All the typings and observations in this post are based on definitions and information presented in the aLBoP Guided Tour 😀 So if any of it bugs you, please go read that before leaving me a grumpy comment… Or, you know what? Let’s just skip the grumpy comments! Have a nice day! <3
ENFJ
The Veteran
“It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place it becomes rigid and stale.”
Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender
(the TV show *not* the movie :P)
The ENFJ Veteran is the master of experience. They have a timeless quality that both looks to the past and the overarching meaning of what people have done and what events have transpired, but lives and acts in the moment. They have a rich, sage-like understanding of history and the actions and interactions of others, with a contrasting childlike exuberance for living and experiencing the world around them with people they love. Little Veterans often parent their peers, while Veteran adults often treat their children or students like trusted and respected peers. They live for their connections with people, and the joy of seeing another achieve real happiness or the pain over another’s loss is indistinguishable to them from the joy or pain over their own travails.
Young ENFJ’s are obedient little things who desire nothing as much as connecting with and pleasing those they love. ENFJ’s have deep, rich emotions; emotions that inform them just how important people and principles are. Rather than teach them how to harness emotion and use it instead of letting it use them, a culture threatened by the power and potency of ENFJ emotions usually trains the little ENFJ to push down and reject emotion (which they aren’t good at doing) and instead turn to reasoning through specific data what action to take. Since this is the ENFJ’s weakest point, this usually does not go well and leaves the ENFJ disarmed from using their greatest strength—knowing intrinsically which action to take. The ENFJ ends up looking and feeling stupid; which they absolutely are not.
Being raised to not trust their true judgment is often what leaves an ENFJ vulnerable when their hardest choice comes around. When two parties in the ENFJ’s life are at odds with the ENFJ trapped in the middle, which side will they pick? To this question, the ENFJ would prefer to say “neither” as long as humanly possible. They love both of their friends or groups of friends; why would they want to choose between them, just because they disagree with each other? But as time goes on, it may be obvious to the ENFJ that the problem isn’t going away and action is being made which makes the ENFJ’s reaction imperative. The truth is, the ENFJ knows which action they should take; that’s an EJ’s strongest suite (especially an ENFJ who understands the full depth and complexity of the meaning behind actions)… but that doesn’t mean they *want* to take that action. Even a young ENFJ understands the way consequences work all too well and has already seen that people don’t like being friends with people who stand up to them. The closer the ENFJ is to the party they know is in the wrong, the harder the choice will be. Shall the ENFJ, who desires nothing more than they desire individual connections and making their friends happy, stand up for what they know from their experience-drawn principles to be right and have a chance of losing the very connections that make life meaningful in the first place?
But, as all EJ’s weakest point is realizing when they’re missing information, an ENFJ may fail to take into account everything that will happen if they choose their friend instead of what they know is right. Just because an EJ knows there will be consequences, doesn’t mean they know *what* those consequences will be. When an ENFJ chooses not to perform the action they know they should (whether they’re just trying to put it off, or choosing another action entirely), two things happen.
Firstly, as much as they tell themselves they’re not choosing sides, EJ’s are *always* acting. A choice of “inaction” is really just a choice of action against the party the ENFJ knows they should stand up for. They quickly make themselves guilty of the same affront of those they know are in the wrong and are likely to end up loosing the friend they knew was in the right in the first place.
Secondly, it will end up hurting the friend that was in the wrong. As an ENFJ knows, correct action leads to desired results. When the ENFJ chooses to support their friend in action that is against the principles they know to be right, the friend *can’t* get desired results. It will only hurt both the ENFJ and their friends for the ENFJ to be supportive of *actions* they know will hurt those important to them, although they should truly show their love and support for the person themselves, even if that means being stern or angry with them for their actions.
ENFJ’s that choose friends *over* what they know to be right, end up feeling empty, guilty and unlikable and usually give themselves unforeseen consequences that limit future choices and action. But an ENFJ who stands up for their friends, even when it means standing up *to* their friends, becomes a refuge in the storm, a place of wisdom and comfort to remind the other types that they can choose today who they want to be tomorrow. This is the ENFJ Veteran.
The ENFJ Veteran turns up frequently in children’s stories where they often play, as their title implies, the old, kind mentor who can see the best in their students, a best friend or constant companion of the protagonist, or the hero themselves, with a story theme of not judging a book by its cover. Veteran Disney princesses are common because their kind and giving nature is a good example to little girls about how to be nice and care about others.
Which isn’t to say that a healthy Veteran is always nice. They are team-players who will grow fierce in the defence of their friends or causes that they truly believe in. The Veteran may or may not stick up for themselves, but if you attack their friends, prepare for a younger Veteran to get in your face while an older one may be disappointed in you and shake their head. Their disapproval alone may be enough to work wonders; a Veteran’s approval is powerful and only revoked if they see their friend hurting others. The other types are sure to feel guilty and wish to please the Veteran, though whether or not they change their actions as the Veteran wishes may depend on any number of factors.
The difference between a “sage old kook” that is ENFJ and one that’s INFJ is that the INFJ is likely to be faking and in complete control of their kookiness, whereas the ENFJ is likely just being themselves and has simply learned that genuinely enjoying goofy and simple pleasures helps them understand and appreciate the meaning in the world. The INFJ may know this as well, but is unlikely to “let their hair down” around their students, guarding a piece of themselves so their goal can never be lost. The healthy Veteran puts their heart on the line, leading by letting others connect with them. Their unspoken mantra with their students is, “You can do this, I believe in you.”
Their EJ makes them action-collaborators, loving to work together with others to make things happen, while their NF means they care profoundly about the deeper significance, in their case, of especially history, events and people’s interactions. Their EF… um, some of these combos are weird abbreviated… Extraversion plus Feeling, I mean, means their hope and optimism, which they have naturally, tends to lie in the actions of individuals and the times that they do grow cynical, it tends to be about the world or groups as a whole.
Like all EJ’s, since the Veteran has trouble knowing when they’re missing information, they have a tendency to plow forward with a plan of action, unaware of some little detail that may turn the whole course on its head. ENFJ’s in particular may have trouble gathering specific data they need and should instead turn to principles drawn from history, which is their greatest strength.
The Veteran may become the mother or the father of their beloved group, no matter their relative age, and the other types love to rely on their Veteran as a place of hope when they’ve been through the gauntlet. When they remember their end goal, the ENFJ is fantastic at rallying the others, getting them on their feet and toward the sanctuary of their task’s end. If they get side-tracked, usually because they see someone along their road who they have a hard time saying “No” to helping, sometimes the others will have to get them back to their own feet. But usually, the most meaningful mission will prevail and the Veteran will see their friends through to the end of whatever quest life’s taken them on.
Dark Veterans are not extremely common in fiction, as far as truly evil ones go. Usually a Veteran who is undeveloped or in the wrong will simply come from the desire to stand up for the people or causes they care about. This can turn truly evil though, when the Dark Veteran cares more about what they want for their team, friend or self to the point that they don’t care, or even purposefully hurt someone else. A Dark Veteran will likely validate themselves by implying they were doing a seemingly harmless action, trying to ignore their own intentions entirely, implying that “there will be no comeuppance!” and that consequences can merely be side-stepped. They also may try to use reasoning through falsified data they don’t really understand to support their own side. When evil, the Dark Veteran is one of the scariest types, imho. The gentle, nurturing of a Veteran parental figure, even if not blood related to the protagonist, is terrifying in its manipulative potential. But most ENFJ’s are full of light, with good hearts who just care about others. Though, they can feel free to remind themselves it’s okay to stand up for yourself once in a while and it’s worth it to stand up to your friends when you know in your heart they’re wrong.
Veteran or Dark Veteran, a strong ENFJ is sure to have a powerful connection with others and a complex understanding of the meaning behind history and events that they use to govern their own meaningful actions.
Examples:
Male: Faramir, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Female: Pepper Potts, Iron Man
Villain: The Wicked Stepmother, Disney’s Cinderella
Who are the Type Heroes? Read the intro here, and stay tuned to meet them all!
Want more information on ENFJ, the Veteran? Read their Cognitive Orientation Guidebook here.
I think Uncle Iroh is a great example of an ENFJ “sage old kook.”