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painom · 4 months ago

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Enneagram for Character Analysis

Before I start, let me warn you. This will be a long post and a lot of reading, but I'll do my best to simplify things as much as possible in a way that will make sense to most people.

The Basics

At its core, enneagram follows this basic principal. When you were a young child, you were basically, in one way or another, told something that had a profound effect on your psyche. From this unconscious childhood message, you developed a core fear and a core desire. In attempting to resist your core fear and achieve your core desire, you become a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes your core fear come true. These unconscious childhood messages, core fears, and core desires are below.

The Triads

Though there are many ways to separate the enneagram, the three main ways are the main triads. These triads represent the three main things each subgroup of the enneagram are concerned with. When it comes to typing characters or people, this is what you want to start off with.

There are three triads: the instinctive (gut) triad, the thinking (head) triad, and the feeling (heart) triad. Each triad is associated with a core emotion: rage (instinctive/gut), fear (thinking/head), and shame (feeling/heart). Each triad is concerned with different things: control (instinctive, gut), support/guidance (thinking/head), and self-identity (feeling/heart). Three types belong to each triad. And these types will deal with their core emotion and desires in three different ways. They will focus outward, focus inward, or do both.

I will go into each main triad and the types associated with each, but for a general overview, you can read the box below.

The Instinctive (Gut) Triad

The Instinctive Triad includes types 8, 9, and 1. They seek to instill their will upon the world without being affected by it. These types will attempt to put up a wall between themselves and the outer world, so as to say, "this is self, and this is not self." When things threaten to cross this line, aka their boundaries, this results in rage. Now let's go into the types.

Enneagram 8 - The attention of 8s are focused outward. 8s try to protect themselves from the influences of the outside world so that nothing can get too close and hurt them. As a result, their mentality is, as one reference puts it, "Nothing's going to get the upperhand on me. No one is going to get through my defenses and hurt me. I'm going to keep my guard up." However, because 8s are focused outward, so is their rage. They WILL fight anything that ever comes too close to hurting them. They are not afraid of raising their voices, their not afraid of displaying their anger. They will attempt to scare and fight off anything that comes too close. Realistically speaking, you see most type 8s having abusive childhood upbringings. Being an 8 is a rare type and most people will not be that type. I may be wrong about this, but I think the only 8 is Wanderer.

Enneagram 1 - The attention of 1s are focused inward. 1s refuse to be affected by the influences of their internal world. Their rage is focused inward at themselves. They constantly are holding back from their internal impulses so as to say, "I don't want that feeling! I don't want to have that reaction or that impulse!" Because of this, they have the reputation of being perfectionists, holding themselves and others to high standards. They repress their inner desires and are rule-bound. It makes sense why they fear corruption. Some examples of type 1s are Diluc, Eula, and Cyno.

Enneagram 9 - The attention of 9s are focused both outward and inward, in other words, they try not to be affected by influences of both the outer and inner world. In a way, one can say that they ignore their rage, completely under the delusion that it doesn't exist. 9s are primarily concerned with being at peace no matter what the cost, even if this means ignoring the world around them or giving up their wants and desires. Examples of 9s include Kazuha and Alhaitham.

There are easy ways to point out an Instinctive Triad type. Typically speaking, they are not the most emotional of people. They don't get affected by things emotionally as most people do. In my experience, they give off 'leave me tf alone' vibes. Not in the loner sense. But they dislike being obligated/manipulated to feel a specific way or act in a specific manner. They desire to have full control over themselves. There's always a wall between themselves and the outer world.

The Feeling (Heart) Triad

The Feeling Triad includes types 2, 3, and 4. The Feeling Triad is primarily concerned with the development of a self-image. Because they don't know who they truly are, they don't feel they are worthy of love. They feel they are worthless, which results in their core feeling of shame. The Feeling Triad essentially feels that there is something missing from their core. And once they are able to find it, they will come to have self-worth and love.

Enneagram 2 - The attention of 2s are focused outward. 2s look outside to others for validation and a sense of identity. They want to be wanted, so they act in ways which attempt to make this possible. They try to be helpful, friendly, and good to others. However, because they're so focused outside, they often do not know how they are feeling themselves. They often feel underappreciated and have feelings of resentment because of it. Mom friend types are almost always 2s. I am unsure of which characters would be a 2. Maybe Amber? Possibly Yoimiya?

Enneagram 4 - The attention of 4s are focused inward. They try to make a self-image based upon their feelings, fantasies and stories of the past. Namely, they try to create an image on what separates themselves from others, aka what makes them different, but because of this, they often feel estranged from others. They are often moody and have victim complexes, assuming they are the way they are because of the way they were treated in the past. An example of a 4 would be Fischl.

Enneagram 3 - The attention of 3s are focused both outward and inward. Like 2s, 3s need the positive feedback and affirmation of others. They do this by striving for success and accomplishment. By creating an accomplished successful image, they feel they thus become valuable. However, they are like 4s because they need a lot of internal self-talk, attempting to create and sustain a consistent internal picture of themselves. An example of a 3 includes Lyney.

The Feeling Triad are hands down the easiest to type. These people are typically the most depressed and the most insecure. They always have some self-proclaimed self-image they are trying to project, and if you do not validate their false self-image, they can and will get mad at you before getting depressed once more. LOL Long story short, they are a pain in the butt. Are they of the most annoying types? Surprisingly, no. But they are damn easy to point out in a crowd.

The Thinking (Head) Triad

The Thinking Triad includes types 5, 6, and 7. This triad is primarily concerned with finding an inner sense of guidance and support. They focus on the future, wondering "What's going to happen to me? How am I going to survive? How can I prepare myself to keep bad things from happening? How do I move forward in life? How do I cope?" Their minds are constantly active, and their core emotion is anxiety and fear, fear that they do not have the resources to ensure their future. Let's go into the types.

Enneagram 7 - The attention of 7s is focused outward. They charge into the world, adventurous and seemingly not afraid of anything. Where their fear is, however, not of the outside world, but the internal. They fear they do not have the resources to navigate their internal world. They fear being trapped in emotional pain, grief, and especially feelings of anxiety. So what do they do? They focus so much on the outside world that they ignore their internal. If they keep active, their anxieties will not surface. Examples of 7s are Itto and Gaming (I think).

Enneagram 5 - The attention of 5s are focused inward. I'm going to take this straight from a book that "Fives believe that they are too frail and insubstantial to safely survive in the world. The only safe place is in their minds,so they stockpile whatever they believe will help them survive until they are ready to rejoin the world." The anxiety of 5s is what keeps them from external action. 5s are most commonly stereotyped for being bookworms. Although I am not completely sure about this, I would guess and say that examples include Kokomi, maybe Kuki Shinobu, and maybe Mika.

Enneagram 6 - The attention of 6s are focused both outward and inward. As one book says, "Sixes feel anxious inside, and so launch into external action and anticipation of the future like Sevens. But having done so, they eventually become afraid that they will make mistakes and be punished or overwhelmed by demands on them, so like Fives, they 'jump back inside.'" Then they continue doing this in a pingpong action-like manner. I also may be wrong about this, but I feel that an example would be Collei.

The easiest way to point out the Thinking Triad types is that they are all avoidant in one way or another. There is always something they're trying to avoid. Now, DO NOT MISTAKEN ANXIETY DISORDERS WITH THE THINKING TRIAD. While there is correlation, they do not generally do not experience anxiety in the same way people with mental disorders do. 5s fear action, 6s fear trusting their support, and 7s fear their internal world.

Conclusion

There are other aspects of enneagram to go into that give color to the types. These include wings and instinctual variants, but I won't go into that. One important thing about Enneagram is that the theory does not exist to make you feel good. It's the "this is why you're pathetic" personality theory. You will see the most of enneagram when someone is immature. When someone is grown and actualized, you will not see a lot of their core fear or core emotion. This is doubly so when the character in question would not exist in real life (think Luffy or Naruto). Take everything with a grain of salt, but it will help you to get a better view into characters.

#enneagram #ekolu.talks #character analysis #ekolu.headcanons #this is a long post so buckle in you folks #the easiest characters to type are the ones that are immature bc their core fear/emotion is more visible #healthier characters are harder #and when theyre fictional characters it adds another layer which makes it hard to type #the examples i give for each type are heavily lacking i apologize #i... am just too lazy to give every character an analysis to figure out which type they are haha #in terms of likelihood and commonality gut triad is the most common. then head. then heart #also i didnt go into wings here but wings do play a big part in how a type presents itself #for example a 9w1 (kazuha) is very different from a 9w8 (alhaitham)#the way wings work is that you take on traits of one of the types directly bordering your ennea type #so for 9 you can only be a 9w1 or 9w8. not a 9w4 or a 9w6 #a 9w1 has 1 traits so theyre more principaled and self controlled #a 9w8 however takes on 8 traits which makes them more willing to give into anger and fight #if youd like me to type any characters pls let me know

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