Teen Wolf: Lydia Martin (ESTJ)

Te:

“Which means you’re Canadian who speaks French. And seeing as I’m placing my mental health in your hands, how about you tell me what, as a French teacher, qualifies you to be a guidance counselor?”

“I’ll tell you what to do.”

Lydia appears to be an Te dominant. It’s clear from the beginning of the show that status and reputation are extremely important to her. She intentionally dates one of the most popular people in school, Jackson, the captain of the lacrosse team. In addition, she takes action to ensure he remains at the top. For instance, she tells Scott (after he has proven himself to be an invaluable player) that he has to play in the first game, because she can’t be dating the captain of the losing lacrosse team. She threatens to introduce Allison to all the hot players if he doesn’t. At one point, Scott appears to be surpassing Jackson, so Lydia actually tries to make out with him when they’re alone in the school. Similarly, when it comes to her concern for status, Lydia questions the credentials of the guidance counselor that she is forced to see, asking the woman what makes her qualified to hold the position.

Lydia has a generally harsh and controlling nature, which is common way that Te dominance can manifest. She always dictates what activities her and Jackson do together, and he often seems to yield to her, reluctantly. This is shown when they’re picking up a movie, and she refuses to watch what he wants, demanding they watch the same movie that they always watch. She also presses Jackson to get cortisone shots when he’s injured so he can continue to play in the games. She informs him that he has to go pro, and not remain a high school amateur. This also shows her ambitious side.

She’s both confident and bold, which also ties into her being a social extravert. She’s usually very straightforward, and unconcerned about the emotional ramifications of what she’s saying. In the parent-teacher meeting, her teacher describes her as having outstanding leadership qualities, which is often anecdotally associated with dominant Te. She’s often shown giving others advice, believing that she knows exactly how to fix whatever the situation is. This is shown a lot in her friendship with Allison.

Si:

“Well, it’s all a little new to me so don’t hold back on specificity.”

“It’s not just glass. It’s bullet-resistant polycarbonate.”

While ENTJ is a popular theory for Lydia, Si seems much more likely. Lydia tends to be detail-oriented and prefers specificity. For instance, when Theo recounts a witness testimony and asks her if it was something like that, she responds by saying “No, it was exactly that.” She is also shown berating others for their lack of specificity, like when Stiles chides her for drawing her default tree over and over again when she should be doing automatic writing. She responds by saying, “Well maybe you should have said that.”

Lydia’s Si is actually shown most prominently in the scene where Meredith is attempting to teach her how to use her voice as a weapon. When Meredith tells Lydia to use her hands, Lydia interprets that literally, and physically hits the gate, suggesting that she is a sensor. She later complains about the lack of specifics, and starts asking Meredith what way worked for her. When Meredith refuses to tell her, Lydia continues to press, saying things like “What if your way works for me too?” This shows Lydia’s focus on tried and true methods, preferring to learn from the experience of others rather than carve out a new path forward.

Lydia knows/remembers a lot of random facts, which seem natural for her to verbalize and share with others. The amount of information she knows often shocks people, and not because she spends the early parts of the show pretending to be dumb. They literally seem shocked by the randomness of the information. For instance, she tells Allison to “try the Mongolian draw” when working on her aim. When Scott is insisting to Derek that the bruises were a pattern, she comes out with “Pareidolia. Seeing patterns that aren’t there. It’s a subset of apophenia.” She also seemed to know that there would be instructions under the animal trap for how to release it. These are only a few of the many examples of her coming out with extremely specific and detailed information. She typically draws it all back to something she’d read somewhere before, which is the excuse she gives Stiles after kissing him to stop the panic attack.

Ne:

“That’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect two ******* students to say just before getting burned alive.”

Lydia’s Ne doesn’t come out very strong. In fact, we briefly considering if ISTJ would be a better a fit. However, inferior Fi ended up seeming more probable over all. However, there are small ways in which her Ne does show up. For instance, when the fire alarm goes off, Aiden tells her not to worry about it, because a fire alarm doesn’t ever actually mean there’s a fire. She dismisses him immediately, being more concerned with the possibility that it could be. See quote at the top of this section.

She generally shows low Ne, or low intuition in general. This is evidenced in moments like when the guidance counselor is trying to get her to interpret the inkblot, and she just stubbornly repeats the same thing over and over again. Another good example is when Theo tries to scare Corey into not leaving, and hints that Lydia, as a banshee, knows that something bad will happen if he walks out the door. When he looks to Lydia to back up his story, she looks a bit stressed, and basically stutters “it’s bad”, being unable to play into his act in any meaningful way.

Fi:

“I don’t need anyone seeing me cry.”

Lydia’s inferior Fi comes out in a couple of different ways. First, she’s very private, especially when it comes to her emotions. She doesn’t want to show signs of weakness or allow people too see her cry. She expresses this to Stiles when he catches her crying in the car. Another good example can be seen when she gets mad at a fellow student who’s also waiting to see the guidance counselor, when he jovially asks her what her brand of psychosis is. She states that she doesn’t like anyone prying into her business.

The other thing that specifically suggested inferior Fi is her tendency to hide her intelligence from others at the beginning of the show. Her character growth throughout the show is one where she is extremely focused on reputation, and thus consciously hides a very significant part of herself, but eventually over time learns to be confident in who she is. Only Stiles, who was paying close attention, realizes this about her. Because Fi is an identity function, this tendency in her specifically suggests that her Fi is inferior, because of how she appears to be able to easily shift or mask her “identity” to most effectively gain status or whatever else she wants.