The ESFJ or ENFJ Villain

The ESFJ or ENFJ villain is a relatively uncommon combination when it comes to representation. Most people do not associate the villain role with traits commonly espoused to dominant Fe users, like the ESFJ/ENFJ. However, I recently observed an example of such a case while half paying attention to a show that someone else was watching. It inspired me to delve further into this topic. Now, the description that I am going to give, is only one potential direction an ESFJ or ENFJ villain could go, but I think it provides an interesting look into how Fe motivations can become warped and lead to an overall sinister person, as a result. So, let’s dive into it.

Fe motivations in an ENFJ or ESFJ:

To get a grasp of what the Fe dominant villain will look like, we first must examine the motivations that are common to Fe dominants. Fe, or extraverted feeling, values social structures and cultivating connections with others within a group. They desire to find a place within a group and to be able to facilitate what they perceive as the optimal environment for themselves and others.

So, you may be thinking that it seems hard to imagine taking that kind of characteristic and turning it into something villainous. Admittedly, on its face, those motivations do seem like they would be positive in nature. However, let’s consider a potential scenario, namely the one from the show I half watched.

Setting the Stage for an ENFJ or ESFJ Villain

The EXFJ is established within a family group. He is the oldest brother, with two younger siblings. One day, an accident occurs and one of the children gets hurt. While not intentional or malicious, the oldest child caused the accident, but was not caught. Parents rush in and make the assumption that the other younger sibling caused the accident (partially because the younger sibling believed that to be the case as well). This sets a stage of opportunity.

The oldest sibling remains silent, letting the younger sibling take the blame for the accident. The accident permanently disables the youngest. The stress of the situation tears the parents further apart. (The oldest brother was already trying to make up for inadequate parental involvement, but now the hole has grown even larger.) Feeling guilty for causing the accident and then keeping it secret, he takes on more responsibility. After a while, this Fe dominant realizes that he likes having the other two siblings dependent on him. This compels him to subtly reinforce their current mental states, in order to keep up the dependency. He does this in simple ways, like reminding one that they are immature, and perhaps even subtly reminding that it was their carelessness that injured the youngest sibling. He would also encourage the youngest to not give up on walking with a cane, even if being in a wheelchair would actually bring them more independence.

The ENFJ or ESFJ Villain Locks In His Victims

We fast forward a couple of decades to a time when Fe dominant is mature adult, with a successful career and a family of his own. He has managed to keep the two younger siblings under his thumb for all this time. They both move into his house, while he continues to financially and ‘emotionally’ support them. He curates their lives to best fit his needs. The fixation for the Fe dominant is a need to be needed by the group. This leads to acts of undercover sabotage whenever anyone within the family unit makes an attempt at becoming more independent. Over the years, the sibling who thinks she caused the accident gets off and on addicted to drugs as a way to deal with the guilt. The Fe dom uses this weakness to continue exercising control over her, using the guilt as a tool to manipulate her and using the drug abuse as proof of immaturity.

The youngest (disabled) sibling continues to be encouraged to follow the path of ‘independence’ by not surrendering to life in a wheel chair. Even though the Fe dominant knows that no matter how much his youngest brother walks with a cane, it will never improve his actual mobility but will continually cause him pain. When the option of surgery to help correct the condition and vastly improve his quality of life becomes an option, the Fe dominant swoops in to take care of all the logistics. However, this is only an excuse to get between the sibling and the doctors so that he can control the narrative. The Fe dominant learns that his youngest brother is a good candidate for the surgery, but instead he informs him that he isn’t, thereby dashing any hopes of surgery being the answer.

When everything starts to unravel, the Fe dominant starts relying on weak Ti logic to rationalize why he did all the things, trying to spin every decision as if it was for the good of the others. The surgery would have been too risky. They are too immature to be on their own. He tries to convince his siblings that they love being taken care of by him.

Analyzing the ENFJ or ESFJ Villain’s Motives

In the case of the Fe dominant villain, the motivations can be most simply boiled down to a need or want for control of the victims. They will use social engineering and manipulation to shape the narrative to fool the victims into thinking they are the savior. High Fe users (or FJs) rarely want to be painted as an actual villain. They want to be viewed positively by whatever group they seek to control or be a part of. So, when evil, they take on a more sinister bend. Instead of being straightforward, the Fe dominant is playing a game of deceit, making people (whether the viewers or the other characters) very uncertain about their true nature.

They will likely do whatever it takes to maintain control of the victims and keep their false narrative together. In the case of eliminating threats to group, they won’t hesitate to take out loose ends or bothersome outsiders. Furthermore, if the victims push too hard for their independence, they may find themselves in an unfortunate situation where the Fe dominant essentially comes to the conclusion that if they can’t have them, then they would rather they just be dead. For this reason, Fe dominant villains tend to come off as mentally unstable once the friendly facade fades away.

The other driving motivators are things like obsession with the target. They can be fairly good at covering up their psychosis as long as things are going fine. The cracks usually only start to show when things go wrong. Given the nature of dominant Fe, they need to believe the lie that everything they are doing is really for the good of the other person, even though they know deep down they are really satiating a selfish desire and trying to force the other person to fulfill a role for their satisfaction.

Depending on the level of neuroticism, this can range from a full blown fantasy that forces the victim to play a completely fictional role, to something closer to reality where the actual relationships in play could feasibly make sense with the scenario they are trying to play out. Even if things come undone, the Fe dominant villain will still want to move past the fact that everything has come to light in order to go back to ‘the way things were’ before they were found out. This again ties back to some of the issues with inferior Ti.

It is not difficult for the Fe dominant to return to the way things were before, because they were always aware of the full context and all the lies. So, they don’t see the issues with the others going back after the realization. They may try to leverage varying forms of blackmail and other more direct forms of manipulation to maintain control. They may start to outright abuse their victims for not returning to their role and continuing to play along.

Conclusion:

The ENFJ or ESFJ villain is frequently a depiction of a very twisted and unwell individual. This is almost a requirement for turning the positive attributes of Fe into something sinister. I suppose that is part of what makes them so unnerving. It almost forces one’s brain into some kind of uncanny valley by taking something that is supposed to be comforting and safe and turning it into a kind of nightmare.