Finally, we come to the Demonic Personality, an archetype directly from the work of John Beebe. The name says it all, really.

For ENTPs, the Demonic Personality is Extraverted Sensation (Se), the function of visceral, immediate experience. As a Hero it’s dynamic and vivacious, but in the Demonic role it becomes a figure of threat and menace — the world of physical pleasure and pain can hold you at its mercy, should you allow it to.

In Brazil, we see this most vividly in the character of Spoor (Bob Hoskins), the Central Services heating engineer. Spoor wields the power of temperature control with malevolent glee: give into his demands or face freezing cold (or even homelessness). Note that while Jack and Mr. Helpman at least maintain an appearance of being kind and friendly, Spoor has no such pretence — he’s pure evil. This is the Demonic Personality at its core.

And so there we have it: Brazil, at its heart, is a depiction of the psyche of Terry Gilliam and, by extension, a general template for the kind of filter through which ENTPs see the world.

Some people have issues with typing “celebrities”, and I can certainly see their point. But in the case of an artist, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that perhaps their art is a more immediate, more honest look at their worldview.

The Trickster archetype is one of deception and moral ambiguity. We’re never quite sure of whose side the Trickster is on (if they’re on any side at all).

The character that embodies this archetype in Brazil is Jill — the real Jill, not the dream Jill. Is she a terrorist? Can she be trusted? Neither Sam nor the audience are really sure.

For ENTPs, the Trickster is Introverted Feeling (Fi), the function of personal values. As a Hero, Fi is humanitarian and universal, but as a Trickster, it’s much harder to trust.

Jill, at the end of the day, cares about people as human beings, symbolising Fi. She is in direct contrast to the Puella, Sam’s mother, who cares more about social status (Fe). Note that, in an Oedipal moment, Sam actually dreams that his mother looks so young that she appears to be Jill — the two characters are two sides of the same coin.

In the final part: Extraverted Sensation (Se) as Demonic Personality…

The Senex or Witch archetype is the shadow to our Good Parent — the figure that directly opposes the supportive role that the Good Parent can play. It is the critical, authoritarian parent rather than the mentor and aid.

If Tuttle is the Good Parent in Brazil, being a supportive father-figure to Sam, then the critical, authoritarian father-figure is Mr. Helpman; whereas Tuttle represents improvisation and guiding personal principles (Introverted Thinking — Ti), Helpman personifies the heartless, cold and arbitrary bureaucratic system itself (Extraverted Thinking — Te).

The Senex or Witch undermines our attempts to grow. To use Joseph Campbell’s imagery, it’s the dragon we need to slay in order discover our true potential. For ENTPs, Te is their dragon.

Next: Trickster as Introverted Feeling…

The Opposing Personality is an archetype invented/created/discovered by John Beebe in his research on the roles the psychological functions play. With my own recent observations, I see the Opposing Personality as being a bit like the Hero’s dark twin — the figure symbolising the result of the making the wrong choices in life.

In an ENTP, the Opposing Personality is played by Introverted iNtuition (Ni). Ni recontextualises and reinterprets the data of perception; for Ni, everything is just another interpretation. In short, Ni is the function of “spin”.

In Brazil, the character who epitomises both “spin” and the “dark twin” concept is Sam’s friend Jack. Jack is the man Sam would be if he were to embrace the system, and, not coincidentally, he has no qualms about spinning the fate of Buttle so as to reduce his own accountability:

Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?

This is the darker side of Ni, where anything can be rationalised by a perspective shift.

Next: the Senex/Witch as Extraverted Thinking (Te)…

The Anima (femininity) in Brazil is an interesting case. Quite obviously, this archetype is symbolised by Sam’s dream girl, but more importantly, this is not Jill — Jill is the rather tom-boyish truck driver, not the long-haired beauty floating in the air.

The Anima/Animus for ENTPs (like Terry Gilliam) is Introverted Sensation (Si), which is the function of stability and security. Si orients us toward a simpler life — think of the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, say.

How does the Anima in Brazil symbolise Si? For the most part, she’s so archetypal that she’s personality-free, but there’s one key sequence that gives us a degree of insight…

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!!!

The final dream sequence has Jill as the Anima, since this is more about Sam’s fantasy of who Jill is than Jill herself. And what is Sam’s conception of the perfect life with his dream girl? A nice, quiet, simple farm-life in the country (i.e. an idealised Si existence). This is the soul of ENTPs.

Next: The Opposing Personality as Introverted iNtuition (Ni)…

Now that we’ve looked at Sam as the Ne Hero and Tuttle as the Ti Good Parent, it’s time to examine the case of the Puer/Puella (Eternal Child) as Extraverted Feeling (Fe).

The Eternal Child is a Peter Pan-like figure: on the one hand, he or she represents youthful vitality, but on the other hand, this archetype also symbolises an inability to grow or mature as a person.

This figure is incredibly recognisable in Brazil once you get past the role-inversion Terry Gilliam has introduced for comedic effect.

Fe is the function of social roles, expectations, obligations, appearance and standing — the function of diplomacy. I think it’s fair to say that Sam’s mother fits the bill here nicely.

Furthermore, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this character also plays the role of Eternal Child, despite being Sam’s mother. How fitting, then, that she’s obsessed with plastic surgery, going to ludicrous lengths to appear ever younger.

To be honest, I can’t get over how perfectly we see archetype, function and character aligned in this case — it’s the sort of thing that gives Brazil its timeless, mythic quality. (I should add that it’s also quite fitting that Tuttle, the “Supernatural Aid”, appears and disappears seemingly out of the ether.)

Next: Anima/Animus (Si)

In the last post we looked at Sam Lowry as the embodiment of Heroic Extraverted iNtuition; in this post, we’ll move onto the Good Parent as Introverted Thinking (Ti).

The Good Parent is a supportive, mentoring role, usually sharing the same sex as the Hero/Heroine. Here we’re looking for the “Obi-Wan” of Brazil. To use Joseph Campbell’s parlance, the Good Parent is the “Supernatural Aid” who gives the Hero the guidance he needs to succeed in his quest.

In this case, the Good Parent is clearly Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro).

Tuttle is a renegade, subverting the system by playing by his own rules. He acts based on his own guiding principles quite apart from any officially-sanctioned rules or laws, in other words. As an INTP friend put it recently, there’s no point in following the rules “if the rules are stupid”.

More directly, as a rogue “heating engineer”, Tuttle is an improviser — he understands heating systems inside and out and can easily create solutions based on his knowledge of the underlying organising principles.

In short, Tuttle certainly encapsulates the flavour of Ti. Once again, Beebe’s theory seems to hold.

Next time: The Eternal Child (Fe)…

Let me demonstrate the idea of Jungian functions as archetypes by analysing one of my favourite films: Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

Gilliam strikes me as the quintessential ENTP: manic, irreverent and full of whimsy. His filmmaking career is an exercise in maverick eccentricity, often leading to disaster (with Brazil being a case-in-point), but he always leaves his mark, being a fine example of a modern auteur.

According to John Beebe, the films of auteurs are akin to their dreams, and furthermore, instances of dream archetypes can be interpreted as Jungian psychological functions. In the case of an ENTP, we have…

1. Hero/Heroine: Extraverted iNtuition (Ne)
2. Good Parent: Introverted Thinking (Ti)
3. Eternal Child: Extraverted Feeling (Fe)
4. Anima/Animus: Introverted Sensation (Si)
5. Opposing Personality: Introverted iNtuition (Ni)
6. Senex/Witch: Extraverted Thinking (Te)
7. Trickster: Introverted Feeling (Fi)
8. Demonic Personality: Extraverted Sensation (Se)

So in the case of Brazil, the characters that stand-in for these archetypes (e.g. Hero, Anima, etc.) should somehow embody or personify the respective psychological functions within an ENTP (assuming I’ve typed Gilliam correctly). For anyone who’s seen Brazil, this should illustrate Beebe’s theory nicely.

In order to be intellectually honest in this affair, I’ll try not to force the data (i.e. the characters and plot) to the conclusions (i.e. the interpretation via Beebe’s theory) — the connections drawn should be fairly obvious.

As a taste, let’s look at the Hero of Brazil. I don’t think I need to argue the case that Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is the Hero in this tale. Does he embody Ne?

To attack this problem with a left-field approach, consider that Sam’s dreams symbolically mirror his own life, and that the “Dream Sam” — an Icarus-like figure who soars through the sky, initially free of any care or anchoring concern — metaphorically represents Sam-as-Hero better than the “real-life” Sam might (stricken as he is with neuroses).

iNtuition is the realm of symbolism and metaphor, with Ne in particular being a free-form exploration of possibilities. That this should be depicted in Brazil in metaphorical language as “flights of fancy” seems wholly appropriate. Indeed, blue-sky daydreaming is the perfect image for pure Ne.

Does this seem to fit? To me it certainly does.

Next time: The Good Parent (Ti)…