Hunter X Hunter: Hisoka Morow (ESTP)
Se:
“My techniques are so adaptable that they don’t lose their effectiveness if my opponent knows about them.”
“He never talks about his past. It doesn’t interest him. He’ll probably forget what Castro looks like by tomorrow.” – Someone said about Hisoka
“But why? At least here, boredom isn’t an issue.”
While many type Hisoka as an ENTP, he seems more in line with an ESTP. Hisoka is constantly seeking a challenge or a thrill, often in the form of a worthy opponent. He chases down Chrollo purely out of a desire to challenge him, rather than having any kind of long term goal. Similarly, he allows Gon to live because he believes that the boy may one day be a challenge for him to overcome. This all demonstrates a classic dominant Se motivation.
Hisoka’s desire for a thrill often leads him to take risks. For example, out of a desire to challenge Chrollo, Hisoka goes undercover with the Spiders. During that time, Chrollo obtains his fortune, and decides to leave town to prevent a negative outcome. Not wanting Chrollo to leave, Hisoka deploys a strategy that places himself in a rather dangerous position: under suspicion as a traitor amidst the entire troupe. Ultimately, his gamble pays off, and Chrollo takes the bait, deciding instead to stay.
Hisoka is adaptable and unpredictable, which generally supports high extraverted perceiving. However, he makes a comment that his techniques are so adaptable that they don’t lose their effectiveness, even when his opponent understands them. This seems more Se than Ne, since his strategy revolves more around re-adapting the same techniques rather than surprising with something brand new.
Hisoka primarily focuses on the present, allowing anything that provides significant amusement to distract him from the current thrill he is seeking. He has some focus on the future, seen in his desire to foster challenges. However, he is quick to discard the past. This seems more indicative of Se/Ni than Ne/Si.
Ti:
“Because telling you would amount to saying what I cannot, so I say nothing, but it’s not that I won’t tell, it’s that I can’t say more than I already have.”
“It takes a mere second for treasure to turn to trash.”
Hisoka follows his own subjective reasoning, which often adds to his unpredictability. He doesn’t vocalize any clear principles, and often keeps his true motivations and reasons to himself. Hisoka also tends to choose sides based on whatever is most convenient for him at the time. All of this combined can result in him, for instance, seemingly randomly allowing some people to live, while refusing to kill others.
Hisoka isn’t prone to placing long term emotional value on anything in specific. He states plainly that something valuable one day, might be trash the next. Overall, he generally lacks authentic emotional expression, typically coming across as fake or insincere. He’s prone to being cold, cynical, or apathetic, when he’s not being drawn in by excitement.
A good example of Hisoka’s Ti can be seen when he’s trying to get Chrollo not to leave town. He tricks Chrollo by playing to his Ti, and presenting an extremely cryptic explanation for his fortune. Hisoka basically presents Chrollo with a puzzle that he trusts him to over-analyze and interpret in a non-straightforward way, as he usually does.
Fe:
“Get them for her. You might become friends.”
“You should be more careful. At least apologize when you bump into someone.”
Hisoka demonstrates signs of tertiary Fe. He generally has a focus on social dynamics, which he first demonstrates by his seemingly out of place comments regarding rudeness. For instance, he tells someone to apologize when they bump into someone. However, his Fe is demonstrated much more prominently in the Greed Island Arc, while in the City of Love. He starts giving out dating advice, and demonstrates a general ability to accurately assess the social expectations or desires of others.
However, in spite of all that, he’s incapable of demonstrating anything that resembles warmth or sincere emotion, which points to his Fe being low. This was briefly mentioned in the Ti section, but Hisoka comes across as obviously fake and sinister. He doesn’t use Fe as a way of life, to obtain his goals by presenting himself as likeable, but rather as an occasional tool to mess with people’s minds. In fact, he enjoys the reactions that he gets from others, finding them to be amusing. This also suggests low Fe.
Ni:
“Every step we take amends our fate.”
“I choose not to kill you now. You see, it suits me to let you live until you become a truly worthy opponent.”
Hisoka appears to have inferior Ni. Hisoka primarily relies on his ability to respond effectively in the moment, rather than on advance planning. In addition, he has no focus on the past. Hisoka primarily focuses on the present, and sees the future as constantly in flux. He doesn’t appear to set his sites on any legitimate long term goal, beyond finding a worthy opponent to satisfy his desire for an adrenaline rush.
However, with that desire being at the forefront of his mind, his Ni does allow him to recognize future potential in others to fulfill his desires. When this happens, he’ll forego killing an opponent, like Gon, in an effort to allow the person’s abilities to develop, so they can provide an adequate challenge in the future.
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I have been confused between ENTP and ESTP. Personally, and despite popular ENTP opinion, I thought the ESTP option would make more sense because its Se emanations are too clear (the famous scene screaming Gon’s name and his fight against his own impulses in order to enjoy greater pleasure in the future). However, I adhered to the ENTP option for a convincing explanation: His attitude when fighting Gon in Heaven’s Arena was to stop the fight to allow himself to explain various concepts to Gon. A similar fact to what you guys stated about Aoi Todou who, while using Se, interrupts it too much by the standards of a Dominant or Auxiliar Se user.
With your explanation I suppose what happens is that Hisoka actually used his Se since he was forcing Gon to learn through a practical demonstration and his Ti to explain its content to him through twisted logic and the use of his own categorization systems. Something that would fit with his sudden insanity confirming Gon’s potential for combat. I imagine if Hisoka was a dominant Ne he would have been more talkative from the start, like talking to them about the Nen directly instead of sitting down and projecting his Ren with the warning “You will not pass” or enjoying speculating on either what the Gon nen’s category would be or what Nen skills Gon would come up with.
In contrast, Hisoka is seen enjoying the pleasure of finishing off his victim and overcoming the challenge it represents instead of being eager to elaborate exciting scenarios about what and how his opponents will use their Nen abilities and how many possible ways there are to kill them. In fact, his desire to fight with Chrollo shows him desperate to engage in combat immediately instead of giving himself time to imagine how the fight would be (and he is surprised by this very thing, his modus operandi of meeting the challenge at the moment was his weakness agaisnt Chrollo).
Thanks for this. It was a very interesting read!