Well, What Kind of Thinker *Am* I?
Jul. 12th, 2008 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A Saturday is a perfect time for a meme! This one is ganked from kispexi2:
Your Thinking is Abstract and Random |
![]() You relate well to other people, and you do well working in groups. You can help people communicate together and work with each other's strengths. You don't work well with people who are competitive or adversarial. You prefer to work toward a common goal... not toward conflicting goals. |
Whoa, pretty good result there for only 4 questions!
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Date: 2008-07-15 01:57 am (UTC)Ooh, very interesting. Seems like a lot of folks have a thin line dividing T and F. ^^ In my case, half my job description is scientist (ISTJ) and the other half is teacher (ISFJ), and those are pretty dramatically different skill sets, so that probably has something to do with it, as well.
I'm curious about how your S/J function works in with the length at which we rattle on here sometimes, on sheer speculation!
*laugh* Well, I'm not sure that Judging has much of an effect, except that it's probably one of the reasons I don't get involved much in discussion threads. I have to think things through twice and three times before posting--and by then the topic's usually already moved past the point where I can say anything useful! ^_^ But, oh, I love speculation. One of my favorite aspects of it is to try and take a wild idea and find a way to make it fit with existing canon facts (which is probably why I like writing for prompts. It also seems to drive a lot of my independent writing ideas).
In Saiyuki, I identify very strongly with Hakkai (I bet he'd be an ISFJ). IMHO, we're a lot alike in personality--minus the incest and mass-murders, of course. ;)
So the MBTI only takes one so far ... .
*laugh* I'd agree with that. Organized, hah! Meyers and Briggs haven't seen my desk. Sure, I know which *pile* I put that important paper in, but at the end of the day it's still a messy desk. ^_^
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Date: 2008-07-16 04:18 am (UTC)I'd agree with that. Gojyo's interesting that way, actually. I'd certainly call him an extrovert, but he's a small-group extrovert. Definitely not the "always has to be the life of the party" type, and not the performance/grandstanding type. In a way, he might be only one step up from an introvert. ^^
Kenren, funnily enough, while I love him to pieces, I just can't identify with him the way I do Gojyo
This is really interesting--because I feel a very similar way about Tenpou. I *like* Tenpou and feel I understand him fairly well, but don't have the shameless fan appreciation for him that I have for Hakkai. I'd originally thought that might just be because there's so much less of Saiyuki Gaiden, and there hasn't been the time to really fully develop the characters. But I think you've really hit on something with the comment about a painful past, because trauma and the reactions to it have a strong impact on both Hakkai's and Gojyo's motivations. The crew up in heaven just never had that.
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Date: 2008-07-18 11:52 am (UTC)I think a lot of Gojyo's loudness and sexually forward behavior comes from his longing to be loved and accepted. When you look at the company in which he's been living most of his older life, it's all hustlers, petty criminals, bar girls, gamblers: the sort of people who appreciate a bon vivant, a guy who lives big. That's what he had to do to get the attention and physical closeness he needs. It also gives him a wistful quality that Kenren never has. One presumes Kenren was born to privilege, loved for himself. You can certainly see it in the way the soldiers joke with him. But it does mean that he's entirely missing the little-boy-lost undercurrent that makes Gojyo so appealing.
I think also that a steady relationship with Hakkai will start toning down a lot of Gojyo's mouthiness, except when he wants to tease Goku and Sanzo.
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Date: 2008-07-19 05:16 am (UTC)Agreed - his model for close peer or near-peer interactions is Jien and later (God help us) Banri ... (and I always take emungere's Banri from "Clean" as the definitive picture of what's inside his head). We actually see some of Jien coming through in this latest volume, when the little youkai kid gets pinned under the fallen cart.
I have a feeling that Hakkai teases Gojyo's story out of him bit by bit. As we were saying at lunch, Hakkai is spilling his guts (bad choice of phrase!), and Gojyo is thinking a lot about his own story, but he's no saying anything.
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Date: 2008-07-20 02:27 pm (UTC)> suppresses inappropriate jealousy that smilla is plotbunnying other people <
I'm wondering whether Minekura is going to bring it out somewhere along the line ... .
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Date: 2008-07-21 04:26 pm (UTC)Well, as I said, I knew it was inappropriate. And I haven't become bunny-infested from that one, so it's only fair that someone else write it if she has an idea!
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Date: 2008-07-16 04:26 am (UTC)Yes, when Gojyo's not happy with himself, he goes all INFP-ish ... one of the reasons I identify with him so much! ANd I have to agree about Kenren. He's hot, sexy, and all that, and I like hi, but I feel no special connection.
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Date: 2008-07-18 01:50 pm (UTC)I actually think the Gojyo public side is even a bit more dysfunctional than that - he does it because, with the people he's known, that's what you do to get attention and intimacy. He doesn't know any other way, really, but Hakkai is teaching him.
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Date: 2008-07-21 01:21 am (UTC)Oh, I'm sure he enjoyed the physical side of what he was getting up to. I just think he was beginning to get to the point where it wasn't enough, but he hadn't quite zeroed in on the exact problem. I'm going by his musings just before he found Gojyo. And I'm not sure that he even realized that had had more to him - he probably thought of his needier side as something he needed to outgrow.
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Date: 2008-07-15 10:11 pm (UTC)Did you ever read the children's book The Gammage Cup? One of the leads, Muggles the candy-maker (and this was way before Harry Potter), has the messiest cottage in the village. But she knows what's in every pile. About once a year, the Mayor gets her to clean it up, and then she can't find anything until it all slides back into the usual piles.
I usually say that Gojyo resembles the inner me - the part that people only see when they know me well - and Hakkai resembles the outer me. I have a feeling that Hakkai doesn't think much of the human (or for that matter, the youkai) race in general - his own are another matter - whereas Gojyo, despite all the nastiness of his history, still has a little Anne Frank inside: "I still believe that people are really good at heart."
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Date: 2008-07-16 04:41 am (UTC)I'm afraid to say that I've never even heard of it before. The description made me laugh. Clearly I'm gonna have to go look it up, now. :)
I usually say that Gojyo resembles the inner me - the part that people only see when they know me well - and Hakkai resembles the outer me.
That's a good combination. The best of both worlds. :)
I have a feeling that Hakkai doesn't think much of the human (or for that matter, the youkai) race in general....whereas Gojyo....
I'm intrigued by that comment, because the "in general" makes me think again in terms of groups or scale (see extrovert Gojyo comment above). Hakkai would willingly give up everything (kill 1,000 youkai or take a head-on strike from Kami-sama's prayer beads) for someone important to him but Gojyo is unflinchingly willing to act on behalf of complete strangers and often for people to arguably don't deserve it. His capacity for acceptance and forgiveness of people in general (and generally of the worst sorts of people) really does make Gojyo the most compassionate of the ikkou.
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Date: 2008-07-19 05:07 am (UTC)Gojyo constantly breaks my heart that way - his trying to rescue Kami-sama is the quinetssential Gojyo moment for me. The fact that even I might not be quite so forgiving (and damn near self-sacrificing ... I wonder what was going through Hakkai's head at that moment?) makes me get into my Hakkai mode and become fiercely protective of him.
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Date: 2008-07-18 11:59 am (UTC)Yes, exactly. Hakkai has an incredible intensity, but he's not inherently a generous spirit. Gojyo gives of himself because he doesn't know any other way to be. smilla has often said he reminds her of certain types of dogs, and he's like that, like a big, friendly dog who automatically puts itself in the way of danger to help people it's only just met. He just lives to be close, so he fits himself into any group that will accept him almost instantly, and makes that group his own. What's special about the ikkou, and of course especially Hakkai, is that they value him as well as liking him, and he responds to that.
(This is reminding me of lousielux's story "Burning," where Sanzo comes face to face with his feelings about Gojyo, and realizes how much he appreciates that Gojyo has his back.)
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Date: 2008-07-21 01:28 am (UTC)Sanzo probably is a cat! But of course, in fandom, I often feel I'm the only dog in a world of cats ... I think it's the more emotive/less introverted side coming out. I often feel like I'm wandering around, wagging my tail, and wondering why no one wants to play ... that why I'm so pitifully pleased when people want to talk online.
(Actually, I recognized that song on your site, early on ... my sister played it for me once.)
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Date: 2008-07-22 03:48 pm (UTC)That conjures up some cute but undignified images. Of course, if we were dogs, it would all be proper manners ... .