T.E. Lawrence & Sharif Ali

Just got out of a fantastic 70mm screening of Lawrence of Arabia, my favorite film so, let’s do it. Here's the system I'm using, let’s figure out these enigmatic characters. 

T.E. Lawrence is a tricky one to sort, because two of the central questions of this film are Who is Lawrence? and What does Lawrence want? I at least need an answer to that second one before I'm able to sort him.

We also get a few potential answers. Lawrence latches onto the idea of Arab Independence, so the obvious answer is – okay, he’s a revolutionary motivated by a Cause. But if that's the case, his Cause is less politics (he's NOT a politician) and more a manifestation of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’s’ love for Arabia in general.

When the movie starts, Lawrence has this kind of weeaboo-ish fascination with Arabia. He reads Arabic, he's memorized the Quran - but his engagement with the culture can also feel a little performative. He won't drink more water than his guide, makes an effort to eat local food he doesn't like, and is flattered when people think he has prior experience riding camels.

Lawrence isn't really motivated by a group-focused love of the people/culture, because he doesn’t know the people, and he romanticizes the culture. Prince Feisal calls him out on this: “No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees, there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing. Or is it that you think we are something you can play with..?” Lawrence accepts a job in Arabia he has zero information about because he thinks it's “going to be fun.” In a lot of ways, this is his version of running away with the circus.

Faisal, who is probably the character with the best read on Lawrence (although Brighton and Ali figure him out pretty well by the end) calls him “another of these desert loving English - Doughty, Stanhope, Gordon of Khartoum.” And good lord does Faisal nail him dead-to-rights. Charles Doughty was a poet and writer who traveled extensively in Arabia, Lady Hester Stanhope was an adventurer/antiquarian who who spent a lot of time adventuring wearing Bedouin/Turkish men’s clothing, and Gordon was a British military guy who became kind of a folk hero after he ignored orders to retreat. String those people together – and yeah. You DO get T. E. Lawrence. 

I also love that one of the people Faisal compares Lawrence to is a lady, because watching this movie now… oh man, Lawrence is SO queer-coded. Peter O’Toole described his character as “genderless,” and director David Leans comments “[homoeroticism] does pervade it, the whole story, and certainly Lawrence was very if not entirely homosexual. We thought we were being very daring at the time: Lawrence and Omar [ie Omar Sharif, who plays Ali], Lawrence and the Arab boys.” 

Lawrence is… just… very femme and very swishy, especially compared to the very British, very masculine characters surrounding him. There’s one scene with him literally skipping that got a huge laugh at my screening because it is just that blatant. This actually feeds into a key aspect of early movie Lawrence though - which is just how out of place he is. He’s remarkably ill at ease in his body (with his comically terrible salutes and badly-fitting, rumpled uniforms.) His introductory scene involves him pinching out a match with his fingers, saying “the trick is not minding that it hurts.” So this is a character actively disconnected from his physical self, in a way that’s pretty easy to tie into the queer experience. As he puts it, “it’s my manner that offends.”

(and... not here to comment on the historical TE Lawrence, BUT I will say that his signature gold-on-white Bedouin robes were wedding robes originally belonging to Prince Feisal. Apparently Feisal re-gifted them to Lawrence after his aunt sent them as a not-so-subtle hint that he really needed to get married already.) 

I came into this write-up thinking that Lawrence would be a Bird Primary, because he’s quiet and not particularly emotional. BUT… he’s got this preoccupation with freedom, which is definitely a Lion thing. Lawrence is happiest when he’s able to get away from his orders, take initiative, and have a sense of autonomy. When he gets to Arabia he’s finally in a situation where he is able to follow his own internal felt compass, and just comes alive. But (despite his love for the place) he isn’t actually changed by the experience the way I would expect an External Bird primary to be.

ALLENBY: Do you think he's gone native? BRIGHTON. No. He would if he could, I think.

General Allenby (probably a Bird primary himself) goes on to say that Lawrence doesn’t have any kind of Code or System to work within. “I have my own orders thank God. Not like that poor devil. He’s riding the whirlwind.” 

Lawrence is a bit of a Glory Hound Lion for the first half of the film: he eats up praise (“those are not followers. These are worshipers”) happily makes a billion snap decisions and is remarkably… rules optional. Lawrence authentically believes that rules don’t really apply to him, even ones like “no eating in the officer's mess when you’re not an officer.” Eventually, his Primary warps into a more Exploded Lion, and he gets very 'if you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.' We especially see this in the way he lashes out at the members of his crew who question the literally impossible ‘Invade Deraa’ plan. 

Things start going very, very badly for him after this failed “invasion." He’s captured and then… whipped (and like. he’s raped. It’s the 1960s, so we’ve got to imply it, but it’s *barely* implied. I’ll link the scene here. It’s not even subtle, this isn’t even a slightly controversial opion.)

After this experience, Lawrence seems to have trouble trusting himself. He thought the Deraa plan would work, it didn’t… and he goes borderline catatonic for a while, then tries desperately to ask for orders. But the generals tell him to just keep on doing his thing. HOWEVER. What actually seems to properly BURN Lawrence is the realization that he’s been *manipulated* by the British higher-ups, and has unknowingly been lying to the Arabs this whole time. They were never going to let Arabia be independent. “Let's have no displays of indignation,” says Dryden. “You may not have known, but you certainly had suspicions.”

So, Lawrence is faced with the weakness of his own soul, his own instincts. He can’t trust them not to betray him, just like he can’t trust his body not to betray him (first by looking physically other enough to catch the attention of the Turkish General, then by bleeding through his uniform in a way that lets the British generals put two-and-two together.) These two invasions of Lawrence’s being are absolutely linked by the film, and the more metaphysical rape is treated as worse: 

BENTLEY. What did that Turkish General do to him, in Deraa?  ALI. He was the same man after Deraa… What did the English General do to him, in Jerusalem? 

After Lawrence's Primary Burns, he starts performing a version of his old Exploded Lion: surrounding himself with a (paid) bodyguard, instead of recognizing his remaining loyal friends. We don’t know exactly why he makes the controversial “no prisoners” call during his attack on the fleeing wounded, but it seems like a combination of wanting to recapture that sense of good-feeling righteous warfare he got from conquering Aqaba, AND an attempt to get a little of his agency back, by going off-script.

But... that goes poorly too, and Lawrence trusts his Primary even less. By the end of the film, Lawrence has gotten subdued and reasonable in that way Lions only get when they’re extremely Burnt. And sadly, that’s where we leave him.

My insight watching the film this time was that Lawrence of Arabia T.E. Lawrence and Our Flag Means Death Stede Bonnet are very similar characters - just one is treated tragically and the other comically. Both are loud Lion primaries stubbornly insisting on a version of the world that doesn’t exist, an idealized version where they can get enemies to work together, where pulling off incredible feats of survival work miracles, where innocents don’t have to die. If they believe hard enough in their version of the world… then surely it will manifest. 

*

In terms of Secondary, Lawrence is also a Lion. He would prefer to handle a problem by charging at it, in as straight a line as possible. Even (especially) if that line is unusual or dangerous. Lawrence likes simple plans. He likes marching into people‘s offices and saying the literal truth. He’s completely comfortable insulting people, even powerful people he maybe shouldn’t be insulting. He also needs a strategy to fail, dramatically, before he changes his tactics. He's fiery and effective on the battlefield… but has no idea what to do in the council scene, where he’s supposed to be dealing with tiny, nitty-gritty conflicts between tribes. Maybe he has a little bit of a Bird secondary secondary model – he’s got a pretty impressive education he can pull out for trivia purposes. Mostly though, he just seems to wing it. 

This is the quality that makes him such an inspiring commander. It also makes people like Ali and Auda trust him when maybe they really shouldn't. Lawrence doesn’t lie, and when he does – it’s only because his personal version of reality doesn’t line up with the truth. 

BRIGHTON. He hasn't one-tenth so many men, sir.  ALLENBY. He’s lied, in fact. BRIGHTON. Well, yes and no, sir... he doesn't claim to have done anything he hasn't done. ALLENBY. Then there is an Arab North Army? BRIGHTON. No, sir. He has lied about that. 

Sherif Ali is the inverse of Lawrence. (Even visually he's the inverse of Lawrence.) He gets a villain introduction: matter-of-factly killing Lawrence’s guide for drinking at a well that doesn’t belong to him. Ali has an intensely Loyalist morality, and while he has no issue with killing people for threatening the group – he performs executions and is fine when Lawrence does the same thing – people actually do have intrinsic worth to him.

ALI. God help the men who lie under that! LAWRENCE. They're Turks. ALI. God help them.

I was all set to say Snake Primary for him, because his morality for the second half of the film is so focused on Lawrence. At first, he's impressed by Lawrence's suicidal bravery, which is why he commits to the plan to take Aqaba from the land. But what really makes him ride-or-die is when Lawrence risks his life to save one of Ali’s men. Gasim is not a particularly developed character, but that’s not the point – the point is that he’s one of Ali’s, and Ali starts off the movie kind of Burnt. I’m sure he would love to live in a world where he never has to leave one of his men behind (the way he absolutely REFUSES to leave Lawrence behind, later on.) But doing that isn’t smart, it isn’t practical. Over time Ali has had to lower his expectations. That’s how a Burnt primary thinks.

But the second Lawrence proves himself – Ali makes him part of the community in every way he possibly can: gives him water to drink, his bed roll to sleep on, a new name (Aurens) and then the signature white Bedouin robes. It’s all so, SO Badger. Ali starts the film as a slightly Burnt (slightly hopeless) Badger primary, and meeting Lawrence shows him that maybe things could be different. 

Then, at the end of the film, Ali's tragic ending is to be left without a community. He’s let the old animosities bubble to the surface and alienated Auda. Lawrence has rejected him. He can’t go back to his original way of life, because his perspective on what his "community" is has changed - he's an Arab now (this hypothetical category that mostly just exists in Lawrence's head) in addition to being a Bedouin. The one hint we get about what he’s going to do next is “learn politics” - something which the film has very mixed feelings about. 

No matter the situation, Ali adapts and does whatever’s required of him with the quiet confidence of someone who’s done this a million times. He’ll be differential and fade into the background in Faisal’s tent, he’ll be Lawrence’s hype man when they’re trying to get Auda to help, he’ll even take out his sword and fight alongside the group in a battle he doesn’t ideologically believe in. He struggles finding common ground with Lawrence at first, because he’s never met anyone like him, but he still tries. (“I have been in Cairo for my schooling. I can both read and write.”) This is honestly a great example of a Courtier Badger secondary. 

So, we get this complicated interplay between a Double Lion and a Double Badger. Lawrence is spectacular, but also prone to losing sight of reality in a way that makes him easy to manipulate. (This is a double Lion beat I wish I saw more, the only other example I can think of is, strangely, Newsies.) And Ali’s Double Badger makes him stubborn and conservative, but also reliable and grounded. He’s the one who survives the story. The film does frame Ali (and Colonel Brighton to a lesser extent) as Lawrence’s real legacy.

tl;dr

T.E. Lawrence: Glory Hound Lion that Explodes, then Burns, then starts modeling Exploded Lion, then Burns some more / Lion (slight Bird model) 

I. Freaking. Love. This. Movie. Is it historically accurate? Not especially. Is the story fairly simple? Yes, but there's a difference between a SIMPLE story and a SIMPLISTIC one. The performances are top notch, the music, the costumes... *chef's kiss.*

So, without further ado...

Maximus is a Badger primary. He recognizes the humanity in the Germanic tribes-- "would you (know you're beaten), Quintus? Would I?" He's a great general, but his heart is at home with his family. After the first battle, he spends time among the wounded and is upset when it is suggested that they "died for nothing." He's deeply loyal to the memory Marcus Aurelius. Wherever Maximus goes, he collects people (Juba, Proximo, the German, Lucius) by being kind when he doesn't necessarily need to be. He inspires loyalty and goodness in others just by being who he is.

In true protagonist style, Maximus is a Lion secondary. There's no pretending with him-- if Maximus feels something is wrong, he won't do it. "With all my heart, no," he says to Marcus Aurelius when he initially refusing to become protector of Rome-- it's a gut reaction. He will not salute Commodus; he turns his back on him. Though he shows some Bird-like strategizing in battle, to me, it reads as an intuitive grasp of going on-- the art of reacting to things rather than planning for them. Even his habit of feeling the earth before going into battle screams Lion: it's a tactile, grounding, in-the-moment exercise.

Lucilla is a Snake primary. She cares about Rome, she cares about her father's memory, she cares about Maximus-- but at the end of the day, she will prioritize her son's safety ahead of everyone and everything else. (Side note: I think that Ridley Scott writes Snake women a lot-- Lucilla and Sybilla from Kingdom of Heaven are pretty much the same character). There's room to argue for more depth here, but I feel that her primary is pretty straightforward.

I read Lucilla as a Bird secondary. She's strategic where Maximus is not. She makes practical decisions, lays plans, and collects information behind the scenes. She also seems to use a bit of a Snake secondary model-- or maybe it's her Bird secondary in an "Actor Bird" form. She knows how to play Commodus, and tries something similar with Maximus-- a little flirty, a little coy-- and drops it the minute she sees it's not working with him.

Commodus is also a Snake primary, but an Exploded one. His whole worldview and perception of himself is wrapped up in a handful of people. He's desperate for his father's approval, even after he kills him (there's a scene in the director's cut with Commodus destroying a bust of Marcus Aurelius, then hugging/clinging to the ruins). All Commodus wants to be loved by his father, his sister, and the people of Rome. With the latter, he compares himself to a father and the people to children. He wants to give them the love he feels he was denied. But his idea of love is destructive to his wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around him. In the end, it gets him killed in the arena-- defeated by his own need for the crowd's approval.

Commodus is a Lion secondary with absolutely no impulse control. His father rejects him? Kill him. Maximus defies him? Try to kill him. His one strategic success comes when he accepts the counsel of a senator to "let (his enemies) come... and nibble." Challenging Maximus-- a GENERAL with YEARS OF EXPERIENCE-- to fight him in the arena is a terrible idea, but Commodus does it anyway.

Marcus Aurelius doesn't get as much screen time as I wish he did (RIP, Richard Harris). He's our lone Bird primary. He's THE Philosopher. He has carefully constructed his worldview, weighed his options, and decided on a course of action. He believes that Commodus is "not a moral man" because he lacks the virtues that Marcus Aurelius values: wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. His choice to make Maximus the protector of Rome is careful and deliberate-- he's observed Maximus in many situations and knows that he does not desire power. That's why it must be Maximus. It's perfectly logical to him, and he believes that he can explain it to any reasonable person (unfortunately, Commodus is far from reasonable). Marcus Aurelius forever puts first the idea of Rome: it is his bright, shining TRUTH.

He's also a Bird secondary: the man writes like nobody's business. He's a deep thinker, a strategist, a collector of maps and other odds and ends to put in his toolkit.

I read Proximo as a Glory Hound Lion. He was once a gladiator himself, and you can feel it in his speeches about the crowd: even though he knows that fame is a fickle mistress, he loves the adulation, the money, being a star. He misses it. He believes that he and his men belong in the Colosseum. Before they go in to fight, he fills them up with his vision of glory.

I think that he's a Snake secondary. He can be charming, he can be adaptable. He plays people off each other to get the best price. He was "the best" in the arena because he "won the crowd." But he knows how and when to cut his loses and go blunt. He describes himself as "an entertainer."

Bonus! I see Juba as a Double Badger. He tends to Maximus's wound even before they become friends. He relies on memories of his people and traditions when things are at their bleakest. He offers encouragement in his own quiet, wise way. Some of the best lines in the movie are his, IMO: "I will see you again. But not yet. Not yet," and "you have a great name. He must kill your name before he kills you."

TL;DR:

Maximus: Badger Primary, Lion Secondary ("The Protagonist")

Lucilla: Snake Primary, Bird Secondary, possible Snake secondary model ("The Villain/the Mastermind")

Commodus: Snake Primary, Lion Secondary ("The Lancelot")

Marcus Aurelius: Bird Primary, Bird Secondary ("The Scientist")

Proximo: Lion Primary, Snake Secondary ("The Robin Hood")

Juba: Badger Primary, Badger Secondary ("The Peacemaker")

Hey, guys, I back now.

Anastasia time.

So, as a DISCLAIMER: THIS FILM IS A WORK OF FICTION. I highly recommend looking into the actual history behind the film if you're interested!

Here we go!

(I seem to recall there being a sorting already posted of Anastasia, but I remember disagreeing with most of it? Absolutely no offense meant to whoever originally posted it! These are just my two cents!)

ANASTASIA/ANYA

BADGER PRIMARY

Anya's entire storyline revolves around the ideas of "family," "home," and "belonging." Not just her own, personal family (which would be Snake,) not necessarily the home she remembers being born into (as far as she knows, she's an orphan,) and not only her own state of belonging. She deals in the concept of these things as though they were basic necessities: everyone should want them, and she wants them because everyone needs them in order to be whole. This is truth to her, full stop.

Anya: "Do you think you're gonna miss it?"

Dimitri: "Miss what, your talking?

Anya: "No! Russia."

Dimitri: "Nope."

Anya: "But it was your home!"

Dimitri: It was a place I once lived. End of story."

Anya: "Well, then you must plan on making Paris your true home."

Dimitri: "What is it with you and homes?!"

Anya: "Well, for one thing, it's something that every normal person wants!"

This is not a belief system, nor is it a conclusion she's come to. It's something that is such a part of her make up as a human being, that to imagine that another person doesn't care about the concept of a "true home" or "true community" is downright disturbing to her. Her desire for "home, love, family" is not her trying to seek out individuals she already knows, but to find the space she came from, filled with strangers she's never met, but who she believes will accept her through the power of community. It reads very animated Hercules, often dreaming of a far off place where a voice keeps saying, THIS is where I'm meant to be. Badger Primaries love the idea of having a secret family they've never met that will swoop in and carry them away, loving them unconditionally, when the world immediately around them has been so cruel. Lonely Badger Primaries are the perfect characters to fall in love with the idea of being long lost royalty. The main character arc Anya goes through is learning that family is not just the people who gave birth to you: Found family is not only just as powerful, but can become even moreso over time. This is the same moral the animated Hercules learns! Belonging and community is created and watered like a garden: If you keep searching for your perfect, idealized community, you might miss the one forming right before your eyes.

LION SECONDARY

It doesn't take long to pin Anya as a rather loud Lion Secondary. She is unafraid to voice her opinions, and often does so in a blunt and unashamed way. SShe absolutely DESPISES lying, and she is the first to take the easiest, most straight forward way out.

Dimitri: (trying to detach a traincar after breaking multiple tools) "COME ON, there's gotta be something in there better than this!!"

Anya: (wordlessly hands Dimitri a stick of lit dynamite)

Dimitri: "That'll work!"

What this movie actual shows is an interesting, not as often explored aspect of the Badger Lion, which is how the brash and straightforward nature of the Lion Secondary can work against the desires of the Badger Primary. Anya longs for nothing more than home and community, but often inadvertently (and not so inadvertently) alienates those around her with her cutting phrasing. It takes a more grounded, good listener like Vlad to see past Anya's brashness almost immediately, understanding the intentions behind her bravado.

Vlad: "I see an engaging and fiery young woman, who on a number of occasions has shown a regal command equal to any royal in the world!"

DIMITRI

SNAKE PRIMARY (Initially Burnt)

Dimitri's storyline is a bit deeper than many people might initially realize. What we're looking at is a Snake Primary who, at a very young age, tried to save one of their People (the Princess Anastasia, for whom he is implied to have either a childhood friendship with or just a faraway crush,) and failed, horribly. In fact, they failed to the point that they believe they are at least partially to blame for the death of that Person. That's about as deep and dark of a hole as a Snake Primary can fall into, so the Snake Primary will, naturally, Burn and find new, non-Person things to fill that void. Namely, recognition and fortune.

Dimitri: "Imagine the reward her dear old grandmama will pay!"

Of course,this could point to Glory Hound Lion, just as easily. If not for his Snake Primary sneaking in at every possible moment. The line following that one above is:

Dimitri: "Who else could pull it off but you and me?"

The "you" in question being Vlad, the only other Person Dimitri has allowed in (and by "allowed in," I always assumed got so tired of Vlad actively FORCING HIMSELF into Dimitri's life that he acquiesced and decided to just let him stay.) But, Dimitri's obsession with the Princess Anastasia continues, against all odds. His latest con? Directly Princess Anastasia related. Is it enough for the woman they hire to play her be "good enough?" NO. She has to be PERFECT. They hold AUDITIONS, and Dimitri is the perfect person to be on the board, because Dimitri still knows her intimately well, even after all these years. Such as hum recognizing Anastasia's face in Anya's right from the start. Thus, comes Dimitri's initial inner turmoil in regards to Anya: Are his feelings just projection? Is he attracted to her JUST because she looks like Anastasia? Is he ACTUALLY that obsessed? All those questions become moot when Anya is revealed to truly be Anastasia, though Dimitri finds himself where he was as a boy. From this point on in the movie, pretty much every motivation/choice Dimitri makes revolves around the fact that Anya IS Anastasia, and that he is going to give her what she wants and deserves, no matter what it takes. Even if that means keeping himself away from her romantically. His character arc revolves around forgiving himself for what he perceived as a dire mistake against one of his People, which is a ROUGH arc for a Snake to go through.

Dimitri: "Paris holds the key to her past. Yes, Princess, I've found you at last! No more pretend. You'll be gone, that's the end..."

SNAKE SECONDARY

Dimitri is actually quite a good con, all things considered. He manages to trick Anya into thinking they have train tickets when they DEFINITELY do not, and he keeps the reward under wraps for the entirety of their trip. Not just that, but dodging around obstacles instead of facing them head on is his most natural state. As a child, he is seen sneaking out of the kitchens (where be belongs) and automatically offering the servants' quarters as a means of escape, which is extremely clever and resourceful. Dimitri tries to charm and placate Anya at every turn, trying to keep her naturally explosive personality under wraps.

Anya: "The baggage car...? There wouldn't be anything wrong with our papers now, would there, maestro..?"

Dimitri: "Of course not, Your Grace! It's just that I hate to see you forced to mingle with all those commoners..."

But, we spend most of the film seeing Dimitri forced out of his comfort zone by both the situation and Anya's combative Lion Secondary, so he's often seen conspiratorially complaining to Vlad while in his Neutral State or just outright losing his temper and yelling. But, this never comes first, and his plans and plots are always somewhat circumventing. During the train derailment, his plans are to jump off, disconnect the train cars, and just wait until the train coasts to a stop. All pretty passive/out of the box thinking. When he IS shown trying to face someone head on, he is always unsuccessful: Trying to fight for Anastasia during the siege only to be immediately knocked out, trying to take on Rasputin directly and being tossed aside pretty easily. Comparatively, Anya/Anastasia is shown to be successful when she is upfront and combative: Getting away from Rasputin as a child by kicking him in the face, ultimately defeating Rasputin by straight up smashing his reliquary.

VLAD

LION PRIMARY

Vlad is a pretty classic Paragon Lion Primary. He wants to do what is Good and Right and doesn't what is Bad and Wrong. For what reason would he wind up as a con artist as a Paragon Lion, though? Even for Paragon Lions, what is Good and Right to THEM can go against what the collective believes is good and right.

Vlad: "That's what I hate about this government. Everything is in red!"

Yes, the above line is also meant to be a coded message for Dimitri, but Vlad thinks the government has overstepped his moral boundaries and has chosen to step outside the usual bounds to follow his own morals. Part of those morals involve guiding those he believes are lost, thus, his "adoption" of Dimitri, a very lost young man with little direction. He tries to act as Dimitri's "moral compass" until Dimitri finds his own direction again. He does the same for Anya when she comes into their group, trying to lead her towards the possibility of finding her home, while gently guiding her away from focusing on her "past."

Vlad: "There is nothing left for you back there, my dear. Everything is in Paris."

He stands up for what he believes in, and inserts himself constantly when he believes Dimitri is wrong. Letting him know when he's "walking away too soon" or when he "has to talk to her" even if she's a Princess and Dimitri's a Kitchen Boy.

BADGER SECONDARY

Vlad is one of the kindest, most lovingly genuine characters I've encountered in fiction, and I mean with that with all my heart. He is consistently gentle and understanding with the people he comes across, and is always even-tempered and fair. Compare Vlad and Dimitri's reactions to finding Anya skulking around their home:

Dimitri: (shouting, from across the room) "HEY! What are you doing in here?! HEY! STOP!"

Vlad: (coming in at a light jog, holding up his hand politely) "Excuse me, child!"

Vlad always assumes the best from whomever he's interacting with, and is excellent at getting to the root of what's bothering a person. He actively tries to make everyone in his company comfortable, and will often make soft jokes or observations in an attempt to lighten the mood. His Lion Primary makes him unable to entirely give in when he knows what's going on is wrong, but his Badger Secondary gives him the skills to broach those uncomfortable topics with grace and eloquence.

Vlad: (gives Dimitri the most fatherly, loving hug in all of animation) "Ahhh, my boy... you are making a mistake."

TL;DR

Anya/Anastasia: Badger Lion

Dimitri: Double Snake

Vlad: Lion Badger

There is the only way, from my experience.

Go out and live. Questioning this, obsessing over it won't give you any satisfaction. Go out and experience thing. Find a cause to fight for whether that's your ambition, your self-improvement, your dream job, your journey, whatever that is. Go out there, fall in love, get your heart broken, meet more people and befriend them. Get yourself out there and meet the hardship of life, the bitter sweet taste of failure and learn from it. From every moment of life.

There is no shortcut to any of these problems. The only way you can know yourself is by living a full life. And a full life isn't to live in a dank cellar pondering on question like this. It is to go out there and experience what life has to offer, good and bad. That's how you'll learn to know yourself and maybe love yourself.

There is no magic pill that will make you love yourself more or tell you who you are. Only your courage to live and learn from life will open the way for you.

me, a Badger Primary: sure

sister: and then you grow up and realize you aren't The Hero who is going to vanquish the world's evils--

[spoilers ahead for both lorien legacies and its sequel series!]

there is a LOT of ground to cover here, and i am mostly going to limit myself to sorting characters and themes from the first series, but my initial notes are:

probably one of the biggest overarching themes of the series is toxic birdsec, and the harm it can do to every aspect of a society or a person's life--on both a systematic level and an individual one--right down to their basic humanity. by extension it also goes into similarly fucked up lion and bird primary used as weapons and tools of abuse, and how they interplay with each other.

a large part of this stems from setrákus ra being The Worst Fucking Lion Bird Ever to Live, lmao. he's an interesting example of birdsec interplaying with cannibal badger, and also of a lion bird who's a cheetah in that he uses systems as tools to manipulate people instead of actually believing them. he hands out toxic systems like candy while peppering them with outright lies, and blithely admits that even the one that he's put centuries into building--mogadorian progress, and the great book--is at its heart just a ruse to run his cult on. the truth he pretends to worship and champion isn't external, objective truth--it's an extension of him. he is the ultimate truth. and the only truth he believes in is his cause, which is that he has the right and ability to own, make use of, and do whatever he sees fit with everything in existence. everyone and everything that could possibly be a shiny or a tool belongs to him.

one of the other overarching themes is toxic badger primary and secondary--cannibal badgering AHOY--as well as toxic lion primary, and it is a great deal less intentional than the bird cautionary tale part lmao

five is a bird snake with deeply toxic lion primary and bird secondary models, one of which he picked up after getting involved with a cult, and one of which he's had since his abusive birdsec guardian started amputating his masks by trying to apply actor bird to them. :') his brand of birdsplode and snakeburn make him horribly, horribly vulnerable to the cult, especially combined with focused, one-on-one gaslighting and manipulation from setrákus himself, and he has to burn his bird right to a crisp to break away from it. i am very biased and i have so much to say about my boy, but i plan to go in depth about this later

there are a LOT of lionsecs among the loric garde kids. the only surviving ones who aren't lionsecs are marina's badger and five's snake (the latter of which is heavily villainized, lol); number one is either a lionsec or a snakesec, maggie is either a birdsec or a badgersec, and we don't really see enough of hannu to be sure, but my guess is badgersec. in context, whatever these books are saying here i am not sure i like it lmao

this stands in contrast to the non-garde allies, minus adam, who end up being Part of the Gang. sam and lexa are birdsecs, and sarah and malcolm are both badgersecs.

speaking of adam, he is a lion snake with a cool, calculated double bird performance/model, who has been waiting all his life for a chance to go Absolutely Feral. there are a lot of ways in which he's a real shithead, which track given his life and circumstances up to then but are also real 😬 sometimes, but like, good for him. go ape shitt, kid

nine is an awful, AWFUL double lion who models/performs the worst parts of badger primary; he also uses lionsec stereotypes and methods to misdirect people, so that he can hurt, gaslight, prey on, and abuse them. it's genuinely interesting how he does it, and i could go on for a long time about it, but it's also Infuriating because the authors really want you to love him for being a ~charming jerk with a heart of gold,~ so that is for another post. in the sequel series he also picks up a nasty posthumous birdsec model from sandor to gleefully torture children with so lmfao

there seem to be a lot of birdsecs and badgersecs among the mentor cêpans, which tracks, because, well, mentors. interestingly, it seems to be a pattern so far that the birdsec mentors are either some of the most deeply abusive among them (see: rey, sandor, and ethan even though he's an unofficial cêpan), or the most decent parents of them under the circumstances (see: katarina).

john is a hognose (badgery snake) 'i live here' snake lion, and a VERY loud one. he's set on saving the world mainly a) in order to save his People, or b) because it's what they would want. he also believes STRONGLY in snake values as applied to other people, and absolutely cannot grok that anyone would feel differently--he holds back on killing a major enemy because he's worried about killing a friendly acquaintance's Person--and honestly he can be kind of a huge dick about it lmao. he burns HARD at the end of the first series when sarah dies; in the second, he copes by making an entire community into his circle and no longer gives a shit about the rest of the world outside it, including groups who are in similar if not worse circumstances than his community. Horrific War Crimes Ensue!

rex is an everyone double badger and i love him so much. i love him So Much. he is a wonderful example of how to write a morally dubious character whose dodgy qualities interest me instead of making me grit my teeth and Tolerate Them. his arc could have fixed So Much of the Ending's Bullshit and i will be forever mad that they dumped it in the trash

For any of you confused: here is the system I am using ( @wisteria-lodge )

Neville's sorting is one of those ubiquitous sortings that has been around since the start, but since the original post doesn't exist anymore it doesn't hurt repeating.

Neville is a Lion primary. A burnt one for much of the series. He's bad often bad at magic, he's awkward, and severely bullied by the Slytherins and Snape.

We first see hints of the person Neville is going to be at the end of the first book, when he stands up to the golden trio because he thinks what they're doing is more trouble making. It's shakey, but he manages to do it, and is later rewarded for it.

It isn't until the fifth book that we really see Neville start to unburn. He finally finds a cause to fight for, Dumbledore's Army. We see Neville's determination to live up to his parents, and to avenge them against Bellatrix. To fight the death eaters. By the end of the book series Neville has full confidence in himself and is unburnt. He can wield the sword of Gryffindor and prove to himself that he was worthy of being in Gryffindor, and that he embodied that spirit.

(We never see the characters in the books or movies, but I think if we ever did see them that Rowena, Godric, Helga, and Salazar would all be double sortings reflective of their houses.)

His secondary is Badger. Neville is more notably sweet and kind, but he also likes working. He practices heavily in Order of the Phoenix, and he's a herbologist, which is an activity which takes a great deal of patience and hard work. Also, it was a movie-only scene, but him practicing his dancing was very cute.

I won't say he is burnt, but he doesn't think highly of his secondary. In the first book he thinks he'll go to Hufflepuff because he's a bit of a softie (everybody just hates Hufflepuffs in the books), and is blindsided when he is put in Gryffindor.

I think he wishes he had that Lion secondary like most of the other kids in his house. At the end of the first book he raises his fists and says he'll fight them, but Hermione immediately petrifies him. It doesn't help that he wasn't very good at potions and Snape is just the worst teacher. Potions class is a very precise science done in a time crunch and especially in Snape's you do not get second chances. You have to get things right on the first try.

All this to say that Neville...actually I think his secondary is burnt as well. He's running around trying to do what he can, but when everyone is constantly telling you you're bad at everything and you are the butt of everyone's joke, you're going to start to believe it and believe your methods really aren't valid. Honestly, I think that talk Mad Eye (Barty Crouch JR) has with Neville helps him to unburn. In the movie and the next book he's more confident with his skills in herbology and accepting more of his own methods.

So...

Neville Longbottom - Burnt Lion Primary/Burnt Badger Secondary, both of these unburn over the course of the series