ISTJ: Spock, “Star Trek: The Original Series”

The Inspector, The Sentinel, The Trustee

In my Star Trek Returns post, I confessed to not having seen as much of the Original Series as I thought I had (that’s been fixed with a complete re-watch). For years, my idea of Spock came from the movies I’d watched over and over, especially my personal favorite The Undiscovered Country. Now, even after catching up on everything I missed, I’m going to have to stick with old Spock as my favorite Spock.

See, the great thing about a long-running character like Spock is that we get to watch him grow as a person, literally over a lifetime. In the Star Trek universe, Vulcans are long-lived, so our last visit with Spock is roughly 80 years after our first introduction. In that time, Spock has gone from stereotypically uptight ISTJ to a man of great patience and wisdom—and yes, even feeling.

Dominant Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “Relive the Experience”

Spock is half-Human, half-Vulcan, but he chooses to identify as fully Vulcan. It’s from his Vulcan heritage that he derives his life philosophy and outlook. Every new experience Spock has gets filtered through his Vulcan-trained Si, comparing it to the traditions he was taught and raised with.

While others panic or jump to action, Spock responds with caution and healthy skepticism to most situations the Enterprise encounters. He patiently gathers information rather than acting on emotion or speculation. He excels at detail, and shows open disdain for guesswork and imprecision.

This is the Vulcan way, and despite being only half-Vulcan, Spock lives it better than almost any full-blooded Vulcan we meet. He’s the archetypal Vulcan, and among fictional characters, an archetypal ISTJ. Thanks to his steady, unflappable Si, he serves as a balancing counterpart to his captain and best friend, the intrepid—and not always cautious—James T. Kirk.

Star Trek: the Original Series MBTI

Here we boldly go!

I was holding out on typing the Star Trek characters until I’d finished my Original Series re-watch, but the passing of Leonard Nimoy last week lit the fire in me.

I grew up on re-runs of Star Trek: the Original Series, and the original cast films were among the first movies I ever went to the theater to see as a kid. Like many young nerds, these characters were like a family to me, and I learned a bunch of life lessons from them. I’ve watched the movies many more times than the TV series, though, and there are significant gaps in my episode knowledge. So, I gotta re-watch!

It’s going to take some time though, so rather than start with the lead characters, I’ll be posting short profiles of some notable guest stars–Khan, Edith Keeler, Sarek–while I work my way through the show. Once I’ve done all my homework, I’ll present the main characters.

I’ll be honest–the big trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are pretty easy to type (Kirk was one of the first fictional characters I ever typed when I first started getting into this), but the supporting cast is going to be a challenge. While The Original Series (aka: TOS) was revolutionary in the diversity of its cast at the time, it wasn’t a true ensemble. We got more character development decades later out of the supporting characters of TNG and DS9, when ensemble casts had become more popular.

So while Uhura, Sulu, and Chevok are iconic, they tend to pop up in TOS when they’re needed, and function according to the requirements of the plot, not necessarily according to strongly defined character traits. We get to see more of their personalities in the movies, but I still think typing them accurately might be difficult. I’m gonna do it anyway, because I love these guys. They deserve it.

We’re starting out with The Original Series, obviously, and just as obviously, I will one day do the other series. I have TNG and DS9 virtually committed to  geeky memory, so I don’t necessarily need a re-watch. Voyager will take some more work (I pretty much fell out of love with it a couple years before the end, but it’s still notable enough to warrant some MBTI work). I can’t even bring myself to say the name of that final series, so please don’t expect to see anything from me on that one.

That said, let’s boldly go! Warp speed! Energize! And other geeky phrases non-nerds say to try to sound cool at Comic-Con.