Zombies Ruin Everything

It’s easy to see The X-Files’ resident conspiracy theorist as an NT: always questioning, always searching, always paranoid and heck, the show was about aliens and government cover-ups, a Rational playpen.

Originally typing him, I was sure he was INTP but a slightly closer look reveals his Idealist ways as an INFP, especially in contrast to Scully, his obvious anchor. She’s the only thing that keeps Mulder from going completely insane, something she couldn’t do for him if he were actually an INTP. Ha ha.

Mulder fits the perfect idea of theory-riddled loner. It’s hardly because of his looks, although the first episodes he was pulling off “nerd” really well, but more to do with his ideas and goals. He’s so obsessed with figuring out where his sister went when she was abducted years before that he’ll do anything to find her. A dominate Introverted Feeler will feel that just about anything is justified if what they’re doing is right and Mulder fits this perfectly. It’s not as though he’s murdering people or even torturing them to get answers, but the search for the truth (should I capitalize that “T”) requires a sacrifice that, in many cases, only an Idealist would find worthy.

How all the piling up “rational” evidence doesn’t convince Mulder is because he’s seen enough to set him on his path and there’s nothing that will derail him. Not even the idea that many government factions want his head (or his mind) due to his pursuit of the goal: a personal one, not something necessarily for the world at large although sure, they could benefit too. Mulder’s findings are indefinitely something in the “long-range” planning department but not because he’s planning, more so because he has to go through layer after layer to find a clue that will lead him to his next. Personal conviction will lead a person to the most insane things to the passerby, and Mulder is no stranger to this. Actually, his life could be summed up in that description.

“HEY! I TAKE OFFENSE TO TH-Okay, it’s true.”

Mulder has got many flaws, and we’re able to see this through the eyes of our skeptic, Dana Scully. Mulder has little to know friends (They’re contacts mostly) and is a major jerk of a person, specifically in the first season. His way of finding a reason around reasoning frustrates Scully to no end. Extraverted Intuition involves seeing hidden patterns, reading between the lines, imagining what’s possible and (hopefully) narrowing it down to a result. While many types are looking for definite conclusions, results-based tactics, Extraverted Intuition can have a person opening themselves up to a world that has no boundaries- and possibly no answers. Scully is a skeptic even after the things she’s seen with Mulder while Mulder has seen something so needs to evidence. “If THIS can exist, than why not that?”

“Oh, hey. Just found a clue here. Come closer.”

INTP would have no immediate personal connection to his case. An INTP may do many things similar to what Mulder does but more out of curiosity, the search for the truth at large, and a never ending goal means always having something to do. But on the INTP search, personal conviction can be lost in the grand scheme of things as they jump from what conclusion to the next, leaving behind their original ideology and latching onto something new that their eyes have been opened to. INFP may bounce around, but always with the same initial concept in mind. If INFP is rock climbing, they attempt climb a mountain of impossible height while the INTP may get to a certain height and say “I’ve never gotten to this altitude and think I want to base jump from here.”

Some have made the argument for Mulder as an INTJ which I think is completely out of the question. INTJ is in a similar vein as Scully, where proof and results are key. An occupation like Mulder’s is definitely that a Perceiver lifestyle over a Judger’s need for completion and order.

This entry was posted on 07/19/2013 at 3:54 pm and is filed under MBTI Idealists, MBTI Stuff with tags fox mulder, infp, mbti in fiction, the x-files. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.