Zombies Ruin Everything

I’ve been holding off on this one for a while. It’s not that I love Iron Man so much I knew I had to wait for an oh-so-special moment; but rather his type is pretty obvious and I wouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t already know.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t have fun with this one either. C’mon everybody, follow meEeEEe weeeee-

Okay, so Tony Stark aka Iron Man was introduced in 1963 and since then it seemed like he was mostly known for being a rich alcoholic genius. He’d rarely been mentioned without his “Demon in a Bottle” storyline being brought up. No, that demon wasn’t the Mandarin.

For most of his existence, ESTP would have been a better fit for Stark. Genius as he was, there wasn’t much about his character that suggested iNtuitive and he mostly seemed to do things for the rush rather than for the idea. Then Robert Downey Jr. came along and changed everything up. Now, the writers seem to give Stark dialogue that fits Downey Jr. even in the comics.

Look as this panel from the newest reboot of Guardians of the Galaxy and tell me this isn’t RDJ.

His scattered speech patterns and non-stop jive-talkin’ couldn’t resemble the actor any closer unless he were saying it himself. The writer of that issue, Brian Michael Bendis has a similar writing style for most characters but it definitely sticks out with Stark.

This is one of the few times an actor ‘s portrayal of their character added depth to the original. Now there is a bit of a bias here because I really wasn’t a huge fan of the comics before, so long-time Iron Man fans- don’t hate me. To be even more honest (No! Not that honest!), I’m not really a fan now but it’s clear his impact in the comics world (and other media) has been given more layers all the same.

So what makes Iron Man an ENTP? I want to mention that we finally have a literal inventor ENTP here to make good on the name Keirsey gave ENTPs so many years ago. Speaking figuratively is nice and all but who doesn’t love the real thing? Stark is an inventor above all and most of the things he’s made were done just to say he did them, it seems. This is also the biggest separating trait of NTs to SPs as if you didn’t have enough ways to differentiate already- SPs do things to do them while NTs do things to have them done.

Now I know you’re saying “Hey! He’s a Perciever! Would he really care about getting things done? That’s Judger territory!” so I’ll respond with a “Slow down, listen to me. Perceivers finish things too, just like Judgers don’t always follow through they prefer to have closure. What I specifically mean with NTs doing things to have them done is more about the NT trademark of doing things to have acquired the knowledge rather than the rush of the moment.”

This could range from finding out everything there is to know on a certain subject they just heard about to doing something a little more adventurous just to be able to know what it’s like. Kind of like a bucket list that has no end.

“And this one will just shoot toothpaste. Only toothpaste. Yeah.”

Stark’s Ne/Ti (The first two functions of the ENTP) is shown not only in the way that he’s given an near impossible task to complete in the first place (Build a nuclear missile in a cave an assortment of parts) but that he does his captors one better and builds the first Iron Man suit. Ne sees the possibilities based on Si as Ti takes apart the idea like Stark and the rebuilding of his suits. Remember that while there are specific definitions for the functions, the order than in for each type will almost make it appear as something else entirely.

What makes Stark such a good representation as an ENTP are the way his functions are present, more or less, in his actual invention of the suit. Taking what he knows as a weapons inventor, Stark brings together his past ideas to better solidify his new vision for a new tool that can be used for something bigger than for him to sell and his buyers to kill.

Extroverted Intuition is so out there in terms of ideas that the only thing keeping ENTPs on the ground is their inferior Si (Introverted Sensing) that tells them how things actually are. “This is what has worked in the past, this is what hasn’t. This is what makes sense and that thing is stupid.” Introverted Thinking breaks things down once a more definite idea has been formed.

This is also how you get ENTP humor which will pretty much always be pointing out a little detail you didn’t noticed about yourself or referencing some obscure thing in pop culture.

From the ENTP’s order of functions, you get a type whose entire life is an intense (yet fun) process of trial and error, using themselves as an experiment.

This entry was posted on 04/30/2015 at 12:31 am and is filed under MBTI Rationals, MBTI Stuff with tags entp, iron man, mbti in fiction, tony stark. 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.