Bleach: Sōsuke Aizen (INFJ)
Ni:
“My true identity was beyond them.”
“It’s not a test if I know the outcome.”
“You did not choose me. I chose you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you approach me recklessly or carefully, or even if you decide not to approach me at all. The end result for all of you will be the same. I’m not talking about things to come. Regardless of what you choose, your demise is inescapable. It is an event of the past.”
Aizen’s personality type aligns with that of an Ni dominant. He relies heavily on deception and manipulating others based on abstract information. His movements and plans are frequently shrouded in uncertainty and his individual actions aren’t clear unless you are able to see the bigger picture and how everything fits together. His plans frequently are layered one on top of the other allowing for contingencies. Even when doing something seemingly nice for Orihime by allowing her to say goodbye to one person, it ultimately is only to frame her. This allowance makes it look like she defected to his side rather than the fact that she had been kidnapped. He has a complicated master plan in which he anticipates everyone else’s moves and plans for it accordingly. The ability of his zanpakuto also fits in nicely with his already deceptive ways.
His plan is also based around a larger vision of how he feels the world should be. He refuses to accept the world as it is and has fashioned his whole plan around changing it to the way that he thinks it should be. Aizen is also calm and patient, emphasizing not to act rashly and to wait for people to come to them, which lines up well with the mentality of an introvert.
Fe:
“So does everybody have a cup of tea now? Good. Please listen carefully to what I have to say.”
“Grimmjow, I appreciate your intentions and your enthusiasm but I’m not finished speaking yet. Could you return to your seat for now?”
“I’ve chosen to show this to you for one reason: to prove that I trust you. You have a phenomenal power. You can negate things that have happened and possess the ability to wipe out entire events. This is an incredible power, a power that is very useful to me. Orihime, you’ll use your power for me, won’t you?”
“You should try to smile. Everyone gets so depressed when the sun doesn’t shine.”
Aizen tends to speak in a mellow or soothing way. He comes across as calming and friendly. He manipulates people on an emotional level, and appears to place value in harmony, although this is not outright stated. During scenes with the Arrancar, he acts very polite and usually phrases his demands in the form of questions, as if giving the person a choice in the matter. He is encouraging and affirmative, making statements like “That’s splendid. Keep up the good work.” Other such Fe-esque statements that drew our attention were phrases like “I’m sorry you feel that way”, “You don’t have to raise your voice”, and general reprimands for rudeness.
Aizen uses Momo’s blind admiration for him as a way to control her. In addition, when dealing with Orihime, he gives her the illusion of choice, so that she will choose to aid his cause and be less likely to try to escape. Ulquiorra describes Aizen’s method as psychological cages versus physical ones. Aizen even allows her to say goodbye to one person before being brought to Hueco Mundo. Once there, he appears to try to gain her trust and make her want to serve him. As a whole, Aizen seems to only use physical methods of control as a last resort, since he appears to desire people to willingly and enthusiastically follow him.
Ti:
“Just as long as you had a good reason, there’s no need to punish you.”
“Trust is the same thing as reliance. It’s a fault of cowards. I have no need for such weakness.”
Aizen has his own personal view of what he thinks makes sense. He even allows others to escape immediate judgement from him if they can somehow manage to justify their actions as either doing it for him or explain it in a way that benefits the cause. In other words, if they could manage to make what they did make sense to him, he would let it slide. This is in stark contrast to how a Te would deal with such a situation. Te tends to accept no excuse for disobeying or not fulfilling orders the exact way that they were given.
Later in the series when the head captain accuses him of being truly cruel by leaving Wonder Weiss’ feelings still intact but removing his free will, Aizen twists the logic back around on itself claiming that he is the good guy because he gave Wonder Weiss purpose. He then proceeds to claim the head captain is the cruel one for tearing Wonder Weiss apart. This is an example of the way that Ti can twist logic into something that makes sense with their own internal system. This is also an example of Ti working with Fe’s desire to appear like the good guy.
Se:
“You’re wasting my time.”
Aizen takes the typical behind-the-scenes approach to his strategies. He gets others to do his bidding, and remains at a distance for most of the time. He deals in illusions so that his actual physical location or state is never fully known by others. While he is usually very calm and patient, he does periodically get frustrated when things are not moving at the pace that he desires or expects. In his desire for power, Aizen alters his body physically to an extreme degree, which can be seen as inferior Se, or devaluing his physical person. However, on a smaller scale, he places value in their physical environment in Hueco Mundo, covering the entire place with a bright sky and sun, rather than allowing it to remain shrouded in darkness. This would be an example of a minor or safe use of Se.
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I always thought that Aizen was an Intj, but this actually looks more accurate.
I personally see Aizen INTJ too, but I respect their opinion on this. It feels strange seeing Aizen as a Fe user though.
Yeah, your opinion is pretty common. People seem to struggle to see feelers in the context of villains, especially Fe since it’s assumed to be always… benevolent in nature. With Aizen, we basically asked ourselves what a villainous Fe would look like. Between his first impulse being to emotionally manipulate (Momo, Orihime) rather than physically control and other such things like the soft spoken and the polite persona that he puts forward, even when not hiding among the soul reapers, he seemed to line up with what we’d expect for an evil Fe user. Te users are less likely to emotionally manipulate since emotions are not their strength.
Yeah I think a great example of an Fe villain is Johan from Monster, masterpiece series and excellent villain. Hero and villain INFJs going at it in my opinion. We both disagree on Doflamingo as I type him ENTP personally and have a post on my reasons why coming soon along with my Law INTJ post, but I’m working on Luffy ENFP post with my ISFJ friend and Usopp ENTP post as well so there’s a lot I have to do and on my plate for right now, and I’m doing all the Straw Hats and only done 4 so far so I got a lot more to do lol, especially Luffy since he’s the main character and all. But you guys opinion is ENFJ so that’s one for your opinion. We at least agree Doffy has Fe for sure so regardless on what your opinion on the order for his Fe in his stack we all see him as a Fe villain in some respect. Another good Fe villain I think is um,,,haha, I guess they are hard to find.
Aizen doesn’t manipulate with emotions. He is basically unemotional pokerface himself and only goes on rampage/losing it when everything is finally not according to his plans – inferior Fi (the only time we see him emotional). He leads with Te. Whenever Aizen manipulates really (not when he is playing a good guy in SS) with facts, not emotions. Even quotes you presented are not necessarily emotion manipulation. Aizen provokes Hiori and others with facts – “You died that night”. Or when he first meets Ichigo and endlessly talks about how the shinigami world works and what it takes to go beyond limits. His explanation to Ichigo of their power difference is pure Te. He talks more than anyone during battles (what Kyouraku told him) always explaining his reasoning. Him speaking when he fights against Ichigo, Isshin and Urahara is pure Te + Ni. I don’t really understand the point with Ti. Aizen clearly thinks in common sense and objectively to ensure he is always on top and more effective in real world than others. He can easily adjust his plans on the fly like always sparing Ichigo for another fight to see how far he can go. Aizen definitely enjoys power and I disagree that he always does everything behind the schemes. He can do fighting himself when necessary easily crushing his opponents with power and KS, its just more effective first to weaken the enemy with his pawns or defeat Yamamoto with Vanderwise or kill them with KS, especially considering that going to Soul King is a long way. He also has excellent acting skills as he is able to stay uncovered in SS for so long. He is pretty much comfortable and has a good use of Se. But his weak spot is Fi which is quite obvious in the end. He completely neglects personal values in his quest for power. I’ve never seen Aizen asking himself “doing right thing” or “caring for someone” or using morals, etc, he is completely selfish, arrogant, narcissistic, overconfident. Him wanting to replace Soul King is because in his view his is worth it and his vision for the world is better than some puppet. I’d say he is walking ENTJ stereotype.
-A Te dom would have crushed Grimmjow the moment he deviated from the plan, rather than excusing and rationalizing away his behavior. Aizen basically twisted Grimmjow’s true intentions (Ti) into Grimmjow being eager to do his bidding, essentially appearing to give him the benefit of the doubt (Fe). Aizen doesn’t even dole out Grimmjow’s punishment later on (when Grimmjow loses his number ranking). Kaname Tosen does… due to Aizen’s subtle manipulation. Aizen seems intent on maintaining a more benevolent reputation among his crew (Fe).
-The Fe quotes were not all about emotional manipulation, but many were demonstrating the polite nature of Fe. A Te dominant would be much more abrasive, and not as concerned with such social niceties.
-He appears far too subdued to be an extroverted dominant, especially considering that he even remains that way in the midst of conflict. Sure, he monologues, but that doesn’t necessarily mean extrovert.
-He definitely emotionally manipulated Momo, to make her be completely devoted to him. He completely messed her up in the head. There were no cold hard facts attached to this manipulation.
-Aizen isn’t necessarily adjusting on the fly. He states multiple times that he had it all planned out from the start, so no adjustment would have been necessary.
-I’m not sure his Se was all that good. He was basically banking on the Hogyoku regenerating him everytime an attack caught him by surprise. (Like with Gin) Sure, he was powerful so he wasn’t afraid to fight, but he tended to stay out of the battles while he had minions to fight for him. A Te dominant would typically prefer to be more in the center of things. Considering his level of power, might it not have been more efficient for him to join the battle early on in order to kill off everyone more quickly?
-A lack of personal values and morals can also mean a lack of Fi, rather than just bad Fi. Any type can be narcissistic, selfish, arrogant and over-confident.
And finally, how’s this for efficiency?
“Good evening, Espada. There has been an enemy attack. But first…Let us brew some tea.” – Aizen
Aizen is definitely a inferior Se user not inferior Fi no way in my opinion. I think his Fi is tertiary for INTJ but Mara and Ryan think INFJ in their opinion which is fine, but I definitely don’t see him as a Te dom or extrovert. Aizen is an Ni dom without a doubt regardless of what you agree or disagee on Te vs Fe with him. Madara Uchiha is a real ENTJ, or Boa Hancock as ENTJ in my opinion and also I type Crocodile ENTJ personally as well. I type Thanos ENTJ and Madara is the ENTJ stereotype. I have more I wanna list but Mara and Ryan haven’t typed the ones I think are definitely ones yet.
Why Ni-dom? ENTJ are not planning long-term? Aizen plan is based on his rationale that he is more worthy than current Soul King and wants to be on top so that no one will have control over him.
Arguments for inferior Se are very weak – I see much more instances where Aizen shows Se. Like showing off, not having a problem to adapt to different opponents in real time, being flexible to see how far Ichigo can go and giving him lots of chances (actually lack of irrational Ni dom insight to see that Ichigo will eventually defeat him), great acting and social skills, provoking his enemies.
His Fi only shows under extreme stress (in the end), where he loses control which is typical for ENTJ. I don’t see where he talks about his feeling anywhere except hate for Urahara and Soul King in the end. His whole morale is based on logical and rationale rather than feelings or sentiment which suits ENTJ more than INTJ. Between ENTJ and INTJ the best way to decide is to figure out order of Se and Fi as order of Ni and Te is harder to establish if person shows both signs of ENTJ or INTJ, Ni is harder to spot.