Dragon Ball Series: Goku (ESFP)

We know some people like to argue Goku’s love of fighting and battle is due to his Saiyan heritage. While this is true, this does not negate the fact that it is a part of who he is and it has a clear effect on his personality. The way that he approaches his thirst for a challenge and battle is done in a clear Se way. We would expect an Ne user with this same kind of drive to be more speculative and have more of a theorizing approach on how strong their enemy can get. This is an approach that Goku doesn’t take. Rather, he just wants to gauge his opponents’ true current strength and loses interest once he has surpassed them. He has no interest in their future potential growth, only their present skill level.

Se:

“But when I see somebody who’s that strong, my heart starts racing because I realize I still have farther to go. It makes me want to train myself even harder, to push myself to their level.”

“It’s tough to say before we’ve seen them. We’ll know soon enough though.”

Goku lives purely in the moment, with little regard for the future. He deals with things as they arise, and chooses not think about them prior to that point. His responses to both Frieza’s and Cell’s power are great examples of this. He chooses not to think or worry about the strength of his enemies until he has had the opportunity to gauge it himself first hand. Another example can be seen when Piccolo specifically asks Goku if he thinks they can beat the Androids. Goku offers up no speculation, like an Ne user might, and responds with a simple statement about how they’ll know soon enough. Goku is also quick to seize the moment to fight Frieza at full strength, and simply tells his son that he’ll figure out how to escape the dying planet later.

Goku lives to fight, and lives for a challenge. He is willing to risk anything and everything for the sake of a good battle. An obvious example of this can be seen when he lets Vegeta live so that he can fight him again later. Vegeta, who had just threatened to destroy the entire planet, was allowed to live so Goku could enjoy a fight with him later. This reasoning shows a severe lack of concern for future possibilities, and reinforces Goku’s purely Se driven life. Goku doesn’t struggle to take risks in battle, like using the Kaio-ken technique above a beyond the recommended power level since the situation appears to demand it.

While easily distracted from everyday life and things he doesn’t deem of high importance, Goku doesn’t allow himself to get distracted or deviate from his goal. It is this level of intense focus on his goal that shows a preference for lead Se rather than lead Ne. When people no longer intersect with his goal, he essentially stops interacting with them completely until they do once again. One would expect a lead Ne user to have a goal but still have moments of distraction even if they are ultimately striving toward that end point. This is not something you see with Goku. His goal takes top priority and all other distractions are ignored. We actually see Goku, for instance, become very impatient with Dr. Briefs when it comes to the completion of the spaceship that is going to take him to Namek. He is dumbfounded that something like a sound system is going to delay his departure and hits the launch button as soon as he is the only person on the ship. This is another example of Goku’s hasty action-oriented Se (and inferior Ni), as he blasts off without even having a full explanation of how the ship works.

Fi:

“I’m the Saiyan who came all the way from earth for the sole purpose of beating you. I am the warrior you’ve heard of in legends, pure of heart and awakened by fury. That’s what I am! I am the super Saiyan son Goku!”

“Krillin, I know it’s wrong but please, let him go for me. I need to be able to fight him again someday.”

Goku is trusting and very naive. He wants to see the best in people. He’ll give his enemies chances time and time again to walk away peacefully. However, once pushed past a certain point, his principles trump all, and he will refuse to forgive their wrongdoing. He’s made statements such as “Don’t bother apologizing because I will never forgive you.” He takes on a state of righteous indignation over the loss of innocent life, and uses this anger as fuel to take down his enemy.

He doesn’t take any pleasure in defeating opponents that are weaker than himself and only desires to face those that are stronger. He views beating up weaker opponents or taking out someone who was already defeated as cruel and heartless. It goes against his morals and makes him very unhappy. We see this disapproval come out specifically when vegeta starts taking out members of the ginyu force. Vegeta calls him weak for not being able to finish the job to which Goku responds, “I don’t care what you say. I could never act as cold-blooded as you do, not even if I thought it’d make me stronger.” Later on he gets angry when Freiza kills a defenseless vegeta calling it cold blooded murder.

Goku is very clearly Fi rather than Fe due to his blatant lack of awareness of others. He understands himself and only himself. He finds his very young son stuck up in a tree, and responds by wondering how he got there rather than with any kind of sympathy. When they are going up against Cell, Goku treats Gohan as if he were just like him. He views his son by the measure of his abilities rather than by his personality and pacifistic nature. He assumes that he’ll be able to take down Cell, in spite of Piccolo warning that Gohan is much different than Goku. Goku comes to fully realize this during the battle and briefly shows concern that perhaps Gohan was in danger of losing. Similarly, he gives Cell a senzu bean at the start of Gohan’s battle because he assumes Gohan will want a fair fight with Cell, as Goku would. Last but not least, Goku asks Krillin not to kill Vegeta purely so Goku could fight him later, which points to him yielding to a very selfish and dangerous desire, considering the fact that Vegeta had just threatened to wipe out earth.

Te:

“Do as I tell you right now before I lose what little sense of reason I have left!”

Goku has moments where he can be incredibly blunt, yet in an oddly cheerful way. Prior to their fight with Cell, once he emerges from the hyperbolic time chamber, he straight out tells Vegeta that he could stand to beef up a bit; and when questioned about whether he is suggesting that he is stronger than Vegeta, Goku replies with “Yeah, I wasn’t really suggesting.” In a similar fashion, he’ll get surprisingly stubborn and demanding in more serious situations, like when he demands that Krillin eat half of the last senzu bean, and refuses to take no for an answer. He’s also shown, in a fit of anger, screaming at Gohan to leave demanding that he obey before Goku loses himself to the rage. Beyond moments like that, he’s not typically one to control others.

Another proof of Goku’s lack of Fe can be seen when Mr. Satan is proclaiming that he will fight and take down Cell. Goku doesn’t try to use any kind of subtle coercion to stop him. He simply and bluntly informs Mr. Satan that “if you want to go first, I won’t stop you, but you oughta know, you’ll be crushed.”

Otherwise, Goku can be very determined and disciplined when he puts his mind to it. He’s very dedicated to his training. When training with Gohan in the hyperbolic time chamber, he decides that they need to train in super saiyan mode for the entire time, explaining that “that way we’ll use our power much more efficiently.” This, of course, speaks very plainly to Te’s desire for efficiency. He is quick to see the lack of usefulness in the beefed up super saiyan mode so he opted to go the efficiency route instead.

While Chi Chi clearly is the more demanding partner in the marriage, she is unable to control her husband only getting what she wants from him for brief moments. When it comes right down to it, Goku’s own Te clashes with his wife’s, and he ends up doing what he wants.

Ni:

“Yeah, sounds about right. Good to know my gut instinct wasn’t too off the mark.”

Goku’s inferior Ni comes out primarily in his lack of foresight, and failure to process anything beyond the moment. After Goku defeats Frieza, the reality of his impending doom sinks in and Goku’s inferior Ni begins to realize the ramifications of his short sighted indulgence. He actually regrets the decision he had made and verbally chastises himself for it as he frantically tries to get a ship to work so he can escape the dying planet. It is only by sheer luck that he manages to escape. There are many other examples of his lack of foresight throughout the series, like when he’s fighting the Androids in a weakened and sick state due to the rare heart illness.

Goku also has no concept of things that he isn’t immediately being faced with. He is unable to give Krillin an answer when asked if he is scared of being faced with enemies worse than Frieza. Goku is unable to speculate out into the future and feel apprehension about it. Throughout the whole series, we don’t see Goku become apprehensive about anything until the reality of a situation sets in, because he is dealing with it in the present moment only. This demonstrates an obvious preference for Se and lack of strong Ni.

A similar situation can be seen during the Cell arc. He remains perfectly calm at the prospect of a near invincible enemy. True, he believes his son had the potential to beat him, but he never worries about this. He even encourages his son to relax and enjoy himself in the days leading up to the Cell tournament rather than have him keep training. This calm is maintained even throughout most of his son’s fight with Cell up until he realizes that his son isn’t like him and may lose due to his gentle nature. It is Goku’s bad Ni that causes him to not realize that Gohan is in actual pain and not just biding time or messing with Cell. He is only focused on the fact that Gohan is more powerful so Piccolo has to spell it out for him.

Lastly, Goku tends to operate on hunches and instincts. An example can be seen when he decides to try reading Krillin’s mind rather than having him explain. He explains afterwards that he wasn’t sure if it was actually going to work; he just had a feeling that he could do it so he gave it a shot. Similarly, he has a hunch that he is not yet powerful enough to beat Cell after leaving the hyperbolic chamber, and has this confirmed by someone else.