to grow. But even our top two functions, the ones that turn us into stereotypes if we only work from them without our lower half, can conflict with each other. Fi, in my INFP experience, is often the most rigid of the functions, while Ne is the most changeable.

Living with these two functions tag-teaming each other at the top of your stack gets exhausting.

On the one hand, you want to stick with the position you know is right, but on the other hand, you’re compelled to always be hunting for unexplored options. So while Keiko looks like a crazy person to her husband, I can completely sympathize with her frustration. She wants to support Miles in his career, but she needs to have her own opportunities to pursue.

Being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t work for her (particularly in an advanced future where there’s not much housework). Being a schoolteacher fulfills her for a while, but then that well dries up. Miles tries to build her a small arboretum where she can work with plants in her spare time, but botany isn’t her hobby—it’s her vocation.

Keiko needs to be a botanist. She joins a Bajoran expedition to explore undocumented species on the planet, and then she’s continuously gone on missions for most of the rest of the series. It’s a constantly moving, always changing lifestyle, and it seems to be the best choice she ever made.

Tertiary Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Keiko gets bored with routine. She assures Miles she’s okay sitting in their quarters when he leaves for work, but she needs something to engage her interests and skills. Still, she values her home life, and after months of traveling for work, she feels relief at coming back where she belongs. She keeps many traditions, especially food, from her Japanese heritage, and her wedding to Miles is a tasteful mix of Japanese and Irish customs.

Keiko gets help from a telepath to help her recollect the details from a certain childhood memory. She has various pieces—images, textures, a piece of a song—but she can’t quite recall why it’s important to her. The experience brings her memory into focus, and she finally remembers time spent with her grandmother doing calligraphy.

Keiko believes that footage of her husband’s death has been faked, because it shows him drinking coffee in the afternoon, and Miles never drinks coffee in the afternoon. Her certainty sends Sisko and the crew off on a whole investigation, and sure enough they discover Miles (and Julian) still alive and on the run. When she gets him back, Keiko discovers that she’s mistaken—Miles drinks coffee in the afternoon all the time (cue laugh track, freeze frame, end credits)!

Inferior Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

Keiko can put her foot down, and often does, leading to stand-offs with her Te-aux husband. She rises to the occasion when she decides the station urgently needs a school, planning and scheduling the curriculum and persuading Sisko to give her the space for it. She even gets Rom on board, convincing him that education will be good for his son.

And let’s not forget she managed to give birth to Molly in the middle of a ship-wide disaster.

(In the not-strictly-canon post-TV novels, Keiko takes a job after the war helping Cardassia regrow its biosphere, and then it’s Miles’ turn to give up his career for his partner. I think it’s a lovely development, bringing the O’Brien family full circle.)

Originally, I didn’t think I would be able to fully type Keiko, and I intended to include her in a quick list of supporting characters. While writing the list, I argued myself into an INFP typing. Back in the TNG series, I ended up typing another troublesome Star Trek character as an INFP, and I’m hoping this doesn’t reveal some sort of bias. I have no deep personal connection to Wesley or Keiko, so I don’t think I’m projecting my own type onto them. If I had to guess, when the show requires a character to act one way this week and another way next week, that Fi-Ne combo seems like an easy explanation.

As always, I welcome input and opinions.

Rosalind Chao certainly deserved better, so catch “The Assignment” from Season 5 to see her absolutely owning the episode.

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

ISTJ: Martok, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ISTJ – the Inspector, the Trustee, the Steward

When typing the Vulcans of The Original Series, I observed that most of them are ISTJs. The orderliness, logic, and composure commonly associated with the type just suits them. Turns out our two favorite Klingons are also Si-doms, and Worf and Martok find ways to tear apart their types’ expectations with a fury.

Dominant Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Martok has worked long and hard to get where he is. He comes from a lower-class, “commoner” background, and never forgets it. He was the first in his family to apply for officer training, but he was rejected thanks to a negative vote from the legendary Kor, who believed that those without noble blood should not be allowed in the ranks of officers. Martok holds this against Kor for the rest of his life, and refuses to speak to the man when he joins his crew for one last mission.

Martok had to work as a common day laborer due to his rejection, but he never gave up his original plan to become an officer. He served as an orderly on a Klingon warship and finally earned a field commission from his General when they fought invading Romulans. Sadly, Martok’s father had died by the time he accomplished this, and Martok carried that sore spot with him as well, nursing his grudge against Kor.

Over the years, Martok became an experienced and skilled strategist. He rose through the ranks and attained the position of right-hand man to the Chancellor himself, Gowron. He was briefly replaced by a Changeling, and spent at least a year in a Dominion internment camp.

During this imprisonment, Martok loses an eye in one of his daily sparring matches with the Jem’Hadar. He also loses his edge, and worries that he’ll never set foot on a Klingon ship again. Once he’s free, he feels that his captivity has dulled his senses.

It takes a while for Martok to get his footing and his old instincts back. He decides not to replace his missing eye, keeping the scar as a badge of honor, to remember what the Jem’Hadar did to him. He also keeps his fear—very un-Klingon of him—believing that due to his past experiences, only he truly understands and appreciates the danger that the Jem’Hadar represent.

He takes command of an old Bird-of-Prey called the Rotarran, whose crew is beat up and defeated, and can’t shake off his own malaise. He’s looping a bit, afraid of facing his fears by encountering the Jem’Hadar again. It takes a butt-kicking from Worf and a few successful battles under his belt for Martok to feel like his old warrior self again.

Even as Martok gains status in the Klingon Defense Force during the war, he keeps the Rotarran as his flagship based on the memorable victories he won with it and its crew.

At the end of the war, Worf deposes the reckless Gowron and installs Martok as the new Chancellor, based on his years of experience and service. Martok balks at taking the mantle, as he’s never forgotten the humble roots he came from. He’s a common Klingon warrior. To Worf, that makes him the perfect leader.

Auxiliary Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

When Martok first takes command of the Rotarran, he’s looping, and out of touch with his Te. He uses it ineffectively and bluntly, much like someone in an inferior Te-grip, demanding compliance with unclear orders, bullying and berating his crew, and threatening them with charges of treason if they question him. He’s deeply disappointed at the poor service record of the ship and crew, as they have grown incapable and defeated after months of losing battles.

Worf challenges Martok’s command competency, and the two of them duel on the bridge. Worf almost bests him, but he sees the fire return in Martok, and he lets him win. Now Martok feels like a commander again, and he pulls the crew together for a victorious fight.

Martok’s still a strict disciplinarian, though. He throws a subordinate off the upper level of the Promenade just to teach him a lesson, and almost gets locked up in the station’s brig for it. Worf argues to Odo and Sisko that the General is perfectly within keeping of Klingon disciplinary structures, and they let him off with a warning.

When Nog stands up to Martok and his unruly men, Martok marvels in the little Ferengi’s show of confidence, and gives him respect—and space—from thereon.

While still a traditional Klingon, Martok isn’t as caught up in the formality of ritual like the ISFJ Worf. They’re both Si-dom, but with different Extraverted Judging functions in the auxiliary position. Martok lets Worf go through the motions of the chants and songs as the Rotarran launches, but he really just wants to get on with the job.

Once Martok becomes the liaison between the Klingon forces and Starfleet on DS9, he finds to his dismay that his job involves a lot of paperwork. How’s that for a non-stereotypical ISTJ? Martok prefers direct action, not busywork behind a desk.

When they make it to Cardassia in the final push against the Dominion, Martok’s Starfleet and Romulan comrades stand dismayed at the destruction. Martok, however, wishes to celebrate the victory with bloodwine. This is satisfaction for a job well done.

Tertiary Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Martok discovers a special bond with Worf during their imprisonment. It’s a moment Worf describes as tova’dok, a kind of spark of understanding between warriors. Martok coaches Worf to keep fighting during their imprisonment, and later appoints him his first officer on the Rotarran based on the trust they’ve built.

Eventually, Martok adopts Worf into his house, letting him take the name of Martok and regain his social standing in the Empire.

Martok has a fiery relationship with his wife Sirella, a majestic, formidable ESTJ. No one can quite understand how they work, not even Martok himself. He only knows that as tough a warrior as he tries to be, his honor leaves him lonely without someone to share his victories with.

Martok won’t let go of his grudge against Kor, and initially refuses to explain his emotional reaction to the Dahar Master’s presence on his ship. It is a matter of personal honor (whereas Worf, the Fe-user, is typically concerned with the honor that others will see). Even seeing Kor lose his honor as his mind deteriorates doesn’t satisfy him. After Kor goes out in a blaze of glory, Martok salutes his victory, but will not sing along with the other warriors in his honor.

Inferior Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

As a young warrior, Martok hoped for a better position in life than what he was born into, and fought to attain the rank of officer, which by all past tradition should have been out of his reach.

When he returns to command after his imprisonment, Martok has developed fearful and paranoid anxieties about the enemy he faces. Overcautious, he repeatedly orders the ship away from possible confrontation, citing various negative outcomes if they try to engage the Jem’Hadar. He grows pessimistic about the possibility of success, deciding without evidence that there can be no survivors on the ship they’ve come to find. He’s distrustful of his crew, and most of all himself.

To be a warrior again, he has to embrace the unknown possibilities of striking out into battle. Afterwards, he offers Worf a new beginning by becoming his brother.

When he’s being tended to by Doctor Bashir for battle training injuries, he gets fed up with Bashir’s worry. An inch or two this way or that, and Martok could have lost another eye or severed an artery. The old Klingon grumbles: “The human fascination with what might have been grows tiresome. The artery is not severed, and I am not dead.”

Martok is very much alive, despite everything, at the end of the saga. In fact, he’s wearing the robes of Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. It was not an outcome he expected, but it is a chance for the Empire to renew itself after generations of corruption.

[heroesandvillainsofmbti]

ESFJ: Leeta, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ESFJ – the Provider, the Facilitator, the Caretaker

Like Kira, Leeta’s a young Bajoran woman who survived the Occupation. While one of them picked up a gun, though, the other picked up some Dabo skills. Kira’s Fi-dom makes her edgy and angry, while Leeta moves through the world with an Fe-dom’s openness and generosity, making her living as the life of the party in the hub of DS9’s communal bazaar.

They both fall for some pretty weird Introverted dudes, though.

Dominant Function: (Fe) Extraverted Feeling, “The Garden Fountain”

Like her ESFJ boss, Leeta’s gift is hospitality. She entertains guests every day at Quark’s Bar, coaxing their energy up to keep the room lively. Her job is to make sure everyone is happy, enthusiastic, and spending money. She’s something of an amateur sociologist, which comes in handy considering all the diverse people she meets in her line of work.

Leeta’s a very skilled people-person, and quick to make friends. She’s barely known Jadzia for more than a few weeks (like, one episode) before Dax invites her to participate in the very intimate ceremony of sharing a consciousness with one of her past hosts. She coyly flirts with Julian, feigning illness to get his attention; and when it’s time to break up, she finds an amicable way to do it that ensures no hard feelings.

Leeta’s a good judge of character, and sees potential and lovability in Rom long before he does. When he starts a labor union, she helps get the bar employees on board, and encourages Rom in his cause. She waits for him to make the move when it comes to romance, which means she has to wait quite a while. When they have an argument that almost cancels their wedding, she has to vent to her friend Kira, an Fi-dom who patiently listens and then bluntly tells her she doesn’t really mean the angry things she’s saying.

Leeta leaves the station just before the Dominion invasion, accepting Rom’s wishes to keep her out of harm’s way. Before long she’s back, working the Dabo table while secretly joining Kira’s resistance. Now she’s the one fearing for Rom’s safety, as he’s been captured for his sabotage—but Rom doesn’t want to be rescued.

Leeta and Quark, anxious ESFJs that they are, can’t accept this, and they argue with Rom about how stupid he is for refusing their help. Leeta experiences a similar barrier when Nog returns from his surgery after losing his leg. Ezri has to hold back Leeta, now Nog’s step-mother, from comforting her traumatized step-son until he’s ready. When he is, Leeta joins in the family hug to welcome him back.

Auxiliary Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Leeta appreciates her Bajoran heritage, introducing Julian to the Rite of Separation when their relationship ends. She wants a traditional Bajoran wedding, and resists Rom’s efforts to get her into something more scanty for the ceremony. In her day job, though, she’s very comfortable in her own skin, and always looks great. She’s so comfortable, in fact, that she answers the door of her quarters without realizing she’s lost her towel.

(And a bit of non-canon info from the post-TV novels, because I think it’s cool: Leeta’s full name was never given because she was orphaned during the Occupation and never knew her family. Once she married a Ferengi, whose people have no family names, it didn’t matter anymore. She stuck quite happily with her single, unique name.)

Tertiary Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Like any Bajoran who had to survive the Occupation, Leeta can be flexible and adaptable. After a few years of working at Quark’s Bar, she experiences anxiety over the lack of direction in her life, feeling like she should do more, and accepts a position at a distant starbase running their café. When Rom confesses his love to her, she changes course again, starting a new life as part of a Ferengi family. She sees the potential of Rom’s labor union, and demands more and better pay from Quark.

Inferior Function: (Ti) Introverted Thinking, “The Laboratory”

When she puts her mind to it, Leeta can be quite formidable. She studies up on the Trill zhian’tara ritual, and helps Jadzia explain it to the group. She’s insulted that Quark thinks she has no brains, appreciating her only for her physical assets, but she puts up a fight more than once when she figures out she can argue for better working conditions.

When she and Rom reach an impasse about signing a pre-nuptial agreement, she breaks off the engagement and complains to Kira about him. She’s trying very hard to convince herself she doesn’t like him, picking at any fault she can think of. But Kira knows she doesn’t mean it, and they eventually work out the problem.

Love between a Bajoran and a Ferengi is an inscrutable thing, but Leeta doesn’t have to think twice about it.