I was talking a lot with my family about the MBTI stuff and different personality types over the weekend and had to come up with a lot of examples for the types.
Anyway, it eventually led to finding commonalities with various same-type protagonists and I thought I’d share the common stories for the types!
Enjoy!
(picture credit: 16personalities.com)
INTJ: The Architect
The ongoing chronicles of a reserved, resourceful and outrageously brilliant hero. Includes almost equally brilliant villains who will do anything to kill or exact revenge on said hero. Readers often take note on the solutions presented to hypothetical problems because they are so ingenious, though really never end up using them.
See also: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond
INTP: The Logician
Labeled as eccentric (affectionately or otherwise). Makes an amazing breakthrough discovery and must deal with others reactions to/attempts to steal it. Changes everyday life in some way.
See: Professor Brainard (Flubber), Hiccup (How To Train Your Dragon) and Flint Lockwood (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs)
ENTJ: The Commander
Propelled forward by a strong want of the hero. Pride must be conquered and the hero learns that other people matter more than they’ve given them credit for. Plenty of snarky quotes to choose from.
See: Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden). Wow. Never thought I would put those two fictional works together.
ENTP: The Debator
Enters with a smash-bang hilariously memorable characteristic moment and proceeds to keep readers/watchers engaged throughout the story with witty commentary. Not easily intimidated and generally keep a nonchalant, deliberately annoying banter going to drive the antagonist nuts. Though they can loose their temper at them quite spectacularly on occasion.
See: Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Sage (Ascendance Trilogy).
INFJ: The Advocate
Burdened with great purpose and/or a difficult, meaningful quest to save an indeterminate number of innocents. Many quotable life lessons included. Likely to be a tear-jerker at some point in the story.
See: Ela Roeh (Books of the Infinite), Frodo Baggins (Lord of the Rings)
INFP: The Mediator
Not usually involved in high-stakes, beat-the-villain plots, but still don’t let the reader simply stop reading. Amazingly imaginative and change the lives/outlooks of all other characters they come in contact with. Ends with justice and a moral victory.
See: Sara Crewe (A Little Princess), Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) and Elsie (Honor Girl)
ENFJ: The Protagonist
(You’d think this would be the easiest one to find, but I actually had a kind of hard time.)
The hero’s plan goes horribly wrong somehow after trying to help someone. They then must realize they were wrong and let someone else help as well on their way to the story goal. Some sort of happy irony involved in the ending.
See: Joy (Inside Out) and Emma (Jane Austen).
ENFP: The Campaigner
Unjustly hated by the general public to begin with. Goal driven and somehow manage to kick butt and have a ton of fun on the way to achieving it. They represent an ideal more blatantly than most characters, but in a good way.
See: Lord McDougal (The Peleg Chronicles) and Robin Rafferty (Amazing Honesty)
ISTJ: The Logistician
A capable, but self-doubting hero is repeatedly pushed outside their comfort zone. Often given an ExFP foil to play off of. Ending resolves their coming to terms with the change that has happened and/or themselves.
See: Fergus Leatherhead (The Peleg Chronicles), Horatio Hornblower and Elsa (Frozen).
ISFJ: The Defender
Driven by duty/love, they take on a lofty calling and/or alternate identity and embark on a noble quest. Multiple instances of self sacrifice. Violence is avoided if at all possible.
See: Captain America and Wesley (Princess Bride).
ESTJ: The Executive
Something happens that turns the hero’s world upside down and makes them really mad. They reluctantly take on a journey to get things back to the way they were and have a revelation of truth on the way and make some unexpected friends that were unliked to start out with.
See: Bolt and Shrek.
ESFJ: The Consul
A really nice, but under appreciated and unliked hero is the only one able to save the day from a villain who wants to hurt both the people the hero loves most and the ones who have mistreated them. Ends with heart-rending self-sacrifice and a long delayed appreciation of the hero.
See: Emmet Brickowski (The Lego Movie) and Wreck-it Ralph.
ISTP: The Virtuoso
Awesome action sequences and brilliant plots surround them. Cool and unusual talents and gadgets as well. They are the calm and collected improvising geniuses, fighting snarky, classically evil bad guys. Ends with a bang and a set up for another one.
See: Indiana Jones, Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible) and Spiderman.
ISFP: The Adventurer/Artist
Uses their artistic talents and strong beliefs to fight for innocents against an evil higher power. They don’t start out believing that there’s a problem, but do after witnessing with their own eyes. Usually involves romantic subplot.
See: Elisa Lindheim (The Zion Covenant) and Libby Norstad (Freedom Seekers).
ESTP: The Entrepreneur
Starts out awesome, capable and talented (if a little reckless as well), but not recognized for it by the general public. They proceed on a climb to greatness, learning to be a little less reckless and care for people on the way. Very quotable and clever. As ENTPs, annoy their antagonists nonstop.
Ends with fame and alludes to a bright future.
See: Captain Kirk (Star Trek, new movies) and Speed Racer (new movie).
ESFP: The Entertainer
Starts in normal life or a limited environment and get launched into an adventure that they are very excited about. Someone who isn’t excited about it is usually a companion. They learn not to be so impulsive and like their teammate as well as capturing the hearts of readers and watchers. Always a happy ending.
See: Cobalt (Odd Team Out) and Rapunzel (Tangled).
What do you think?
Would that be you in a story?
Please comment and feel free to point out any other protagonists to add! 🙂
~writefury
writefury 
This is so informative and helpful! 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
Wow, I loved this post!
The two greatest movies ever made cross in this rather corny, yet comical quote.
“Hello, my name is Legolas Thranduillin. You stole my shampoo. Prepare to die!” Haha I found it on Pinterest.
What are the two movies?
Princess bride and LOTR I believe. 😉 Nice ! XD
Great job! Yeah, those are my favorites!! : )
Oh, darn! And I thought I was the only teen girl in the world who knew who Wesley and Buttercup was. haha
My favorite quote was, “Do you think he is using the same wind we are using?” Really?!? lol : P
I love Andre the Giant. Besides the fact that he was a pro wrestler and that’s one of my life dreams, he is so perfect in that movie!
Haha, nope. 😛 Princess Bride is a definite favorite here!
Totally! I read the book it it was really good, too. I really should have put up a review when it was fresh in my mind…
You know how guys don’t do the whole mushy romance movie thing? My brother is exactly like every other guy in that regard, except for Princess Bride (and Ever After). He made me watch Princess Bride with him so much, I got tired of it at times. I mean, one time, we actually watched it 4 or 5 times in 2 weeks! To this day, all you have to do is give me any one quote, and I will finish the rest of the scene; from memory.
(Haha He also had a crush on Drew Barrymore from Ever After when he was 7 years-old.) lol
Also, completely at random, but I had to ask — Are you Hebrew Roots or Messianic?
Because I noticed on your “about” page, you used the Hebrew names for Jesus, and that is very unusual for someone who isn’t in the movement. : )
Yep! Jewish holidays and all that fun stuff. 🙂 What about you? Happy decorating for Hannukah if you are. 😉
Wow. That SO cool!! I’m actually Messianic, too!
Yeah, we always do a little something for Hanukkah. I’m not sure what we’ll be doing this year. My favorite thing about Hanukkah is playing dreidel. I don’t care if I am 16. Its just SO much fun!!! : ) What’s your favorite thing about Hanukkah? : )
We actually just finished celebrating Sukkot about a week ago. We’re on a different calendar than you guys are. : )
BTW, I love the Maccabeats. My favorite song of theirs is “Shine” and “Miracle.” What about you? : )
AWESOME! 😀
I like just the general atmosphere. And picking out gifts for everyone 🙂
Candlelight was the first one I really liked, but Dror Yikra is fun too. I do that one with my brother a lot. 😛
Dror-Yikra. Hhmmm. Is that the one with the cups? Where they’re like doing the a capella thing, and then using the cups for the beat? That was SO cool! I tried it with my brother a couple of times. I was better than he was (of course!), but I was still nowhere near the Maccabeats! lol
We practiced ours in the car on a car trip. Clattering clipboards everywhere. But we’re pretty good at it now! 😉
[…] ends Part One of this post. You might also want to check out WriteFury’s post on Myers-Briggs personality types as a characterization tool. For specific examples and more on how […]
According to the Book Addict’s Guide to MBTI, the Tenth Doctor is ENFP… while my personality type is one letter away from David Tennant’s. That… actually… explains a lot of things… *rubs back of head*
Cool! 😀 I have family members that are the same types as a lot of my book characters, so that’s helpful. 😉
😉 I think I’m probably an INFJ with strong leanings toward T.
I’m a flexible ISFJ. It kind of annoys me that the test never tells you that you have good command of all the functions. Just a preference indicator, I guess.
Yeah… there’s no way I’m an S, though. I have these intuitions and deductions about things!
I can do deductions… but I don’t get think the concept of intuition is all that clear to me. I definitely have a strong introverted sensing, though. Crazy good detail memory and have some trouble letting go of the past.
For some reason it seems as if most Type Fives with N-type personalities play well off of Type Twos or Fours with S-type personalities.
I’ve noticed that. Most type ones are ISTJs actually. Fergus and Horatio at least. Then Lord McDougal is an ENFP and Archie’s an ESFP (by my reckoning, at least). I made a note of that on the ISTJ protagonist bit. ;P
Unrelated, but I noticed that most of David Tennant’s roles are all N-type characters (as far as I’m aware, anyway.) Maybe N-types just work really well naturally with S-types–they kind of act as foils for each other.
Interesting. That’s usually the hardest letter for me to pin down when typing characters. What other roles do you have in mind? Darwin’s an INTP, for sure. 😛
It’s hard for you to determine who’s an intuitive and who uses sensing primarily? Huh. I guess it just takes one to know one. I think Jean is an ISTJ. And Cobalt is definitely ESFP. *hugs Cobalt some more* ^_^
Holy smokes, you got that exactly right.
XD good job! Robin is my only Intuitive so far.
I think Magma is an ISTJ…
Correct again. 🙂 Let’s see… here are the cyborgs by the way they’re going in the current book. (Aside from Cobalt and Magma. You know them already.)
Comet: ESTP
Frost: ESFJ
Jazz: ENFP
Blades: ISFP
Wally (he’s new, and not technically a cyborg): ISTP
So, yeah. Jazz is a N as well. I forgot him for a bit.
I guessed all of my family’s types right before they took the tests. One letter off on my dad, though. He’s too well rounded. 😛
Meh, the tests aren’t always accurate. 😛 They’re too general and sometimes you might be the life of the party but really you’re introverted, you know?
X-D
Exactly! They’re more useful for characters, in my opinion. People are flexible. I mean, if one person was completely cut off from one of their functions in real life, like say, Ni, it would be extremely inhibiting. But you can write a character without it and play it for humor or a character weakness and it works just fine.
The descriptions show the extremes of the preferences, so they’re spot on at certain points. But it’s a pretty tight box to stick a human being in. 😛
Yup.
I love MBTI! Whenever I’m thinking of characters for a story I like to take the test as them. 😛 I’m an INTJ myself.
It’s pretty fun! 🙂 After a while, the system is familiar enough that the test isn’t necessary. 😉
This is awesome! Really informative and helpful. 😀
Thanks, Greta! 🙂
I’m definitely going to use this article to help develop my characters for the novel I’m working on.
Reblogged this on Writing Like Crazy.
What about the Bratz? That was my childhood.
Sasha – ENTJ Commander
Cloe – ESFP Entertainer
Yasmin – INFJ Advocate
Jade ISFP Adventurer
Burdine Maxwell ESTJ Executive
The tweevils ain’t nobody care bout them. Do you?
Cameron ISTP Virtuoso
Dylan ESFP Entertainer.
Does anyone agree or disagree? Let me know 🙂