ENTP: Elim Garak, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

ENTP – the Inventor, the Debater, the Improviser

The truth is presently a topic of some debate. The elusive Elim Garak has a line in the episode “Cardassians” in which he straight up announces he doesn’t believe there is such a thing. I don’t think he means this the same way that some certain talking heads do.

As an ENTP, Garak always seems to be trying to discern the reality between the lines of the facts, the secrets people keep behind the plain words they speak. Sometimes this makes him suspicious and paranoid (although, people are trying to kill him most of the time). Sometimes this means his stories get so tangled no one knows what part of him to trust.

Maybe you couldn’t write a character like Garak right now, but even so, Garak lies with zest and imagination, not to cover up the stupid things he’s done. Garak’s version of the truth requires an open and nimble mind, and I think, a desire to know what the truth really is, beyond what most people have considered. I feel that he would be very unimpressed with what passes for a good lie these days.

Dominant Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Garak exemplifies the phrase “Making it up as you go along.” It’s impossible to get a straight answer out of the man. His response to any given question will change depending on when you ask it, and he can spin a tale from nothing at a moment’s notice.

As he tells Dr. Bashir, the real moral of the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf isn’t: ”Never tell a lie,” but, “Never tell the same lie twice.”

DS9 MBTI: Garak, a Plain, Simple Introduction

It may come as a shock to DS9 fans, but Garak appears in only a few more than 30 episodes over seven seasons. Yet he’s looked on as a lead, just as much as any of the regulars (like O’Brien on TNG, I kept expecting him to pop up in the opening credits every year). He’s really the quintessential DS9 character—mysterious, exiled, thriving in the gray areas of fluid morality, colorfully dressed, and entertaining as hell.

He’s also appealing to queer fans, because although it was never outright given on the show, Garak feels anything but straight from the moment he introduces himself. Actor Andrew Robinson stated that he played his first episode from the perspective that Garak didn’t have a defined sexuality, and that he chose to talk to Bashir not just because he found him useful, but because he found him attractive. There was physical attraction, and also intellectual and emotional attraction, but since the show never broke that boundary (at least, not between its regular characters), Julian and Garak became Trek’s favorite unrequited, unspoken romance since Kirk and Spock.