MBTI: Doctor Doom- INTJ
It was only a matter of time before DOOM showed up. Specifically, while I was writing the last Fantastic Four post and it only made sense to throw him in. He’s one of the greatest villains of all time and his mind, the greatest.
He runs his own country, has countless minions, and a bunch of happy-go-lucky morons as his enemies that just happen to get the best of him, but never his ego. Even his name is the prototypical Super-villain title. It’s time again, to talk about the INTJ.
I’ve posted a few articles in the past week that go over which types play what in movies. E/ISTPS are eternal action heroes, Guardians are usually someone either in control or under it (happily)- but there’s only one place for the INTJ and that’s on top of it all, behind the curtain, pulling strings. In fact… 
If you know someone that you suspect is an INTJ, ask yourself two questions: 1. Are they in control of everything around them? 2. If they’re not in control (at work, socially, etc.), could you see them at the very least, viewing themselves that way? If Magneto is the absolute ENTJ in comic book form, Doctor Doom is the poster boy for the Mastermind variant. His iconic look, created to hide himself from the world while simultaneously scaring the hell out of it is the way the INTJ you know lives out their life as well. The Isolated planner, meticulously plotting out every action they’re going to make the next day. And the next week. and maybe the next several years if not more. People tend to like them in their day-to-day life, never knowing what’s really going on in their heads…
Let’s begin. Doctor Doom’s head function is Introverted Intuition. His masterfully set plans, his lifestyle, his outlook; all products of constantly coming up with the next big project. If you’ve ever asked an INTJ to do something with you, they better be able to fit it in with everything they’ve already planned to do that day, otherwise it’s a no-go. Even if that means they were planning to sit on the couch on their day off.
Ni is set on get the most out of the user’s time so slight hiccups (i.e., the rest of the world) could get on their nerves quite easily. Doom’s lead function is what gives him his assured sense of the future and how to plan things out so far in advance that no one will ever see what’s coming. Except him of course. You TJs, you.
You’d have a superiority complex too if 1/3 of your covers had your enemies the size of mice crawling all over you.
But that last part is what so commonly works with their second function, and maybe what Doom is more known for- his Extraverted Thinking. Victor Von Doom is one of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe. Right up there with INTP Reed Richards.
But his ego won’t allow that to be a fact, merely something others might thing is true but that’s because they understand nothing, the fools!
Doom’s Te is what has him referring to himself in third person, constantly speaking down to people out loud and almost begging someone to challenge him just so he can put them right back in their place- except that Doom begs no one. Te is confrontational and direct. Too direct for many’s taste and this may leave the INTJ with only a few close friends. Te reassures themselves that “if this person doesn’t like what I have to say, then they shouldn’t be around me. I speak the truth. Not my fault they’re so sensitive.”
This would also explain why Doom has no friends but runs an entire country. With the help of minions of course. Who needs friends? This leads to another issue that may easily ward off any potential associates past the point of doing cold hard business- the INTJ is one arrogant sonavagun, and to a point, they like it that way.
Have you ever met someone very smart, very funny, but very full of themselves? You wanted to argue many things they might say but you just didn’t know how because this person may have actually been right? That person might have been an INTJ.
Also, did they fight a lion naked and then wear his skin as their new costume? Then they might be Hercules.
INTJs run off of logic, pure and simple, and regardless of what many forums online tell you, they also don’t understand people very well. So to the INTJ, being right is all you need. What was everybody’s problem again? The INTJ doesn’t get why you’re so upset because he made a fat joke about you- you really are fat. Oh, poor sensitive baby.
It’s not that they INTJ is even always right, they just know how to make you look wrong. After the INTJ makes a fat joke about you there are one of two ways for you to respond. Laugh it off and have the INTJ believe that you’re going to sit there and take whatever they throw at you (because you’re pathetic) or tell them how rude it was of them, only to have them also tell you that you’re too serious. See? INTJ wins.
Now imagine Doom thinking this way and you’re that much closer to understanding his unbreakable pride. Either he beats the Fantastic Four, thus proving his supreme intellect- or the FF beat him because of a slight mishap on someone else’s part- but it couldn’t have been his fault. This isn’t just to point out an INTJ flaw, but it’s a defining weakness of their as well as a defining trait for Doom.
For the issue of Fantastic Four #500, Doom actually seeks the help of demons to help rid him of Reed Richards- a man Doom has hated since his college days. Now that’s a grudge.
Ooh ooh, AND he sacrificed his first love to the demons for this armor made out of her skin. Doom likes skin armor.
In some versions of the story, Richards tried to warn Doom of a miscalculation in the machine Doom was working on. Doom wouldn’t listen and the results left him permanently scarred and hateful of everyone around him.
Co-creator Jack Kirby has said that he’d drawn Doom behind the mask at one point and only gave him a thin scar on his cheek. But it’s that scar and Doom’s superiority complex that makes him want to level humanity- to their knees, precisely.
It’s also interesting to note that Kirby wanted to draw the closest thing that Death could get to human, hence the robe and the mask resembling a skull. There is no mercy to Doom and any compassion shown by him is for his own gain, sooner or later.
Even specially prepared berry drinks are used as tools of evil in Doom’s hands. TOO evil.
Despite all this, Doom remains one of the most feared and respected villains in comics. Much like real life INTJs, if you ever get to know one, you may learn a lot. If they’re not telling you about something you’ve never heard of, they’re telling you something you didn’t know about the thing you do know of.
As long as this genius isn’t allowed to become arrogance, knowing an INTJ can be a rewarding experience. Like seeing a really rare animal at the zoo. The end.
Zombies Ruin Everything 
09/25/2014 at 3:48 pm
Fucking INTJs.
09/26/2014 at 3:10 am
I know, right.
09/28/2014 at 11:03 am
As a INTJ I disagree with a number of things in this article, for one it is illogical for us to simply going around insulting people; personally I value friendship and I understand that friendships can not (and should not) be maintained whilst insulting another person. Dr Doom is a good example of an INTJ at their worst, he is not however someone that should be used to represent INTJ’s in general.
Also another trait of an INTJ is being aware of what you can and CAN NOT DO meaning we are simply aware of our strengths and weaknesses and typically we understand that something can always be improved thus we are self critical of ourselves displaying we acknowledge that sometimes it is our fault. Even now for anyone that reads this they will likely perceive this an attempt on my part to belittle this article when in reality this is simply my attempt to engage in a discussion were I look forward to peoples responses so I can try to understand other peoples views whilst also enlightening them with my own perceptions; breaking things down is simply my (and possibly other intj’s) life blood and I ENJOY being proven wrong for I learn something new every time that betters myself as a person.
10/07/2014 at 1:48 pm
I understand what you’re saying Philip. Of course you’ll be proven wrong if someone can present better facts or make more logical deductive reasoning. You’re open to someone else’s logic being more sound than yours and you’re willing to adopt that logic as your own without ego or pretense. Kudos. Congratulations. Magnificent.
I can tell you that wouldn’t be my complaint. It’s not the inability to understand a better logical argument. In fact, most understand that you can do that just fine. The problem is that is ALL you understand and INTJs appear to not be able to comprehend or care about the facts and logic IN ADDITION TO the human experience, including feelings and different paradigms.
The fact is, humans can never be truly divorced from their feelings, even under the best of circumstances. Every situation, every circumstance, every relationship, and every goal is half governed by logic & reasoning and half governed by human experience. When you’re trying to explain something to an INTJ, it feels like a failure in communication because you can explain the semantics to him and present the logic and reasoning, but you can’t make him truly understand the situation on a human experience level. You can’t make him feel the feelings or see the paradigm. You can only get him to agree to the facts and logic. That’s missing half of the truth! An INTJ will never empathize with you, will never truly understand you. He never truly “get it” and even though he doesn’t mean to, this will cause him to disregard your experiences as a human and disrespect your feelings and invalidate your point of view. He’ll agree to half of the truth but he will never understand the full truth as you understand it. It makes INTJs terrible at interacting with other humans that are emotionally or spiritually minded and often times, INTJs even have trouble with Ne intellectual possibilities. You want a conclusion, an open-shut case with a solid answer and decision and some people can’t or won’t provide that. Some people are comfortable leaving things open-ended to possibilties and I think INTJs have trouble wrapping their heads around that fact alone, which also leads to failure in understanding other human beings and unintentional dismissal and invalidation of others. THAT is why people complain about INTJs.
10/10/2014 at 5:46 pm
You make interesting points and I enjoyed reading your reasoning, however I must question are you not currently doing the same thing with your argument by disregarding the INTJ as a person thus the human experience? Your arguments are very well considered while using the potential weaknesses of a person considered to have the personality type INTJ based on the information that is available; however personality type does not determine a persons experience/skill/knowledge or even morals.
For example I am a practitioner of Shotokan karate and have acquired a 1st dan, other members within that class are usually spiritually minded individuals of whom I have very healthy relationships with and I would even consider myself spiritually driven; perhaps you regard spiritual in a purely religious sense? If that is the case then I am guilty arguing as to why I do not believe in a number of religions and I have upset one of my closest friends on the matter, however I apologized and I have since allowed people to simply believe what they wish to believe while concerning religion, this in itself shows that throw the human experience a INTJ is perfectly capable of learning from experience and allowing others to believe what they wish. As for empathy, there has been plenty of times that I have been a shoulder to cry on for many people ranging from my family, girlfriend, friends in general and even strangers (I run a circuit aimed at increasing physical activity, providing advice to people on matters outside of the actual exercise is pretty common) and I have felt honest concern and sympathy towards these people.
I may not always agree with people and their actions if it is irrational but I can understand, my cousin committed suicide when I was young and I punched my wall leaving a hole in it; after a few minutes I gathered my senses and it hit me how obscene it was to punch a wall, it ultimately achieved nothing yet at that time I simply needed a release. That scenario is just one of many situations where feelings my feelings took over what was rational.
The point I was trying to make is that as you said humans can never truly be divorced from their emotions and INTJ’s are still very much human and its very easy to get caught up with what is percieved as facts and statistics as your own arguements appear to currently be focused on these factors. Of course I am only one person so by no means am I saying that you are wrong the majority of the time as I have no evidence otherwise, however it is my belief that the human experience as you put it affects a person in such a way that they can overcome their inbuilt weaknesses.
10/14/2014 at 12:27 pm
Interesting. Thank you Phillip for adding more to this discussion. When I wrote that, I was generalizing and also speaking out of personal and situational bias (so, my apologies). Of course there are INTJs who are highly developed and empathic. In fact, I would be remiss to say that there isn’t quite a spectrum of different types of INTJs (as with alll other types) and some are more spiritually minded than others. I’ve seen INTJs put their focus of “improvement” on people-oriented values, self-improvement, as well as scientific, engineering, and even Se-related art endeavours. I even knew one that was devoutly religious. The common denominator seems to be the constant strive to achieve improvement or perfection.
Fi also has a tendency to give INTJs an “authenticity” in values even if values are not on the forefront of their minds. The exceptions to this rule are INTJ archetypes like Walter White, who ignores the plight of Fi and has made his tertiary and inferior functions slave to the Ni-Te agenda. In this case, Fi originally compelled him to do something drastic for the sake of his family and later on, began to only serve Walter’s ego. Power, obsession, acquisition, and Se indulgences, according to Socionics, are the archille’s heel of INTJs during times of duress. But like I said, guys like Walter are the rare exception.
Stress can also cause INTJs to focus on details which don’t matter in the big picture. This could be what I have seen and experienced lately. It has become a circular thought process, with all thoughts circling back to the same details irrespective of context in the big picture. When a stressed INTJ is trying to deal with a chaotic relationship, for example, his mind keeps circling back to the semantics: How much money was spent by whom at what dates and who benefitted? How many times did I vacuum the stairs versus how many times did YOU vacuum the stairs? What exactly was said verbatim at what date and time? No, it doesn’t matter what you meant or what the circumstances were that influenced it. It’s what you said and how it was worded. Look, I can go back and read the text again. No clarification or explanation is going to change the way that sentence was originally worded. The true meaning of the message is irrelevant now. You said it exactly that way and now I’m going to stubbornly take that at face value.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? I’ve been dealing with narrow-minded focus on details, which is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever seen a human being do in an emotional situation. A calm INTJ who is emotionally detached from the situation has a lot more ability to be empathic and grasp the significance of the human experience, instead of relying entirely on semantics. Ni can be a real bitch at times, telling you that there is only one way to look at things.
10/16/2014 at 11:40 am
Ah thank you for the clarification and on that note I can quite agree with you that is indeed and issue that I am at time guilty of at times and I can imagine is similar for other INTJs (sadly I am the only one that I know of within my social circle so I myself can only generalize).
I often find myself looping back to a point which I believe outweighs any arguments another person might have. An example of this is the card game magic the gathering, I often use the colour blue which is about control and negation preventing other players doing things with counterspells, quite a lot of people have lost their temper while playing against me saying that my tactics are cheap or that it’s not fun to play against with my counter argument being that the game would be boring if everyone simply dropped the biggest creature on the field and just swung at each other mindlessly; my friends often start getting somewhat angry which baffles me since I view their complaints as petty so I then proceed to explain to them on every level as to why they are wrong which of course angers them further. I have thought about this before and decided to let them rant or avoid playing that said person for a while since by arguing back with them I myself am being petty and just causing further conflict; I would like to think that this is myself overcoming my instinct to argue back but in truth I still stubbornly believe that I was 100% in the right.
I can see why this stubbornness can infuriate someone, more so when that person is wrong. Many people believe INTJ’s are some kind of intellectual genius which is quite foolish; I believe I am somewhat intelligent but most defiantly not a genius, I believe cunning would be a better way to describe an INTJ’s thoughts.