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    Default Some Literary Socionics

    Some Literary Socionics, or Socionical Literary Criticism

    Alright, I'm an English major and a major nerd, so here goes some literary socionics. Thoughts, comments, questions, and disagreements are greatly appreciated.

    The Iliad: Homeric society is painfully gamma. The value of Se is blatantly evident in the exaltation of fighting. The value of Ni is blatantly obvious in the heavy emphasis given to prophecy, foretelling, interpreting the will of the gods, etc. The value of Fi is expressed in the emphasis on codes, especially the guest-host relationship code; the whole Trojan War basically occurs because Paris was really, really, really impolite. Honor also seems a very Fi concept, as it is unchanging and Fi is a static function. The value of Te is expressed in the emphasis on being "best in counsel" and basically picking the most efficient course of action. Hector is the exemplary ESFp. Paris, Helen, and most of all Achilles all represent challenges to a Gamma system from other quadras. Helen is probably beta, demonstrated in her obsession with Fe (Aphrodite is a very Fe goddess, and speaks in the most emotionally vivid language of all the gods, and Helen is basically Aphrodite's scion). Paris' focus on his appearance (Helen is just beautiful and reliant on her beauty, but is not shown tending to her beauty in the same way that Paris is) implies Si, and he displays an utter lack of Fi, so he is likely an ESFj or ISFp. Achilles clearly demonstrates superid Fe (to an outrageous degree, and also exposes Agamemnon's lack thereof, as a probable LIE or some such), and as such is either ESTp or ISTj, as he is certainly not LII or ILE.

    Hamlet: Hamlet has no type. Typing Hamlet as EIE certainly makes the important point of Hamlet's essential fluidity, but who is smart enough to find fault with Hamlet's Ti or even Se if the moment is necessary? He certainly seems Te-less though, as not a single one of his means or methods has anything approaching efficiency. Nevertheless, he is typeless or type-transcendent. Shakespeare himself is typeless, as he has both the IEE's Ne wideness of imagination/possibilities and the IEI's Ni depth of imagination/realities.

    Pride and Prejudice: I don't get what kind of duality Lizzy and Darcy are supposed to be. LII (Darcy) and ESE (Lizzy)? Or ILI (Darcy) and SEE (Lizzy)? OR ESI (Darcy) and LIE (Lizzy)? I don't get it, but gamma irrational seems most likely, as the entire book does nothing but attack the silly Alpha ways of Mrs. Bennet and the younger siblings.

    Walt Whitman: Walt Whitman the man was an IEI, as is the "Real Me" of Song of Myself. He describes the IEI experience brilliantly:
    Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
    Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
    Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
    Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
    Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
    He created an SLE persona in "Walt Whitman, one of the Roughs" who is manly, vital, physical, strong, the "trainer of athletes". Or maybe it's SEE and Walt's ILI? Who knows. (I say this because of the Rough Walt's power of identifying utterly with others, but this may be a type-transcendent quality)

    There's a wonderful literary critic named Harold Bloom who is very beta and opposes delta political correctness with an iron pen. He says "the only method is the self" which is a very beta quote, in my opinion.

    I can't think of any more at the moment, but I will eventually, and maybe post that too.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Jane Austen stories are Alpha more than anything, I've heard LII as a typing, which is very likely.
    Darcy and Elizabeth were a pretty good example of LII+ESE duality

    I'm not too aware of the others to have an opinion on them, though Hamlet is used as a representation of EIE in the Russian Socionic's community
    EII INFj
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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Some Literary Socionics, or Socionical Literary Criticism

    Alright, I'm an English major and a major nerd, so here goes some literary socionics. Thoughts, comments, questions, and disagreements are greatly appreciated.

    The Iliad: Homeric society is painfully gamma. The value of Se is blatantly evident in the exaltation of fighting. The value of Ni is blatantly obvious in the heavy emphasis given to prophecy, foretelling, interpreting the will of the gods, etc. The value of Fi is expressed in the emphasis on codes, especially the guest-host relationship code; the whole Trojan War basically occurs because Paris was really, really, really impolite. Honor also seems a very Fi concept, as it is unchanging and Fi is a static function. The value of Te is expressed in the emphasis on being "best in counsel" and basically picking the most efficient course of action. Hector is the exemplary ESFp. Paris, Helen, and most of all Achilles all represent challenges to a Gamma system from other quadras. Helen is probably beta, demonstrated in her obsession with Fe (Aphrodite is a very Fe goddess, and speaks in the most emotionally vivid language of all the gods, and Helen is basically Aphrodite's scion). Paris' focus on his appearance (Helen is just beautiful and reliant on her beauty, but is not shown tending to her beauty in the same way that Paris is) implies Si, and he displays an utter lack of Fi, so he is likely an ESFj or ISFp. Achilles clearly demonstrates superid Fe (to an outrageous degree, and also exposes Agamemnon's lack thereof, as a probable LIE or some such), and as such is either ESTp or ISTj, as he is certainly not LII or ILE.

    Hamlet: Hamlet has no type. Typing Hamlet as EIE certainly makes the important point of Hamlet's essential fluidity, but who is smart enough to find fault with Hamlet's Ti or even Se if the moment is necessary? He certainly seems Te-less though, as not a single one of his means or methods has anything approaching efficiency. Nevertheless, he is typeless or type-transcendent. Shakespeare himself is typeless, as he has both the IEE's Ne wideness of imagination/possibilities and the IEI's Ni depth of imagination/realities.

    Pride and Prejudice: I don't get what kind of duality Lizzy and Darcy are supposed to be. LII (Darcy) and ESE (Lizzy)? Or ILI (Darcy) and SEE (Lizzy)? OR ESI (Darcy) and LIE (Lizzy)? I don't get it, but gamma irrational seems most likely, as the entire book does nothing but attack the silly Alpha ways of Mrs. Bennet and the younger siblings.

    Walt Whitman: Walt Whitman the man was an IEI, as is the "Real Me" of Song of Myself. He describes the IEI experience brilliantly:


    He created an SLE persona in "Walt Whitman, one of the Roughs" who is manly, vital, physical, strong, the "trainer of athletes". Or maybe it's SEE and Walt's ILI? Who knows. (I say this because of the Rough Walt's power of identifying utterly with others, but this may be a type-transcendent quality)

    There's a wonderful literary critic named Harold Bloom who is very beta and opposes delta political correctness with an iron pen. He says "the only method is the self" which is a very beta quote, in my opinion.

    I can't think of any more at the moment, but I will eventually, and maybe post that too.
    Interesting analyses. Look forward to seeing more.
    EII

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    I'm still not sure about Pride and Prejudice and Alpha. The book spends too much time upholding Fi and noting Mrs. Bennet and the stupid sisters' utter inability to follow the Fi social customs.

    The Victorian age was horribly delta. All about teh Fi and Si. The only tolerable part is the Ne.

    More and more I think Achilles and Patroklos are SLE-IEI duals, or at the very least LSI-EIE. I mean, Achilles practically begs for Fe: big, demonstrative shows of the affection the Greeks (Achaians) ought to have for him as a result of his Se status as the strongest and best. He clearly needs Ni and responds well to it: he builds his entire life around a prophecy his mother gives to him about short life = glory vs. long life = no glory, and he heeds Athena's advice about not killing Agamemnon, which I believe contains some bit about what "will" happen, which is very Ni. The reason I vote IEI over EIE for Patroklos is because Nestor stresses Patroklos' role as adviser to Achilles, who is nevertheless far the stronger. And yet Patroklos is a necessary adviser, and is one of the few, if not the only, person who could walk up to Achilles and tell him to his face that he was being wrong and stupid. Isn't that the IEI's place in the SLE's life? Furthermore, Patroklos is that guy that just has that internal quality that makes you love him: he's a really nice, innocent person. And in a really fundamental way, IEIs can be very innocent (in a deep spiritual way, not in a stupid Fi "hasn't broken certain rules" way). That's why the horses weep when he dies. I can definitely see Patroklos with superid Se; he's okay at it in Achilles' presence, or under Achilles' influence, but he doesn't really possess it to the degree that others do.

    Also, I'm more and more sure about LIE for Agamemnon. I'd definitely believe he has Fe in his superego block.

    Greek philosophy is riddled with Ni: Plato's rational intuition of the forms is nothing but Ni (abstractions have more reality than appearances) Parmenides' assertion that the world of change doesn't actually exist is actually very Ni: when you understand how much change occurs, you realize how unreal change is in comparison to the pattern of the change. Heraclitus' "you can never step into the same river twice" also seems potentially Ni, but I could be very very wrong about that.

    Aristotle, on the other hand, is Ne where Plato is Ni. Aristotle is more Ne + Ti: he's highly irritated by Plato's "poetical metaphors" (whereas all Ni-egos know that poetical metaphors are the only way to get any real truth across. jk), even though he's able to learn from them (Ni id). He builds a lot of his theory around the potentials of a thing (he goes so far as to define the soul as a matrix of potentials: the soul is the "first actuality" of a natural body), as well as kinds of causes (sufficient reason moreso than cause and effect; Ti is really more about the principle of sufficient reason than cause and effect, which can be pretty reductive). I would therefore guess Aristotle, on the basis of his writing, to be possibly LII, and Plato to be probably ILI.

    Thomas Hardy (so freaking depressing FYI) is a very pessimistic LSI perhaps. His poetry quests for both an overarching meaning (even if it is a cruel god as in "Hap") and for emotional beauty ("The Darkling Thrush"), both of which are denied to him. He may have married his conflictor (IEE) after confusing her for a dual, on the basis of their first happy and then really bitter marriage. But I don't know how LSI it is to not expect anything out of life, as Hardy repeatedly argues that he does.

    Emily Dickinson appears to be a Ti ego, and was clearly an introvert based on her life.

    The literary critic Harold Bloom is an IEI-Ni. His obsession with the "agon" (greek for contest) between poets for the foremost place (Se) is painfully Se-seeking, albeit sublimated Se-seeking. His obsessive (but not necessarily internally consistent or neat) systematizing is evidence of Ti HA. He also spends his entire life fighting against delta-ish concerns; that is, he fights against Fi interpretations of literature on cultural grounds, and defends Ni to the death as the right method of understanding literature.

    As a sidenote, I have a literature professor who is maybe, maybe an EIE but almost certainly an IEE. Very Ne he seems to me.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Default Herodotus, some Shakespeare

    Herodotus is a Gamma NF. Probably LIE. I read something recently that Ryu wrote about Gamma Te taking in facts and then directing them towards an end, which is very much what Herodotus does. The end is very obviously Te-based, though, because it's all about surviving in the world (Te and Se valuing), but not to get achieve a beta-ish goal of amazingness; rather, he's aiming at a more delta-ish (to my mind) getting along in the world sort of thing, which I think is influenced by his valued Fi. Also, I can feel him supervising me from three thousand years ago. jk.

    I'm gradually building a theory that the SLE-IEI duality thing as described by socioncs may have some theoretical relationship to the Achilles-Patroklos pattern, which is the idea of the best having a friend who is the second best. Almost as strong but not quite. Reminds me very much of the Victim-Aggressor romance style, or at least how I (re-)interpret it. It's present in Gilgamesh and Enkidu as well. And notice how absolutely batshit crazy Gilgamesh goes when Enkidu dies. I'm going to look for further examples of this.

    I sometimes think of Othello and Iago as an uber-dysfunctional activity relationship, with Othello as LSI and Iago as IEI, but that's just me projecting IEI onto people (I do this a lot).

    Nick Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream seems SEI to me. If you notice, he totally galvanizes the mechanicals, which seems Fe to me. Notice also how he is focused on his comfort when he requests things from the fairies. Also, he seems to have something of the mystical side of Si that I'm interested in learning about, while simultaneously being remarkably inoffensive. It's easy to type Lysander as beta (EIE?), Demetrius as delta (seems really LSE to me), Hermia as alpha (ESE?), and Helena as a dysfunctional EII, but I don't know that these are correct.

    Benedick and Beatrice seem like gamma irrational duals. I say Benedick is SEE and Beatrice is ILI. I don't really have any support for that conjecture.

    In Tale of Two Cities, one could consider Madame Defarge to be an evil ESI to the extreme. She can't be beta, because she is obviously Fi and not Fe valuing. She seems pretty plainly Se-valuing, not from the fact that she establishes control over people, but from the sort of glee and naturalness of how she does it. I don't think Lucie Manet has a type, because she hardly resembles a person in all her perfectness, but she feels EII. Definitely Fi-ego and Si-valuing (although who wasn't Si valuing; it's the victorian era!).

    Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, deltas aren't boring, just safe. Betas aren't bad, just dangerous. Delta is more about mitigating risk or minimizing the bad. Beta is more about taking a risk to maximize the good. (By "maximize," I don't mean "optimize," which is a more delta concept. That seems to me to be another distinction between Te and Se along the lines of Se = effective, Te = efficient).

    I think there was a thread when I talked about this before, but now I'm pretty sure that in Antony and Cleopatra, Antony is an SLE and Cleopatra is the archetypal EIE (although I think I might have argued before that she is an IEI). This would make them an activity pair, although it would seem from the pattern of their behavior that they ought to be semi-duals. But I don't think they are.

    I think Emerson is probably an ILI, although he might be an IEI. He seems very much an Ni-ego, although perhaps I'm confusing Ni-ego/valuing with capacity and love for mysticism.

    Also, more on Harold Bloom (my favorite literary critic): "History means to him history of the arts." this quote from definitive socionics' IEI description seems a very literal description of much of Professor Bloom's thought, and also seems to be another way of saying Emerson's "there is no history but biography."
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    i like what you have to say. please keep posting these things

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    Thanks. As I think/read more, I will do so.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Harold Bloom on the difference between beta and not-beta (In this case, Si-leading) poetry:

    "[Wordsworth]'s theme is the tempting of imagination by nature, an educational process that leads to renovation, and a balanced power of imagining that neither yields to a universe of decay, or seeks (as Blake did) to burn through that universe."

    Blake was definitely IEI. If you read/have read him, don't be put off by his crazy structures and systems; that's perhaps one of the clearest examples we have of Ti HA seriously at work. (Note that the IEI's Ti is completely distinct from what we might call "true" Ti, since Blake's system has a crazy sort of logic, but one that is not truly systematic in the sense of cause-and-effect chains, or chains of sufficient reason). Also, Blake primarily constructed theoretical entities and manipulated them with great facility (a function of Ni).

    Wordsworth, on the other hand, was almost certainly SEI-Fe. His mythologizing was all about the difference between the nature he loved and the imaginative account or experience of it that he probably loved more. That is, his poetry was all about one of the inherent contradictions of Si as a focus on sense perception as opposed to the actual external objects of sense. If one focuses too much on the perception, one realizes that one has lost the external objects of sense. If one focuses too much on the external objects of sense, one has a Te account/realization of facts, which to me is very external and difficult to get into poetry (impossible to get into the radical subjectivism of Wordsworthian poetry). The only confusion I have about this classification of Wordsworth is that sometimes it was not so much nature as occurrences that made his poetry possible (one of the most famous examples is that darn leech-gatherer), something that I associate more with Ni, in a complicated way. I read this is two possible ways: 1) What Harold Bloom calls a "daemon," or creative spirit, can be interpreted in socionics terms as that which empowers the creative individual with unusual facility in a non-ego area (Whitman's paradoxical Se--I swear you can feel his physical presence in his poetry--Shakespeare's Si as in the Ophelia's death passage spoken by Queen Gertrude, etc.), creating a personality dislocation that can be felt as "daemonical" or somehow out-of-the-self. 2) The particular creative power that I connect to the "pattern-making" of the imagination is not connected necessarily to Ni, but only seems to be on the basis of my perception. The second option is the likelier, obviously.

    Modern Ne/Si poetry seems to me very delta with its focus on--BLECH--Te effectiveness and therefore hardness, compactness, and sparseness in language , along with a firm aversion to Beta Ni, possibly occasioned by 1) the fact that our conceptual models of the world sorta failed us around the time of WWI, and 2) the fact that a kind of certainty in abstract things that beta Ni provides perhaps related to some of the nationalism and facism that helped to enable WWII to happen. (Side note: it would be interesting to see if the poetry of the Soviet period and the time just after, i.e., now, shows a similar reaction against whatever quadra/IEs one can associate with communism/the Soviet regime). "No ideas but in things," is a fundamentally Si + Te declaration, and is a disgusting paradigm to work under. I still haven't read William Carlos Williams, but I'm 97% sure that he's Si-ego.

    Much of modernist poetry and the period shortly after is gamma and/or delta. Eliot was manifestly delta (which is why I think EII for him over LII, although the man could've used a swift emotional kick in the pants), Auden seems extremely gamma to me, Yeats was probably an SEI (I'm studying him now), Stevens, as I've said, is ILI, and Pound I'm not sure about, but I'm almost positive that he was NOT beta. (Actually, on reconsideration, I could be way off on Pound. Still pretty confident about the others).

    I like to think that Keats and his poetry are IEI/NiFe, but I'm willing to be wrong about this. The "Ode to Indolence" seems very IP temperament though.

    Wallace Stevens is a manifestly ILI poet, as is Helen Vendler as a critic. The only trouble I have with this typing is some of the more emotional moments in Stevens, as in "you look across the roofs as sigil and as ward/and mark them in your centre and are cowed." This doesn't exactly seem to be Fe polr, but then maybe great poetry is great poetry because it forces the individual to be proficient (in a sidelong way) in a function he is not normally proficient in. And the indirection with which he expresses powerful emotional content I suppose can be seen as an Fi thing; I guess Fe would tend to be bigger and splashier than that. Although, Fe is more, in my opinion, about effectively/accurately inducing the emotions you want to induce in others, rather than purely expressing excitement or whatever, which is part of the reason that so often SLEs... are not as successful as they could be in this area, because from the outside it looks like mustering excitement. Really, I think this is generally what you do with your superid functions: try to learn them from the outside in, as opposed to your ego functions, which you learn from the inside out, developmentally.

    I consider current acting teaching to be very gamma/delta, with it's obsessive focus on objectives and simplicity. I could be biased there though.

    I tend to think of poetry as connected to the IEI, ILI, and SEI types, although obviously many types besides this have written excellent poetry (T.S. Eliot was not any of these types; most likely he was EII or LII). Perhaps this is because the kind of contemplation poetry requires is often achieved more readily by people of the IP temperament, especially in these fast-pased days. There's probably plenty of SLI poetry too, but I probably just don't like it.

    It's interesting, and I firmly believe this, that the best poets and artists shed more light on socioncs than socionics sheds on them. I'm afraid Shakespeare might explode socionics, but then he explodes all systematizing of nature, because he IS, for all intents and purposes, nature, because he represents it perfectly, or at least as well as we've seen thus far.

    EDIT: Also, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I'm 99% sure that the primary behavior pattern manifested by Booth and Bones on the TV show Bones (which was much better before Zach left, btw) is that of SEE and ILI duality. Just fyi.
    Last edited by silverchris9; 10-14-2009 at 08:14 AM.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    I hesitate to type yet another "evil" character as Beta ST, but I'm having trouble not seeing Clytaemestra from the Oresteia as either SLE or LSI. Fe/Ni superid FOR SURE (as shown by her very deliberate attempt to recapitulate Agamemnon's choice at Aulis by her highly symbolic "walking on the red carpet" ritual. I like to call that scene "The Temptation of Agamemnon.") and obviously Se-ego: she glories in the exercise of her will ("Much have I said before to serve necessity/but now I take no shame to unsay it all..."). But perhaps I am typing her as SLE to explain my bizarre attachment to an evil literary character. Also... I could deal with Charles Dickens as Herodotus-style LIE and Madame Defarge as the nightmare-ideal aggressor ESI.

    I've noticed that Beta characters are often portrayed as evil. Maybe this is not so much due to a bias against betas but two other factors: 1) Many artists ARE beta, and as such understand beta characters better, and so when faced with the choice of what sort of personality to give a character, beta characters come to mind, and 2) Beta appears to be the extreme quadra; that is, there are lots of deltas who are middle-of-the-road good people, but betas tend to be either saints or devils (obviously most are not that extreme, but as a general trend, I imagine you find this kind of extremity more in beta than any other quadra). As C.S. Lewis said, it's much easier to portray a devil than a saint (because a devil is just us when we relax our barriers, but a saint possess virtue that we don't possess and so is harder to imagine), so beta artists portraying beta characters naturally tend towards evil betas. Interestingly enough, even though she shares obvious similarities with Clytaemestra, Iago, Lady Macbeth, etc., I don't think of Hedda Gabler as a beta ST, whether that's accurate or not.

    Also, Drucilla from The Unvanquished (if I haven't mentioned it before) could be another sort of nightmare vision of a beta ST female locked into societal expectations (Fi...) and so repressed, leading to an unhealthy level of built-up, overglorified Se. Side note: I wonder what repressed, built-up, overglorified Ni turns into? Probably Romantic poetry, in the purest sense (although Wordsworth was at least on some level SEI).

    Also, if it makes you feel any better, SLEs, we IEIs get the short shrift all the time too. They make us into evil manipulative assholes (I REALLY think Iago could be IEI..., I mean, his position relative to Othello is really a sort of "rejected Patroklos," and his knowledge of what people will do and ability to emotionally control them (Ni+Fe) is second to none), who are often even worse than the big bad killing machine SLEs.

    EDIT: After some thought, I'm suspecting Hedda Gabler might be one of those evil IEIs, and in fact, some of her disgust at her husband could be seen as a victim being *very* pissed off at her lack of an aggressor, and being saddled with an infantile instead. But this doesn't explain or account for the most striking element of her personality, which is her ridiculous sense of and obsession with the aesthetic ideal. Maybe it has to do with a corollary of the "suppressed Se" I posited when talking about Drucilla (I think that's her name) from the Unvanquished, some sort of "suppressed Ni" or "suppressed Fe". Just a thought.
    Last edited by silverchris9; 10-18-2009 at 08:47 AM.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Oedipus: Blatantly LSE. Ni-polr TO THE MAX. But also very Sherlock Holmes, I think. Which brings me to a very good/positive point about how I find much to admire in Oedipus' search for the truth, for the facts, for what is, despite all odds and dangers and pains, etc. I didn't know that LSEs could be that way. That's very positive. However, the Ni-polr is PAINFULLY obvious. The way he runs from prophecy (One of my hypotheses is that Ni and prophecy are intimately connected in myth), the way he has no idea what to do with these dim intuitions of "what is" (that is, that he killed his father and has been sleeping with his mother), or "what will happen" (that is, that he will kill his father and sleep with his mother), and so when he gets them he just runs... it's all almost shockingly well accounted for by the concept of introverted intuition as his point of least resistance. The ILI prophet Tiresias (just goes to show that logic wasn't always associated with science, science, science, empiricism, empiricism, empiricism) plainly supervises him as well. Jocasta could be delta, but doesn't seem like his dual by any means (but then again, I don't quite get EIIs or LSEs for that matter). You can totally see the Fi valuing too.

    Medea: The definitional EIE. Yet another evil beta (shock and awe--deltas get in trouble for being too good, but betas are just bad), but the queen of all EIEs. Superb (and uncontrollable) emotional force/power. Complete control and knowledge of others' motivations and ways of being, etc. She's awesome. But she also gets WAY carried away with her Fe (she's definitely "unhealthy" whatever that means) and she goes crazy with that Se HA. Hidden agenda functions are very interesting, btw.

    I know duality has a good rep around here, but I think the poets tend to like dualities-gone-bad, or at least good-intertype-relationships-gone-bad, probably because it's more interesting to watch something explode between two people at close psychological distance than far. I'm not totally convinced that Jason from Medea isn't a beta ST. But I suppose he could be some sort of NT... maybe.

    Also... any chance that Seifer from FFVIII is an SLE and Squall is an SLI? Just a thought.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Poor Oedi. You think he'd have a rule about not sleeping with any cougars, but alas!

    Also, I tend to think of Squall as an example of an LSI. I don't remember enough about Seifer to say much. SLE maybe sure. Rinoa was some sort of Fe dominant I think.

    Furthermore, I shall say, verily, that I kinda see your point on Wordsworth/Blake. Ever read any James Joyce? He always struck me as vaguely XEI. James Baldwin on the other hand was probably pretty hardcore IEI.
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    Quote Originally Posted by munenori2 View Post
    Poor Oedi. You think he'd have a rule about not sleeping with any cougars, but alas!
    No joke. Seems to be a pretty easy fix to me.
    Also, I tend to think of Squall as an example of an LSI. I don't remember enough about Seifer to say much. SLE maybe sure. Rinoa was some sort of Fe dominant I think.
    Good point. Rinoa probably was Fe dominant. So it would make more sense for Squall to be a Ti-ego. And LSI does fit. I say SLE for Seifer because I think sometimes SLEs can have a tendency to attach to whatever great cause comes their way, i.e., sorceress knight. Meh, changed my mind; I don't like that anymore. This still stands: also, 'cause he's kinda badass.

    Furthermore, I shall say, verily, that I kinda see your point on Wordsworth/Blake. Ever read any James Joyce? He always struck me as vaguely XEI. James Baldwin on the other hand was probably pretty hardcore IEI.
    Oooh, I haven't read Joyce yet. Actually, that's not true; I've read five pages of Portrait of the Artist. But I would believe XEI definitely. Actually, I read one speech from Stephen once, and I vaguely remember it feeling Ni-ish, so maybe IEI. But I've found that SEI and IEI can be very similar in certain ways, so that's definitely a possibility. I didn't know that James Baldwin was IEI! But that's awesome. I definitely agree based on that except that you posted. I did a monologue from one of his plays once that was really fun.

    Also, I've been thinking lately that maybe Hemmingway was SLE. I say this partially in jest, because my reasoning is that I really hated him based on his general characteristics (spareness and all that jazz), but then I grew to really like him due to his portrayal of the intense relationship of Catherine and Frederick in A Farewell to Arms, although oddly, Catherine seemed the Aggressor and Frederic the Victim in that book. I could be wrong though. Anyway, that whole you-and-me-against-the-world bit has always stuck with me, and reminds me very much of a theoretical beta-y conception of love, although I don't think it's by any means limited to being beta-y.


    EDIT:

    More evidence for Pound-as-delta, or at least gamma: "You broke the new wood/now is it time for carving." "You" in this case is Whitman, a manifest beta, doing things the beta way: breaking new wood, going out ahead, etc. "Carving" is manifestly Te: taking what's there and getting the most out of it. (It's the "taking what's there" part that offends me the most).
    Last edited by silverchris9; 10-23-2009 at 09:15 AM.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Hmmm... I believe that argument. Makes sense to me. Intricate structure would make for another instance of my theory about Ti-HA and IEI authors. Mythology and turning the mundane into epic, though, are things that I've seen in Yeats, and I think he's SEI rather than IEI. Of course, I could be off in that guess. I associate mythology with Si as well as Ni, although I'm not sure about making mundane things epic, as that does seem very beta.

    I'm not much of a VI-er, but I'd believe IEI based on that photograph. Anyway, always glad to add another genius to our ranks, regardless. I like the bit about flowing internal monologues too.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Stephen Daedalus's internal life is about the closest representation to the shit that goes on in my head as anything else I've ever read. Whatever that means!
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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Really, I think this is generally what you do with your superid functions: try to learn them from the outside in, as opposed to your ego functions, which you learn from the inside out, developmentally.
    This makes sense.

    .Hidden agenda functions are very interesting, btw.
    Yep, they are... I bet that character seems very convincingly Se, despite it supposedly being a "weak" function, right? This is why I don't like much the labels "strong" and "weak" when referring to IM elements. I prefer the dimensionality theory, although I don't fully understand it yet. The HA, especially in the producing subtypes, is used in an "on/off" manner, sort of "in bursts", and these bursts of HA tend to be pretty convincing (even potentially surpassing those who have said IM element as base). It could be because the HA is the only IM element you have which is related to your PoRL. If you have a feeling PoRL, you only have one feeling left, which is your HA, and so on. That makes it is especially important, and all the "resources" that would be distributed to the pair of feelings, or sensings, or whatever, are just allocated to the only one you have. The problem with engaging the HA too much is that it puts a lot of strain on the person, and it is kind of risky. It's like the typical "secret weapon" heroes have, that causes them to self-destruct.

    I know duality has a good rep around here, but I think the poets tend to like dualities-gone-bad
    Yep, The funny thing is that the "greatest enemies" come from your own quadra, which seems counter-intuitive. Many times duals, even. Duality sometimes manifests itself in strange ways.

    Also... any chance that Seifer from FFVIII is an SLE and Squall is an SLI? Just a thought.
    Makes sense. I had considered EII for squall too.


    Please keep this awesome stuff coming.
    Last edited by xkj220; 10-28-2009 at 04:28 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by octopuslove View Post
    I haven't really thought about Yeats' type. All that occult stuff doesn't seem very typical of SEI, but he's clearly fucking insane so who knows...
    Actually... I hadn't thought about that. I was going to bring his occultism under the possible anthropomorphizing possibilities of Si + Fe, but the gyres actually seem very Ni... I really hope Yeats isn't an IEI too; there's too many IEI poets already. Stevens at least I think I can get away with calling an ILI.

    Stephen Daedalus's internal life is about the closest representation to the shit that goes on in my head as anything else I've ever read. Whatever that means!
    Evidence! Now we just have to round up some more betas/IEIs and see if they feel the same way. I feel so scientific!


    Yep, they are... I bet that character seems very convincingly Se, despite it supposedly being a "weak" function, right? This is why I don't like much the labels "strong" and "weak" when referring to IM elements. I prefer the dimensionality theory, although I don't fully understand it yet. The HA, especially in the producing subtypes, is used in an "on/off" manner, sort of "in bursts", and these bursts of HA tend to be pretty convincing (even potentially surpassing those who have said IM element as base). It could be because the HA is the only IM element you have which is related to your PoRL. If you have a feeling PoRL, you only have one feeling left, which is your HA, and so on. That makes it is especially important, and all the "resources" that would be distributed to the pair of feelings, or sensings, or whatever, are just allocated to the only one you have. The problem with engaging the HA too much is that it puts a lot of strain on the person, and it is kind of risky. It's like the typical "secret weapon" heroes have, that causes them to self-destruct.
    Yes. I totally agree with this, especially the bolded bit. I see that all the time in characters. I think, though, if you're strong enough, you can make it work, like Blake. But I bet it was really hard. Also, I think this falls under the idea of superid as something that you would prefer that someone else do for you. Medea is awesome at Se, but it would be better if someone else would handle it for her, because they could do it without so much ego strain. But she's gotten use to providing all the Se for Jason, who may even be her conflictor. Certainly their first exchanging can be viewed as a logics versus ethics thing, but its a little bit unclear as to whether the logic/ethics are (respectively) introverted or extroverted to be honest.

    Yep, The funny thing is that the "greatest enemies" come from your own quadra, which seems counter-intuitive. Many times duals, even. Duality sometimes manifests itself in strange ways.
    Yeah, that's what I've been thinking. I think that a duality gone bad could be even worse than a conflicting relationship, more psychologically destructive and all that.
    Makes sense. I had considered EII for squall too.
    Huh. I could see that. He is very attached to certain ideals. But I probably haven't played the game in too long to really have a good theory of it.

    Also, I'm either wrong about Pound's type or wrong about some quadra stuff, because Pound definitely does not fit my conception of delta, after learning some biographical stuff about him in class today. Sounds awfully beta... I'm actually leaning towards LSI as a possibility, but who knows. That whole sparse language thing just feels so Te to me. But then, when I actually read Pound's poetry, it's not all that sparse, just non-Romantic. But Ni + Fe is supposed to be all Romantic-y! So I'm trying to use that as proof that he isn't IEI too.

    I was doing my best to type Thucydides' writing as delta (he claims to be all about the facts, which would immediately point one to Te, but...). I'm not so sure about that anymore though. Shrug.

    EDIT:

    Edited to say that I really like that dimensionality of functions thing. Seems to make sense to me.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Pride and Prejudice: I don't get what kind of duality Lizzy and Darcy are supposed to be. LII (Darcy) and ESE (Lizzy)? Or ILI (Darcy) and SEE (Lizzy)? OR ESI (Darcy) and LIE (Lizzy)? I don't get it, but gamma irrational seems most likely, as the entire book does nothing but attack the silly Alpha ways of Mrs. Bennet and the younger siblings.
    That's not Alpha behavior.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Logos View Post
    That's not Alpha behavior.
    Why don't you think so?

    Here's my argument: Elizabeth's criticism, to my eyes, comes from an almost exclusively Fi-valuing perspective (whether or not she is an ethical type, which is debatable). Mrs. Bennet's behavior is almost certainly associated with Fe. Furthermore, I think it's pretty clear that Kitty, Mary, Lydia, and (possibly) Mrs. Bennet are all either SFs or NTs. By dichotomies, Mary is manifestly INTx, Mrs. Bennet is probably ESFx, Lydia is ExFx, and Kitty is probably IxFx. So, since the girls have to either be gamma or alpha, I think the fact that Lizzy is constantly embarrassed by their failures at Fi,

    Now, a possible counter argument to this, I think, is the idea that alpha SFs ought to be good at Fi, just not really care about it that much. It does seem that Mrs. Bennet just doesn't notice her Fi-related obligations. Now, it could also be that I misunderstand Fi, or attribute certain behavioral things to Fi that are not Fi related. Another possibility is that Lizzy isn't an Fi valuer at all, but merely has expectations that appear to be related to Fi because the prevailing culture of the time was concerned with Fi, and Lizzy was smart enough (not type-related) to learn the customs, whereas Mrs. Bennet and the silly girls (and Collins for that matter) are not.

    I'd definitely like to hear more thought on the matter.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Why don't you think so?

    Here's my argument: Elizabeth's criticism, to my eyes, comes from an almost exclusively Fi-valuing perspective (whether or not she is an ethical type, which is debatable). Mrs. Bennet's behavior is almost certainly associated with Fe. Furthermore, I think it's pretty clear that Kitty, Mary, Lydia, and (possibly) Mrs. Bennet are all either SFs or NTs. By dichotomies, Mary is manifestly INTx, Mrs. Bennet is probably ESFx, Lydia is ExFx, and Kitty is probably IxFx. So, since the girls have to either be gamma or alpha, I think the fact that Lizzy is constantly embarrassed by their failures at Fi,

    Now, a possible counter argument to this, I think, is the idea that alpha SFs ought to be good at Fi, just not really care about it that much. It does seem that Mrs. Bennet just doesn't notice her Fi-related obligations. Now, it could also be that I misunderstand Fi, or attribute certain behavioral things to Fi that are not Fi related. Another possibility is that Lizzy isn't an Fi valuer at all, but merely has expectations that appear to be related to Fi because the prevailing culture of the time was concerned with Fi, and Lizzy was smart enough (not type-related) to learn the customs, whereas Mrs. Bennet and the silly girls (and Collins for that matter) are not.

    I'd definitely like to hear more thought on the matter.
    Mrs. Bennett is concerned about status and improving it for her and her daughters. But she is also willing to harm the health and well-being of her daughters to advance her goals (e.g. having Jane get caught in the rain). She and her more fickle daughters show admiration and attraction to military officers. She does not display caregiver behavior, or typical caregiver behavior in any case. These and the other power politics games that she plays seems to suggest that she is Se valuing. While it could be argued that her desire to improve the lots of her daughters was somehow Si-caregiving behavior, Si-caregiving is generally more presently-focused than future-focused, as is the case with Mrs. Bennett. She is emotionally manipulative, but to an end as opposed to becoming emotionally efficacious from her surroundings. I am inclined to think that she is an EIE, which matches more closely with my own numerous experiences with this type.
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    hah, I thought of Mrs. Bennett as ESE... but... that's a really important point... where on Earth is her Si. I guess I mainly just thought that her focus was on these overly domestic concerns... and there is a practical purpose to wanting her daughters married which is that it's absolutely essential in that society that they are (otherwise nothing but terrible fates will await them). I do think that Si or otherwise, it's possible for ESEs to do things like send Jane out in the rain so she'll get sick and have to stay longer giving Bingly more of an opportunity to magically decide to marry her. And it didn't work very well either because Mrs. Bennett and her horrible behavior was almost the downfall of either Jane or Elizabeth getting married to the rich suitors so in her ridiculousness she was really working against her own goals (and the unfortunate thing that happened with Lydia and Wickham really stemmed from Mrs. Bennett's approach as well as she encouraged Lydia to be that way from the beginning not seeing that it could blow up in her face). Anyway she's mainly a hysterical character and I don't think there are very many real people like her... And I guess that I don't see things like sending Jane out in the rain and being interested in the soldiers as being a definite "she must be Se valuing indicator" cause I actually think Fe/Ti valuing might be able to cover all of it or maybe those examples don't really suggest anything... I think that social hierarchy has more to do with Ti and she can't help it if her culture is full of this sort of thing (she reflects the culture more than anything else... which is why she's so over the top and satirical to show how ridiculous a lot of it is). I don't know why I don't see her as Beta. A scheming-Fe character that I do think of as EIE is Atia on the show Rome... it's because there's a dark edge to her and her scheming is really quite involved... Though I can't say Mrs. Bennett can't be EIE because she doesn't have any depth to her scheming, and she's not a very bright character as it is. It's just that the sort of scheming Fe character I see as more EIE is one who is a lot more controlled with their Fe and playing a long drawn out game with moving the social pieces here and there with a more diabolical or long-term strategy beneath it all... where as Mrs. Bennett seems to just grasp at really simple social maneuvers like convincing Mr. Bennett that the daughters need to go to Netherfield or "oh, yay the soldiers are in town!" etc. There's no long term careful playing of cards and she's far too obvious about what "cards" she is playing and seems to lack an awareness of what her actions are or aren't setting in motion. I guess mainly she's too simple to type in a lot of ways, so it's not really a fair comparison. But it is true that I don't know what about her would actually suggest strength in Si.
    Last edited by marooned; 10-29-2009 at 07:10 AM. Reason: bad typo

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    Hmm... I do agree with the "where's the Si" argument. EIE is a possibility. But I don't see definitive Se either. It's interesting how her comparative lack of intelligence/skill at the use of any function is making it difficult to type her. Can someone be too dumb to be typed? (kidding.)

    Also, I hadn't thought about how all of those social customs could be related to Ti rather than Fi (my bad understanding of Fi at play). That could open up many more analytical possibilities.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    lol

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    lol indeed.

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    .

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    that video was brilliant.

    I haven't read Anna Karenina... (sadface). I think I'm going to next semester though.

    I'm reading T.S. Eliot now, and I can't get a bead on his type. I think I've said before that based on the few facts I know about his life, I suspect EII (although that typing is thrown somewhat into doubt by my new suspicion that Ezra Pound was an LSI... and SLI just doesn't seem to make sense for him, despite the fact that Pound and Eliot's relationship seems like an activity partnership). So, I don't know.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    So, lately I've been reading the following authors/books:

    Plato's Symposium, Aristotle's Metaphysics, William Carlos William's poetry, and a few others. Here are some thoughts:

    I am more and more confirmed in my opinion that Plato was ILI and Aristotle was LII. First of all, Plato's concern with an account of the what-it-is of something seems to me a crucially Ni concern. Also the idea that Plato believed in the world of the forms as separate from the physical world seems very Ni, and the idea that Aristotle brought those forms back down into each individual object, as the sum of a specific set of properties seems VERY Ti to me (a thing is its catalog of properties).

    William Carlos Williams is an SLI, I think, the only problem being that I also see apparent Fe valuing in him, and he's supposed to be an Fe polr, so... but his focus on external objects, describing them in a sensory way, stripping things of context, metaphor, allusion, etc. seems very Si + Te.

    Also, I am forced to concede that Ezra Pound was *definitely* beta, almost certainly LSI, which is annoying, but whatever. I'm still not willing to accept T.S. Eliot into my quadra though. He must be gamma. But he's probably not delta either. I mean, small chance, but probably not.

    In the Symposium, I believe Socrates to be IEI and Alcibiades to be a stereotypical SLE (wild n' crazy young man but also ridiculously talented general/leader). The way Alcibiades describes Socrates' power over him seems very much like an SLE describing a relation to an IEI: I think he's dual-seeking Ni when he talks about how he loves Socrates' "wisdom". And I've noticed that SLEs are attracted to IEIs (or aggressors to victims in general) when they notice that victim partner is actually stronger than they let on, as when Alcibiades talks about Socrates' surprising prowess in battle. Socrates is also crazy diplomatic but also subtly (and not-so-subtly) sarcastic, which I think is an IEI trait. Anyway, I just really want Socrates to be IEI.

    Also, I'm continuing to seek out poets who are not IEIs, because I know there are plenty. It's hard to tell Wordsworth's type but he seems almost definitely Si-leading. Shelley was probably an IEI (he actually reminds me somewhat of strrrng's posts on this site), but Byron almost certainly was not. I'm not sure what type he was yet, but he seems not-IEI. Keats was a dead-on, straight-away, unquestionable IEI. Like the archetype of the modern IEI. Coleridge I don't know much about but he's probably not IEI either. In fact, I'm 95% sure he's a logical type, small possibility he's ILI, but that makes the intertype relationship with Wordsworth odd. Also, I think of Wordsworth and Coleridge as the Lennon and McCartney of Romantic Poetry.

    Also, I need to stop typing so many people as IEI-SLE duals. That's getting a little obsessive on my part. But duality in literature is so much fun!

    Oh, and Chaucer's Wyf of Bath is probably an SEE. She's AMAZINGLY hilarious. The Pardoner I'm not sure about but he may be an Iago-style evil IEI (I'm really pretty sure that Iago is IEI and Othello is LSI and Desdemona is either IEI or EIE--probably the former). But I *really* don't know.

    Antony in Antony and Cleopatra is SEE and Cleopatra is an EIE. Augustus is probably LSE, although the way the soothsayer describes Antony and Augustus' relationship, I was really thinking that Augustus might be Antony's supervisor. ESIs are cool.

    D.H. Lawrence was probably IEE. In fact, I'm almost 100% certain that he's IEE, because he's clearly Ne leading, and probably not logical although ILE is still a possibility. The only problem with this reading of him is his poem "The British Are So Nice!" which clearly satirizes Victorian-style Fi.

    I've already said this, but I am almost 100% sure that Mercutio can be read as an SLE. He's legit. Juliet appears to be an IEI, but I'm not sure. She's obviously some sort of NF, and I think one can rule out IEE. "Oh, I have an ill-divining soul," makes me think Ni, but I guess plot devices aren't great for determining type! I still think romeo is an Fe-seeking LSI, but I could be wrong there. Se-creative *really* fits for him though, as he is quite proficient at effecting his will, but only does so as a side-thing, when necessary. I would also believe Se-demonstrative, though. The Nurse is a brilliantly, brilliantly written character, and is almost certainly a stereotypical ESE. She's *brilliant*.

    Also... perhaps Mrs. Bennet's Si is in her high regard for the soldier's appearance, perhaps? I mean, I know that sexual attraction is a universal thing, but Mrs. Bennet seems to be particularly interested in fine houses, fine dresses, fine-looking men, etc. And she appears to be attracted to them primarily based on their appearance, rather than the implications or aura that gives off (I'm not saying Si-egos are superficial, but merely that they are perhaps more inclined to appreciate physical beauty as a good in itself, as opposed to a masculine body as a metaphor/trope/symbol for masculinity, or a feminine body as a metaphor/trope/symbol for femininity).
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    This installment of literary socionics with chris: Sophocles, Shakespeare (emphasis on King Lear), Socrates, T.S. Eliot, and August: Osage County

    I really want Socrates (at least the literary character presented by Plato, if not the historical man himself whose type is probably irretrievable at this point) to be an IEI. I have almost 0 proof for this, but that's what I want.

    The more I think about it, the more ILI fits for T.S. Eliot. He has a very overarching historical focus in his poetry, and *clearly* values Fi. Honestly, IEI is a possibility, but only because of the (slim) possibility that Eliot was a Ti valuer. I need to do some more research to determine Fe/Ti vs. The other reason this makes sense is because his wife (as satirized in section three of The Waste Land) comes off as an ESE. Viv and Tom would make a lot of a sense as an ILI-ESE conflictor couple. Also, the line "I know 'those are the pearls that were his eyes'" is one of the most devastating and beautiful lines in the English Language, and as much as I hate T.S. Eliot for his horrifying poetics (any man who could judge Hamlet an "aesthetic failure" is beyond question off his rocker), he was a damn good poet.

    I really need to study Sophocles. He manages to make excellent dramatic characters out of Oedipus, a clear (paradigmatic?) LSE, and Antigone, a clear (paradigmatic?) EII. Contrast this to Shakespeare who relied upon beta characters almost 100% of the time for his most memorable figures. Some exceptions include Antony--even though the play belongs firmly to Cleopatra--Beatrice and Benedick--ILI and SEE respectively--and of course, Cordelia. From what little I know of Rosalind of As You Like It, she is a possible delta as well (but also a possible IEI; I haven't read the play, just lots of information about it).

    King Lear is an SLE. Like, 100% manifest clear example of both the wonders and the weaknesses of an SLE. Maybe the best portrait (and most dramatic story) of Fi-polr ever. They should teach it to little children learning socioncs (God I hope we never teach little children socionics). He exhibits Achilles style need for Fe confirmation of his (Ti) hierarchical status as the (Se) best. Cordelia, on the other hand, is an EII (very small chance ESI; I need to finish the play to tell for sure), and it was a stroke of genius to put the two together in the same play. Kent is an IEI or possibly EIE, but definitely beta. Not sure on Edmund and Edgar yet.

    It would be very interesting to type Falstaff, but I suspect he is as perfectly typeless as Hamlet. The guess would be EIE or ESE, but both of those are off somehow (and yet you cannot fault Falstaff as a comic representation in any way shape or form at all whatsoever).

    I just saw August: Osage County the other day, and while I was doing my best to not let socionics take me out of the play and thereby ruin my experience (I was aided greatly in this task by Tracy Letts' *excellent* sense of drama), I did make some socionics-related observations. First of all, this is clearly yet another betas-gone-amuck story, wherein the crazy betas trample all over some foolish alphas, gammas, and deltas. Violet is one of my favorite types, the evil IEI (I only like them because they remind me not to become one but also that I could if I really wanted to), and she is *amazing*. She's like one big arsenal of emotional nuclear weapons, and she exhibits so many IEI traits that it's hilarious, including the notorious focus on time. Poor Bev was probably an ILE driven crazy by Violet's utter disregard for and destruction of the poor man's Si. Barb is hard to type but possibly Se-ego, and almost definitely beta. Also, women who run things are hot. Barb was a complete bitch for half of the show and I still thought that she was a milf the whole time (God, I'm strange). When she screamed at Violet at the end of the second act, I wanted to jump out of my chair and cheer for her violently. Jonna is typeless because she's not really a personality. Uncle Charles is a strong, healthy LSE, the only type that could withstand Violet's crazy, scheming, evil-IEI ways. His wife was IEE. But he was also boring as shit (jk. sorta). Little Charles is either EII or SEI, but definitely an Ne-Si introvert. The sister that was in love with him was an alpha introvert, while the (superhumanly irritating) other sister was the devil's ESE. (or small chance IEE; either way, she was the most annoying character in the play and I kept hoping that Barb or Violet would just punch her in the face). Barb's (ex-)husband is a gamma introvert, leaning towards ILI.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Snomunegot munenori2's Avatar
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    I'd be more inclined to think of Aristotle as an LSI rather than LII, and of Socrates as more ILI. Plato's somewhat harder to pin down for me, but I think if anyone's IEI here it would probably be him (not that sold on it). Mostly though it's because all his talk of 'Forms' and stuff make me think of how strrrng used to talk about archetypes and the gestalt whole and things along those lines. On the other hand, it's hard for me to figure out exactly how to explain The Republic. Is that an aristocratic deal or not? However, it's hard to really say Socrates is this or that type since about the only written perspective we have of him is filtered through Plato, where I think there's a pretty noticeable focus on reaching knowledge not so much by learning about the world but by grasping what's going on in essence. For some reason I want to put him down as some kind of NF.

    Though who knows, it's been a while since I read these guys.

    Heraclitus is maybe a likely IEI philosopher. Democritus maybe LII.
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    I would definitely buy Heraclitus as IEI.

    Why do you think of Aristotle as LSI? I don't see any Se or Ni hidden agenda in what I've read (admittedly a very small amount). I think Ni-demonstrative (heavy use of Ni but reluctance to express information in an Ni manner) fits better. But I could definitely go back and reconsider.

    I do agree that Socrates, arguably, has more focus on actual definition than Plato. *sigh* I need to go back and read some more dialogues to have a serious discussion on this.

    Democritus as LII is an interesting notion. I need to study and consider it some more, but it sounds like a definite possibility.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Also... perhaps Mrs. Bennet's Si is in her high regard for the soldier's appearance, perhaps? I mean, I know that sexual attraction is a universal thing, but Mrs. Bennet seems to be particularly interested in fine houses, fine dresses, fine-looking men, etc. And she appears to be attracted to them primarily based on their appearance, rather than the implications or aura that gives off (I'm not saying Si-egos are superficial, but merely that they are perhaps more inclined to appreciate physical beauty as a good in itself, as opposed to a masculine body as a metaphor/trope/symbol for masculinity, or a feminine body as a metaphor/trope/symbol for femininity).
    This could also be seen as status seeking rather than Si, which is sort of what Mrs. Bennet prioritized.
    Although I don't think she's a good example of ESE or EIE, more like a character of certain women from that era, the gossiping mother-hens, forever seeking a way to climb the social ladder
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marie84 View Post
    This could also be seen as status seeking rather than Si, which is sort of what Mrs. Bennet prioritized.
    Although I don't think she's a good example of ESE or EIE, more like a character of certain women from that era, the gossiping mother-hens, forever seeking a way to climb the social ladder
    I agree with the latter statement, and am unsure about the former.

    In other news, I have FINALLY found an assuredly non-IEI major poet (yes, I had settled on ILI for Stevens, but the more the merrier, right). Alfred Tennyson was definitely not IEI, and probably EII (LII is also a possibility). Here's a line that especially makes me think EII: "my strength is as the strength of ten/because my heart is pure." But maybe I'm just trying to ascribe that to EIIs rather than IEIs 'cause it's incredibly cheesy. Also, in all likelihood, Arthur Henry Hallam was his dual, or at least a semi-dual or activity relation, so it would be interesting to type him, but there's not enough info on wikipedia. Anyway, I'm 99.99997% sure that Tennyson was not IEI, so victory for that.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Snomunegot munenori2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by silverchris9 View Post
    Why do you think of Aristotle as LSI? I don't see any Se or Ni hidden agenda in what I've read (admittedly a very small amount). I think Ni-demonstrative (heavy use of Ni but reluctance to express information in an Ni manner) fits better. But I could definitely go back and reconsider.
    I think the strongest think noticeable in Aristotles style of writing is an extreme focus on Ti. The object is to work towards a conclusion with the ultimate sense of conciseness. LII would definitely be my second choice, since I agree that at heart he is basically a strict logician. I suppose the reason he seems more Se than Ne to me is his oftentimes more pragmatic selection of questions to answer. Frequently in areas, he speculates on explanations of concrete matters, such as why certain power structures are reasonable (i.e. why certain people should be slaves and others not). Obviously that's not a really strong selling point, since I know Ti Si/Ne types that delve into that stuff too, it's just the feel I get from reading him and comparing him to Kant (who is like fo sho LII).

    That said, I wouldn't mind if he were LII. He's like the philosopher I enjoyed most beside Baruch Spinoza.
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    re: Aristotle, agreed that the biggest focus in his writing is Ti. Whatever he is, he's Ti-subtype. Next time I read him I will try to reflect afterwards on whether there is any evidence for beta over alpha or Se over Ne. Further agreed that he is very different from Kant.

    I'm listening to Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner. In that play, Caroline is LSE, Emmie is EIE (they're a clear example of superego; in person they drive each other crazy, but when they just think about each other both profoundly admire the other. Of course, they're also mother and daughter.) Dotty is IEE. I'm not sure about Noah. He could very well be EII. The dead mother could have been EII too, but also likely ESE. The dad is in grave need of Fe, and she likely provided it. But I haven't thought about it at all. Rose is good chance ILI. I'm almost positive she's ILI, actually. Mr. Stopnick is SLE. Stuart (the dad) is LII.

    So yes: Caroline = LSE. Emmie = EIE. Dotty = IEE. Stuart = LII. Rose = ILI. Mr. Stopnick = SLE. Dead Mother = Good chance ESE. Noah = not sure, but EII makes sense.

    Tony Kushner could very well be EII... but I don't know. He seems to be Fi/Te, political morality and all that jazz.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Along with my Best in Combat + Friends with the Second Best (or the pretty good in combat, great in counsel) pattern, which I've identified with the SLE-IEI duality, especially in a same-gender context, I've recently been thinking--and this is a bit of socionics-induced neurosis, but that's OK because the neurosis is really Christopher-induced and the socionics is just a by-product--about a pattern wherein a victim (or, curiously, infantile, though you can normally tell the difference) male creates a female aggressor figure in his works of literature. For instance:

    Aeschylus and Clytaemestra
    Keats and Moneta
    Dickens and both Lucy and Madame Defarge (Lucy, however, is an extrovert and not his dual---Dickens was probably EIE, maybe LIE)
    Euripides and Medea(Question mark by this one, 'cause Medea is really EIE with a very strong Se HA in all likelihood)

    (of course, there's also Austen, who creates an SEE for Anne in Persuasion, but for obvious reasons, the victim male envisions aggressor female idea is more interesting to me.)

    I'm also thinking about this because I think that I'm going to end up writing a similar figure (obviously not as good), when I get around to writing plays, which I hope I'll do soon.


    There are probably more, but out of what I can think of, here are some similar examples:

    Shelley does not create a female aggressor figure (as far as I know of), but his poem To the West Wind is palpably Se Dual-seeking (Shelley was an IEI-C, btw), such that Shelley makes of absence a presence using poetry (that is, he creates a quite literally imaginary presence--insofar as the West Wind exists only in our minds and Shelley's--to satisfy his desire, which results from the absence of that which is desired):

    If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
    If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
    A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

    The impulse of thy strength, only less free
    Than thou, O uncontrollable!

    The sexuality of "pant beneath thy power" could perhaps relate to this whole imaginary aggressor-type lover, but I think the West Wind is conceptualized much more in male terms than in female, and while I don't know that Shelley ever had a homosexual love affair, I can hardly doubt that he would have been somewhat open to one (also, dude looks like a lady. For realz.)

    Whitman similarly makes an Se figure in his poetry. The Rough Walt (as opposed to the Me Myself, which is clearly introverted, and probably IEI) often confused for Si, because of his focus on the physical world, but the Rough Walt is utterly indifferent to how the world makes him feel. In fact, he likes the open air because it doesn't make him feel anything except himself (sorta). The figure is Se in the sense of strong attraction to sense perception, to perceiving everything, to the point of becoming a part of everything: pure attachment to the object to the point that there is no subject, perhaps. Whitman diffuse throughout the universe. I used to type RW as SLE, but he's probably closer to SEE. Perhaps Whitman *was* ILI, but he's so emotional (but then again, so is Wallace stevens, in his way). Regardless, Ni/Se valuing is pretty darn clear.


    Also, though this is extraordinarily tangentially related to both literature and socionics, tcaud, have you noticed that Sephiroth is spelled the exact same as the Kabbalic Sephirot but with an h at the end? Just sayin', since you like to read mysteries out of videogames and all. (Whatever, we all do it, and as a "text" it is quite a bit easier to assert one's "will to power" over Hironobu Sakaguchi than it is to do the same to William Shakespeare).

    EDIT: I OBVIOUSLY meant Nancy on the Dickens tip, not Lucy. Lucie Manet (who is super-boring) is an overidealized EII, to the point of actually just being a typeless idealized female. Also, AK has a hilarious parody of Oliver Twist in it that made me want to scream with laughter. Also, Dante and Beatrice are another example, although it's more likely that Beatrice is an introverted aggressor while Dante is an extroverted victim, although Dante (the Pilgrim, not the actual man) might also have been creative subtype and beatrice harmonizing subtype.
    Last edited by silverchris9; 04-22-2010 at 08:13 AM.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    Glorious Member mu4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by munenori2 View Post
    I'd be more inclined to think of Aristotle as an LSI rather than LII, and of Socrates as more ILI. Plato's somewhat harder to pin down for me, but I think if anyone's IEI here it would probably be him (not that sold on it). Mostly though it's because all his talk of 'Forms' and stuff make me think of how strrrng used to talk about archetypes and the gestalt whole and things along those lines. On the other hand, it's hard for me to figure out exactly how to explain The Republic. Is that an aristocratic deal or not? However, it's hard to really say Socrates is this or that type since about the only written perspective we have of him is filtered through Plato, where I think there's a pretty noticeable focus on reaching knowledge not so much by learning about the world but by grasping what's going on in essence. For some reason I want to put him down as some kind of NF.

    Though who knows, it's been a while since I read these guys.

    Heraclitus is maybe a likely IEI philosopher. Democritus maybe LII.
    I think Democritus and Heraclitus are NT's, maybe Heraclitus is ILI or LII but Democritus I'm pretty sure is ILE. Plato seems EIE imo and Socrates not sure what he is.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pinocchio View Post
    I agree with what you say, and I'm certain that Agamemnon was an LIE. But I have doubts about Achilles, which I see as IEI. He was idealizing human relationship to a hard to understand emotional level and his anger made him capable of many cruelties and risks which are not related to anything T, imo. More than that, he was never prepared for any reasonable deal, too uncompromising to be SLE, for example - only brute force.
    Then when Agamemnon took the woman he liked, he didn't try to find an alternative or something, it was a lack of communication, an emotional conflict inside who made him incapable to fight and submit orders.

    What put him back on his feet? His love for Patroclus, he was not interested in anything besides his idealized passion, love and heroism.
    With the rest I kinda agree, especially your observation what this was a Gamma war, a sustained, persevering, eroding one.
    Hmmm... I still think Achilles wasn't offended so much because of the woman he loved but because of the failure to honor him in an Fe way. I think his love for Patroclus was more an example of Ni-dualseeking: Se seeking a great ideal that seems important enough or grand enough for them to act. Also evidence for this is the passage where it is mentioned that Patroclus is explicitly sent with Achilles to

    Also, I would associate an uncontrolled rage more with SLE than with IEI--an IEI is generally more capable of controlling his emotional expression in almost any situation. And recall that when Briseus is taken away, Achilles' immediate response is to attack, which he must be restrained from doing by Athena (i.e., wisdom). I have an SLE friend who says if someone hit him in the face, his immediate impulse would be to hit back, before he could really think about it. IEIs usually don't immediately have the impulse to "hit back," but are usually reflective and then choose a course of action. IEIs very rarely act completely on impulse, whereas SLEs are very inclined to act decisively on impulse, and their instincts are frequently right. IEIs make decisions based on intuition; SLEs take action based on impulse. In general, that is. That said, the argument you provided is solid, and I do need to think about it. Glad you agree on LIE Agamemnon/Gamma society bit.

    Anyway, I'm currently reading Anna Karenina, and that book is fairly drenched in socionics. Maybe Augusta was reading her Tolstoy while making up this whole crazy shebang? There are CLEAR examples of the types, and more importantly of intertype relations: Anna is a manifest beta (not sure exactly which type yet, but it will be clear soon), Stipen is a clear EIE, Levin is definitely EXI, probably ESI, Karenin is SOOOOO ILI... there's examples of Te-dualseeking, Ti/Fi conflict, SiTe superego, Te-creative, Fe-polr, etc. It's really awesome, and I hope to have more observations from it very soon. I've posted a bit on the socionics quotes thread, so I don't want to just repeat that, so I'll have to wait until I get farther in the book to offer more observations, but I just gotta say, as far as socionics goes, AK provides amazingly good parallels and examples of intertype relationships. It's practically a socionics textbook.

    EDIT: Oh, also, revisiting Pride and Prejudice, I am almost positive that Mr. Bennet is an ILI, and as such, it makes much more sense for Mrs. Bennet to be his conflictor than his supervisor. Supervisor makes almost no sense at all. Granted, Austen may not have represented intertype relations in her fiction as they are explained in socionics. Her work may be in a non-socionics-y hetereocosm. But I'm still fairly certain P&P exalts gamma, and not alpha values. And I'm almost completely positive that Mr. Bennet is an ILI, as I said. Fe-polr would also make sense for Darcy, especially in the book...

    EDIT 2: Also, I haven't talked about it, but there's a wonderful scene in Persuasion that clearly shows the ILI-SEE relationship between Anne and Wentworth (also, has anybody else noticed that in Austen novels, you always call the man by his last name---Darcy, Bingley, Wentworth---and always call the woman by her first name---Jane, Lizzy, Lydia, Anne, etc.? Just thought that was worth noticing). It's after Wentworth accidentally injures what's-her-face Musgrove, and he's too distraught (because of the breach of Fi---he caused another creature harm) to take any action and he instinctively turns to Anne (who, being a logical type, is more able to handle the emotionally fraught situation with a level head) for advice. That is, he turns to Anne to tell him what to do (Ni) in a practical, rather than interpersonal, manner (Te), and he for his part carries all the orders out with utter effectiveness (Se), and doing something helps him get a hold of his strong internal feelings that are mortified at being in any way responsible for causing serious injury, especially to a girl he was courting (and thus had stronger "bonds of obligation" with than just any girl on the street), which demonstrates Fi, and how Te DS is an alternative to Fe demonstrative: instead of wallowing in his emotions and crying and moaning and doing the kind of stuff an IEI or EIE would do, he focuses on the practical information about what is to be done.
    Last edited by silverchris9; 04-22-2010 at 08:19 AM.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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    I was going to do an edit three, but this might as well be a new post.

    Vronsky is SLE. Anna is Beta NF, leaning IEI. Her distress and deep desire for a clear direction as to what to do in Book 3, Chapters 17-19 show a beta NF tendency. And notice how immediately afterward, in Chapter 20, Vronsky is shown doing just that: putting things in order, finding a clear direction. They're duals. She's IEI. I've decided now. Seriously, hella socionics in Anna Karenina. Like, if Freud is reified Shakespeare, socionics is reified Tolstoy. *Hella* socionics. (apologies to those who don't like that word, hella). Anna is probably the only character in the book who lies to others instead of lying to herself. Isn't that just like an IEI? I think it's like me anyway.

    Also, in Notre Dame d'Paris, Jehan Frollo is SLE, Claude Frollo is clearly INTx, and I'm guessing ILI over LII. Esmerelda is a victim female. Phoebus is IEE. Gringoire may be EIE, but is regardless viciously mocked by the narrator. He almost may be ESE... Quasimodo is almost impossible to type, but may be ESI. But that's an example of a case where life circumstances and the like have clearly had a stronger effect on the expressed personality than type; metaphorically, phenotype obscures genotype.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

  39. #39
    i'll tear down the sky Mattie's Avatar
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    I'll give this all a more serious read soon, but I just finished both of Homer's Epic, and am an English major (Creative Writing to be more specific). Using Socionics as a literary theory, I guess, I would agree it seems rather Gamma overall, though I'd want to think on it some more because it seems just based on our more superficial associations ( being moral codes, being prophecy, etc). Here are some off-the-cuff types I would give the characters:

    Achilles: SeTi
    Agamemnon: TeNi
    Ajax: SiTe
    Diomedes: TiSe
    Hector: FiSe
    Helen: FeNi
    Menelaus: SeFi
    Nestor: NiFe
    Odysseus: NiTe
    Paris: SiFe
    Patroclus: TiSe

  40. #40
    wants to be a writer. silverchris9's Avatar
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    FYI, Turnus in The Aeneid, when he starts ranting and raving about how it's the gods' fault and destiny's fault when Aeneas is about to kill him, is an example of Jung's "shadow of the opposite"--Aeneas is an Se-ego (probably Virgil's attempt to render an SLE, which is nowhere near as persuasive as Achilles, although it is pretty good) who has pushed Ni totally out of his ego and totally ignored it, so that it overwhelms his consciousness. The poet Yesenin's death (from what I can tell from wikipedia) appears to be an example of an Ni-ego who pushes Se totally out of his consciousness, so that at the end of his life he became a "bad" SLE, a glutton for experience without thinking about the consequences: "The last two years of Yesenin's life were filled with constant erratic and drunken behavior."

    I've slowed down on my reading lately, but I think John Ashbery might actually be alpha rather than beta (not a real opinion yet though), and I think that Henry VI is IEI.

    I should probably make a more in-depth analysis of the characters from the Iliad, but I'm too lazy to. But Achilles, for one, seems like an archetypal SLE, and I think that's valid, because the characters in the Iliad are simultaneously realistic representations and archetypes. And he's irritated because Agamemnon does not give him enough Fe, i.e., respect. And I think his loyalty to Patroclus and rage at his death is very much an SLE thing---I don't feel like SLEs get super close to a lot of people, and so when they do get really close to someone, they're really loyal about it, and of course, you want to defend your friends with what you're good at, and so he feels bad that he didn't defend his friends with his superior skills in battle. And while generally superior skills in battle isn't a good indicator of Se-ego, I think in an archetypal/mythic work like the Iliad, it's a valid association, because in an archetypal/mythic sense, Ni can be associated with prophecy, Se with battle, because myths are concerned with sort of clear manifestations, forms, ideas, generalizations, etc.
    Not a rule, just a trend.

    IEI. Probably Fe subtype. Pretty sure I'm E4, sexual instinctual type, fairly confident that I'm a 3 wing now, so: IEI-Fe E4w3 sx/so. Considering 3w4 now, but pretty sure that 4 fits the best.

    Yes 'a ma'am that's pretty music...

    I am grateful for the mystery of the soul, because without it, there could be no contemplation, except of the mysteries of divinity, which are far more dangerous to get wrong.

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