Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2020)

[anghraine]

An anon asked:

You’re an INTJ and you accept the common typing of Darcy as an INTJ, right? Well, I’ve just found a few people arguing that Darcy is actually a Sensor, arguing that a real Ni-dom would have better predicted that Wickham would target Lydia or some other young girl, and citing the fact that he misjudges Jane’s feelings for Bingley based on appearances. Would you argue that he’s still an INTJ despite the above, and if so, how?

I replied:

Yes, I’m an INTJ, and yes, I accept (and relish!) the usual INTJ-typing for him.

I’ll say upfront that I like the MBTI, but also have issues with it as a system and haven’t dug into the details for a long time. My friend tree could probably answer this question better than I can.

But personally, I think one of the issues with discussion of it is that people tend to flatten everything about someone into the type and ignore other, individualizing motivations they have. IMO that’s part of what’s happening here.

So, to begin with, it’s less that Darcy did or didn’t intuit that Wickham was dangerous than that, due to upbringing (rather than temperament), Darcy initially didn’t register anything as important unless it touched on his own “family” circle—a circle that is inclusive of his friends and dependents, but not of strangers or simple acquaintances. Once Wickham wasn’t on his radar, eh.

With regard to Jane, we’re told that Darcy wanted Bingley to marry Georgiana, and that this factored into Darcy's involvement in the whole situation, even though he tried to keep it from affecting his judgment of Jane. I think the pretty clear implication is that he failed.

But the thing I find interesting about Darcy is that, despite his pride, and despite his biases, his judgments about people’s underlying characters are right a lot more often than you’d expect. He’s not wrong about Mrs Bennet and the younger girls. He rightly has reservations about Mr Bennet. He, also rightly, considers Mr Collins lucky to have married Charlotte, even though he barely knows either of them. He’s right that Elizabeth and Jane are concerned with propriety and excludes Jane as well as Elizabeth from his condemnation of the family in general. 

And I don’t think these judgments are really following from considered observations that have eventually led him to a conclusion (sometimes he thinks so, but IMO he’s already reached his conclusions). They’re fast, influenced by both his general beliefs and by quick, subconscious observations coming together. What gives him the appearance of a more deliberate, straightforward thought process, I think, is his need to account for the new information he keeps accumulating after reaching a judgment. He will adjust his early conclusions to make all the data work, even though changing his mind troubles him.

Basically, he’s someone who has good intuitive judgment of character, but gets so caught up in his own ideas and thoughts that he sometimes misses what’s right in front of his face, though his need to keep integrating all information he receives usually keeps him from going too far astray. As I said, I’m no MBTI expert, but that just doesn’t sound like an ISTJ at all to me. I think Ni+Te makes a lot more sense.

(That said, I do think that a lot of readings of Darcy sound pretty ISTJ-ish, very much including academic ones. I just don’t think the character himself is.)

Tagged: #i saw a gifset the other day with him as istj and i was just like ... lol no #maybe in the movie i guess but canon darcy? no