The Fe Villain: ISFJ/INFJ/ESFJ/ENFJ

I occasionally ask myself what villains from varying types would look like. Obviously, there are going to be different styles and variations, but as a whole, how will each type act when evil? In the past, I have googled the subject to see other people’s opinions and perspectives on the matter. At one point, I spotted this tendency among typology enthusiasts to view Fe users a certain way, sometimes disconnected from villainy, sometimes not. Maybe it was specific to certain types, since I often saw it in reference to the INFJ. Regardless, I naturally questioned the viewpoint.

Essentially, it painted the picture of an INFJ being the visionary seeking to achieve some ideal future for the greater good. The “villain” in this story never actually truly seemed villainous, but instead, delusional, since they truly believed what they were doing was for the sake of others. Now, I’m not doubting the existence of this type of Fe villain. However, the belief that tends to go right along with this picture is that Fe users can’t willfully do anything to the detriment of others, since Fe will always ultimately be selfless. Ergo, for an Fe user to be villainous, he/she MUST be delusional. I’m not sure if people typically logic it out this way, but that concept has never sat right with me. I ultimately view it as a stereotype, and of course, we know that while stereotypes can be accurate, they are not always.

Characteristics of an Fe Villain

I’m going to paint you a different picture. The first premise that you must approach this with is that anyone, regardless of type, can be selfish. Selfishness is a character flaw not specific to any particular personality type. (Sorry guys – you can’t dump it all on the Fi users.) This leads to the second premise, which is that anyone can act willfully evil. In other words, an Fe user can indeed do something evil intentionally, purely for their own sake with little regard to the wellbeing of one lowly individual. (I’m phrasing it that way, because an Fe user could believe themselves to be doing something for the greater good or the collective while simultaneously viewing the individual as expendable… for the cause.) So what would I expect to see out of an Fe villain?

1. Someone who uses emotions as their preferred tool

Fe users are naturally honed in on the emotional responses of others. This can mean that they’re sensitive to the way people view them, or that they have a natural desire to attend to the emotional needs of others before their own. Regardless, this particular tendency makes them specifically set up to use someone’s emotions against them. An Fe user gone wrong can be very emotionally manipulative. Ergo, an Fe villain will naturally manipulate the emotions of others to get them to willingly do their bidding. This is in stark contrast to the Te user who will default to strong arming someone to obey their will, using fear as the primary emotional tool. An Fe user should have a much more robust emotional tool set rather than simply resorting to fear. (Fear would likely be a last resort, since they won’t want to be viewed in a negative way.)

2. A desire to appear like the good guy

This ties back to my comment in the previous point, about Fe users being sensitive to the way people view them. Fe users tend to weaponize image. An Fe user doesn’t actually have to be a good guy, or believe themselves to be a good guy, but they will probably still want other people to see them as the good guy. They will use their Fe to endear themselves to others, to gain sympathy and loyalty. Their lower Ti will come in as support to twist logic in favor of their actions or perspective.

3. A desire to operate in a harmonious group

I’m not necessarily saying that Fe users will always operate in groups. However, what I am saying is that when they do, they will likely want that group to remain in harmony. They may take the “family” approach to it, as a way to gain loyalty and draw everyone together. They may legitimately view their team as family, and feel a deep familial loyalty to them, or they may simply see them as tools. Regardless, they will want to maintain harmony within that group, and make everyone desire to work together toward the goal. The villainous Fe user tends to come off as polite and pacifistic, only resorting to violence when absolutely necessary.

In summary…

This is where I’d love to lay out a bunch of examples of Fe villains. However, my ability to analyze someone’s personality type in hindsight has always sucked, since my memory for details is poor. Unless I was actively typing the character while watching the show/movie, I can’t really identify type based on memory. (These days, typology is so ingrained into my thinking that I’m constantly stuck in analysis, but that is a more recent development so I don’t have much of a well to dip into.) All I can really do is point to two fictional Anime examples on this blog: Aizen from Bleach and Doflamingo from One Piece.

I hope you found this article interesting. Feel free to comment with other Fe villains that you’re aware of. Maybe in the future, I’ll come back and update this article with more of my own.