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Rational Feelers: Where Many MBTI Typings Fail

To many, particularly those interested in MBTI typings, the term "rational feeler" may seem like a juxtaposition, but I am here to challenge that thought.

Too often, when a person or character doesn't seem to understand the feelings of others around them, they are generally typed in MBTI communities as a Thinking personality. Even though this seems reasonable on the surface, it is a deeply flawed deduction, rooted in a misunderstanding of the cognitive functions and a lack of consideration for outside influences.

While it is true that the Feeling types are inherently more humanitarian in nature and are highly attuned to their own values/the values of society, empathy itself is not limited to one type or the other. Thinking types may be very empathetic, and Feeling types may be very callous; to assume one or the other about a person or character based on whether they are a Feeling or Thinking type is to have a flawed understanding of high Fe/Fi and high Te/Ti.

An example of this fallacy can be seen in the typings of Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Star Wars universe. Over the years, I have seen many typings of this character, most notably ISTJ. People assume that because Obi-Wan thinks very rationally and that his most noticeable flaw is failing to understand Anakin's feelings and personal struggles, he must be a Thinking type--however, being rational is not the same as valuing Te. An ENFP may be just as capable of logical deduction as an INTJ; to assume otherwise it to participate in the stereotypical caricatures of the 16 personalities. The capability for rational thought is not rooted in any particular type, just as any type can be more intelligent than the another. Measuring things such as intelligence (which is already a difficult concept to define and systemize) based on whether a person is a Thinking or Feeling type has no ground in accuracy. Differences in intelligence are rooted in individual people and their complex life experiences, not to mention that there are many different ways intelligence is defined.

Obi-Wan failing to understand Anakin's emotions has everything to do with how he was raised as a Jedi and the subsequent values he was taught to uphold, not him being a Thinking type. Frankly, none of the Jedi understand emotion because they are taught to suppress it. The Jedi were not meant to have emotional attachments, nor were they allowed to feel strong emotions, for it was insinuated that unbridled feeling such as that would lead to the Dark Side; it is because of this that we cannot assume a Jedi is a Thinking type based only on their ability to healthily understand and express emotion.

A similar mistake is people equating Yoda being a very skilled Force-user to being an iNtuitive, when in actuality, using the Force is a skill separate from iNtuition. Anakin/Darth Vader was an excellent Force-user: he could manipulate the physics of objects around him with ease, read peoples' thoughts and emotions, and had multiple premonitions of the future--but he is certainly an ESFP, a Sensing type. Using the Force is not iNtuition; it is a skill that any Force-sensitive being can tap into under the right guidance, and therefore can not be used to distinguish a Sensor from an Intuitive in a typing.

People too often forget to include outside factors such as these into their type analyses; often, typings are done under the assumption that the person or character in question are perfectly healthy, developed versions of their type, raised in an environment fit for them to thrive, when this is only rarely the case. From here, I must move on to assert my typing of Obi-Wan: ISFJ. Yes, he is rational, yes, he was not a mentor suitable for fostering Anakin's troubled emotional state, but this is not indicative of being a Thinking type, as previously explained. Obi-Wan's Fe is clear to me by just how diplomatic he can be--this is not to say that a Thinking type can't also be diplomatic, but that Obi-Wan can talk his way out of situations by appealing to the general social norms of the species he is speaking to, which is something he picks up on naturally, with ease. Understanding and placing significance on social values is indicative of higher Fe, and Obi-Wan's level of rationality does not refute this fact: Rationality is not linked solely to a singular cognitive function or type, but rather varies from individual to individual.

Obi-Wan's high Fe can also be seen in the value he places on the general social roles and ranks within the Jedi. He doesn't understand why Qui-Gon won't simply suck it up and agree with the Jedi Council: "If you would just follow the code, you would be on the Council," he says to Qui-Gon in The Phantom Menace. Furthermore, Obi-Wan has little understanding of himself outside of his role of being a Jedi. High Fe is all about social roles and how the user fits into these social roles, which can also be an element of their immature understanding of emotions if that is what the role calls for. Similarly, ISFJs can have trouble with emotions, especially if it runs in their family or the environment they find themselves in: For example, if a high Fe user is a part of a family or environment that believes excessive emotions and being touchy-feely is a sign of emasculation or weakness, the appropriate role for the ISFJ in that family or environment is to take on that belief, for it is part of their identity in the system. This is just like Obi-Wan in the Jedi and has everything to do with how he was taught to define his role in their system.

When Obi-Wan loses being a Jedi after everything collapses in Revenge of the Sith, I believe that he lost a huge part of himself. His identity was strongly placed in not just being on the Council or just being a member of the Jedi, but also in being exceptional in these roles, which indicates someone who values Fe.

People don't necessarily think of Fe manifesting in this way, but it is certainly influenced by the social expectations of a family, job, or society as a whole. Fe allows Obi-Wan to connect and utilize the general social norms around him. His tertiary Ti allows him to internally and rationally justify his distrust of Palpatine. What separates this from Fi is that even though Obi-wan had his personal suspicions, he was still very bound to the opinions of the council and trusted their judgement above all else, therefore respecting the societal and hierarchical roles established in his society.

In A New Hope, when Obi-Wan (or should I say Old Ben?) convenes with Luke, he slips back into the typical ISFJ role of being a protector, but also, he immediately wants to teach Luke to know about the Jedi teachings of the past. Even after everything has collapsed and shifted, Obi-Wan instinctively reaches for the systems of old, the systems he put great faith in and believed worked perfectly before Palptaine. Placing high value on a trusted system in such manner is indicative of Si-Fe.

Thus, I confidently type Obi-Wan as ISFJ, but that is not the sole purpose of this article. I mean to blatantly reject shallow typings that rely on stereotype alone or on statements such as "he is very rational in almost all situations." I also reject the idea that one type may be more intelligent than the other, or that one Feeling function is more morally correct than the other. Each personality type has its own flaws; the purpose of identifying as a particular type is to become more self-aware of your own weak points and places of struggle, not to assert yourself as 'better' than someone of a different type.

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In Defense of Luke’s Green Lightsaber

Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy is not bad by any means. In my opinion, I see a lot of people being too hard on it; they were entertaining movies, although this is, of course, subjective, and entertaining is a relative term. However, I do have a few qualms with some of the decisions they made in reference to how the sequels fit in with and related back to the original and prequel trilogies, and one of these qualms is regarding ‘Luke’s’ lightsaber.

In The Force Awakens at Maz’s cantina on Takodana, Rey is led down (it is implied that the Force itself is what is leading her) beneath all of the bustle of the business upstairs and finds a lightsaber; this lightsaber is then identified in the movie to be Luke’s. This is where the problem begins for me.

Upon first watching the movie, I was actually flat-out confused. It’s blue, not green–it’s Anakin’s lightsaber, isn’t it? Why were they so consistently referring to it only as Luke’s?

Let’s review what we know about this lightsaber, its significance in the prequels, and–perhaps most importantly–its significance in the original trilogy.

In Attack of the Clones, it’s implied that Anakin loses his lightsaber quite frequently (“Not again… Obi-Wan’s gonna kill me”). By the movies alone, it is uncertain when exactly Anakin built his own, blue lightsaber. Nonetheless, it is a weapon he had throughout the entirety of the Clone Wars and was specialized to him; he often tinkered with it and would improve minimal things about its functionality just because he enjoyed the tinkering. In short, it was important to Anakin and his identity: It is the weapon he purged the Jedi Temple with, as well as the weapon he fought Obi-Wan Kenobi with. When Obi-Wan takes it at the end of their duel and leaves Anakin on Mustafar, it serves as a symbol to the loss of the apprentice he thought he knew; it is not a trophy for Obi-Wan, but a painful memory.

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