Firefly and Serenity

[Krig the Viking]

There's no way Mal is a D-subtype, and I seriously doubt him to be a Te-base. The man is, by his own admission, completely directionless. A leaf in the wind. He, further, doesn't really hate Jayne and neither do the rest the crew -- they just don't like him. Their problem with him is more along the lines of him being stupid (NTR) and a rude self-serving asshole (Fi/Fe conflict).

You're right, it's possible that Mal is a C-subtype. I'm not settled on the subtypes just yet.

[Edit: I checked my master list, and I see that I previously had Mal down as a C-LSE. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I said he was D-LSE -- a momentary lapse, I suppose. ]

People don't normally hate members of the opposite Quadra, particularly if they share a club. Often Contrary and Quasi-Identical types can get along fairly well, especially if they focus on work.

A significant part of the crew's discomfort with Jayne is that he's too aggressive. In my opinion there is also a significant Si/Se conflict, as well as the Fi/Fe one.

He's also not a terribly practical man, and he feels very bound to his crew; in a stronger way than a Te-Ego would be. Te-egos want to connect with people (Fi Suggestive), but their Te need for efficiency and practicality gets in the way. Mal is known for putting the welfare of his crew above practical considerations, and is aware of when their limits are stretched ("You tell me right now little Kaylee, you really think you can do this?"). Not to mention he spared Jayne at the last minute, simply because Jayne showed shame for what he'd done. I think a Te-base (especially one who didn't like or appreciate Jayne) would have left him in that airlock and left, or just thrown him out rather than kill him.

What you're seeing there is classic Caregiver behaviour. LSEs can't open up emotionally very well, but they can make up for it by taking care of people's physical needs. Mal never talks about his feelings, but in LSE fashion he shows that he cares by doing practical things to take care of his loved ones. The "You tell me right now little Kaylee, you really think you can do this?" line shows this typical concern for others' physical welfare, coupled with a strong ability to assess others' capabilities in a practical Te sense.

I do agree that Zoe is his mirror, but given that I find it doubtful for him to be LSE, it's probably more plausible that Zoe is ESI. Which makes sense -- she doesn't really appear to be independent or self-serving enough for Beta ST. Given that, Wash is probably her kindred (EII).

Zoe displays emotion less than Mal does (except when she's alone with Wash). She seems pretty obviously Fe-PoLR to me, or at least 1-d Fe.

Also, I don't see how anyone could type Wash as an Introvert. Other than Kaylee he's the most emotionally extraverted character on the show!

I seriously doubt she's any kind of Sensory type. She's a very long-term planner, and gives off a sort of a "mystical mentor" vibe.

I'm not as sure of Inara's type as I am of the others. I considered IEI for a while, but the intertype relations didn't make sense. I could see someone making the case that she's EII, but for now I think ESI makes more sense.

You'll note, she's not so much a mystical mentor, as she is a relational mentor. She doesn't talk about destiny and the future and the spiritual significance of things, she talks about people and relationships.

Now that I think of it, she could be an Ni-Harmonizing subtype. That would explain the calm, serene energy she has. It would also jive well with Mal being a Creative subtype, as I speculated above. Hmm.

[Aleksei]

A significant part of the crew's discomfort with Jayne is that he's too aggressive. In my opinion there is also a significant Si/Se conflict, as well as the Fi/Fe one.

I don't see Si/Se conflict at all, and now that I think of it the only ones with Fi issues regarding him are Mal and Inara (both of whom are wary of him). As I mentioned in my last post (post-edit -- I actually sorta switched that around on you; my apologies), Zoe and Wash have no issue with Jayne.

What you're seeing there is classic Caregiver behaviour. LSEs can't open up emotionally very well, but they can make up for it by taking care of people's physical needs. Mal never talks about his feelings, but in LSE fashion he shows that he cares by doing practical things to take care of his loved ones. The "You tell me right now little Kaylee, you really think you can do this?" line shows this typical concern for others' physical welfare, coupled with a strong ability to assess others' capabilities in a practical Te sense.

But he does understand others' feelings, and acts accordingly. Like in Heart of Gold, where he pretended to have fallen asleep rather than slept with Inara's hooker friend because he knew it'd hurt Inara's feelings. he also has an "honor before reason" ethos very typical of Se-Fi, as shown in Shindig -- "I'll protect my lady's honor, and kick the ass of anyone who insults her." Very SEE.

I've had similar debates on MBTI forums (in MBTI, Mal is an ENTP). The fact is that Nathan Fillon is LSE and is incapable of properly portraying characters that aren't Te-base. So Mal comes off as LSE himself.

Zoe displays emotion less than Mal does (except when she's alone with Wash). She seems pretty obviously Fe-PoLR to me, or at least 1-d Fe.

Yeah, I was wrong about ESI (and right originally).

[marooned]

I would mention with Jayne that Mal's conflict with him is that he can't be trusted (necessarily). Mal first "acquired" Jayne by getting him to betray the team he was working with (a task which was all too easy). Jayne has a history of doing the same with other "teams" (for instance in the episode "Jaynestown" where it's revealed that Jayne jettisoned the payload *and his partner* in a previous heist to save his own ass). Anyway not that knowing that matters so much as Mal has a good read on Jayne's character and knows this is the sort of person he is.

Mal took Jayne on because he's valuable and he can get stuff done for Mal (he's an excellent physical presence and he knows his weapons) but Mal knows it's a risk because he knows that Jayne's sense of self-preservation outweighs everything. So with the episode where Jayne tried to turn River and Simon over to the Alliance, Mal was extremely severe because it was the only way he thought he could get it through to Jayne that betrayal would not be tolerated. (I'm beginning to heed FMH's arguments that Mal is not an ethical type.)

I would also note that most people aren't going to get on well with Jayne... he's aggressive, almost only gives a damn about himself (I say that because I think there is a small buried under-expressed part of Jayne that really does care that he would prefer to never let anyone, or perhaps even himself, see), and can't necessarily be trusted. I mean most people are going to wisely be wary of such a person. He's an asset only as long as there's something in it for him, who's always on the look out for a better deal (he's greedy).

I had thought supervision with Mal as ESI and Jayne as SLE worked for their relationship earlier, but I may be changing my mind (Mal could be LSI and I don't see a problem with the relationship from that view). I probably will never see Mal as Si valuing. He has a very harsh character and he deals in absolutes (not the dual of EII).

It could be argued that Mal deals with Jayne a lot better than most people would. It's also significant that over time Mal seems to gain at least some of Jayne's loyalty (Mal's affect on him seems to be more positive than not in terms of "socializing" him). I of course would disagree with threatening to kill him, but that's only because I find it a little disturbing that had Jayne not broke a little in that scene Mal very possibly might have actually killed him (in other words it wasn't an empty threat).

[Aleksei]

Mal's no introvert.

[krieger]

The fact is that Nathan Fillon is LSE and is incapable of properly portraying characters that aren't Te-base. So Mal comes off as LSE himself.

This goes for just about every actor. When the character is typed different from the actor, the result is just some untypable garble. The VI doesn't work, the body language is different from what it's supposed to be, etc. So if you're assuming the character is typable in the first place, you just have to assume the actor and character are the same type.

So that's what I use as a personal policy, either:
- character and actor are the same type
or,
- character is an untypable mess

[Aleksei]

That's why I don't use VI or body language to type fictional characters (well, I don't use VI period as I'm not familiar enough with it, but the point is that you can't use it on fictional characters, so don't).

I'd say only bad actors are incapable of playing other types though. A measure of a good actor is the range of characters he/she can play.

[marooned]

^Same here. I rather utterly ignore those things with movie and TV characters unless of course I think it actually pertains to the character (e.g. facial expressions and "body language" which actors can sometimes be very diverse with between different performances precisely because they are trying to portray the essence of the character.) It's just sort of like if you were to read about the character in a book (if it were a book rather than a movie), what would be the sort of gist of the character... and I don't mean a book based off the movie, but that there never was a movie and all there was is a book.

I guess as a different example, is the character of Hamlet who I think it's generally agreed is EIE. Tons of actors have played Hamlet on stage and they could have their different takes on how to portray him (for instance, is Hamlet insane? did he really love Ophelia? there are a lot of ways to interpret the character), but regardless of their performances the essence of the character is unchanged (Hamlet is still "EIE"). I mean I'm sure it would be possible for someone to portray Hamlet where it seems like he's a different type than the character in the play to some people, but still the actor is walled in by what Hamlet says and does and the plot of the play and no matter what changes they make to their body language they can't change these things. For instance they can't really do much with some of Hamlet's more flamboyant and dramatic behaviors (such as creating that play to get his Uncle to show something in his face that would "prove" to Hamlet that he murdered his father).

Although granted, sometimes with movies and shows there's a more organic process where the actor and character fuse into one (the actor has say over what the character says and does)... so that could obviously cause the actor's persona to possibly seep more into the character (but not always).

[munenori2]

Lemme think and sober up befoer I go putting types on these awesome people.