#chtype:infp

INFP

Functional order: Fi - Ne - Si - Te

Disclaimer

We initially wrote this article addressing Nanachi with she/her pronouns due to an old/incorrect translation that was available when we first watched the show. We now corrected the article with neutral pronouns, as intended by the author and the official manga translator. Thanks for pointing this out!

Spoiler warning

This article will cover Nanachi’s analysis with spoilers and references from the first anime season. We’ll avoid talking about the manga, so if you haven’t read that yet, this article is safe for you!

Premise

Browsing through the net, we found that Nanachi is mainly typed as INTP. We couldn’t find any in-depth analysis though, so if you too think INTP is a better match, please tell us why - we’ll gladly listen! We disagree with INTP for Nanachi, because breaking down the four letters, it means: Ti, Ne, Si, and Fe. The Ti-Fe axis is what bothers us the most since cognitively speaking there aren’t many signs of it in the anime - although we can understand why, only looking at behaviors, people may think so. Introverted Thinking means a person tends to filter reality through their own personal logic, breaking inputs apart and creating systems to understand the world in its most general aspects. Nanachi doesn’t show signs of such a thought process, they much rather act and care about what they, personally, value the most. Nanachi can seem quite the practical type, but in reality, they’re just confident in their fields of expertise and can react quite emotionally in unknown situations - a side that’s shown more in the later chapters of the manga.

So, we don’t think INTP is a match for them, and we’ll proceed to explain why INFP suits better in our opinion.

Judging Functional Axis

Introverted Feeling (Fi) / Extroverted Thinking (Te) 

One of the key points of Nanachi’s character, and what led us to INFP, is that they’re more willing to risk the more they care on a personal level. It’s something that goes a bit beyond the classic ‘Fi fights for what’s right to it’ and veers into how Fi (usually) approaches the experiences of other people. While Fe is about reading the mood and absorbing the emotional state of one’s surroundings, Fi is more about how a person feels about what’s going on outside, and if they can or cannot relate with it.

This is pretty clear right after Nanachi’s appearance in episode 10: when asked why they intervened to save Riko and Reg despite ignoring them at first, they answered: “because you reminded me of myself.” Seeing Reg so desperate and panicked of losing Riko hit a sore spot in Nanachi’s past, as they knew far too well how he was feeling. So, they purposefully stepped out of their way to help the kids, exposing their identity (something they never do because it’s dangerous.)

Even the resentment Nanachi holds against Bondrewd isn’t mere disapproval of his actions but has also a lot to do with what he’d done to Mitty, and how angry Nanachi feels because his experiments are not only immoral, but they wronged Nanachi on a personal level.

It may be difficult to see their inferior Te since Nanachi appears later on and the show focuses more on Riko and Reg, still, Nanachi’s generally disorganized and lacks the problem-solving skills tied to high Te. Similar to what we said about dominant Ti, they surely act confidently in the medical field, but when things get rough they aren’t able to react properly like Riko would do due to her dominant Se.

Perceiving Functional Axis 

Extroverted Intuition (Ne) / Introverted Sensing (Si)

Given how little Nanachi shows during the first season of the anime, we have to proceed a bit by process of elimination. If Fi is the dominant function, this means they could have either Se-Ni or Ne-Si in the perceiving axis.

Se-Ni would imply a certain degree of proactiveness, an inclination toward action, and an (albeit slight) certain focus on a single, long term goal that is meaningful to their life. It could be argued that this is what freeing and killing Mitty represents, but in reality, the show addresses how Nanachi never thought about life after Mitty’s eventual death, and this is why they’re so reluctant to join Riko and Reg in their journey at first. The bond with Mitty is unrelated to MBTI and Nanachi’s actions are mostly caused by natural human reactions, at the same time dominant Fi appears in the way they made those choices, on a cognitive level. 

INFP

Functional Order: Fi - Ne - Si - Te

Spoiler warning This article will cover Futaba’s analysis with references to both Persona 5 and Royal main plot and events from her confidant.

Premise We know that Futaba is considered INTP by the vast majority of the fandom, so in this article we’ll proceed a bit differently. First of all, we’ll discuss why in our opinion Futaba isn’t INTP and how to differentiate between cognitive patterns, behaviors, hobbies and traumas. We’ll also address the problem of consistent writing in a fictional work. The second part of the article will move past why we don’t think she’s INTP and instead will cover why we think the best suit for her is INFP. We’ll make sure to be meticulous in our work and we’ll provide source material if anyone wants to check type theory more in depth, so please stick with us until the end. Obviously, if someone wants to discuss this with us and has solid proofs towards INTP, we’ll gladly listen!

Futaba isn’t INTP

We browsed a broad number of discussions about Futaba on the net, because at first we thought that if INTP is what everyone agrees on, maybe there were reasons we weren’t seeing. But in reality, we couldn’t have been able to find a solid analysis of her character that arguments its point with functions and cognition - apparently, she tends to be considered INTP only based on the stereotype she conveys in the game: the quirky, nerdy hacker waifu who loves pc stuff and is socially inept. So, our first approach was: ok, regardless of the stereotypes, she might really be INTP. But what does INTP mean? INTP implies: dom Ti, aux Ne, tertiary Si and inferior Fe. The Ne/Si axis can be spotted pretty easily in the game, but we’ll address this more in-depth later. The problem has been the Ti/Fe axis. Dominant Ti means a person approaches reality through logical lens: they problem-solve, they analyse, they dissect everything reality provides them until they find a structure that makes sense for them. On the opposite side, there’s inferior Fe: the unconscious need for harmony, for being liked by others, the lowkey want of being of any help without precisely realising how. Looking at Futaba, in our opinion, there aren’t much signs of a Ti/Fe axis, neither in her normal state nor in stressful situation. Futaba can be snarky, she’s quick witted and a bit weird, but she isn’t strictly logical - and besides, it’s not that a love for hacking and witty comebacks are personality traits exclusive to high-Ti users. And speaking about her awkwardness, we think that there’s a key point that is often overlooked: in Futaba’s case, social ineptitude isn’t due to inferior Fe, it is due to a trauma. Futaba lost her mother in an accident, and that event affected her so much that she became a shut-in for a year - that’s not something one easily recovers from. We know from her confidant that she didn’t have any friends beside Kana when she was in school, but to be fair, this isn’t a vital thing to know when typing someone if we don’t know the details. All we’re told is that she was bullied/ignored for being quirky and surprisingly smart for a girl her age, but again, this isn’t a thing exclusive of dominant Ti. From a person who didn’t leave her room for such a long time, it’s to be expected that her social skills would be far below average, especially since she’s so young. What is interesting to look at, though, is how she dealt with her trauma, what has blocked her for so long and what moved her forward once she started recovering.

Futaba probably is INFP

We can’t say this with a 100% certainty because in her case, past the Pyramid arc, the writer(s) didn’t do a very great and comprehensive job of showing other sides of her personality that fall outside the “quirky, nerdy hacker waifu” stereotype, even in her confidant. Nonetheless, there are more than a few elements we deemed worth looking into more. First of all, there’s the time she spent as a shut-in. From what the game showed through scenes inside and outside her Palace, it’s safe to assume that Futaba suffers a severe Si-loop, with all the incapability of moving past a certain event that prevents one from looking out for other possibilities (healthy Ne) and instead brings one to close off the outside world. More specifically, we believe it’s a FiSi loop, more than a TiSi one: the difference lays in how the person revives said past events - do they over-analyse them? Or do they wallow in their own emotions? The problem Futaba had with the whole situation (and this is repeatedly pointed out by her shadow) it’s exactly that she developed a distorted vision of what happened, due to the fake suicide note and her own guilt, and she couldn’t think straight about the whole situation. But more than that, she didn’t even try to think about things logically - she went full on self-blame, seeing herself as the murderer who killed her mom with her tantrums and childish attitude. This is a delicate topic, because all her reactions are probably tied to survivor’s guilt as well, but the point is that she didn’t even try to rationalize her supposed fault, either. She simply lived with her feelings, judging herself as a horrible person who did something extremely wrong and, thus, has to die because this is what she deserves. So, yes, given how brooding and being very hard on oneself are two patterns that characterize high Fi, especially when hurt, we believe that a FiSi loop is what led Futaba to become a shut-in. Another very interesting thing to look at is what happened when an unexpected solution came up: the Phantom Thieves. Futaba finally reached for help, but she did so in a way that can easily remind of an inferior Te grip: she became controlling and contacted the group to blackmail them into helping her as a desperate measure to get out of the situation. But she acted hastily, with only the hint of a weak plan that in fact crumbled the moment a first obstacle came up - in order to proceed with the change of heart, she would have to show her face and expose her identity, a thing she absolutely didn’t account for, and thus she dismissed everyone and called it quits. The heavy imbalance in the dom/inferior axis gets progressively fixed over time: firstly, she reconnects with the outer world (aux Ne) and learns to appreciate again all the stimuli she can get from it. Secondly, she relearns how to behave with other people and how to live in the normal world (we’ll get to this later). And, lastly, she focuses on a goal again: finding the truth about what happened to her mother. As she admits herself, this is “a super personal reason to join the Phantom Thieves”, because it’s not tied to justice or changing society: she wants the truth and she wants the revenge, and joining the group it’s the first, most effective way to obtain what she’s after. This is how a balanced Fi/Te axis works: a personal goal to reach that is tied to one’s true self and feelings, towards which the person takes concrete steps in a (more or less) structured way. Furthermore, regarding her hacker’s skills: the love for computer and coding isn’t a trait bound to high Ti. The fact that many Ti users like it doesn’t mean that if someone like it, it must be a Ti user themselves. And looking at Futaba, she specifically founded Medjed as a way to bring justice (her justice) to the world, but discarded the name as soon as other people associated with it and started to use it for personal gain. She no longer recognized Medjed as something lined with her moral, and thus distanced herself from it and became Alibaba instead. This way of thinking is something more aligned with Fi than Ti.

Social ineptitude doesn’t mean inferior Fe

“Recall that Fe is about creating a positive social support system that opens one up to receiving love and expressing generosity. [...]Immature Ti doms often suffer from: stunted emotional development, lack of empathy or inability to understand people, antagonistic/antisocial behavior, misanthropy or cynicism, selfish or stingy mindset, very shallow or unhealthy relationships.” (via mbtinotes here on Tumblr) While we can see why all of this can be easily linked to Futaba, as we’ve stated above the fact that she doesn’t know how to deal with people comes from the time she spent as a shut-in after a traumatic experience, and it’s not tied to inferior Fe. Let’s focus on this topic: inferior Fe and how it may resemble social ineptitude and social anxiety. Futaba lived as a hikikomori for months, a self-imposed isolation where she only (and barely) interacted with Sojiro. There’s also another crucial factor to bare in mind: Futaba is still very young. As a teenager, she hasn’t developed a solid sense of self not because she has inferior Fe rather than dominant Fi, but simply because she still has to live her life, making mistakes and going through significant experiences to mold her identity. Saying that Futaba may resemble a Ti dom in her social interactions is true, what makes a difference, though, are the reasons behind those behaviors: Futaba finds difficult being in big crowds or talking to strangers not because she has an immature inferior Fe, but as a result of her past traumas and the absence of human interaction in her life for a year. As we remind often in our articles, we have two dogmas: to look at cognition rather than at behaviors, and to always remember how traumas aren’t related to one’s MBTI type. So, those behaviors are tied to her social anxiety and social ineptitude not because she has inferior Fe, but rather due to her traumas and a lack of social skills caused by her hikikomori life-style. We then need to look at how Futaba ‘normally’ behaves when she’s not stressed. She doesn’t speak unless the conversation interests her, she doesn’t like useless pleasantries, she often comes up with witty retorts or comments but never in an inappropriate way. We should have, let’s say, three main factors in her interactions if she really had inferior Fe: the awkwardness tied to the will to try that is met by a constant failure, the incapability of reading the mood despite the will of ‘being appropriate’ and the lowkey strive for being accepted.

In order:

Futaba doesn’t want to try, especially at first. She only tries when she’s invested. Her first, most genuine reaction when the group ask her questions or try to involve her in their conversation is to sit on protagonist’s bed facing a wall. Because, even if she’s grateful to these people, she doesn’t properly care for them - so, they’re not worth the effort of breaking old habits. When the effort is worth? When they start talking about something that she finds interesting, and when she grows a sort of affection towards them. So, when everything starts to feel personal;

Futaba isn’t interested in ‘being appropriate’. She hardly cares less, in fact. And all her snarky comments remark how she can be quite capable of placing them without resulting awkward or ruining the mood;

Futaba doesn’t want to fit in. We understand how it can be easy to think that she strives for acceptance, but in the end, this is simply not true. Futaba “marches to the beat of her own drum” and only because she feels safer with the group or empowered by their presence, this doesn’t mean she looks for acceptance in the way Fe does. On contrary, her whole ‘recovery week’ after Medjed’s defeat revolves around the search for balance: Futaba has to learn how to live in a functioning way, but at the same time the Thieves themselves must adjust to her personality. She has to grow, but she doesn’t have to change, and certainly she doesn’t want to smooth certain aspects of her personality only to please people.

In conclusion, her initial behaviors (wearing a mask in public, hiding behind protagonist, panicking in crowds) are all tied to a form of social phobia/anxiety rather than inferior Fe. 

The proofs of dominant Fi

If you want to say that there aren’t super strong evidences of dominant Fi in Futaba either in the story or her confidant, you have all the right to say so. Because it’s true. And, in our opinion, this is a case very similar to Ann’s extremely absent aux-Si: a problem that stems from writing and developing the character itself. We plan to talk more about P5 and writing in the future, but for now we’ll quickly address Futaba’s problem: as other members of the cast (especially female ones) she’s not given much opportunity to shine outside her stereotype. Her psyche and trauma are well addressed in her arc, and this is why we could gain sufficient elements to exclude TiSi loop and point towards FiSi loop. But the problem is that a character (and a person) isn’t only their traumas, and a personality cannot show only in circumstances of heavy stress. Unluckily, outside of her story arc, Futaba tends to stay in the domain of witty comebacks and nerd quotes/jokes - not that she ever gets OOC, but she doesn’t show a rounded and complete personality, either. One of the only things that stays constant throughout the story is her profound desire for truth and revenge for her mother: she joins the Phantom Thieves for that reason, she pushes through the Velvet Room confinement thanks to that, and she even mentions wanting to study cognitive psience in her future at the end of Royal. And all this is deeply tied to a personal aspect of herself and her life, namely the bond she had with her mother - this is why we think Fi dom suits her more than Ti dom, alongside with her not having inferior Fe. One could say it’s not much, but in cases like these, process of elimination also comes in hand: if she’s not INTP (which, in our opinion, she absolutely isn’t, despite having lot of stereotypical INTP traits), but still has aux Ne and tertiary Si and is an introvert (because all these three points are evident) the only other choice is INFP.

If you made it this far, thank you. We know ours is an unpopular opinion, but we hope we explained our reasons. If you still think she’s INTP and disagree with us, please let us know why, as we ourselves would like to know deeper reasons why people type her that way - and no, the fact that she’s nerd and is a hacker doesn’t count.

If you’re interested, these are the resources we’ve referred to in our analysis:

An entry from Funkymbti on loops: https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/142527516660/can-you-describe-what-each-loop-looksacts-like

The part of Mbtinotes’ cognitive guide referring to inferior Te and Fe: https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/theory#inftefe