Naruto Series: Orochimaru (INTP)

**Special mention to Cipher for helping us hash this out**

Ti:

“My goal is to unlock the truth about all things in this world.”

Orochimaru appears to be a Ti dominant. Since one of the prominent theories on him is ENTP, we’ll start by generally explaining why he appears to be leading with an introverted function. Orochimaru tends to be more cautious and calculated, operating from the shadows. While he’s occasionally opportunistic, he, as a whole, is not an impulsive person, typically thinking first before he acts. When he’s speaking to Kabuto during the Chunin exams about moving his plans forward with Sasuke, Kabuto seems surprised that he’s willing to act so hastily, because it’s out of the ordinary for him. Of course, young Orochimaru shows classic signs of social introversion, but more than that, he’s extremely reserved and reclusive. Jiraiya and Tsunade typically have to probe to get information out of him. Back during that time, he presents like a blank, emotionless Ti dominant.

Orochimaru’s goal is to discover the ultimate truth of the world. His thinking function is essentially pouring into a desire to gain a deeper understanding, rather than exerting control over the world around him. While he has an “ultimate goal”, it’s purely about understanding as opposed to ordering the world around him in some way. That points away from Te. He doesn’t see any kind of meaning in life, nor does he have an Fi value backing his goal. When Jiraiya and Tsunade ask why he desires “to master ninjutsu and become stronger than anyone”, he’s unsure and says that he never thought about it. This generally shows more of a Ti motivation, rather than Te/Fi.

In addition, Orochimaru operates in shades of gray. He never verbalizes any kind of values or standards, but rather just does whatever needs doing in service to his goal. He appears willing to cross any lines necessary, never setting any kind of personal boundaries for himself. However, down the line, once he fails, he easily switches sides and helps Tsunade and the other Kage, demonstrating the Ti tendency to remain non-committal to any one side or stance.

Ne:

“I want to know every jutsu in the world, and even those jutsu yet to be discovered. I’m like the one who first took blue and yellow, consciously mixed them together and created a new color: green. Only in my case, the color blue represents chakra, the color yellow a hand sign, and the green a new jutsu. And just as there are countless shades of color in the world, there must be an almost limitless number of jutsu. To find them, to unlock the truth long hidden from mortal eyes, that takes years, endless experimentation. Ultimately, the truth reveals itself only to one who proves himself worthy, one who is willing to sacrifice years of his life. But alas, I’ve found there are not enough years in even the longest life. This mortal existence is too fleeting. Yes, even if I were named Hokage, one day I would die, and that would be the end of it.”

Orochimaru appears to be not only a high extraverted perceiver, but an Ne user specifically. While strategic, Orochimaru is generally flexible and adaptable. This is shown most prominently in the way he decides to just follow Sasuke around out of amusement and curiosity once he’s brought back to life. This isn’t something one would expect from an inferior extraverted perceiver, like the INTJ. It shows a more go-with-the-flow perceiver mentality rather than the more rigid, goal-oriented INTJ mentality, especially considering the fact he doesn’t form a new long term goal or try to return his original goal. Of course, even if he does intend to return to his goal, he’s essentially allowing himself to get side-tracked for no particularly significant reason. He also has moments where he acts on opportunity or impulse without working out all the details, which has backfired on him. A prime example of this would be when he tries to capitalize on his pairing with Itachi, but quickly realizes he is outclassed when attempting to make a move on him.

As for Ne specifically, Orochimaru is inventive and motivated primarily by intellectual curiosity. He pursues a variety of different avenues in an effort to achieve his goal of living forever so he can master all the jutsu in the world. Of course, as mentioned above, his goal is learning for the sake of learning, rather than for a specific purpose, which points to being a perceiver and a high Ne user. Orochimaru specifically seeks out those with curious abilities and researches into each one. He collects things that he finds interesting, and he’s shown to have several abandoned and half-baked projects spread throughout the world.

In addition, while Orochimaru has to remain vague in some instances for the sake of strategy, he has a penchant for explaining himself to others. He essentially displays the Ne tendency to over-explain or word vomit. He doesn’t appear to have any trouble or distaste for verbalizing his thoughts, which points away from being an Ni user. For instance, when he attacks the leaf village, he shows off his new body and completely explains what the resurrection jutsu is that he uses to do that. In another instance, when Tobirama is proclaiming how he knew that the Uchiha would turn on them, he responds by giving a long explanation as to why and how Tobirama actually caused that, when a brief statement could have sufficed. For one last example, Orochimaru is also shown talking out loud to himself when finding Tsunade nearly dead from a battle. He’s talking to himself as if he’s talking to her, while the others around him can hear but Tsundade herself cannot. This is showing his general tendency/instinct to want to verbalize what he’s thinking, which suggests Ne/Si rather than Ni/Se.

Si:

“To gather all of the jutsu in this world and master every one of them… That is the only goal I care about.”

Orochimaru’s Si surfaces primarily in his detailed explanations. When Orochimaru explains to Tobirama why it’s his fault that the Uchiha organized a coupe, he gives all of the specifics and context possible, stepping through the entire sequence of events chronologically. No one would have needed to ask any further questions, because he leaves absolutely no gap in the explanation. Similarly, when Minato asks how he managed to resurrect them, Orochimaru begins by explain how the jutsu’s origin is from a village that no longer exists, so he had to gather up all of the fragments of information that he could find and proceeds to give a bunch of extra background information.

When toying with others, Orochimaru makes liberal use of colorful language, opting to intimidate through speech rather than through just actions alone. These speeches are frequently filled with a bunch of details about the other person, usually things that he shouldn’t know. While Ni users typically cut straight to the point, giving little explanation to how they know what they know, Orochimaru happily explains the details of how he came to a conclusion. (The exception to this is when he is toying with the other person by withholding said information.) His Si is also playing into his desire to master all jutsu because he wants to know all the details of how they work due to his Ti-Si pairing.

Fe:

Orochimaru’s inferior Fe comes out in a couple of different ways. First off, he generally appears to lack any morals and rarely displays any genuine feelings of his own, beyond surface level amusement. Of course, Ti users can have morals, but a Ti dominant that fails to develop his Fe in a specific way may lack any semblance of values. This is why Sasuke finds Orochimaru to be disgusting. Anything and everything goes. As for emotion, Orochimaru tends to put up the same front wherever he goes, with little variance in his emotional expression. This is common for inferior Fe users.

In addition, the way he draws people in points to inferior Fe. In many cases, he’s shown attracting people with a certain level of charisma. He finds truly desperate people and makes them feel special or wanted. As a result, some gain a deep loyalty for him, that he does not feel for them in return since his only intent is to use them for his purposes. He appears to prefer drawing people in through methods that play to their emotions, which speaks to Fe use.

Lastly, some other mild examples of being an Fe user can be seen when he does things like chastising Sai for his poor manners. Similarly, he tells Tsunade to display more gratitude because he had just saved her life. This all shows his focus on external social rules.