One Piece: Portgas D. Ace (ESTP)

Se:

“Thanks but no thanks. I’m not really interested in living for a thousand years. Just living today is good enough.”

“I won’t ever lose and I won’t ever run away.”

“Stop yapping and do it.”

Like every other extraverted perceiving dominant, Ace is impulsive. He’s quick to rush headfirst into a fight, and is shown doing that over and over again, especially when young. When working with Sabo and Luffy to kill the tiger, Ace’s big idea was to attack it head on. This straightforward, lack of strategy impulse is standard for young Ace, and he’s shown struggling with the idea of hiding or running from enemies. Ace lives for the moment, and acts in the moment. He is action-oriented, desires freedom, and to not be controlled. The show mentions that in his early years as a pirate, he refuses a warlord position. He also fights against Garp’s wishes constantly, and after having been taken by the Whitebeard pirates, he tries over a hundred times to kill Whitebeard. This also demonstrates Se/Ni singular goal orientation and focus. Ace does not appear to be readily distracted, and is not usually oblivious. He even stops to apologize to a family while they’re eating after he’s been knocked through the wall of their house. He has no issues bursting in on people and making himself right at home. He randomly climbs aboard Buggy’s ship and starts eating their food and partying with them. He does something similar in Alabasta in a town that is supposedly being protected by the rebel army. He also falls asleep randomly while eating. Ace doesn’t show much interest in anything new and interesting, like Luffy’s devil fruit power. (In contrast to Sabo, who seems very curious about it.)

Ti:

“Well, I did know that Crocodile was here in Alabasta. But him trying to steal a kingdom? That sounds like a bad joke. Because why would a pirate drop anchor in one spot and settle down? Crocodile trying to usurp the throne of Alabasta doesn’t make sense.”

“I won’t submit, and I won’t live with regrets no matter what. You got that, stupid?”

“Look, Vivi can do what she wants. I was only sharing my thoughts on the subject.”

The natural desire an Se dom has to not be controlled is just compounded when Ti is thrown into the mix. Ace struggles with authority. He frequently ignores any authority that he disagrees with, even those that he respects. Young Ace is frequently shown fighting with Garp, but even older Ace ignores Whitebeard’s command to not go after Blackbeard.

Ace does not exhibit any desire to control his external environment or others unless backed into a corner. When he first meets Luffy, Ace ignores him and just runs from him, attempting to lose him in the forest. He spits in his face, knocks things into his path, and etcetera for months on end, but never actually tells him to go way or leave him alone. Older Ace is shown sharing his thoughts with people, but not feeling much of a need to enforce them, except in situations where he’s been angered, like with Blackbeard. For instance, Ace gives advice to Vivi concerning how to deal with the fake rebels, however, he doesn’t push his opinion at all beyond the initial suggestion. In addition, he frequently phrases his “orders” as questions or requests, or they generally come off as calm or casual, and not very commanding. For instance, “that’s my little brother you’re trying to murder. I’ll have to ask you to stop” and “hold on a second there, Teach, we need to talk.”

While Ace is well-mannered, these manners have been taught to him and do not come naturally. Young Ace is rude and brash, and struggles to learn manners even though he’s not being forced to do it. When older, he’s seen doing things like wiping his face on a woman’s dress without any hesitation or second thought. He also cuts through any niceties and gets straight to the point in serious matters, uninterested in playing games. He also shown casually insulting people, like the fake rebels at Alabasta. Young Ace is also not very sensitive to emotions, comfortable with them, or patient with them. He doesn’t like being hugged, and is shown getting frustrated with a very emotional Luffy who just nearly died.

Lastly, one can see Ace’s desire for things to make logical sense. He’s shown discussing the Crocodile situation with Zoro when they first meet, and stating that what he’s doing makes little sense. He suggests that there may be a hidden motive there. He also attempts to rationalize why Sabo died, and struggles with the logic of Blackbeard’s devil fruit. He expresses confusion by the fact that he’s able to injure Blackbeard when Blackbeard is supposedly a logia type devil fruit eater.

Fe:

“He’s polite, helpful and gracious. The polar opposite of Luffy.” – Usopp

“Let me know if I can help.”

“This is all wrong. How…am I supposed to feel? Pops, Luffy, my friends… they’re gonna save me, but they’re pushing through a sea of their own blood to do it!”

I did consider the idea that Ace could an ESFP, however, his values appears more Fe-like. Ace’s focus is on family. He drops his dreams to join Whitebeard’s crew, once he realizes that he’s found a family in the crew. He’s also the one that spearheads the brotherhood ritual between Sabo, Luffy, and himself. Later, Ace’s downfall is shown to be his over-protectiveness of Whitebeard and Whitebeard’s reputation. When Whitebeard is insulted during their escape from Marine Ford, the Whitebeard pirates beg Ace to let it go, but Ace is unable to, and ends up dying as a result. He also goes out of his way to thank Shanks for saving Luffy years after the event, and learns manners specifically for this purpose. The only the other absolute value you can hear Ace stating is his refusal to run from a fight, which ties more closely to Se.

Young Ace’s tertiary Fe leaks out a lot in the form of anger. He spends all night tied to a tree, screaming, after Sabo dies because he wants to go after his killer. He lashes out on others frequently, especially when they make any mention of his father. Later, he decides he wants to learn how to properly pay respects to someone and focuses on learning manners. This results in older Ace possessing the smooth-talking ability that many tertiary Fe users possess. Ace’s final words do no express any form of self-failure, but regret that he’s unable to see Luffy fulfill his dreams. He also thanks his friends and family for caring for someone like him who was never wanted and had bad blood in his veins, which suggests low Fe due to the inferiority implications.

Ni:

“You know, there could be another side to this takeover thing, like some sort of deeper goal or something.”

Ace struggles with a lack of impulse control like many other inferior Ni users. He frequently is unable think beyond the moment and just launches into action without a second thought. Beyond that, one can see his Ni in his search for meaning as he struggles to understand whether or not he should have been born. Young Ace continually questions his own existence and searches for the answer to that one question. In addition, when young Ace is asked why he would never run, he’s shown struggling a bit to verbalize his answer, which suggests Ni information storing. He manages to produce a somewhat vague statement about fearing that he’d leave something important behind. His Ni also briefly surfaces as he seeks to understand other perspectives, and at one point, suggests to Zoro that there might be something deeper to Crocodile’s plot.