MBTI: Loki- ENTJ
Usually “trickster” types are reserved for ENTPs and other types that are known to mess around with others just for the fun of it. But Loki’s messing around doesn’t really consist of goals like “fun” and “reactions” but rather world-ruling and planet destroying.
So while his goals are usually pretty obvious, his intentions and his methods are usually a mystery. He may help you, he may damn you, we just don’t know until it’s happened.
Let’s also make it clear that we’re speaking specifically of the Marvel Comics’ Loki rather than the original mythological figure and I really just don’t care about the movie version but he can be typed the same.
Going after Odin’s throne, Thor’s death, or the end of all living things (Ragnarok, don’tcha know), Loki just wants what everybody else doesn’t- to be the one in charge of changing everything.
“This leopard print just isn’t doing it. I’m thinking…snow leopard. Yeah.”
Born and raised competitive, Loki also grew up jealous of his brother Thor. You would too if you had aspirations and the intellect to be a rocket scientist yet everybody kept praising your brother for being good at football. Throughout the years, Loki became just as likely to help his family as he was to get them killed.
Eventually being thrown in an Asgardian prison for too much mischief (a key word with Loki), he usually crafts his plans in such a way that to have him put to death seems a bit harsh to his family.
Loki’s first function is Extraverted Thinking. There’s some stuff going on around the good ol’ ‘net that Loki is an INFJ. I really don’t know what goes on in people’s heads. This guy doesn’t want people to love him, he wants to control them for the sake of power, something ENTJs love like fat kids and their cake.
His endless scheming is usually reserved (once again) for ENTPs but while ENTPs might kill themselves for the sake of a great idea, the ENTJ’s ideas are more on the constructive, profitable side, even if that means killing everyone he was raised with, just so he can stick his tongue out at them. At times this has even involved taking the form of different women.
Forsooth!
But nothing goes with Te like a healthy dose of Ni, and that’s what drives Loki to wait in the shadows, with his dark magic and his tricks, until things are aligned in just the right way and he’s trusted by his people again…so he can make his move.
But he’s not content with staying in the shadows and while he distances himself enough from his own plans to be able to claim innocence to some degree or another, he plays an active part in his own plans to make sure they come to fruition. An INTJ may do their part of the plan, but it’s really more about setting it in motion more than it is pushing it along like an ENTJ does.
And wouldn’t you know it, the ENTJ’s Introverted Feeling is last, making it that much easier for him to plot to kill his family. Inferior Fi will have the user come off as cold, uncaring, and in many cases, downright sadistic. If you don’t know any ENTJs, you probably know an ESTJ and chances are, you work for one. The ESTJ’s inferior function is also Fi and you’ve probably noticed that this boss of yours is a selfish jerk (that loves football).
The only time an ES/NTJ cries.
When Te is first and Fi is last, the business comes first and everything else falls to the side. The difference between the ENTJ and the ESTJ, aside from what’s described here, is that at the end of the day, the ESTJ wants to kick back with his family and take a break from all the slave-driving (probably to watch football) while the ENTJ’s work is their life. Home, work, and play are all the same things to them. Loki’s mission in life is to rule in one way or another, and taking a break is a highly temporary activity.
Feelings are believed to be weaknesses and since most people don’t see it the same way, it’s not a mystery why Loki would view himself above every other living thing on the planet. Unlike the INFJ, where Extraverted Feeling is second and their interactions with others are very important to them Whereas Loki is like the honey badger.
It seems since the Marvel movies and the induction of good-looking man meat Tom Hiddelston has taken on the role, Loki is seen as a misunderstood lost child type that’s just looking to belong after finding out he’s adopted.
Compare all of what’s been described in this article to an actual INFJ villain, Ra’s Al Ghul and you’ll see the difference. Ra’s is going to kill what he believes to be a bunch of hopeless, immoral parasites that are only going to further ruin the rest of society. He believes he’s doing the majority of mankind a service. Loki wants to kill, rule, and own, and he’ll use any trick to get there.
“I was…was adopotid?”
Heck, he’s gotten some of his enemies to refuse his plans due to how destructive they were. Funny since he’s the one that was raised by the people he was trying to kill and the enemies think it’s too much.
Zombies Ruin Everything 
01/10/2014 at 5:42 pm
For such a polarizing character, no one seems to want to comment on why they’d disagree with your typing of him.
01/14/2014 at 2:34 am
Seems to be the most disputed character on the ‘net.
09/26/2015 at 2:54 pm
Loki is ENFP
12/11/2015 at 3:57 pm
I think it’s impossible to think that he is a ‘healthy’ ENTJ villain. I always think of him as ‘broken’ INFJ villain.
He has Fe-Se side, but he always back to Ni-Ti loop.
12/11/2015 at 3:59 pm
I think it’s impossible to think that Loki in the movies is a ‘healthy’ ENTJ villain. I always think of him as ‘broken’ INFJ villain.
He has Fe-Se side, but he always back to Ni-Ti loop.
05/08/2017 at 12:38 pm
I am not familiar with comic version that much, I read only tidbits about older stories (could be ENTJ) and Agent of Asgard which is new instalment, different from past depictions for all I know.
But I am pretty sure, that movie Loki is not the same as comic Loki.
In Avengers he looks a bit like ENTJ, but I am inclined to think that it is not so much him showing his true colour, but him being not quite himself, less sane and with Thanos at his back.
I like entertaining theory of him intending to loose, because he’d rather risk enraging Thanos that way and having time somewhere off to prepare for him, than refusing him right on spot, when he was completely at Thanos’ mercy and not in best shape after his crazy suicidal trip across universe. But it is just unconfirmed theory.
What I wanted to say was that I believe that if we want to identify Loki’s real self, we have to look at first Thor movie. Everything stems from there, he was a bit more open there.
And he struck me as introverted dominant, sensing inferior and thus Se inferior and hella emotional. I could argue that he viewed Jotuns as hopeless immoral monsters and I am certain that his goal was to prove himself and earn approval. That sounds Fe to me. I think that Ni-Ti loop describes his state rather well.
Being king? In one scene that did not make it into movie, its Frigga who makes him one and he is at first sorta apalled and afraid and then spots what an opportunity it is, rises to challenge and soon acquires quite a taste for it. INFJs can get taste for it.
Killing his family? Hardly, he is heartbroken over Frigga’s death, isn’t trying to bring Thor down and from stinger in Doctor Strange we know that even Odin avoided such a fate. But I need to watch Ragnarok to really make sense of it.
01/17/2018 at 12:04 pm
Struggling with this type, and I’m not sure I can articulate why. Not empirical by any means, but I always got the sense from Loki that he actually fully expects to be defeated by Thor at every turn, and is more interested in causing Thor and his family trouble than in actually having power. But I’ll admit that the audience (including myself) might be swayed by Tom Hiddleston’s likeability, which always leaks into the character.