Seven Deadly Sins: Merlin (INTJ)
Ni:
“Experiments are time consuming, you know, and even as I engage in them, I find new interests, new phenomena in the world. No matter how much I try to quench my thirst for knowledge, I find myself wanting more, but human life is finite after all. Thus, making it impossible to truly know everything. Can you think of anything more unjust or irritating than that conundrum? I’ll answer that for you. There’s isn’t!”
“When the details of the stories fail to add up, it often helps to run everything you know in reverse. And as you discover and give meaning to a seemingly unnatural action, a different answer will emerge. Sincerity becomes spite, the circumstances become pretense, and the meaningless suddenly gains meaning. Think about it. Consider what happened and discover the answer for yourselves.”
“Now then, we won the fight but we can’t let this victory go to our heads so let’s plan our next move. What we know right now is…”
“Let’s take a moment to strategize.”
“Somehow I had a feeling you’d be stopping by soon, Captain.”
Merlin appears to be an Ni dominant. She keeps a lot of information to herself, to the extent that those around her (or the viewers) aren’t exactly sure what she is thinking or planning. Along with this, she can be prone to giving vague advice, like when Dreyfus’ actions didn’t add up. She essentially lists off a vague piece of wisdom and then tells them to think about it for themselves, rather than helping them actually come up with a specific solution or answer. Merlin generally values an abundance of knowledge, having a thirst for it, which supports being an introverted perceiving dominant. She finds it irritating that it’s impossible to know everything.
Merlin is also frequently scheming behind the scenes for her own purposes, and orchestrating things to turn out a specific way. She’s prone to taking risks based on intelligence and intuition. For instance, when she tries a new secret technique that she learned from the demon world on the king when healing him. Meliodas makes a comment that it takes guts to use the king as a guinea pig. This suggests a general lack of the more cautious and security oriented nature that an Si dominant would have. Another example can be seen during a past revelation when she’s shown to have tricked both the demon king and the supreme deity into giving her blessings, versus choosing one over the other. She effectively makes enemies of both due to this, putting herself at great risk.
However, as a whole, Merlin is cautious, although not to the level of the Si dominant. She’s very much about having a plan and a strategy before launching into action. In addition, she prefers to think ahead so she can be ready for whatever comes. This is something she encourages the other Sins to do as well.
Te:
“Less muttering! More searching!”
“Slater, take her inside. Things may get a little rough out here.”
“He’s absolutely right about this. First we need to come up with a plan, and then meticulously carry out that strategy as a team.”
Merlin tends to naturally take charge of whomever is around her. We considered ENTJ as a result, but she appears to ultimately prefer Ni. She doesn’t have any issues sharing her opinion, or telling others what needs to be done. This is all done in context with a specific or critical task that needs accomplishing, which supports Te use. Of course, we covered that she’s prone to planning in the Ni dominant section. Her Te use comes into play with the execution of said plan, which she never fails to do. Merlin has no problem doing what needs to be done, or launching into action when she has a plan. She has a tendency to strike deals if it facilitates accomplishing her goals. (Example can be seen when she makes an arrangement with Zeldris, an enemy)
In appearance and temperament, Merlin is a colder and harsher individual, which supports her being on the Te/Fi axis. She speaks in very certain terms, which also supports Te speech patterns, which tend to sound more absolute.
Fi:
“Don’t be so nosy!”
“Afraid? Fear is simply an emotion that’s brought on by ignorance. Besides, I find this mysterious aura you have rather alluring.”
Merlin is a very private individual. Her past remains a mystery for a long time. She also gets extremely embarrassed when Elizabeth starts calling her by an old nickname (Big Sis). She snaps at Escanor to not be so nosy when he questions it. In addition, as a tertiary Fi user, she’s also prone to rationalizing away emotion. For instance, she claims that fear is simply the result of ignorance.
Merlin appears to be very loyal to Arthur and protective of him, which would be a manifestation of her Fi. She also has a caring nature which exists but only surfaces on rare occasions. She can be very supportive of people that she values, as long as it doesn’t conflict with her own personal desires or intentions. For example, she attempts to help Meliodas with the curse that he and Elizabeth have been placed under.
Se:
Merlin’s inferior Se is most prominently manifested in the Sin which she was convicted of: gluttony. Merlin desires power, and swings to the more extreme side of things, unable to deny herself whatever she wants. The most obvious example was referenced in the Ni dominant section, when she tricks the Supreme Deity and the Demon King into both giving her their blessings.
Another way in which her inferior Se manifests is her curious nature when experimenting. As she experiments, Merlin claims that she discovers new interests and phenomena worth exploring. This sounds more like Se rather than Ne, because the curiosity is based in action, as she physically runs across more things worth exploring, versus speculating about possibilities in her head.
Merlin also tends to stay in the background and is not always quick to join the battles going on around her. (Although, she usually does eventually, when she’s finally needed.) This shows the more detached nature of inferior Se when it comes to the physical environment. Of course, her desire to always have a plan supports having an inferior extraverted perceiving function.
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Merlin has the typical scientific approach and the thirst for knowledge is her best trait.
She gave me the idea of INTJ, but its endless research and the quote “as I engage in them, I find new interests, new phenomena in the world. No matter how much I try to quench my thirst for knowledge, I find myself wanting more” gave me doubt of Ne.
In this case how would you see the difference between an Ni and Ne user?
From my point of view the search begins with an idea in mind, and you start by digging into the ground looking for something (which may not be very clear at first) and you could continue to dig endlessly if the answer doesn’ t come (or if you lose patience first) and if you find something useful you put it in your pocket and continue digging.
What you are seeing with Merlin is an example of how a different type can accomplish to look like something that is stereotypically attributed to another. What is important to pay attention to in these types of scenarios is the broader cognitive attitude of the person and look at them as a whole. Even with a never ending thirst for knowledge (which is also common for Ni and Si dominants), the focus is still coming down to a singular goal. Furthermore, the information is being utilized in a manner that is consistent with a high Te user as she is latching on to the pieces of knowledge that are most useful to her. In the end, if you observe Merlin’s mentality, she is not learning information just for the sake of it, nor is she in it purely because she finds the learning of new things exciting. She is seeing a value in knowing as much as humanly possible, and in her eyes, knowledge=power. Ultimately, power is her goal which in her case points to an Ni-Te mentality. I will leave off further explanation there as to not introduce spoilers.
So the subtle difference is that Ni is about collecting information that “are” useful, rather than information that “might” be useful.
Another difference could be that an Ni user is looking for various information but forgetting them if they no longer coincide with the use it would make of them?