Typewatching Final Fantasy VIII
A Basic Intro to Types
Back in the late 1940's, an old housewife and her daughter, also a housewife, started reading Carl Jung's Psychological Types. Through their own knowledge accumulated from much people watching, they refined Jung's two natural "inclinations" --introversion / extroversion-- and four "psychological functions" -- thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting-- and added another dimension to it; judging / perceiving. These two ladies, Kathryn Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers, took those concepts and devised a questionnaire which measured those dimensions on four scales:
extroversion (E) <-> introversion (I)
sensing(S) <-> intuition (N)
thinking(T) <-> feeling (F)
judging (J) <-> perceiving(P)
The end result is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a 70-odd item questionnaire that's unusually accurate, especially when compared to the flops most other personality indicators were. Your answers put you somewhere in a matrix of 16 Types, and you needn't be just one! The scales are just that, scales. One can be very introverted, or kinda introverted but sometimes extroverted-- you're not stuck at one or the other pole. You'll find bits of your personality in both Types you get back.
A couple years later, Dr. Keirsey was introduced to the MBTI, and delved into much, much more detail on it. He fleshed out the concepts behind each of the eight poles on the scale, discovered that the 16 types divide really well into 4 groups (SJs, SPs, NFs and NTs), and he went into incredible detail on all 16 of the types: typical attitudes, speech styles, usage of things, best prospective mate-types, married life, best jobs... and on and on. Plus he gave them all really nifty names. ^.^ SJs are Guardians, stalwart and rule-abiding. SPs are Artisans, adventurous and wild. NFs are Ideallists, thoughtful and personable. NTs are Rationals, analytical and logical.
And what exactly do the four scales mean? Well--
introversion / extroversion -- everybody knows this one. Introverts are those bookish wallflowers that don't like other people, and extroverts are those gregarious socialites who are always out and about having fun with everybody else, right? Close. It's really about where you get your "energy". Lots of people tire Introverts, and they eventually need the peace of solitude to recharge and recoup. They aren't necessarily un-social, they just prefer dealing with others in small, controlled doses. Extroverts are, predictably, the opposite. They almost feed off the presence of other people. Being alone saps them, and they need to go hang out around others to pick up their vim again.
intuiting / sensory -- sensory people live in the world of the five senses. They like to deal with things they can observe, things they can get their hands on, physical stuff in the real world. In other words, people who deal well with Reality. Intuitives go the other way. They have hunches, go on their gut feelings, wander off on flights of fancy, live in their own worlds. They like dealing with abstract ideas and theoretical concepts, the here-and-now can wait for later.
thinking / feeling -- thinkers are hard-nosed and objective people. Regardless of the other people and feelings involved," that's just the way it has to be" sort of people. Feelers are sympathetic and subjective. Friendly. They'll bend rules to take in extenuating circumstances.
judging / perceiving -- judgers like routines and schedules. Things should be done in an organized and neat fashion, so that it's easily kept track of and efficient. Perceivers go with the flow. Schedules tie them down, they like to do things in their own time and in their own way.
As I said before, you don't have to be specifically one or the other of these. You'll probably end up seeing bits and pieces of yourself on both sides of the scale. However, everyone has specific ways they generally tend to go, and that pattern usually sits in one particular personality type.
Alright, enough history. The letters in caps are the primary Type for each one, and if I think they waffled on any of the scales, their secondary type is in lower-case. If there are question marks, that means I haven't completely pegged them yet.
† Squall Leonheart -- Artisan, ISTP/guardian, istj Rinoa Heartilly -- Ideallist, ?NF?
Zell Dincht -- Guardian, ESFJ/ artisan, esfp Quistis Trepe -- Rational, INTJ/ideallist, infj
Selphie Tilmett -- Guardian, ESFJ Irvine Kinneas -- Artisan, ESTP? mebbie
Laguna Loire - Ideallist, ENFP Seifer Almasy -- Artisan, ESTP.
Kiros -- ?ST?... ?NT? ... dunno Fuujin -- ISTJ?
Ward -- i wanna say ESFJ... Raijin -- E??P
Raine -- my guess is NT something-or-other