Luke Skywalker on the MBTI Chart

I have often felt in my life as if I am weird, or somehow defective.  Now, I would classify myself as “enigmatic” and “eccentric”, but, not necessarily “defective”.  I think the main reason why I felt that way, especially as a kid/ teen is because I was always behind, and my body has a habit of betraying me (I have an unidentified medical “disease” or “disorder”).

On the surface, I never exactly related to one character or another in various fandoms- at least not as a child or teen. However, upon rewatching some of my favorite movies, I’ve been finding some common ground, and it’s quite freakish on first glance.  But in studying, I’ve found out that the reason that is- is because those characters fall on the same personality type of the MBTI scale as I do.  I am an INFP- T “diplomat/ healer/ idealist” personality.  I discovered that my favorite Disney Princess, Belle from Beauty and the Beast falls under the INFP category.  So does Spiderman, who is one of my favorite superheroes. I discovered that in my favorite fandom, Star Wars, I match up with Luke Skywalker. The funny thing is that I’ve kind of rebelled against really liking Luke because he was kind of an “empty glass” character in the old trilogy.  But, when someone explained it as that being his purpose, I came around.

In examining the stuff that happens to him, and the stuff that he does, he is more like me than I wanted to admit. When I realized that we share a personality type on the MBTI scale, it unlocked for me a new way to look at Luke’s entire arc, beginning with the classic trilogy, and culminating with The Last Jedi.  I also looked at the differences in personality between various Star Wars characters, and I found some interesting nuggets. Anakin/ Vader, for example, is classified usually as either an ENTJ “Feild marshal”  or an ESTJ “Supervisor”. I find this funny because Leia is the same way.  On the chart I found where Anakin is ENTJ, she was ESTJ and vice-versa.  Padme is classified as an ENFJ in both charts.  Kylo Ren/ Ben Solo is only in one of them, but he is lumped in with his grandmother, which is weird. Han is either classified as an ISTP or ESTP, which again, is interesting, but I digress… (I only mention all that because they’re all in the Skywalker family in one way or another, and their family is all kinds of dysfunctional!)

An interesting way to look at it is that Luke is the only one (going by blood) of the Skywalkers to be classified as an INTROVERT.  Now, his uncle Owen was listed as an ISTJ, but he’s not actually related by blood, only by marriage (his father married Anakin’s mom, Shmi after both Anakin and Owen were born).

Luke being an introvert, and seeming to be this empty glass or naive farmboy who was still playing with toys at 19 whereas his twin sister was a senator and a princess, his mother had been a queen, and a senator and his father had become a Jedi prodigy.

Being an introvert doesn’t really explain why Luke seems “behind” according to the rest of the Skywalkers, but being an INFP does at least a fair amount.

Under the Careers heading for INFP personality types, it says: “It is perhaps more challenging for Mediators to find a satisfying career than any other type. Though intelligent, the regimented learning style of most schools makes long years earning an advanced degree a formidable undertaking for people with the Mediator personality type – at the same time, that’s often what’s needed to advance in a field that rings true for them.”

It also adds, “Too many Mediators drift in frustration, ultimately succumbing to the necessities of day-to-day life in a job that wasn’t meant for them.” We see a good example of that with Luke.  Sure, he didn’t choose to be a moisture farmer on Tatooine, but that is pretty much the only career he could have- since his Uncle Owen needed him and wouldn’t let him leave, whether to join the Imperial Academy or the Rebellion.  Luke was constantly stifled and him getting off Tatooine was pretty much a pipe dream, the same as for normal people in this world, their dream career to be a novelist, songwriter, playwright, or artist is poo-hooed and thought by others to be a pipe dream.  But for Luke, it’s actually kind of worse because even his careers that he “wants” seem to be quite vague.  Pretty much, all he wants to do is leave Tatooine.

The passage that only kind of fits is, “Where Mediators will not thrive is in a high-stress, team-heavy, busy environment that burdens them with bureaucracy and tedium.” I think being an x-wing pilot in the Rebellion against the Empire is sort of stressful, and its sort of a team, but it isn’t boring, or tedious.  I think for Luke, his desire to do the right thing (a trait of INFPs) outweighed his “fear” of having a high-stress job and being a part of a team.  The thing with Luke is that while he is ultimately part of the team, he was in that cockpit by himself in A New Hope.  And in Empire Strikes Back, he was in the snow speeder with just Dak.  INFPs usually have a small handful of close friends, and work better in small, tight-knit groups.

We also have to consider that he has the Force, and that helps guide him through the stressful times… until he stops letting it.

In The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the Resistance has to go looking for him because he’s shut himself off from the Force, and has hidden himself away on Ahch-To.  Even if you take away the horrible tragedy that is Kylo Ren and the way Luke had a weak moment and thought, maybe it would be better if I ended this, and killed him… You are left with Luke going into “hermit-mode” which is something a lot of introverts do, but most specifically INFPs…

Introverts tend to go into hermit mode when either something traumatic happens to them, or when they’re dealing with something.  In Luke’s case, him going into that mode is completely understandable.  But sometimes, even close friends and family of an INFP won’t know that their loved one has been going through something because they internalize everything and don’t want to burden others with their problems…

An interesting thing about Luke in The Last Jedi is that he tells Rey, “I came here to die.” Which seems incredibly negative, especially for someone who used to be an idealistic farm boy who had so much faith in that twinge of light in Vader that he was able to bring him back- a task Obi-Wan had given up hope for.

The thing with me is that in times where I am stressed, overwhelmed, in pain, grieving, or worried- I go to a dark place.  That’s how my family knows when I’m going through stuff.  They only see it because they see me all the time, but my countenance is extremely dark and moody when something is happening.  Right now, it’s my health.  Some days I am in a lot of pain- one day it will be hovering at 3 and the next it’s at a 7 or 8.

Luke is kind of there in Episodes 7 and 8.  That ties into another trait of INFPs which is that since they’re usually idealists who see the world as it could be and not necessarily as it is- when something like this happens, they get overwhelmed by all that pain and evil in the world, and they retreat from life in ways. This also happens when someone or something causes their beliefs to be shaken, or if they think their world-view is being infringed on.  INFPs are mediators- they just want everyone to get along.

The reason I took the test was because -a few years ago I had this great group of friends.  We did a lot of things together and had a good time. For the first time, I had a tight-knit community of “family” that I chose. Things were great until two of the members began dating, and then pretty much broke away permanently from the group (there was a lot more to it than that, but that’s where the cracks formed).  As much as I tried to glue the group back together, because it was the first time in my life where I had cool people to hang out with- and a bit of a social life, but since I was not the problem, (I’m not just saying that.  I think everyone involved could agree on that.) they chose their own path and we’re pretty much no longer friends. We’re “people who used to be friends but are now barely acquaintances” In that tumultuous time, I was grasping at straws, trying to find a way to either fix the problem or figure out why I cared so much.  I’d realized that the people involved weren’t trying to fix it.  I can’t make them.  But, since it was causing tension between even the other members of the group, and they’d always called me “the glue”, I took the test, and had at least one or two other people take it.  It was interesting, even though it didn’t make the situation go away.  But, knowing what I know, it made me feel at peace with it, and know that I’d done what I could.

Something I’ve noticed about both Anakin and Luke is that while they both have the ability to lead, Luke seems less likely to do so. I read under the careers heading for INFPs that being in a position where they have to hire and fire and give critiques to coworkers is not the career for them.  They won’t be as effective as other personality types as others in getting the job done.  They are also probably not well-suited for teaching because teaching requires a lot of critiquing on the part of the teacher so that the student can know what they’re doing right or wrong and improve.  INFPs are always looking to avoid any kind of discord, so they act like everything is fine when it isn’t, but eventually, they either give up or get overwhelmed.

That could be a large part of why Luke failed as a teacher.

Another hallmark of this personality type is that they tend to either hold people in such high esteem that it becomes almost idolization, or they are overly critical of others’ shortcomings even though they wouldn’t like to be treated that way.

In The Last Jedi, Luke has been telling Rey about the Force, but after she leaves and Luke is speaking with Yoda’s Force Ghost, Yoda essentially tells him, “Listen to your own teachings!  You’re telling her to do something that you’re not doing yourself.”

I’m going to wrap this up for the moment, but I plan to revisit this soon.

 

 

6. Career Paths