Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Kira Yamato (ESFJ)

Fe:

“Brilliant as he is, he’s also naive and good-natured. They’re exploiting him, but he’s blind to it.” – Athrun about Kira

“Believe me. The last thing I want to do is fight against you, but aboard that ship are people who I feel obligated to protect. My friends are on that ship!”

“No one even stops to think about what I must be feeling!”

“Kira took too many risks, didn’t always know what he was doing, and always cried, but he was kind! He was a nice guy!” – Cagalli

Kira Yamato from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is driven by a need to protect others and stop conflict. At the beginning of the series, Kira wants nothing more than to avoid the war and remain neutral. However, circumstances force him to fight for a short amount of time. However, once given the option to leave, he suddenly makes the decision to stay and fight once he realizes that his friends are going to do the same. That seems to be his theme through the show: protect my friends. He stays and fights with them in spite of the fact that it leads him to fight against his own people, as a coordinator. He doesn’t particularly adhere to the values of either side; he just wants to protect the ship that is carrying his friends.

As a whole, he has a very empathetic and caring personality. He treats people with kindness and understanding. He’s encouraging, and naturally wants to assure everyone that things will be alright. Of course, as many of his friends point out, Kira is outwardly emotional and prone to crying. He tends to avoid verbal or physical conflict with others on the ship, and doesn’t often speak out for himself in that regard.

We did consider him being an auxiliary Fe, but there were a couple of things that led us away from that conclusion. First, Cagalli and Athrun refer to him as a risk-taker, which is a reputation that no auxiliary Fe is likely to get. (Both the Ni and Si dominants are very cautious or calculated.) In addition, early on, he seems to struggle the greatest with remaining true to himself, suggesting an inferior identity function (more on that in the inferior Ti section). Lastly, loyalty to his current group of friends in the original series appears to override his loyalties from the years prior, leading him to not take the way out (and essentially escape the war) when it’s presented to him.

Si:

“Only if we sharpen our skills by practicing, training, and studying properly. Like naturals, we’re born with potential. We’re not gifted just because we’re coordinators… It is true that we don’t catch deadly diseases and that we had our genes altered before we were born to enhance our physical and mental abilities, but I thought everyone aspired to that, even naturals.”

“Day in and day out. This is all I do. I fight battles in mobile suits and then help out with their development and maintenance. Why? Because I can.”

“Yeah, but you were party to this originally, weren’t you? …Don’t kid yourself. You knew this would happen.”

When Kira goes to make decisions, he tends to be shown actively considering his past, searching it for what action to take. When he was being allowed to leave, Kira finds out that his friends are staying on the ship. He is shown stopping and looking at a flower that a young girl had given him as a ‘thank you’ for protecting her. It’s that memory which triggers his decision to stay. This seems to be a pattern with his character, dwelling on the past and intentionally using it to make decisions. In Destiny, he essentially throws Cagalli’s past actions into her face, calling her responsible for what has happened after she appears shocked by the events. The others in the room try to move the conversation on since calling Cagalli out over this is basically pointless now that it’s already done and over with.

Kira’s past also actively haunts him throughout the first series, throwing him into an unhealthy state. He ends up essentially traumatized by any failure to protect those onboard the Archangel. He loops on those memories, and they drive him to continue fighting in a war that he does not believe in against people whom he doesn’t actually view as his enemies.

Additionally, Kira attributes his abilities as a coordinator to practice, which is a tendency of the high Si users. He essentially tells Cagalli that hard work brought him to where he is today, rather than inborn talent. Kira is shown to be a dedicated person, consistently working to refine and maintain his Gundam for the entirety of the series.

Ne:

“I guess you’ve got about a couple of million questions to ask me, don’t you? …And there are a lot of things I want to ask you about too.”

“So it doesn’t matter what happens to other countries as long as this one doesn’t burn? And in that case, would it be okay for Orb to burn the Plants or some other country as long as it stays safe? … What about the things your father said?”

Kira’s Ne comes out the most later on in the original Gundam Seed and during Destiny. When discussing the war with Athrun, who is no longer sure what side he should be fighting for, Kira is shown explaining what’ll happen to Orb in any scenario. He basically lays out all of the different options in order to explain the reasoning behind what he is doing. As his character develops more and more, that is shown to be the typical way that he reasons. After kidnapping Cagalli in Destiny and confronting her over Orb’s alliance, he lays out several questions to her regarding scenarios that may or may not come to be.

Ti:

“If I did meet them, all they would see is a soldier.”

Kira appears to demonstrate inferior Ti. Ti is essentially his identity function, or his way of introspecting and checking in with himself. During the early stages of his character’s development, Kira fails to adhere to his own initial desires or ideals. For the sake of others, he is willing to do things against his nature, and even become a “murderer” for their sake (or at least, what he believes to be a murderer). He falls prey to being the stereotypical Fe doormat, because he wants nothing more than to help or protect others. When his Gundam crashes and he’s rescued by Lacus, his main struggle and confusion ends up being over what he should do and where he belongs. He is unsure of either, and remains in a state of analysis and inaction until his dominant judging function is finally able to choose a path.

A good example of inferior Ti is demonstrated by his lack of desire to see his parents when given the chance. His Fe has been so strongly in control up until this point that it has essentially been smothering out his Ti, and the two functions are completely imbalanced. Fe itself is beginning to fail him. In a sense, he is beginning to fall into the grip of self-critical Ti. Ergo, he avoids seeing his family altogether because he assumes that they’ll see him in the same harsh light that he sees himself. He doesn’t assume that they’ll see him the same way they always had, which would be more indicative of dominant Si.