Once Upon A Time: Cora Mills (INTJ)

Ni:

“Look at you with your whole life ahead of you, and it’s going to be better than you can imagine. The king’s not a strong man. The kingdom will be yours. Raise the tributes. Form a personal guard. Let everyone know where the new power lies, and you’ll hold the hearts of your people in your hands.”

“You don’t know what you want, but I do. I didn’t make the sacrifices I did in life to get you to the cusp of greatness so that you could end up the wife of a stable boy.”

Cora Mills is singularly focused on what she wants in life, believing that one’s trajectory must keep moving up. She sacrifices anything and everything that gets in her way in order to achieve her vision for the future. This includes the people in her life, her heart, and etc. At one point, Rumple chides Regina for failing to learn that she can’t have everything, and follows it up by pointing out that Cora learned that lesson and chose power over everything else. This demonstrates the restraint and focus of a introverted perceiving dominant.

Cora presents herself as extremely calm and in control, merely waving her hand to cast a spell during most encounters. She’s not animated nor prone to getting herself physically involved unless she absolutely has to. She teleports herself into a situation, and just as quickly teleports herself out when it no longer suits her to be there or when the odds are stacked against her. This all demonstrates the more detached nature of an Ni dominant. In addition, when she is discovered at the ball by the king, she makes an outlandish claim: that she’s able to weave straw into gold. This suggests a high intuition function, because it had no apparent basis in reality. Cora was bluffing, didn’t actually believe she could do this, hence expecting to die by morning when the king called her bluff.

Cora plans far out into the future in order to achieve what she wants. She sets up a series of events to fall into place perfectly, and seemingly by accident, like a domino effect. For instance, she kills Queen Eva, waits until the king is searching for a new queen, makes Snow White’s horse go out control, rearranges Regina’s schedule to position her nearby when it happens, and ultimately achieves her goal of getting Regina engaged to the king. Throughout her time in the series, she’s generally shown to be one to scheme behind the scenes and manipulate events in an underhanded way in order to get what she wants.

Te:

“Stop coddling her. She’s becoming an old maid. All the others girls her age are married. I had such high hopes.”

“Power is freedom. Don’t worry. I’m here to show you.”

“I’m not criticizing you. I’m helping you.”

Cora is a very controlling individual, and obsessed with power so that she can be in control. The most obvious distinguishing factor between the the NFJs and the NTJs is that the NFJs tend be more emotionally manipulative while the NTJs tend to be more physically manipulative. Cora is very physically manipulative. While she occasionally appeals to one’s emotions in a very low level manner, her go to tactic is to retrain people and force them to do what she wants, whether that be via magic or lining up events such that they have no choice. We see the way she puts up a barrier spell to prevent Regina from running away, and how she restrains her with magic when she tries to walk away from her. Cora doesn’t really attempt any kind of legitimate emotional manipulation with Regina until way into the future when it’s her only way to regain Regina’s trust again.

Cora is determined to plan out Regina’s life for her, and leaves Regina no choice in the matter. She kills Regina’s true love right in front of her, demonstrating how ruthless she is. She criticizes her constantly, whilst claiming that she’s just trying to help. This is a tendency of Te users – sounding critical when they’re earnestly just trying to give you advice or help you do what’s best for you. Generally speaking, Cora even when young is blunt in her speech in spite of who she may be speaking to, a fairly common tendency for Ni-Te users. This tendency is noted by the fake prince that cons her, when he says that she puts people in their place when she’s wrong, and it’s also demonstrated when she accuses Eva, someone of nobility, of causing her to spill the flour that she was delivering.

Lastly, Cora is disciplined and dedicated to her goals. She carefully enacts all of her plans, one by one. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants, even if it takes a lot of time and effort.

Fi:

“Love is weakness, Regina. It feels real now. At the start it always does, but it’s an illusion. It fades and then you’re left with nothing but power. True power endures, and then you don’t have to rely on anyone to get what you want. I’ve saved you, my love.”

Cora views emotion as a weakness. Whilst seeking power and revenge on those who abased her, she accidentally falls in love with Rumpelstiltskin. They briefly talk about running away together. At the time, she is engaged to a prince, and thus well on her way to getting what she wants. She almost does runs away with him, but ultimately changes her mind after speaking to the King. As a result, she decides to rip out her own heart in order to prevent any future emotional turmoil.

Cora knows exactly what she wants, and doesn’t let anyone get in her way. Everything she does is ultimately self-serving, although she claims to love Regina and want what’s best for her. Cora is capable of faking a basic level of empathy in order garner the trust of someone nearby or to appear sympathetic. We see it in the way she connects with young Snow White, framing her fears for Regina in a way that Snow would be able to empathize with since she had lost her own mother not long ago. Similarly, when meeting others, she can come across as friendly and amiable initially, if it suits her. This demonstrates a decently developed feeling function, although low.

Se:

Cora appears to be an inferior Se user. Apparently, many people believe her to be an ENTJ. However, while watching the show, I couldn’t help but notice what looked like inferior Se rather than tertiary. Cora tends to be extremely underhanded, and more physically detached in the way she handles situations. Inferior Se users naturally tend to be a bit more cautious, which causes them to avoid placing themselves at the center of a situation or getting their hands dirtier than necessary if at all. One example of this tendency in Cora is shown in how she magically appears nearby, and then disappears just as fast, rather than strutting in and out for all to see like her daughter Regina does.

Along the same lines, Cora frequently hides behind a guise of some sort. For instance, she’ll take on the appearance of someone else, which is safe way to enact a plan without anyone catching on. One example of this is when she runs the villages of refugees as Lancelot while pretending to still be a prisoner in their cell. Similarly, as the Queen of Hearts, Cora hides behind a mask, and speaks through an aid, rather than directly to those that approach her.