Once Upon A Time: Snow White (INFP)

Fi:

“She wanted revenge more than she wanted love, and I can’t imagine living that way. I want to be guided by love.”

“Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a powerful thing, but living with that kind of belief… That’s the most powerful thing of all. “

Snow White is guided by her ideals and by love, which implies the Fi mantra of “follow your heart.” She see belief itself as extremely powerful, and uses her beliefs to drive her forward and keep her from giving up. She readily shares those ideals with others and lives by them no matter what others say. For instance, when they have captured the Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest and are intending to execute her, Snow steps in and stops it from happening at the last moment, in spite of the obvious dismay from others. Of course, this also demonstrates her kind and forgiving nature, considering all the Evil Queen has done by this point. However, she lets her live in spite of it.

Snow is more focused in on her emotions than the emotions of others, which is typical for Fi users rather than Fe. When the curse is finally broken and she realizes that Emma is her daughter, she deeply desires to speak to her and get to know her. However, Emma feels overwhelmed and tries to avoid it. Snow White then directly states that what they’re doing could wait, but she could not. Essentially, she attempts to push Emma before she’s ready. Charming, recognizing what’s going on, tries to encourage Snow White to be patient and give Emma time.

Lastly, Snow tries to encourage people to be who they are, and stay true to themselves. The prime example of this shows up in her backstory with Red. When they are on the run, Red says that Snow White is the only person who thinks it is okay for her to be both a human and a wolf. She doesn’t try to get Red to reject the wolf half, but rather accept it as a part of who she is. Of course, we later see Snow fail in this regard when Emma is seeking to get rid of her magic completely, and Snow goes along with it, mostly out of fear. However, she later regrets her actions, recognizing that she failed her daughter in this instance.

Ne:

“We’ll find another way. We always find another way.”

“The minute I stop believing in the possibility that things will get better is the minute I know they won’t.”

Snow White’s nearly unfailing optimism is a result of healthy Ne in combination with Fi idealism. Ne is concerned with possibilities rather than immediate reality. Snow needs to believe in possibility in order to thrive, and has stated as much. She wants to believe that anything is possible, which is why she seems so extremely idealistic. At one point, she tells Emma, “Just because it seems too good to be true doesn’t mean it is.” This demonstrates that tendency in her to remain open to anything, and not rule out a possible just because logically it seems unlikely.
No matter what happens, no matter what extreme obstacle they are facing, Snow always believes there is some other way to accomplish what they’re trying to do. This is something that she’ll say they’re attempts thus far have failed, or the only viable option feels impossible to accept.

Snow White’s Ne comes out in other ways as well, like in her reasoning for originally giving Henry the book of fairy tales. She sees him struggling, and thinks the book will help. At one point, she explains that stories are a way we deal with our world, which demonstrates the Ne tendency to escape from reality into a world of fantasy.

Lastly, she demonstrates Ne worrying when preparing for her second baby. (Obviously, we’re not saying that other types don’t worry. The way she does it is just most common for Ne users.) She’s shown reading a book about babies, and comes across a section about cradle cap. She, for some reason, randomly latches on to this particular ailment, and begins worrying about her baby having it, without any legitimate reason. (A legitimate reason would be some kind of concrete reason to believe her child might get it, like a genetic tendency.) However, the baby isn’t even born yet, and Snow had no idea that cradle cap was a thing before that moment, yet she starts openly worrying about her baby getting it.

Si:

“This is the life I wanted you to have.”

Snow’s Si surfaces heavily in a scene in which her and Emma are stuck in the Enchanted Forest. They visit Snow’s castle, and she gets to show Emma her old room. She begins to list off all the things they would have done in her bedroom in the castle, like teach her to walk, teach her to talk, try on her first dress, and etc. She points out varying locations in the room as steps Emma through this imaginary future. This points to Si’s tendency to have an idealized, detailed internal impression of how things should be or how things were.

Snow’s Si also surfaces in how she tends to worry that the past will repeat itself, or desires to avoid situations that’ll provoke past memories. She struggles to celebrate her birthday due to a past negative association. She also deeply fears that something will happen to her second baby, because of the trauma behind losing/having to give up her first one.

Te:

“I’m starting to get why Regina was evil! It was you! You have survived your entire lives without lightbulbs! Buy a flashlight!”

Snow demonstrates inferior Te in the way she clamps down suddenly in anger or frustration, in order to take control of the situation. For instance, when the power outage happens and Snow is now mayor, she begins feeling overwhelmed and eventually lashes out at the people who are demanding that she fix the outage immediately. She goes on a mini-rant and makes rather extreme, critical statements, like claiming they’re the reason Regina went evil to begin with. (There is also some Ne in that rant as well.) In another very minor showing of Te need to gain control, she (as Mary Margaret) goes on a cleaning kick while stressing over David, and Emma feels the need to point out that she’s scrubbing the dishes too death.

Lastly, another good example of inferior Te can be seen when Charming lies to her in Neverland. Snow leans hard into her Te, and grows extremely independent and mission focused, in order to avoid having to deal with him or her anger over what he has done.