ENTJ: Rocket, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ENTJ, the Commander, the Field-Marshall, the Trailblazer

Adapting characters from one medium to another can sometimes result in a few changes. I haven’t read the Guardians of the Galaxy comics, but the blogger at Zombies Ruin Everything has, and he has a nice article typing the original comic-book versions of the characters. He also wrote a follow-up that types some of the supporting characters in the movie.

I’m sticking to the big five for this series, and so that brings us to a rousing end with Rocket Raccoon! (Note: the title for this post calls him only “Rocket,” since he doesn’t seem to know what a raccoon is in the movie. Like he says, ain’t no thing like him except him!)

Dominant Function: Extraverted Thinking (Te), “Organize the Experience”

Rocket knows what he wants and takes charge of situations immediately. Despite his small size, he rules the roost at the prison as soon as he enters. With Groot as his muscle, he informs all the inmates that Quill belongs to them: “You wanna get to him, you go through us! Or, more accurately, we go through you!”

Rocket judges others by their usefulness to his goals. He’s clearly irritated with Groot’s spaciness, but he keeps him around for his effectiveness as a fighter—and, one would think, because he doesn’t talk back much. When we first meet him, he’s getting a kick out of judging people’s fashion and lifestyle choices as he searches for a target. When Rocket tells Quill he needs a guy’s prosthetic leg for their escape plan, he says, “God knows I don’t need the rest of him. Look at him. He’s useless.” He also gets frustrated when Quill says stealing the battery in the prison is impossible, and yells at him to find a way to make it happen, because it’s essential to the plan.

Rocket has escaped from 22 prisons and has no doubt he can escape from this one. He plans the entire escape step by step, and then effectively carries it off on the fly when the sequence is triggered early. Throughout the movie, he’s the first to raise objections to any plan anyone else comes up with, mustering a good laugh at Quill’s “12% of a plan.” By the end of the movie, Rocket is giving orders to the Nova Corps, directing their defense of the planet when Ronan’s forces attack.

Auxiliary Function: Introverted Intuition (Ni), “Anticipate the Experience”

Rocket is always planning one step ahead of everyone else. He can see all the moving parts he needs to make his plans work—whether it’s escaping a prison or building a new gadget or weapon. He criticizes others’ plans for their short-sightedness, pointing out to Quill that asking them to help him fight Ronan is asking them to die.

ISFP: Groot, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ISFP, the Composer, the Seeker, the Virtuoso

Like Gamora, Groot doesn’t give us a lot of insight into what’s going on inside his head. I bounced back-and-forth between ISFP and INFP until I finally settled on the former, and I could still be wrong. He’s my favorite character, so I don’t know if I wanted him to be an INFP just because I am (hi, I’m an INFP!), or if he’s my favorite character because he really is an INFP.

Kind of a chicken-and-the-egg thing. Or acorn-and-the-tree.

Anyway, I think the evidence points to him being a Sensor over an Intuitive, so let’s all be Groot for a moment, shall we?

Dominant Function: Introverted Feeling (Fi), “Evaluate the Experience”

Groot lives in his own happy, contented place. He’s very rarely bothered by any of the activity around him. He fights for his friends because they’re important to him, but most of the time, he’s doing his own thing, enjoying the world on his own terms.

Groot’s not very talkative, either. He has one phrase that he uses for every response, and only those who know him well understand what he means. It also speaks to his strong sense of individual identity that the only words he chooses to use are those that express who he is.

He can bust out the rage when it’s time to fight, but he’s also very tender towards others. He uses his powers to heal Drax after his fight with Ronan and to produce light to guide his friends through Ronan’s ship. In the end, Groot finds his friends important enough to sacrifice himself for.

Auxiliary Function: Extraverted Sensing (Se), “Experience the Experience”

Groot is quite literally a force of nature. He can be tender and fierce from one moment to the next. He’s adaptable and can change his form to suit the needs of the current situation, whether to fight his enemies or heal his friends. He goes with the moment, one day fighting Gamora and the next day fighting alongside her.

Groot enjoys small, delightful sensory experiences, whether it’s sticking his head in a fountain or giving a flower to a little girl—or being distracted by chewing on leaves growing out of his arm.

ESTP: Drax, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ESTP, the Adventurer, the Dynamo, the Promoter

What makes an Extravert and what makes an Introvert?

Outside MBTI circles, you might say an Introvert is shy and an Extravert talks a lot.

If you’re a little nicer about it, or you’ve just started getting into MBTI, you might say that an Extravert acts first and thinks about the experience afterwards, and an Introvert processes first and then takes action.

If you’ve gone deep and studied your cognitive functions, you might say that an Extravert leads with one of the four Extraverted functions (Te, Fe, Se, or Ne), while an Introvert leads with one of the four Introverted functions (Ti, Fi, Si, or Ni).

So what makes Drax an Extravert as opposed to an Introvert, in this humble blogger’s opinion?

I came really close to typing Drax as another ISTP with Gamora. He’s terse and no nonsense, and when we first see him, he’s hanging out in the background sizing our heroes up. He certainly seemed to be leading with an Introverted function.

At first.

Dominant Function: Extraverted Sensing (Se), “Experience the Experience”

Once the story gets underway, Drax becomes all-action, all the time. He’s constantly on the move, and thrives on physical challenges. He joins the Guardians’ escape solely out of opportunism—so that he can get out of prison and continue his quest for revenge, stay near Gamora to eventually kill her, and because there’s a fight going on, and he clearly enjoys it.

We eventually learn that before we even met him, he was cutting a swath of vengeance through the galaxy after Ronan killed his family.

Once they land at Knowhere, Drax immediately finds his way to the gambling and drinking. When he feels the others are taking too long in their business with the Orb, he contacts Ronan to get the plan jump-started. He simply can’t wait for things to play out the long way—he has to take action now.

See, Extraversion doesn’t mean talking a lot, or even being social. Extraversion simply means that you engage with your outside world first before you engage with your inner world. For Drax, that means engaging in physical activity, usually fights.

In the final fight against Ronan, Drax has a grand old time riding the Milano into a crash landing on Ronan’s ship, while the others are gritting their teeth and hanging on for dear life. Then Nebula confronts them and begins a big villainous monologue, and Drax just shoots her, mid-sentence. Next, he throws himself at Ronan—for the second time in the movie—and gets himself beat up again.

In the final showdown, Drax is ready with the big gun to take advantage of Quill’s distraction and take the final, fatal shot at Ronan.

ISTP: Gamora, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ISTP, the Operator, the Mechanic, the Crafter

Gamora was both the easiest and the hardest of the five Guardians to type. Easiest, because she very clearly exhibits the general qualities of an ISTP (see the profile of Trinity, another lady ISTP, for comparison). Hardest, because we get less of a glimpse into her thoughts and motivations than any of the male characters, so it’s tougher to prove that she’s an ISTP.

It’s kind of a shame, because of all the Guardians, she has the most daring objective—rebel against Thanos, the most powerful being in the universe, who also happens to be her father, in order to capture the Infinity Stone and stop him from destroying everything.

Why does she do this? Why the change of heart/mind? The first time we meet her, she’s volunteering for the mission to retrieve the Orb. We learn later that she did that in order to betray Thanos, but we never learn what brought her to that decision. Why change her ways all of a sudden?

I don’t think there’s a deleted scene here, but it feels like there is.

It’ll probably come up in the sequel (and how cool is it that we live in a day and age where we know we’re actually getting a sequel?), but it would’ve helped to flesh out her character if we knew what drove her betrayal in the first place.

Complaints aside, here’s my argument for why Gamora is an ISTP.

Dominant Function: Introverted Thinking (Ti), “Analyze the Experience”

Gamora always speaks briefly, tersely, and to the point, the hallmark of a Ti-dom. No wasted words. She points out the flaws in every plan her new companions make, and worries that she’s “going to die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy.”

When she needs to retrieve a prison guard’s armband, it’s implied that she simply snaps his arm off. Simple, direct, and practical.

She also suffers a little bit from the literalism that dominates Drax’s personality. When Quill tries to make a point by telling her a story based on Flashdance, she stops him to ask why all the people in the town had sticks up their butts. Logical question.

ENTP: Peter “Starlord” Quill, “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ENTP, the Inventor, the Trickster, the Debater

What’s the difference between Se (Extraverted Sensing) and Ne (Extraverted Intuition)?

Guardians of the Galaxy is a movie with spaceships and rocket boots and explosions and alien assassins. Seems like it would need an Se in the lead. And for the record–briefly–Se experiences the physical world, while Ne engages in ideas. They’re both Perceiving functions, and the types that lead with them often tend to be archetypal rogues.

I’m an INFP, with Ne in the second (auxiliary) position, so you’d think I’d know it when I see it, but I didn’t immediately jump on ENTP as Quill’s type. I assumed he was ESTP or ESFP at first.

Maybe it’s an Intuitive thing, though, but I started to pick up on a sense of wonder in Quill. Throughout his adventures, it’s as if he realizes that he’s living in a sci-fi movie. He loves the idea of his life in outer space, and isn’t as practical about it as a Sensor would be. He’s not so much responding instantly and physically to his surroundings as he is being inspired to geek out about them.

Dominant Function: Extraverted Intuition (Ne), “Conceptualize from the Experience”

Peter Quill really wants people to call him Starlord. Aside from the fact that it was a nickname given to him by his mother, it just sounds cool. It represents his ideal identity, a legendary, bad-ass outlaw whose name inspires respect and awe.

Unfortunately, no one else gets it.

Quill spends most of the movie trying to live up to the idea of “Starlord.” Quill is able to adapt to his surroundings and brainstorm his way out of any situation. He sees adventure and possibility in every experience, using his own personal soundtrack to turn a walk across a gloomy planet into an epic quest. In the end, when he has nothing left to fight the bad guy with, he busts out into a dance-off.

Quill often uses metaphors and comparisons to describe a situation, even if others don’t understand the connection or the reference. He even imbues his Walkman with meaning, carrying it as a symbolic link to his home and his mother, and he fights to get it back when it’s taken from him. He goes years without opening the last present his mother left him, because the possibilities of what it might contain are more promising than actually opening it.

Quill uses the word “loser” to describe himself and his fellow Guardians, but he re-defines the word to give it and the Guardians a new meaning—not people who are failures, but people who have lost something in their lives.

Quill may not be as bad-ass as he wants to be, but his dominant perceiving function (Ne) allows him to remain open to the people and experiences that will ultimately bring him real meaning in life.

Guardians of the Galaxy MBTI

I’m trying to save money to move to LA, but I couldn’t stop myself from buying Guardians of the Galaxy on DVD as soon as it was released. I’ve watched it a jillion times (approximately), partly because it’s fun, and partly because I wanted to get a handle on the characters so I could write MBTI profiles on them.

Oh, and hey, it’s written and directed by fellow St. Louisan James Gunn, so there’s that.

This video at Cracked.com compares all the Guardians of the Galaxy characters (except for Groot) to Han Solo—lone wolves, tough and clever and out for adventure and personal gain. It makes a good point, but if every character in the movie were literally the same personality type, I think we’d get a pretty boring story—and a dull ensemble.

One of the things that makes MBTI useful for writers (or, for me anyway) is making sure all our characters have unique voices. It’s too easy to make them all mouthpieces for the author, or to get caught up in clichés like the lone wolf, and end up making them all talk and walk and think alike.

Han Solo himself is probably an ISTP, and a pretty classic example of the type. The Guardians are mostly all Perceivers, too, but there’s still lots of diversity in there to work with. They’re mostly Extraverts, for one thing, and mostly Intuitives. Like Han Solo, they’re mostly Thinkers, except for one Feeler exception (I’ll let you take a wild guess who that is, and what he might say to that guess).

So crank up your Walkman and take a look with me.