Zombies Ruin Everything

It’s been a while since I tackled the walking brain that is the INTP. And for a while I didn’t care about typing Q because I was never sure if he was ENTP or INTP. The older a character/person is, the more difficult it can be to type because, with any stroke of luck, they’ll begin to balance out. So Q making jokes and being funny while inventing crazy weapons and tools isn’t strictly ENTP territory. Especially not for the rebooted Q. His jokes are muted and his gadgets aren’t so…gadgety.

And it’s not like all INTPs are brilliantly learned, literal Architects as Q isn’t the architect of every single invention. Let’s just be happy for Q he wasn’t around to witness the horror of the invisible car…

Who didn’t love this scene from Skyfall? Perfect INTP/ISTP relations. One seems a bit too secure in their intelligence while the other is a bit too flattered by their own masculinity.

Desmond Llewelyn and the few others to play the role have all done a great job in their respective parts. Adding levity to what can often be a grim series, Q is always there to make sure Bond has what he needs and the audience is entertained. And within these humorous moments, some people may tend to look at the character as an ENTP archetype of the crazy inventor.

But as Bond himself as been played by many different actors, the overall type of the character remains the same, just as it does with Q. Bond is irrevocably ISTP while Q is INTP.

One thing to notice that would draw the line between Q as an INTP instead of an ENTP is that Q and Bond’s relationship seems to be based more in Q’s mix of fondness and annoyance for 007’s seemingly careless attention toward the proper handling of Q’s devices. As he’s said in the past “I NEVER joke about my work, 007.”

INTPs definitely have a more playful side. In many ways this can be seen with the oddball gadgets invented for Bond’s missions. These aren’t always as simple as Skyfall’s user-recognition gun grip but often times in the form of an exploding pen in Goldeneye or the duckhead wetsuit in Goldfinger. You wouldn’t make some of this stuff without a sense of humor. This cites another difference between the ENTP and INTP. With the ENTP’s Ne as dominant and their Ti as auxiliary it seems a sense of goofiness masks their underlying seriousness.

I mean, this really sums it up right here.

The INTP is the opposite in this sense. Ti dominant, Ne auxiliary, the INTP is often much more playful behind the scenes with the few that they know though the outside world may see a highly serious individual. Most of Q’s humor comes more in the form of treating the world’s coolest spy as though he were a child. And with Q in the scene, he kind of is.

As mentioned, the INTP’s Ti-dominated life is all about what works and how it works. Leave it to them to dissect a joke that’s only supposed to be taken at surface level. Or to see smart phones as the pinnacle of the government’s ability to spy on humanity. The smallest thing can have enormous consequences unseen to the majority of the world but glaringly obvious to the INTP. But it’s the Ti that will have them focusing on what’s possible and their auxiliary Ne that stretches these possibilities as far as their tertiary Si will let them.

But this can also make it harder to change their mind as they get older and the tertiary function develops, often manifesting in the INTP becoming more and more set in their “against the grain” attitude in life. It’s not that they’re always difficult, they just believe what they believe and it’s tough to get them to see another side of  things. While it’s true they never stop questioning and there’s no such thing as too much knowledge, they will attach themselves to some sort of figurative base at times, using this to test certain theories. You’ve got to have something to go off of, right?

Ultimately, Q branch seems like the perfect place for the INTP. Plenty of freedom to operate using their intellect and imagination; something the INTP is in no short supply of. Now if only Q could get 007 to pay attention…

This entry was posted on 09/01/2015 at 1:21 am and is filed under MBTI Rationals, MBTI Stuff with tags intp, james bond, mbti in fiction, Q. 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.