Can Fictional Characters Be Typed?

Occasionally, I see people ask the question: “Can fictional characters actually be typed?” Sometimes it’s an earnest question, asking for discussion. Other times, it’s framed more like a “hot take”, or a controversial opinion, usually vying for the position that fictional characters cannot be typed. I’m going to go ahead and address this question today. I know I’ve covered similar ground in other articles, but I don’t think I’ve specifically taken this approach yet. (I searched through my archives, because no, I can’t remember everything I’ve written, and only found 5 Tips for Mature Character Debates and Why Are Character Types Controversial?.) So, here we go.

The Dilemma

Typically, the person asking the question, or positing that fictional characters can’t be typed, emphasizes the fact that fictional characters are fiction. Unlike real people, fictional characters don’t have to adhere to specific personality theory guidelines. They can use whatever cognitive function that the writer finds most convenient. People taking this stance may point out all the contradicting opinions on various characters’ personality types as proof that characters are potentially using every cognitive function. They may also point out that the creators likely had no knowledge of personality theory to guide their writing. Essentially, the overall idea being put forth is that characters can have multiple personality types, or abnormal cognitive functions stacks.

Basic Premise: Real People Can Be Typed

Before we address fictional characters, it’s mandatory to recognize that real people do have personality types, according to the typical Myers-Briggs or Jungian rules (depending on what variant of the 16 personalities you adhere to). Obviously if you don’t actually think that, why are you even reading this article? So, with that in mind, let’s turn our attention specifically to the issues surrounding fictional characters.

Good Fictional Characters Adhere To Rules

Creators of fictional characters may not follow Myers-Briggs rules, but they do follow rules. Namely, fictional characters must be some degree of realistic, else people would reject the character. Authors write bad characters all the time, but there’s typically a lot of people who dislike the characters because of it. Characters need to be relatable, and they need to seem human (not necessarily in the literal sense, if you’re dealing in the realm of fantasy).

If Real People Can Be Typed, So Can Fictional Characters

So, if the goal when writing fiction is to create realistic, true to life, characters, then typing said characters should be possible. Theoretically, if someone were to write an extremely realistic and fleshed out character, it wouldn’t matter if they knew about personality theory or not. That character would be type-able, just like any real person would be. People disagree on the personality types of real people all time (due to misconceptions, differing understandings, not enough information, etc.), so naturally, fictional characters would get the exact same treatment. However, with that being said, those arguing against the idea that fictional characters can be typed are not necessarily wrong. There are several factors at play, complicating this issue.

The Issues With Fiction

Fiction muddies the waters, so to speak, because there’s an author (or authors) responsible for the creation of every character, and of course, people can make mistakes. The biggest issue with fictional characters is inconsistent writing, which can happen for a few different reasons. Although, inconsistent writing is not the only potential issue.

1. Plot driven shows create inconsistent characters

In a perfect world, a story would always be written well enough to maintain consistency between the characters and the plot. However, that’s not always the case. In plot driven stories especially, the focus is more on the external circumstances driving the characters, which typically gives the plot a greater focus than the character’s themselves. In this type of story, it’s not unusual for a character’s to act inconsistently in service to the plot, in order to ensure the plot can progress as intended. A character may have a “main” personality type, but you might notice them occasionally act outside of their normal because the plot needs something specific to happen.

2. Long-running sitcoms create inconsistent characters

Initially, I figured a long-running series would produce an abundance of information for every character, making them extremely easy to type. I found the exact opposite to be true. It’s like there’s a sweet spot, when it comes to series length, that provides optimal character development. Any less and you don’t have enough data, but any more and the character development either halts or you start seeing contradictions. Specifically, in the case of comedic sitcoms, characters seem to shift over time, and detach from their original concept. Sometimes the characters act inconsistent to serve the comedy, to keep the laughs coming, while other times it’s like the actors themselves start to impact how the character is manifesting. In other words, the actors’ personality types start to bleed more and more into the character. Perhaps the actors take certain liberties as they settle into the character long-term, or the writers lose sight of the character’s original concept. Either way, this long-term personality shift is extremely common amongst characters in these types of shows. Last year, I gave up on posting fictional character analyses for a variety of reasons, but the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was a sitcom.

3. Sometimes writers can only write themselves

A really good writer can write a variety of personality types realistically, whether that be due to a good understanding of people in general or perhaps basing their characters off of people they know really well. I’m not a fiction writer, so I can’t speak much on this, but I know that there are writers who are really good at writing characters, and then there are writers that can only write a specific type of character well. It’s easy for someone to create a realistic character that shares the same personality type as them, because they have all their self-knowledge and nuance to give to that character. (When I was younger, I used to dabble a bit in writing via text-based roleplaying with a group, and I noticed that people’s default/first character is often just an idealized version of themselves.) However, realistic characters of a different personality type can be much more challenging, because we only have complete access to our own heads, right? It’s harder to give a similar amount of nuance to a character that thinks drastically different than you. In addition, many creators accidentally imprint aspect of their own personality type onto the other characters without realizing it. A similar thing can happen when actors play drastically different characters then themselves. I call this affect “personality bleed”.

Related Article: Personality Bleed: Typing Fictional Characters

4. Some Characters Lack Development

For the record, lack of character development does not necessarily make the creator a bad writer. It depends on what they’re going for, their time/length constraints, and etc. A character can be realistic, but simply not have enough screen time to fully reveal their personality type. Other times, characters are written intentionally vague so that a variety of people can see themselves in the character. Books are more likely to produce a character that’s fleshed out enough to be typed. Single movies frequently don’t reveal enough information because they’re just not long enough, which causes typology enthusiasts to overly rely on tropes or stereotypes when typing the characters. I personally like a good miniseries, because there’s more time to pack in a lot of character development, but not so much that the character has a chance to shift into an entirely different personality type.

The Negative Feedback Loop

Unfortunately, since many people’s ideas of the different personality types are derived from fictional depictions, this creates a sort of feedback loop, which further perpetuates type misconceptions. For instance, people think of the reckless hero when they think of an ESFP, and then can’t recognize a real life ESFP that isn’t willing to dive head first off of a cliff. This is why ultimately, our conception of what each personality type is must be compared against what normal, everyday people look like. Otherwise, these personality types become exaggerated fantasies that no one can actually relate to.

In Summary

So, can fictional characters be typed? Yes and no. Really good characters will have a single consistent personality type. Many other characters probably have an overall personality type, if you weigh the evidence, and choose the one that they are the majority of the time. And then there are some characters that simply are too inconsistent to the point of having to literally assign them two different personality types based on where they are in the timeline of the show. Once upon a time, I enjoyed a good character debate, but awareness has kind of spoiled things for me. Occasionally, I run across a really fun character to analyze, because the character has a lot of depth and personality, but a character that is very obviously unrealistic or inconsistent just isn’t worth the time.