Myers-Briggs Types in To Be Hero X: Ghostblade (INFP)

I was working on an article for the series To Be Hero X, with general Myers-Briggs personality type summaries for each prominent character. When I started writing Ghostblade’s section, it kept growing, and growing, and growing. Ghostblade has complicating factors affecting his personality type manifestation, such as being on the spectrum. Any analysis of his type cannot be done accurately without thoroughly addressing the context surrounding his character.

I’ve gotten a lot of requests to elaborate on how ASD impacts type manifestation, so given the length his section was getting, I decided to yank Ghostblade’s analysis out of that article and give it it’s own dedicated article.

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that Ghostblade is a fictional character, but maybe seeing how I would personally approach analyzing and weighing the data from this character will be helpful to those in an ASD-related type dilemma.

Extenuating Factors Influencing Ghostblade’s Type Manifestation

“I can’t express emotion. I can’t even recognize it.”
“What’s going on? Did I misunderstand? Are they friends? Is this a game?”

1. Ghostblade appears to be on the autism spectrum.

This is indicated by his sensitivity to overstimulation, and his social/emotional struggles. It’s easy to assume he’s a thinker, based on the a cursory glance at the character, because of his social/emotional struggles. (I noticed that the prominent theory on this guy is ISTJ, and for a while, Ryan and I were actually flip flopping between ISTJ and ISTP.) However, the extreme nature of these struggles in him is far beyond what is typical for a thinker. It’s the ASD. Therefore, his struggles to express emotions and his inability to recognize emotion or connect with others has to be approached carefully, and not treated as if it’s an absolute sign that he’s a thinker.

2. Ghostblade’s hero ability makes him incapable of speaking

Ghostblade presents himself a particular way, silence and precision being key traits. So, with the way the Trust system works in To Be Hero X, these traits are exaggerated the more his Trust value increases, eventually to the extent that his character literally can’t communicate verbally. However, he appears to be able to communicate in writing, and oftentimes chooses not to.

3. Ghostblade’s hero ability seems to help suppress emotional expression

The silent emotionless image that people believe about him seems to help him keep expression at bay, which is why he doesn’t start weeping like everyone else when DJ Shindig attacks them in the woods. He seems surprised when he starts shedding a few tears, but he’s far less impacted emotionally compared to everyone else.

The Myers-Briggs Type of Ghostblade

Judging Axis: Fi/Te

“I would never research a target before a mission. I knew without a doubt that they were in the wrong. Greed is wrong. Weakness is wrong. Violence is wrong. Lying is wrong. Betrayal is wrong. Knowing too much… Wrong again.”

“The truth remains anyone who dies by my hand is in the wrong.”

“He’s overly familiar. I despise that. His warmth is only surface deep.”

With a character like Ghostblade, given all of his extenuating factors, the key is to pay close attention to his inner world, and how it connects to his actions. For instance, Ghostblade moralizes everything he does, which is ironic given the fact that he’s essentially just a glorified, sanctioned killer. He has rationalized all of his actions to be moral and correct (“The truth remains anyone who dies by my hand is in the wrong.”), which is not typically the way, for instance, a TP type would function as a killer. The immoral TP usually just owns the gray area, and presents as apathetic. Of course, you could rationalize that maybe his Fi is lower, but in those instance, you’re most likely to see the Fi surface as duty, because it’s yielding to a higher Te function, serving order and authority. Whereas, with Ghostblade, we see him put forth a lot of personal value statements, even going beyond his role as an assassin. For instance, he judges his family to be arrogant, undeserving of their pride. He had a very specific ideal for what a butcher should be. He also judges Little Johnny for being overly familiar and having warmth that’s only “surface level deep”. That statement is not something a thinker would care about. It’s very Fi in nature, honing in on superficial emotional expression.

In spite of Ghostblade’s statements that he can’t express or recognize emotion, Ghostblade is not actually that detached from his emotions. For instance, he demonstrates a range of emotion when confronted by Luo Tong about stalking Nuonuo, and seems to feel strongly about many things. When he first meets his future wife, he has “love at first sight” moment with her, because he’d finally found a kindred spirit, someone he could actually relate to and matched his internal ideal. In that magical moment, he expresses fear that the perfect image before him would be shattered by the neon lights dancing across her face (or something like that). It is all very idealized.

Later on, Ghostblade’s wife gets pregnant and changes, which is devastating to Ghostblade. He’s unable to change with her, but he doesn’t appear to try to convince her to stay either. From what we can tell, he doesn’t try to argue with her or control her. He just acts terrified when she mentions moving in with family, and then seems depressed that she left him behind. None of that strikes like high Te, which tends toward trying to maintain control. (ISTJ is the common theory for Ghostblade.) In addition, higher Te would make more effort to find a way to communicate with others in order to avoid misunderstandings, which would likely mean relying on written methods. Ghostblade runs into a lot of miscommunication issues or just generally fails to communicate, but doesn’t appear to make any effort to resolve these issues in future situations. (The scenarios coming to my mind are when his wife confronts him, and when Luo Tong confronts him about stalking Nuonuo.) It seems like he simply doesn’t want to communicate so he doesn’t, regardless of efficiency or future inconveniences.

Perceiving Axis: Ne/Si

“As I watched my trust value increase, I realized just how easy people were to deceive. But who exactly was doing the deceiving? Everyone feels lonely. It’s the unreachable freedom of solitude that stings.”

“Pigs can’t take revenge like people. But they can still curse you from the other side.”

When dealing with ASD, it’s common to see loop situations. So, with an introvert, you often see an introverted loop, meaning that the extraverted functions are a bit muted. In Ghostblade, the cognitive functions that are easiest to identify are Fi and Si. Now, with that being said, Ghostblade is shown waxing poetic and/or philosophical inside of his head, which is a common manifestation of his high Ne in support of dominant Fi. He’s also shown thinking (and maybe worrying) about whether or not those he killed, whether human or animal, will curse him from the other side, which is a hypothetical. It’s implied that he was concerned about this as a child as well.

But as mentioned, the Si seems more obvious, but not quite what we’d expect from dominant Si. Ghostblade as a whole doesn’t seem resistant to change, unless it means changing himself. He left his home quite easily. He doesn’t demonstrate a need for advance preparation in his job. He doesn’t research his targets in advance. (Of course, it’s possible the show just didn’t show us any of these struggles, and they’re actually present, but I’m working with what the show did show us.)
However, in his internal dialogue, he states that after exactly 176 days from meeting his future wife, he married her. That level of precision tied to a sentiment suggests Fi-Si. Most types would round up to the nearest month. It’s usually only Si users who feel the need to get that precise.

When stalking his daughter, Ghostblade takes very detailed notes, which also suggests Si. SPs are more likely just immerse themselves, only using notes for something that’s absolutely necessary. Ghostblade also keeps a more personalized journal, which is extremely common for INFPs, as a way to express or outlet their feelings. It’s much less common for ISTPs, which is one of the types we considered for Ghostblade. Ghostblade also feels the need to externalize all of his data on her in the form of (what looks like) a conspiracy board. This tendency is most often tied to Ne/Si and sometimes Ti/Fe.

In Conclusion…

It’s technically possible that I’ll watch the next season and change my mind completely about Ghostblade’s personality type. However, given the evidence currently available to me, I believe this theory makes the most sense with all the context surrounding this character. Let me know what you think in the comments!