Guest Post by Andrew, ENTJ

Pokémon Anime Franchise

Dominant Introverted Intuition (Ni): From a young age, Trip wants to train and battle with Pokemon. More specifically, he wants to defeat Alder, the champion of the Unova region, in a Pokemon battle from the time he meets his one-time hero in early childhood. Trip always has an idea of how every battle will end before it even starts, and he uses this ability to judge which battles will help him improve the most (Ni-Te). To Trip, experience and popularity are not necessarily indicators of strength; at the very beginning of his journey, he battles Ash, who has already battled a great deal before, with the full intention of winning––which he does. As Trip himself gets stronger, he starts to believe that he can and will defeat anybody, even regional champions; to prove his point, he chooses a poor strategy in his long-awaited match with Alder, insisting that the result would be the same no matter what. Trip is a largely defensive trainer who lets his opponents attack him first instead of trying to seize the initiative right away in battle.

Auxiliary Extroverted Thinking (Te): Trip has no use whatsoever for social graces. He criticizes anything and everything that he finds stupid or unnecessary, not caring how anyone else reacts. Trip is a task-oriented person who always wants to use his time efficiently; in fact, his instinct to create efficiency around him is so strong that he gives pointers on training to Ash several times when their paths cross, notwithstanding the tension between the two of them. When Trip sees a problem, he has no interest in understanding why the problem is occurring; he wants to do something about it, and he will sometimes lead others in an effort to do something about it. Trip sees results, and only results, as the benchmarks toward what he wants to achieve, and he therefore takes defeat very hard.

Tertiary Introverted Feeling (Fi): Although Trip chooses his first Pokemon with only fighting prowess in mind, he sees it as a bonus that he clicks emotionally with the one he chooses. Although he doesn’t always express, acknowledge, or pay attention to it, he does have a strong bond with each of his Pokemon; he will sometimes even praise them when they lose. Trip is driven by his emotions more than he cares to admit; he takes the chance of “wasting time” more than once to battle Ash (whom he considers a weak trainer), and his dream of besting Alder comes from his sense of wonder – and later, from his disgust when he learns that Alder spends so much time doing nothing productive (to Trip, this is not befitting of a regional champion).

Inferior Extroverted Sensing (Se): Trip is a visual person who keeps records of his journey using photos that he takes himself. The photos also have a more practical purpose; they will often help him observe details that he will miss when watching something happen in real-time. Trip likes to keep to himself; he doesn’t care for socializing, and he won’t spend any longer than he has to around large groups of people. Several of Trip’s Pokemon, including his first, are fast, indicating that Trip places a high value on speed in battle, but he tends to use his Pokemon’s speed in defence rather than attack.