Hyouka: Oreki Houtarou (INTJ)

Ni:

“It came to me I guess. I just got lucky.”

“I couldn’t tell you how I made those deductions. Honestly, that’s the real mystery here.”

“I can’t wrap my brain around it. No lucky flashes of insight.”

“You think you could find a more convoluted way of putting it?” – Fukube to Oreki

“Is that information crucial to surviving my daily life?”

Oreki Houtarou displays all the major qualities we expect to see from dominant Ni in an INTJ. He falls into a stereotypical trope, being a strategic and deductive thinker, but that’s not exactly what I’m referring to. Houtarou refers to his insights or deductions as “lucky” or as “flashes of insight.” He can’t always trace them back, or concretely explain how he made his deductions. Ultimately, this makes them the sources of his “intuition” which pointed us away from high Si. We would expect the process for a Si dominant to be more conscious and as such easier to explain.

There’s an episode near the end of the show that actually showcases the thought process of Ni quite well. He’s playing a “game” with Chitanda as to what he can deduce from a simple announcement they’d just heard over the school’s speakers. He starts with a simple deduction and begins building further deductions onto that initial one. Every time a concern or potential obstacle is presented, he doesn’t attempt to shift theories, but instead he buries deeper and deeper into the deduction trail that he’s on. In the end, this results in a huge amount of conjecture and assumptions based off of very little initial information.

Houtarou has also been called out by Fukube for speaking in a convoluted way, which can potentially be tied to dominant intuition. He also filters out information based on how valuable it currently seems, rather than absorbing as much information as he can just in case he needs it later. (This suggests Ni/Se rather than Si/Ne.) This is further demonstrated when he struggles to recall the student movie on hindsight, telling them that “I wasn’t watching with that in mind” when they asked for his interpretation of it after the fact.

Te:

“Just trying to be efficient.”

“I will devote all my efforts to doing as little as possible.”

“Objection. It rained all day. You couldn’t see the sun.”

Houtarou presents as a thinker, not being naturally attuned to the emotions of others or emotions in general. He also has a focus on efficiency and preparation. He makes a couple of comments related to efficiency, in addition to the fact that his motto includes getting anything done that he has to get done “as quickly as possible.” He generally prefers to be prepared and to plan ahead. This is reflected in his all of his “efforts” to achieve his goal: to do nothing.

This goal is actually a dead giveaway that Houtarou is a Te user rather than some kind of perceiver. Judgers often view responsibility as a huge commitment, since they naturally focus on the future ramifications of decisions. Houtarou avoids responsibility at all cost, as a result. His Te mentality is reflected in these efforts, since he feels the need to “plan” or “work” to do nothing rather than just being able to do nothing. In his mind, it’s something to plan for and prepare for, to ensure he can simply do nothing. He’s making it his goal to do nothing. Perceivers don’t think this way, since enjoying the moment comes much more naturally to them.

In spite of the way he talks, Houtarou is actually quite disciplined. He’s described as being one to never fail to do his homework or turn it in, which is why it’s so notable the one time he’s shown forgetting an assignment at home and having to rewrite it while hanging out with Satoshi at school.

Fi:

“Count me out! What do you think I am, huh? Some monkey that you can use to lure in customers? Hmph!”

“Does being more passionate about stuff make life more exciting or just more heartbreaking? I dunno. Maybe it’s both.”

Houtarou’s tertiary Fi can partially be seen in his stubborn desire to stay true to his motto. Up until Chitanda gets involved in his life, He’s not at all interested in changing or adapting who he is. His Fi also surfaces when they suggest using his detective skills as a strategy for selling the club anthologies. He essentially gets offended and declares that he’s not a monkey to be used for luring in customers. It’s also implied that he’s not one to do much introspecting or self-evaluation. This is shown when Chitanda states that he has probably never taken a good look at himself, and Houtarou admits to himself that she’s not wrong. This is another common symptom of tertiary Fi, due to the easy self-acceptance without needing to look very deep or re-evaluate one’s identity.

Houtarou also struggles with concepts like passion and empathy. He’s not naturally a passionate person, and questions whether it’s worth even having passion. This demonstrates a devaluing of Fi, and is not an unusual stance for a low Fi user to hold. He’s generally not a very emotional person, and even expresses to Chitanda at one point that he’s not naturally aware of other people’s feeling. However, it’s also in this episode that he accidentally experiences empathy due to uncovering a secret about his former teacher’s past. He expresses to Chitanda that he has learned from the experience.

Se:

“I’m just a little overwhelmed by all this activity.”

The initial signs of Houtarou’s inferior Se can be seen in how he gets overwhelmed by too much activity and deeply desires to conserve his energy as much as possible. He struggles with adapting to what’s going on around him, and prefers to plan ahead or avoid. Later on, when he has a rare moment of spontaneity, everyone seems shocked.

While this was briefly mentioned in the Ni section, another symptom of inferior Se can be seen in his struggle to trace back his conclusions in a concrete way. He keeps dismissing them as lucky accidents, since he’s not consciously tying his conclusions to concrete information. In addition, he’s shown missing obvious details (like the rope) when trying to recreate the intended ending for the student-made mystery movie. Every other member of the Classic Lit Club notices his mistake immediately upon watching the film’s ending.