[INFJ] JK Rowling

[Rin]

The lady said it herself:

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/579984118257229825

 

[bonfire]

I honestly don't see her as INFJ. I watched some of her interviews and she didn't come across as Fe user to me.

 

[Asa]

I take this at face value. She said she is an INFJ.
We can't ask her, "Did you take the (notoriously inaccurate) Humanmetrics test, though?" (We could, but it would be rude to ask, and would she reply anyway?)

Both her personal traits and some traits and themes in her writing could place her in the INFJ category. They don't make her a shoe-in, but the idea that she could be an INFJ isn't outlandish.

Her writing is "very Ni". IMHO, that is what makes her work truly good and what convinces me she may be an INFJ more than her behavior. She uses tons of hidden symbolism, and connects clues with patterns. She draws from many different mythologies, Classical, and Classic literature. Her writing may seem stuffed with random filler and descriptions, but all that filling is stringing the clues together. She uses certain words over and over. It isn't because her vocabulary is small. Those repeated words are clues. She scattered information everywhere in the stories, and it connects like a detective’s board. If you connect the dots they give away the entire story very clearly. It is cool.

For example, she had a tendency to hide horcruxes in descriptive paragraphs where she is explaining all different objects in a room. She will go on and on listing objects and hide the horcrux in the list. The clue is repeated.

In book 5 she wrote about weather in a way that connected the story to a myth about Zeus and Typhon that told the reader there were horcruxes (not by name of course, but it gave the idea away) and that a horcrux was in a cave. The same horcrux was listed in a descriptive paragraph in book 5. The plot and horcrux subplot were spelled out in books 2 and 5 for readers who followed her symbolism. There were also clues about horcruxes in the "ship" between Ginny and Harry that related to his scar and the diary. When these clues were discovered, Shippers coined the horcruxes "soulbits". (I wasn't a shipper. It was a little too mushy for me and the ships seems obvious due to the way JKR wrote the relationships, tension, etc.)

It's super easy to tell who will die in the books by the 5th chapter.

In the last book she practically hits readers over the head with clues that Dumbledore is gay. It was obvious to me, but I understood why she didn't blatantly write, "Dumbledore is gay," in the text at the time. It was still controversial, and Potter is a children’s series. (Very Fe of her to avoid taking that risk.)

Similarly, I'm always surprised when more conservative readers get upset with her for her liberal points of view on Twitter, when the entire Potter series is about a resistance fighting evil ala WWII. She makes constant, blatant and sneaky symbolic references to liberal political ideas, WWII, political literature and history. "Equality" is a prominent theme in her work.


I can go on and on giving examples.

 

[Wyote]

Yeah I agree with @Asa in that her writing seems very much like it comes from an infj. A lot of her interactions with her community are online which I think is another good marker. She seems to have that confusing warm/cold vibe as well which you see in a lot of infjs. Her Fe doesn't appear as well developed but she was able to navigate getting her books and movies well made and marketed which is no small feat as far as social navigation goes. Everyone who knows her personality seems to say she's quite lovely, so I feel like that's another good indicator. Plus she is sassy as hell, always making humorous jabs. I don't see any other type encompassing all those characteristics.

 

[Asa]

Yeah I agree with @Asa in that her writing seems very much like it comes from an infj. A lot of her interactions with her community are online which I think is another good marker. She seems to have that confusing warm/cold vibe as well which you see in a lot of infjs. Her Fe doesn't appear as well developed but she was able to navigate getting her books and movies well made and marketed which is no small feat as far as social navigation goes. Everyone who knows her personality seems to say she's quite lovely, so I feel like that's another good indicator. Plus she is sassy as hell, always making humorous jabs. I don't see any other type encompassing all those characteristics.

Good points.
You explained her personality well. I don't think her Fe seems especially well-developed, either, but she does advocate for others, and she is a philanthropist. While not specific to Fe users, both could be results of Fe.

She seems to have that confusing warm/cold vibe as well which you see in a lot of infjs.

-- Whatever do you mean? I've never witnessed such a thing.

 

[infinite dreams]

I freely admit I haven't read her books (I know, shame on me) but my intuition for People Vibes (based on interviews, Twitter etc.) tells me she's clearly an INFJ.

@Asa based on your analysis of her use of symbolism, I think her type is a no-brainer. People who don't actively use Ni simply do not think to include this manner of symbolism in their work.

 

[Asa]

@Asa based on your analysis of her use of symbolism, I think her type is a no-brainer. People who don't actively use Ni simply do not think to include this manner of symbolism in their work.

It is clearly Ni to me, and as a Ni-dom it was really fun to study her work.
I don't know enough about Sensors to tell whether she could be another type that uses Ni and Se, like ISTP or ISFP. It makes sense to me that she is an INFJ. (My brother is an ISTP, but despite understanding him well, I do not know enough about his type at large.) She is not an ENFJ – her dom trait is not Fe.

 

[infinite dreams]

It is clearly Ni to me, and as a Ni-dom it was really fun to study her work.

I can imagine so. I am so terrible at recognizing literary symbolism. My brain just isn't wired to look for it (and if anything, finds it obtuse and distracting). I can appreciate the brilliance of it after the fact, but to use your example, I would probably have no idea who's going to die by the end of chapter 5. Maybe not even until they actually die!

I don't know enough about Sensors to tell whether she could be another type that uses Ni and Se, like ISTP or ISFP. It makes sense to me that she is an INFJ. (My brother is an ISTP, but despite understanding him well, I do not know enough about his type at large.) She is not an ENFJ – her dom trait is not Fe.

My view of all tertiary functions is that they primarily serve a support role for the Dom/Aux. So for an ISFP, Ni might be used to envision a work of art, or an impression of a completed song or poem, which Fi/Se then uses as a basis to fill in the blanks.

My dad is an ISTP, and he similarly uses Ni when working on projects around the house. When he talks to me about his plans, they are always based on his vision of the project's completed state (Ni), not on a series of sequential steps with a defined beginning, middle and end (Si). Once he's got his vision locked down he will use Ti/Se to piece together the components in a way that makes sense to him, and he's okay with skipping steps if necessary.

 

[Wyote]

and if anything, finds it obtuse and distracting

How dare you! Lol!

 

[Wyote]

I would probably have no idea who's going to die by the end of chapter 5

Me: *looks at book cover of book 1 in some series*
Me: *prophetic flashes of all knowingness* *character x will die in book 4*

 

[infinite dreams]

Me: *looks at book cover of book 1 in some series*
Me: *prophetic flashes of all knowingness* *character x will die in book 4*

*Me and @Happy Phantom discussing the first episode of a new TV show*

HP: "x is the killer."
ID: "SPOILERS!!!"

 

[Wyote]

*Me and @Happy Phantom discussing the first episode a new TV show*

HP: "x is the killer."
ID: "SPOILERS!!!"

Haha yea exactly

 

[Asa]

I can imagine so. I am so terrible at recognizing literary symbolism. My brain just isn't wired to look for it (and if anything, finds it obtuse and distracting). I can appreciate the brilliance of it after the fact, but to use your example, I would probably have no idea who's going to die by the end of chapter 5. Maybe not even until they actually die!

Symbolism in her work isn't a blatant symbol, like an allegory, as with Orwell's Animal Farm. It's little things littered across the text. What makes it seem Ni to me is how all these little things here and there are seamlessly connected and make total sense, but they all seem unrelated, and even random and purposeless, at first glance.

The person who dies will be in the spotlight at the beginning of the story. There will be emphasis put on them to distinguish them from other characters, even if their time in the spotlight is brief. In book 7, it is difficult to figure this out because so many people die, but Mad-eye, Snape, and Hedwig were obvious, according to her patterns. (The only one I missed was Fred, and that was largely denial on my part.) Quirrell and Cedric both had brief moments on stage, but there was emphasis put on them. Dumbledore and Sirius were both big parts of the beginning of the books they died in.

Also, HP follows the classic "hero cycle" (and she even wrote something on her website congratulating us when we started writing theories about this), so each character that represented a father to Harry had to die.

 

[Asa]

*Me and @Happy Phantom discussing the first episode of a new TV show*

HP: "x is the killer."
ID: "SPOILERS!!!"

Hahahahahaha! That sounds like my house.

 

[Wyote]

Hahahahahaha! That sounds like my house.

Me: That dude is bad, he's actually the villain and he's gonna use that device later for evil
GF: What? How does one use a ketchup making machine for evil?
Me: You'll see
***many hours later***
Villain: Finally my grand plan has come to fruition! With this machine, I will create the most terrible weapon the world has ever seen!
GF: OMFG GET OUT

 

[Asa]

Me: That dude is bad, he's actually the villain and he's gonna use that device later for evil
GF: What? How does one use a ketchup making machine for evil?
Me: You'll see
***many hours later***
Villain: Finally my grand plan has come to fruition! With this machine, I will create the most terrible weapon the world has ever seen!
GF: OMFG GET OUT

Why is it that we are both better at this stuff than our INTJs? They use the same Ni/Se. Does Te cause them to second guess? Like Blue Blockers for Ni/Se rays?
I am excited and encourage him when he does do this sort of Ni/Se stuff, but I also kinda don't want him to become more like me, because I think that is the only thing that makes me "magical". After however many years of marriage, I like that he is still impressed by me and I want to keep it that way.
(He is overall much more impressive than I.)

INTJs also have that cold/warm thing. Hmmmm.

 

[Wyote]

Why is it that we are both better at this stuff than our INTJs?

Because it's a social construct and not a system construct. Give an intj a complex system and they'll show you the most efficient way to run it almost immediately.
Present humans in a system construct rather than an emotional one and they'll have it all sorted instantaneously

INTJs also have that cold/warm thing. Hmmmm.

:thinkinghard: indeed

 

[Asa]

Because it's a social construct and not a system construct. Give an intj a complex system and they'll show you the most efficient way to run it almost immediately.
Present humans in a system construct rather than an emotional one and they'll have it all sorted instantaneously

And that rules out INTJ for JKR, because her books are about people and relationships.



We're still on topic, I swear!

 

[pzl2lxie81mc]

I’m a little surprised. The book written in all-caps makes sense now.

 

[Wyote]

I’m a little surprised. The book written in all-caps makes sense now.

YOU CAN'T DENY IT'S HIGHLY EFFECTIVE!
(lol)