I wanted to sort my favourite book of the year, Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Check out @sortinghatchats and @wisteria-lodge for explanation of the system.
Agnieszka, the protagonist, is a doer. She loves touching and feeling things, running in the forest since she was a child, always dirty and happy to play and discover. Even her magic is like that - instinctual, discovery chanting, based on feeling and intent. She seems like a nice gut based lion secondary. Her village is in danger from corrupted cows? She throws a rare and incredibly valuable fire elixir on them. Her best friend is kidnapped and her mentor forbids her from coming after her? Agnieszka just barges into the forest, no matter the danger and warnings, doesn't even try to hide or go around the order. She doesn't like listening to authorities when they don't make sense. A lion secondary in her approach.
Her primary seems very badgery to me. Agnieszka loves her home village. She isn't one of those girls that dream of leaving their boring family farm and meeting interesting people. She loves the place of her roots, her neighbours, her family and she feels kinship with all the residents of the valley as well. As far as she is concerned, simple villagers are her people, the honest, kind community she cherishes. There is a great difference she finds to the nobility she meets at the castle, where everyone plays a pretender game, no one says what they mean, everyone is deceiving and talking behind someone's back. No gold or status in the world could make it worth to her to stay there. They aren't hers and she is glad to leave, even pities them a little. She doesn't make it her job to change their minds or prove herself or her lifestyle to them, she just crosses them off her list of people she wants to interact and help. A badger primary that toils and loves her community, grounded in it.
A badger lion, the protagonist sorting.
The Dragon is very much a opposite to Agieszka. He likes order. Tools. Preparations. Exact lines for the spells, calculations, ingredients. His tower is neat, his library vast, his belongings aesthetically beautiful. A screaming bird secondary that clashes with the feelings based "let's wreck havoc on things" approach Agnieszka has. Watching them clash about their methods, and then seeing them work together, combing his orderly and her emotional magic, as they gain respect for each other is a big highlight of the book.
Dragon's primary is harder because he is closed up. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. A powerful old wizard who isolates from people, who is afraid of taking up roots, who comes off as cold and scary. Which is funny, because he has very noble intentions. He genuinely cares about the valley, he is the only wizard who takes the threat seriously and willingly casts himself out from the higher society to fight the corrupted forest. He doesn't engage with people, but he protects them above all else. His arrogance and mastery of magic make him feel like he knows what's best for everyone. When he takes Agnieszka as student, she thinks for the first few days she is a prisoner and that his lessons of magic are his way of torturing her. Dragon teaches her how to magically make pretty expensive dresses, because that's what he thinks will please a young girl, not asking, no explaining. He doesn't trust Nieszka to do anything by herself, doesn't give her chances to prove herself, she has to disobey and disregard him to win his acknowledgment. Dragon is def not a snake, because he isn't centred around one person or an inner circle. He seems like an idealist who values his principles, so maybe bird or lion. Dragon doesn't care about people of the valley he is protecting, which is why he doesn't care how he comes off to them, if he is polite and if what he does makes sense to them. He only cares about doing the right thing. About fighting the forest, because it's evil. He doesn't help cure Kasia, because she is Agnieszka's friend, but because it's right to try it with the new methods they discovered. Dragon hates the prince's idea to crusade into the heart of the forest to free the dead queen, but he tags along, because he just can't leave innocent people to death without doing anything - not caring about the people per se, but doing what is right against the evil in such a situation. While he needs to reason all his decisions and steps, he instinctively helps and stands up for what he feels is morally correct.
I don't think Dragon is burned. He avoids connection because he was disappointed in love before and is closed off, but that's a relationship and arc thing, not really a personality thing. He is sarcastic and blunt about things that need to be said, which looks very lion primary to me. Never mincing words, never considering feelings, but always doing the right thing, because he has the power to do so, so why wouldn't he? But if you don't need saving, please don't bother him, he would very much prefer to be left in peace in his tower to study his countless books on magic.
A lion bird. Ha, no wonder I loved him so much. He has my sorting. Now that explains a lot.
I think this might as well be one of the rubbing point for Dragon and Agnieszka. They both have intuitive primaries, but he cares about the ideals and she cares about the people behind those ideals. So while she recognizes him as a good person, she also considers him unfeeling and too distant from the faces, names and suffering of the people he is looking after, while he considers her perpetual concern and emotionality absurd, like they get in the way. Their methods clash more obviously, so that's what most of the book is focused on, but a bit later and deeper, the internal issue comes up and is part of her realization about what she wants from him and if he will be willing to connect himself, to become part of a community that she won't leave - not even for him.
hi there! i wonder... you've settled on a puff primary for t'challa, but what about his secondary? i'm having a hard time pinpointing it myself tbh...
i’m thinking slytherin secondary? dont quote me on that tho. i think it’s so hard to pinpoint bc when i think slytherin i think of loki, or natasha romanoff, or even fred and george weasley, cuz all of those are really obvious (imo). slytherin on him is more… subtle? he reacts differently to different people and situations, but i don’t think he himself exactly uses it consciously like the other characters i mentioned do, if that makes sense. if u think of how sortinghatchats sorted harry potter as a slytherin secondary, it’s kinda like that. plus t’challa might have models on top of that, or even as “part” of his slytherin secondary, which makes it even harder.
but yeah thats just my impression and now i kinda want to go back and rewatch all the movies he’s in to confirm lol
Best way how to move on from shows is to analyse them. My fingers burned from writing these, I had so many thoughts about this anime and after writing this I found the most amazing peace of mind I could hope for. Using the @sortinghatchats system inspired by the explanation from @wisteria-lodge.
The show is a supernatural mystery dramedy set in modern times, where a detective agency contests with the local mafia for power. It's a fascinating exhibition of weird characters. I'm going to sort the 4 fan-favourites, from which two are villains and one is a psychopathic ally to the protagonist.
Let's start with the most popular, grey and debatable character from the gif, Dazai. I rarely find someone so difficult to sort. A person who doesn't have an inate sense of right and wrong and who is so closed off from his own emotions, he can't recognize them in himself nor others. He doesn't have anything to base his morals on, his past is rather mysterious if certainly unhappy and to complicate things, he is a genius. Seeing the world as hopeless from early teens, he becomes obsessed with suicide and finding reasons why live. He looks for this in the mafia, thinking experiencing death on daily basis will show him true nature of humanity and what's worth living for. Interesting about Danzai is, he isn't the most capable fighter, shooter or master of martial arts. He is lanky and tall, easy to injure. What makes him so famously dangerous, acknowledged by all characters in the universe, from the ministry to the Port Mafia and his own friends, is his scheming procognitive ability. He is able to make up elaborate detailed plans, considering how people will react and what to tell them to make them react and feel that way. Despite his inability to feel empathy, he can read people like magazines, like everyone is so easy and open on display and just a few pages long. He understands what drives people and uses it for or against them. Whatever you see him, he is in the process of manipulating someone, including his friends, to get them where he thinks they belong. And he hides this very successfully under a laid-back carefree attitude, with jokes, songs and tardiness, with flirting with women, with being easily distracted, childish and enthusiastic. It makes it very easy for everyone to relax, let their guard down and underestimate him.
I was thinking Dazai could be a bird primary, because he constructs his system of doing things around his environment and what he learns about the world. He adjusts his views no problem according to what he sees is working and what kind of people he spends time with. When he left the Port Mafia he made a gigantic switch to join an agency with integrity that is actively trying to protect people instead of killing or profiting off of them, and he doesn't have the slightest problem adjusting to them, because people's lives mean that little to him. Let's kill them. Let's save them. Whatever the job is, he will do it without a blink of an eye, once he decides that's what's reasonable to do. What doesn't fit here is Dazai's fixation on a person in each of these worlds he goes through. In the mafia, he fixes himself on Oda, and although he is part of a trio of friends, it's Oda that he calls a true friend, that he protects and admires, that he goes out of his way to advice and help, that he reveals what he is truly thinking and who's death really breaks him. One of the few instances we see Dazai express honest emotion out of his control is watching Oda die in his arms. He knew Oda would be driven to a suicidal revenge mission, that he would die and he didn't stop him. But he was shook up seeing it and instead of regretting his best friend is dying, he was desperately asking him what to do with himself, since no one else ever understood him or what he is looking for. And Oda tells him: "If it doesn't matter to you what you do, join the side that saves people. That way even if you don't find what you desire, your life will become more beautiful." And Dazai listens. He leaves the mafia position he spend years building, leaves his ruthless violent killer ways and joins a protecting agency. Continuing to scheme, continuing to manipulate and calculate ever move and emotion to get to his goal - that goal now only changing to saving people and adhering to the agency's rules. Maybe this is what makes him a bird primary - how he goes through the trouble to build, argument and set rules for himself he them follows meticulously. He won't break the rule not to kill, even when his life is in danger, cause that's the agency's rule. He will work just fine with a murderer though, cause there is nothing about that in the rules as lost as the agency profits from it. This is also why a person as calculating, ruthless and smart as he won't betray the agency even when they are at disadvantage for better options - his set world principles make him absolutely incorruptible.
Although he enjoys provoking people, he can easily work with anyone required, no matter their personality or disagreement with him. But it's when the story starts he finds another person to fixate upon - the protagonist Atsushi. Atsushi is naive, inexperienced kid with lots of suffering and self-hate, but who is emotionally grounded, emphatethic to pain of others and with unshakeable moral gut convictions to help people. Dazai sees this and decides to centre his world around Atsushi's survival and thriving, becoming a caring mentor, manipulating him into tests of growth, letting himself captured to get information on people that want to kidnap him. Everything he does suddenly becomes for the sake of Atsushi having opportunities, finding rivals, building useful alliances and skills. It's quite amazing to watch how sociopathic person like him cares in his own twisted way about the lawfully good boy. It's like the person he chooses becomes his moral compass and motivation to do things in the world, even though he keeps doing the same thing. Torturing people when necessary, betraying or teaming up with former colleagues from the mafia as he needs, putting Atsushi and his former student Aktogowa to fight each other so he can evaluate them and eventually make them cooperate.
I would say Dazai's methods are very snakey, provocative, finding loopholes and different angles. He is a literal expert at unlocking doors and cuffs without keys and lifting things off people without them noticing. He wears a mask for every situation and person he is with with delight and enjoyment, loving to deceive and seduce people. His primary is either a fixating snake who is otherwise totally selfish or a system that fits me right now constructing bird. Or maybe he has layers of being burned and exploded with build models so deep and entangled, Freud wouldn't want to touch that mess with a 3 meters long stick. He leaves the mafia when Oda tells him to, but not to honour Oda but thinking he will find there what he is looking for. He protects Atsushi because he believes the kid is truly good person and if he is around him, he will be able to pretend or teach himself how to fit into the new good world he constructed himself and that he now decided to respect. He is thrown off by any genuine act of kindness and follows it like a guiding star he wants but isn't capable of reaching. It's like he has a bird primary who constructs his world around the person he finds morally right, fixates on them thinking they could make him happy, and then follows them around.
A bird snake. A scary villian turned fascinating protagonist.
Now Atsushi is a much simpler clear sorting. A kid with straightforward morals to do good, cause only that way can he make himself worthy of life. From being bullied by the headmaster of his orphanage, Atsushi has lots of self-hatred, is prone to paralysing self-pity circles and has little regard for himself. But his gut tells him to save the drowning man in the river even though he is exhausted from not eating in the opening episode, to risk terrible injuries and death to save people on the train, to save the little girl send to kill him because he can see how horrified and lost she is. While Atsushi is good at making friends, he cares more about the moral principle of the cause than the people themselves. He doesn't feel as attached to the agency as a badger might, his community or group don't define him and he doesn't fixate on one person like a snake. So a lion primary. He is also a lion secondary, since the kid can't plan worth a damn, and his go to solving method is to jump at things. His ability to turn into a tiger might add to that tendency, but he is def a cat ready to pounce at problems. He spends the entire first season getting almost killed, healed by his ability and then back up again to fight his much more experienced and capable opponents until he gets thrown around so many times he becomes a considerable attacking force by season 3. Learning by doing lol.
Aktogawa makes an interesting rival to Atsushi, because they have the same sorting. Aktogawa is a lion hungry for recognition and acknowledgement, but his moral system is diametrically different from the clear cut goody boy MC. He believes only the storng should survive while the weak should die and that's how he treats everyone and everything he encounters. He kills people for the simple reason he has the power to do so and they don't, only respecting those that can survive and fight back. Dazai was the first person Aktogawa respected and Dazai taught him quite brutally by psychologically bullying and abusing him to get him to power up, which left the kid with a horrible inferiority complex and set up his hate for Dazai's new student Atsushi. The two lions with opposite convictions are fascinating to watch, because they despise each other, but they also recognize their similarities - their lion need to prove themselves and be recognized as worthy.
Another interesting character to mention is Chuuya who embodies badger primary. He is defined by the group he belongs to. Every move and thought is spend to protect and improve the group he's is currently part of, be it the Sheep gang in his teens or the Port mafia now. His dedication to the organisation, his loyalty to the boss, his care and worry for his men scream badger primary. People outside his group aren't important, so he doesn't have problems killing for the mafia as long as his people profit. He doesn't have to know all of his people - you belong to the mafia, you are his subordinate, you are his. His impulsive reckless and emotions ways are very lion though. Another guy that can't plan or calculate and just throws himself at things exactly as he feels. He passionately hates Dazai despite they year long partnership and closeness from knowing each other so well, because he can't stand his deceitful snake ways nor his calculating non-alignment. He is one of the few people who realize how dangerous Dazai is and he is partly scared and partly hateful. Dazai always wins over him, despite Chuuya's ability and martial arts training giving him a power edge.
I always seem to figure out the series and the characters better when I write these. Toilet bound Hanako kun really makes for great display of different secondaries.
Hanako is such a screaming snake secondary I haven't seen in a while. He is always smiling like he is on to some big crazy joke no one is getting. The way he loves to tease people with harmless but pointed jokes and insults. The way he shifts to fit the person he talks to, going from serious leader roles with the other wonders to friendly carefree ones with people, to warm and moving ones in emotional moments. A trickster by heart, but in the best way. The way he can laugh in face of danger or crack a joke like it's nothing, act so cheerfully in critical situations calms people down and makes him incredibly reliable. He doesn't come off as powerful and dangerous as he is, which also makes people underestimate him, but it's also because he wants them to relax and be comfortable. Because that's the way he wants to win their trust and that's seriosuly sweet.
Yet he also killed his twin brother Tsukasa, while being his abuse victim. A confident leader wanting to repent. A boy hiding deep sadness, who gave up all his dreams and killed himself, only to get stuck at his school grounds with his abuser as his main rival. Not getting rest even in death and with responsibilities sometimes so heavy, he thinks he can do the best out of, if he doesn't burden others with them. Shouldering things alone behind a giant smile and cocky eyes, easy jokes and playful shenanigans. I'm not sure what this says about his primary. He is fair to people and a benevolent wish-granter, but he also gets terribly attached to people, especially Nene in a snake like way. He loves to touch her, invade her personal space, tease her, protect her, spite her to get attention. She quickly becomes the centre of his world, what reminds him of being human, the first reason we see him get serious for.
At the same time he strikes me like a burned snake primary. Hanako protected his younger brother despite the abuse he was getting from him by keeping the causes of his injuries a secret. He gave up on his dreams and future because he felt like he couldn't get anywhere with his brother nor leave him. He killed him, only to hate himself for it and spend his afterlife repenting, crying and breaking down every time he meets his victim as a ghost from the guilt. With a friendless background, he goes out of his way to help people and keep a balance between the supernatural and the living, while vigorously defending the ghosts for needing to scare people to get the attention they need to survive. The apparitions can't live without rumours and people believing in them and so Hanako defends and allows them missteps to give them that chance. The apparitions are "his" people, his kind, so he is at their side. But he also fixates on Nene, his first real friend and her well-being, while allowing her to make the best choices for herself and not one's most comfortable for him. While he likes keeping people at a distance with his cheerful facade, he is incredibly moved to have them care about him, pouty when he gets ignored, embarrassed when he reveals something more personal and distressed when Nene wants to know more about him. Very difficult character to sort, especially since I only watched the 12 episodes of the anime adaption and not even the manga revealed Hanako's full backstory nor his ending. But I would say a burned snake primary who went too far in his devotion that it destroyed him, slowly unburning as the story progresses and he finds new people to care for and makes real friends that genuinely care for him.
Nene is much easier to sort. A glory hound lion primary, she just wants to be popular and have the most handsome boy as a catch. She is in love with the idea of love, with good looks, with a cool reputation, with her own cuteness. She is also a lion secondary, barging in on people, acting on her emotions and impulses, saying what she is thinking without concern, no sense for planning whatsoever. Her honestly, impulsiveness and open heart are her best, worst and most prominent qualities. A double lion is an unusual sorting for a girl, or at least I don't encounter it very often. It doesn't make her screaming, overbearing or eager to fight, she is just very straightforward with her desires and emotions and often gives in to her impulsivity.
Her instincts are right too. Nene doesn't know the first thing about Mitsuba, but feels from his behaviour he isn't a bad person and makes a friend out of him. She writes Kou off as not nearly as handsome and interesting as his brother, but she is still kind and worried about him. She complains about being Hanako's assistant, but she enjoys her role in helping other wonders and apparitions, spreading the right rumors around the school to help the living and the dead alike. Remarkable is also her ability to befriend almost everybody in the story - not in the hardworking connector badger way but in a spontaneous natural way. When she has a dilemma about leaving Hanako for the mermaid princess's offer, she goes to every apparition she met during the story and they treat her as a friend, giving her advice. People flock to Nene like they flock to lions, being my point.
Now Kou Minamoto is a loud lion secondary like Nene in a typical boy's way - he throws himself into fights, charges, confronts, challenges. He is reckless and quick to act without thinking. But his driving force is the most obvious out of the cast - he is a badger primary. His mission and legacy as an exorcist is really about protecting as many people as he can. He has the typical badger arc of realizing ghosts were people too and have feelings, wishes and regrets. At first he wants to destroy Hanako when they meet, only to slowly realize he actually does much more good than harm as the leader of the Seven Wonders. That's how he starts to observe, stands up to his older brother for their limiting views on who is worth saving and starts helping ghosts in order to set them free instead of fighting to destroy them violently. He is such a good-hearted kid under the brush attitude of a wild lion, he is easily the most selfless out of the trio.
Kou's badger heart also nicely complements the group. Hanako cares about his chosen people. Those are other Wonders and ghosts, and then the two friends he finds in Nene and Kou. He is willing to stand up for them even against Tsukasa, someone he couldn't stand up against for himself even in life. And maybe that's also why he is partially so paralyzed and breaks down when he sees him - cause Tsukasa as his twin brother was his snake person too and it was him who made him burn - but Hanako blames only himself.
Nene brings in the self-interest and thrust for acknowledgement and fame that the caring self-deprecating Hanako and the people motivated and kind Kou lack, while giving it her own girly spin of finding love and getting a popular older boy as a trophy. And Kou just does the most noble thing, wanting to protect and care for others with a dedicated but healthy badger core.
Check out @sortinghatchats and @wisteria-lodge for explanation of the system. Spoilers ahead.
I get the impression Bold Type is a very lion centric show. Its characters are constantly looking for causes, for ways to make the world a better place, to find agendas and make a point through whatever means at their disposal.
Kat seems like the easiest to sort. She is bold, unapologetic, she runs against the door and any obstacle with a lion determination, and has to be alerted to her methods being inconsiderate or even painful for others. When she thinks something is right, she is going to speak up and rage against it, no matter the personal cost to herself. She gets fired from her beloved job because she wants to make a superior pay for supporting hate groups. She goes on a rampage promoting man nipples when Instagram forbids her from making pictures of women breasts. Becoming an activist in the later seasons also reflects this. A lion primary with a cause and with lion secondary ways in how she treats problems, barges through people, and responds to her emotions. Kat can't help but say exactly what she means and feels. Rather telling Adena she is attracted to other girls than keeping it secret to spare her feelings, telling Sutton exactly what she thinks about her safe high paying job that's boring as heck, beating a guy up who insults Adena during their date. A screaming improvising lion to boot. Though she does adopt some snake ways along the way, getting creative and using different angles to get out of tricky situation, like when she finds a way to fulfill her contract to Whole Spa by promoting their products on instagram while calling them out on being racist in the same video.
Jane is a bit harder to sort, since it's her methods that are the most obvious about her character. Jane makes lists of pros and cons. She makes meticulous research for her reporter job and she loves it. Relying on facts, checking over that everything fits, observing situations. Writing for her is a assemble of tools, ways to approach a topic right. She is a clear bird secondary. While all three girls are characteristics for putting their friendship above all else - from romantic interests to jobs - Jane is as much as an cause fighter as Kat. She looks for stories to help people, especially women. She writes her Failing Feminist vertical to help vulnerable women, to tell their stories, to bring down abusive bosses, to raise awareness. Obsessing over politics and higher meanings for her articles from the early season 1, when she starts to get comfortable and confident enough in her position and talent as a writer, she enjoys taking on the challenge of difficult topics. It fires her up. Loyalty and appreciation to Jacqueline, she sees as a mother figure nor to the magazine Scarlet itself that rised her up, stop her from going after more lucrative job for herself in Incite, not realizing how important team and work environment are. When she gets invested in a story, she won't let go just cause it's uncomfortable for her sources or even to people she loves, like Jacqueline. Her relationship with Ryan is based on attraction and similarities as writers, and she doesn't mind starting with sex only, but she breaks up with him the first time, because him hooking up with others girls (which was their mutual deal) doesn't match what she wants from a relationship, wanting loyalty and love for herself. They break up again in season 4, not because Ryan cheated on her, but because he couldn't fess up, when honesty and telling hard truths is Jane's motto and credo in life and she wants a person that values it the same. A lion bird from what I can see.
Sutton might be the hardest to sort. She doesn't have a cause to follow per se, she follows her dream job in fashion, which however counts for lions. It's a hard bumpy journey to decide to pursue it though, working her ass off to keep it and be promoted, to do what she does and loves best and then to find her way in it. Sutton almost doesn't let herself think about it, needing money, trying to be practical. But she is so sad about it. She stifles her own feelings and desires in order to survive in the society she can't rely on because of her drunk mom and hard childhood. When she does come into herself at the beginning of the first season, she thrives. She glows, sparkles, finds her confidence. While being plagued by insecurities if she is enough the whole series, she truly and beautifully shines when doing what she loves in fashion, when she goes after her goals. Sutton is independent, and breaks up with the love of her life, Richard, several times because he poses a risk to her career and reputation. She won't let him pay for her and help her just cause he is 15 years older wealthy suitor, which gets on his nerves. And she chooses to be always honest about her feelings no matter how uncomfortable they are to hear to him, like when she tells him she won't move with him to San Francisco, because of her promotion and she doesn't want kids, because she loves her life dedicated to her job as it is. Sutton isn't people driven, so neither snake or badger, so her cause could be considered her dream and love for fashion, a lion primary. But her secondary looks like a badger to me. Sutton is a charming. She can befriend anyone, put models at ease, call out bad behaviour with diplomatic nuance. To get Oliver's trust she works harder than anyone, looking for ways to help and please. Integrity and showing up are her get go ways to approach problems and challneges.
The lion primary all three share would explain how they get along so well. As mentioned before, no matter their causes or dreams, these friends put everything on the line for each other. They understand and support each other, because they just get where each is coming from, they are proud at each other's fights for the purpose, for improvement, and they call each other out on judgemental or emotional choices. Their bond even shows how strong friendships can be for lions - just cause they aren't loyalists doesn't mean they can't be dedicated and loving to each other, while going after their own things. It reminds me of what @nectargrapes said about lion love yesterday in her posts.
That's my reading, feel free to suggest or discuss any improvements to the sortings if I'm reading them wrong.
I have been obsessing over this movie, which for me also means trying to find out what about it worked so well to have such an effect on me. I like to turn to @sortinghatchats and @wisteria-lodge explanation of it to do this. It's actually quite hard to sort movie characters thougg? I feel like I need more data, more backstory, more situations to correctly and confidently sort them. But let's give it a try with the evidence I have.
The movie is about two gangsters that deal with the mafia, who are unbeknownst to each other undercover agents for the DEA and the navy respectively. They get into trouble with corrupt CIA and their bosses and have to rely on each other to survive.
I love Michael "Stig" Stigman's character. He has an easy screaming lion secondary that I always enjoy on screen - he makes things happen. He charges, attacks, earnestly acts on his feelings and moral code and it's charismatic and making people follow and like him. Stig doesn't plan, he does the most straighforward daring thing, cause "no one expected it" to be so simple. How are we going to attack the navy base he is home at? Let's just barge in with the car and run. Do we steal the car with our skills with cables? Nah, let's just break the window. Whom should I approach from the navy, who is the most likely to help me with corrupt supperior and how do I frame it? Nah, I will just tell the highest ranking officer everything as it is and hope he sides with me. Stig just beautifully embodies how I understand lion secondaries - this genuine feel about them that they act as they feel and what they feel is very relatable.
It's quite funny though that this screaming lion secondary chose to be part of disciplined navy soldiers, respecs his authorities and then manages to be such good undercover agent with gangsters of all people. How did he manage to play a criminal, when he can't stand injustice in his presence without immediately doing something about it?
The answer seems to be because he is still true to himself. Stig's behaviour doesn't fundamentally change just cause his cover is on or when it’s broken. He is still as foul-mouthed, rude, provocative as he was with the gangsters. At the reveal he mentions to Bobby, that he isn't a likeable person and I think he is right about that. Stig, in his natural state, is good and kind guy, but he isn't the nicest one. And he knows it and uses it to fit in with the gangsters and mafia he spies on, and he feels comfortable there. He doesn't have to play nicer and more polite than he is, challenging people, calling them out on things he dislikes, picking up random fights, flirting with every girl and using creative insults just like he likes it. (Also goes with Wahlberg’s tendency to play rude and unfriendly cops.)
That's why Bobby keeps him from official deal meetings, since Stig doesn't know the word diplomacy at the best of times, doesn't know how to hold back and how good his chances are is his last concern.
Stig opted to be a soldier, a hero, with manners of a gangster and he fits right in with them, not minding the violence or occasional bank robbing or putting things on fire as long as he feels it's right to do them. And he still manages to be charming while doing so just by going around, with people reacting to the realness of his actions even if he is unpleasant and too much sometimes.
His primary is harder. While I can say it's definitly not a bird, since he doesn't orient himself on external information or have systematic adjustments, I'm quite torn about the other three.
I thought at first he was a lion primary for that clear morality he promotes the whole story. He looks like he cares about being the hero, about animals not suffering needlessly, about not hurting people. He joins the navy and does a really risky unpleasant undercover job for them. Stig wants to be dedicated to a cause. But when he has to choose between the good of the mission and a partner in crime, he risks everything not to kill Bobby, the mission and good causes be damned. He can't help himself - even before he finds out Bobby is a cop, he doesn't want to kill him, cause they are already friends.
So it seems it's not the mission itself he cares about like an idealist would and it's not really about the navy as an institution or group or place he belongs to like for a badger - otherwise he would have felt more uncomfortable being separated from them, and he would have been more traumatized or even burned, when they betrayed him.
No, he believes in the people there being his family, and he mentions it so many times it’s something he obviously cares about having. When his boss betrays him and his colleagues try to kill him, he doesn't have a crisis about his ideals and what he devoted himself to like a lion primary would have, he doesn't readjust his worldview like a bird. I was considering badger, since he cares about such a big community of people, but for calling them his family, he still recovers from it way too quickly and my suspicion is it’s because he didn’t have specific people there to care about.
While Bobby decides quite cold-heartedly to get rid of Stig once the robbery is over, cause he is just another thug, Stig is torn about it. It's they key moment, where we see him in a loyalty conflict - his brothers in the navy or his shady partner? And he chooses that one shady partner over a large group of people that should be his. Stig proclaims from the start he would go avenge him if something happened to Bobby. He is the one who suggests their cooperation after the reveal and totally lights up when Bobby agrees, so genuinely happy they will be working together again.
And that's the biggest reason why I think he is a snake. Because when the navy betrays him, instead of a moral crisis, he just clings to the one person he bonded with. Bobby became his new person, his family and brother and it's totally enough for him. He can be framed for crimes, hunted down by his own, thrown under the bus by the admiral and government he served - as long as there is one guy next to him he can still fight for, he is okay. He can keep going, be a hero and devote himself to selfless causes. It reminds me of the way snakes can build other morality systems or use models on top of their primary, when their circle of people is secured.
It's also the fact Stig makes everything personal. Bobby has to hold him back when he finds out about their informant's death, although he was one of the gangsters. He doesn't go after Papi and his mafia mob at the end to complete the mission or to clear his name, he goes after them for vengeance for Bobby's girl and what they did to him. That's why I see him as a snake primary - his loyalty lies not with the ideal, not with the group, not with the innocent, but with the specific person he bonds with.
Robert "Bobby" Trench is a smooth-talker. He is the guy for everything, who can get things done, who has the connections. At the same time he is coldly rational, ready to throw away Stig when he thought he was a criminal. He is a great liar with guts, pretending to be a drug dealer while being a cop right in front of a bloodthirsty mafia boss and can lie just as convincingly to his own police superior to make him prolong the mission. He doesn't get attached to people, he is actually quite against Stig's code of helping the guy next to you. But he gets swept away in it, following Stig at the end and accepting that bond.
His scenes with the Deb are confusing, but also play on his cold-heartedness. “I wish I could love you” he tells her. They have a long lasting non-relationship based on attraction, camaraderie and respect, but Bobby never gets attached, never can make himself love her although he would like to.
Bobby seems to live for being a cop. He doesn't have friends or a family, he gives himself over complelty to his job, which looked to me at first like goal oriented idealist primary. It's Bobby who is concerned with clearing his name, who complains more about being framed for his boss's death than the guy dying. He is also rather prideful, not being able to get over Stig beating him to the reveal and betrayal and shoots him at the end to even the score.
But wehn you get closer, I think there is actually some serious burning involved with Bobby. He isn't comfortable or happy when we meet him. He doesn't believe in people or ideals, he can't care or admit he does even when he wants to and he agonies over having no plans. It’s through Stig's influence he end up thawing. He actually bonds and starts to trust another person, because he has to rely on Stig to survive and he starts to admire him. Stig's earnest loud charging lion secondary just grows on him so much that at the end he follows him into a trap to help, agrees to be his brother and gets even with him for boosting, shooting him (and then carrying him home) and copiying Stig's tactics of not planning and just throwing himself into action. And he seems much more happy and at peace at the end, like a snake primary unburning and finding his person.
I'm suspecting a snake secondary for Bobby because of how he enjoys his disguises. He can play a gangster or a cop or a resisting criminal or a navy officer walking by. Costumes are what his first instinct leads him to. Although he tries to plan, he doesn't actually seem such a natural at it like when he just improvises and he loves Stig's improvisational secondary cause it speaks to his own. But he isn't the same with charging, he likes to approach each situation from it's own angle.
The sneaky Bobby who can be diplomatic or scary or angry as needed. But his natural state is just so...laid-back. A Bobby that is not playing anyone or having a goal in mind just chills and enjoys the moment. He doesn't have a driving force behind him. This neutral state would hint for me at a snake primary too. Maybe Bobby was a burned snake, only caring about himself and being ridiculously cold to others. He was a snake not being able to love and to care, proof of why he couldn't have a normal relationship with Dep. We don't know why this happened, but Bobby isn't as bothered by being framed and thrown out the police as he pretended to be at first. He isn't a slave to ideals, institutions or missions. He will do what is right and he has compassion for others (how he comforts the crying baby while they they are robbing the bank), but in the end having Stig and robbing FBI banks while having a few millions stashed away looked like the ideal Bobby at peace.
In summary, Stig is a snake primary who builds individual loyalties with a heroic lion performance and with a charging inspirational lion secondary that always acts as he feels. Bobby is a burned snake primary who at the start can't make himself trust and open up to people, but who is dragged along the ride with Stig and unburns, while also embracing his improvisational costume and tricks loving snake secondary instead of those stressful plans that never worked out anyway.
