Guest Post by Jessica Prescott, INFJ

Star Wars:  The Force Awakens

Introverted Feeling (Fi):  Finn bases all his decisions on his personal, interior feelings about morality, rather than what he’s been taught.  He’s been raised since birth to be a Stormtrooper; but when his Stormtrooper training conflicts with what he personally feels to be right, he has absolutely no qualms about “kicking over the traces” and severing all connection with the First Order—even though it means leaving everything he’s ever known and having his former comrades call him a traitor.  Because he feels he has a duty to rescue Rey from Starkiller Base, he sees nothing wrong with blatantly lying to Leia and the other rebels in order to gain permission to do so.  Finn has strong emotions and knows exactly what he wants—for example, he develops a crush on Rey within five minutes of meeting her—but it’s not always as easy for him to gauge what she’s feeling.  For example, in the “Stop taking my hand!” scene, he doesn’t immediately stop when asked, because he hasn’t quite caught on yet that Rey wants her space.

Extroverted Sensing (Se):  Finn lives in the moment and refuses to be weighed down by his past—once he chooses to leave the First Order behind, he leaves it behind completely.  The fact that he might one day have to face his former comrades on the battlefield never appears to occur to him . . . and if it did, it seems likely he would dismiss it as completely irrelevant.  He clearly has difficulty understanding Rey’s strong attachment to her own past:  “Why do you want to go back to Jakku?”  Finn is an active, physical person and also fairly good at on-the-spot improvising.  For example, he enjoys a decent amount of success as an impromptu gunner for both Poe Dameron and Rey, despite the fact that a) he’s had no training whatsoever and b) unlike Rey, he’s not lucky enough to be Force-sensitive.

Introverted Intuition (Ni):  Finn’s intuition is fairly weak—not surprising, given the fact that it’s his tertiary function (and moreover, that he’s still quite young).  He doesn’t appear to be much of a long-range planner of any kind; even his decision to quit the First Order is a fairly spontaneous one, not thought out over a long period of time.  He does, however, make the prediction that the danger from the First Order may be too strong for him and the other rebels to escape; and this prediction is proved at least partially right over the rest of the movie, when Rey is captured, Han Solo is killed, and Finn himself is severely wounded.

Extroverted Thinking (Te):  Finn’s Te is barely in evidence—even weaker than his Ni.  He exhibits little desire to control his surroundings or other people; when he and Rey escape from Jakku together, there’s never any doubt who’s truly in charge of that expedition (hint:  It’s not Finn.)  After he tricks the rebels into sending him to Starkiller Base to rescue Rey, he has to admit that he actually has no concrete plan with which to accomplish this—thereby shocking poor Han Solo (Ti-dom) to the core of his being.  But don’t worry, Han; it’ll be okay, because “we’ll just use the Force.”  *theater audience erupts into laughter*