Teen Wolf: Derek Hale (ISTP)

Ti:

“We don’t like you. Now shut up and help us.”

Derek appears to be leading with Ti. He seems generally detached from his emotions, and not at all expressive, except for the occasional bouts of frustration or anger. Overall, he presents himself as stoic and apathetic, rarely (if ever) admitting to the presence of any deeper emotions. Similarly, he’s extremely private and not okay with personal questions. He gets extremely annoyed with Stiles when he tries to hold a conversation with him in the first season, and in another instance, he just looks at Isaac in response to being asked about his sister. Of course, as someone who is emotionally detached, he tries to get Scott to detach himself from intimate connections, like Allison.

Derek is cynical and prone to being blunt with his opinions or comments. He doesn’t appear to be concerned with the emotional impact he’s having, instead just saying what he feels needs to be said. Overall though, he keeps much of his logic internal, only explaining when he feels it’s needed to sway others to his perspective. This actually tends to be his preferred method to get people to listen to him, rather than having the naturally commanding presence or mannerisms of a Te user.

Derek’s Ti actually surfaces in scenarios where he tells people what to do, because of the aforementioned tendency. He tries to explain why, assuming that if he can make it make sense to them, they will do what he’s trying to get them to do. An early example can be seen when he gets shot, and he sends Scott to find the bullet at the Argent’s house. When Scott calls because he’s having issues, Derek doesn’t get extremely demanding, even though he’s dying. Instead, Derek calmly explains to Scott why he needs him in order to survive, reminding Scott that the alpha had called Scott out against his will, was going to force him to kill or be killed, and etc. Derek deals with his pack in a similar fashion in season two, often explaining why they can or cannot take certain actions in response to their questions.

Se:

“Wanna help? Find something real.”

“Because I trust my senses.”

Derek is quick to act and tends to communicate through actions. When training Scott, he takes a very hands-on approach. He randomly ambushes him to teach him not only how to survive, but to be ready at any given moment. In addition, when teaching, Derek is prone toward physical demonstrations. For instance, he inflicts pain on Scott to demonstrate that pain makes them human. He’s also seen doing things like punching Stiles’ hand to get him to shut up. Derek is generally the type to say as little as he has to, preferring to default to action.

Even when he explains something, Derek often does something else simultaneously. He often presents with the intent to act immediately. He does this frequently with Scott. Instead of bringing something up and allowing Scott to sit on the information, he typically informs Scott of something and then tries to get him to act on it.

Derek can be rather impulsive, and hasty in his actions. One example of this is the speed at which he starts turning people into werewolves. He focuses too much on his immediate need for a pack and fails to teach them how to control their transformations before the full moon, opting to focus on getting numbers, rather than furthering those he had in experience.

This is something his Uncle Peter gets on him about. Peter berates him for leaping into action and not taking time to observe and develop a plan. He is very against Derek’s reactionary nature, telling him that he is playing straight into his enemies hands by doing so. This impulsive behavior is seen when Peter confronts him after coming back to life, trying to speak with him and offer help. Without saying a word, Derek goes straight to throwing him across the room and proceeds to beat on him.

Ni:

“There was something about the way Gerard looked at it. He wasn’t afraid… At all. I don’t know what he knows or what he’s planning. But I’m sure about one thing. We have to find it first.”

While Derek is reasonably good at explaining the logic behind why someone should do something, he tends to struggle with explaining how or why he knows what he does. As the quote above highlights, Derek frequently picks up information in a more abstract way. He will notice how something doesn’t logically make sense, like Gerard not being afraid of the Kanima, but is unable to give a further explanation to the implication beyond it being bad.

Derek also has a tendency to make some form of realization and base a solution around it, trusting that his sense of it is correct. He operates more on the abstract in this way, not having to uncover a bunch of details in order to draw conclusions. The result of this is him giving poor or sparse explanations to others using statements like, “I just know!” This sometimes backfires on him, however, like mentioned in the Se section. Derek’s poor foresight leads him to have issues when the full moon rolls around, resulting in him having difficulties controlling his pack.

Fe:

“That really hurts, Scott. I mean, if you’re going to review me, at least take a consensus.”

Derek’s inferior Fe shows up in a few ways. While predominantly a loner, Derek does see some value in having a group, citing basic things like strength in numbers, which is further emphasized by the fact that werewolves are much stronger in a pack. When bringing up problems that need to be solved, he likes to make the language group-oriented in order to emphasize that the problem affects more than himself. Early in the series, after Scott finds out he is a werewolf, Derek tells him that they are brothers now and emphasizes that they need to have each other’s backs. Similarly, when he turns Jackson and there are complications with the transformation, Derek tells Jackson he needs to know if something is wrong, because they needed to stick together.

Derek’s inferior Fe also shows up in his weak leadership skills. As stated in the Ti section, he mostly tries to get others on the same page with him through presenting his logic rather than using any kind of social skills or attempting to be likeable. His poor Fe is one of the reasons cited by his Uncle Peter for him being a failed Alpha. Peter even goes as far to say that even someone as heartless as himself recognizes the value of emotion, implicating that Derek struggles to see any value in emotion. This supports inferior feeling for Derek as devaluing one’s inferior function is fairly common.