The Addams Family: Wednesday Addams (INTJ)

Wednesday Addams has been an extremely popular character lately, thanks to the recent Netflix series. We’ve already typed that version of Wednesday as an ENTJ (as opposed to INTJ), which you can check out here. As for Christina Ricci’s Wednesday, we feel the need to put out a big, fat disclaimer before we actually get started. This version of Wednesday did not get as much development as we typically prefer to see. However, we did land on INTJ for this Wednesday, in spite of that, so we’ll go ahead and share our reasoning with you. I know not many people argue against Wednesday being an INTJ, but if random dissenters show up in the comments, we won’t bother to refute them since this version of the character didn’t really meet our minimum standard for evidence.

Ni:

“Are you really a nanny? Why did you come here?”

Wednesday is careful, calculating, and highly suspicious. She is immediately suspicious of Fester upon his return home, in addition to the new nanny that her parents hire in the second movie. However, she’s careful to observe and come up with legitimate reasons, before actually making any accusations. For instance, she camouflages herself and spies on the nanny, before later confronting her to ask accusing questions that she technically already knows the answers to. That’s an important point to note. She observed first, and didn’t take action until she’d gather enough data to be certain.

We briefly considered ISTJ for Wednesday, but she has a flare for the dramatic that would be more typical of an INTJ, rather than an ISTJ. For instance, when her and her brother are trying to kill their new baby brother, they frequently set up elaborate scenes and traps, some even with story narratives. She also plays into the way each new potential nanny converses with them, returning a contextually similar quip.

Generally speaking, this version of Wednesday is very stand-offish and self-contained. She’s quick to be blunt with others when addressed directly, but she doesn’t go out of her way to do so. She tends to lean more into mind games, when given the option, like telling her brother that one of them had to die now that they had a new baby brother.

Te:

“Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character, or the Aristotelian unities.”

Wednesday is blunt and critical. When addressed, she has no issues stating plainly what’s on her mind, regardless of the other person’s feelings. This includes telling the boy she likes that she’d pity the man who worshiped and adored her. Similarly, Wednesday is prone to criticizing the effectiveness of other people’s efforts. For instance, when Joel expresses empathy for Debbie, claiming that she was sick, Wednesday quickly responds with “She wasn’t sick. She was sloppy.”

Wednesday specifically chooses to criticize Gary Granger’s failure to structure his play properly. She not only accuses it of lacking any sense of structure, but also points out that it doesn’t adhere to any of the Aristotelian unities. For those who don’t know, those are three principles put forth by Aristotle that essentially define the format of a tragedy. By pointing this out, Wednesday is basically just getting more specific about how the play is failing to follow proper structure.

Fi:

Wednesday appears to have a fairly rigid sense of self. For the most part, she refuses to make any efforts to change who she is. During summer camp, she does eventually hit a point where she feels compelled to pretend to change for the sake of escaping the Harmony Hut and planning a revenge scheme. However, it’s not hard to see that she struggles greatly with this, especially given the extremely unnatural smile that she shares with everyone.

While Wednesday doesn’t generally value emotions, she appears to be in touch with her own, and not prone to denying them. For instance, she gets a crush on Joel, but never tries to ignore her feelings and fight them. Instead, she befriends him with little difficulty and allows the two of them to get close. She sits next to him, asks him out on a date, etc. She shows no signs of viewing emotions entirely as weakness, like inferior Fi users are prone to doing.

Se:

Overall, Wednesday is not an impulsive character. She waits until she’s gained enough information to act, rather than rushing into things or throwing around accusations without verifying their accuracy. However, as pointed out at the beginning of this article, her character didn’t get a ton of development, so it’s hard to find a lot of evidence to demonstrate this point. Although, there is one particular instance that appears inferior Se in nature.

Wednesday links up with the other misfits at the summer camp and orchestrates a coup to be enacted amidst the final camp play. To signal the start of this, Wednesday gives an unscripted speech, much to the confusion of all those who weren’t party to the plan. Afterward, she basically stands back and watches the chaos ensue, essentially allowing everyone else to carry out the plan for her. Her physical involvement in the antics is actually pretty minimal.