Typing Doctor Who: Eleventh Doctor (ENTP)

ENTPs:

Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another.

This was an easy one, because ENTPs are one of the easiest types to pick. Do you know anyone who speaks predominantly in memes and puns, with whom every conversation feels like an exhilarating rollercoaster ride, and who relishes debating and arguing — about anything — just for the thrill of it? If so, you have yourself an ENTP friend, and you should consider yourself privileged, because they’re one of the rarest, but also the most awesome and engaging types (in my opinion).

ENTPs are ruled by Extraverted Intuition (Ne), which means their heads are constantly brimming with new ideas and possibilities which they can get very excited about, and allows them to perceive connections between ideas and phenomena very quickly and instinctively. Their Ne is supported by auxiliary Introverted Thinking (Ti), which processes and analyses the many ideas that present themselves to the ENTP with internal, subjective logic, making them a very rational and logical, but also profoundly intellectually creative personality.

It’s pretty clear to me that the Eleventh Doctor (who also happens to be my favourite Doctor), is an ENTP. For one thing, the Eleventh Doctor positively bleeds Extraverted Intuition (Ne). He’s constantly excited by the many new ideas and possibilities that his intuition generates, leaping dizzyingly from idea to idea, leading to his appearing hyperactive. Dominant Ne-users (ENTPs and ENFPs) are very easy to spot because of their Extraverted Intuition, and the way it constantly generates a slew of ideas, which tends to lead Ne-dominants to have a very animated and hyperactive, and often whimsical and child-like, manner. The Eleventh Doctor definitely conforms to this stereotype: he has a goofy and whimsical manner and comes across as unfocussed and excitable. Another great fictional ENTP character characterised by Ne-dominant “goofiness” is Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

One thing that struck me as a very ENTP thing Eleven did was in Flesh and Stone, where River chided him “Time’s running out!” while they were being pursued by Weeping Angels, and Eleven momentarily scoffed at the remark before becoming captivated by another completely abstract idea that his intuition generated from that innocuous remark of River’s: “maybe time could run out? Maybe time can be unwritten?” So Eleven was distracted by arcane metaphysical ideas in the middle of a life-threatening crisis situation. ENTP af.

It’s also clear that, frivolous and goofy and personable as Eleven may be, he’s also highly rational and calculating, sometimes coldly so. That’s his auxiliary Introverted Thinking (Ti). Behind those animated, childlike eyes lie cool, rigorous mental processes with which he makes judgments and decisions. In The Girl Who Waited he comes to the conclusion which his logic tells him is the only feasible one — that the elder Amy must be left behind — and, putting sentimentality aside, manipulates and lies to Rory and the two Amys in order to bring about this resolution. In The Big Bang, with some quick and agile mental analysis, he figures out why the Pandorica restored the Dalek, and how he can use the Pandorica, in combination with his exploding Tardis, to restore the rapidly decaying universe. The way he puzzles continuously over Clara, the “Impossible Girl”, in Series 7 is also indicative of Ti in that he simply can’t rest until he understands it, he can’t just let it remain a mystery—a very Ti thing.

Another, more empathetic and sensitive side of Eleven’s is represented by his tertiary Extraverted Feeling (Fe), which makes him sensitive to the feelings of others and concerned about maintaining group harmony. Eleven’s Fe is fairly well-developed, I think. He knows when people need emotional support, and how to give it to them. Eleven is adept at comforting and giving reassurance to his companions and friends. In Vincent and the Doctor he comforts Amy after she becomes upset at finding that, even after all they did for him, Vincent van Gogh still took his own life within months of their visit. His taking Amy to see Van Gogh’s paintings at the Musée d’Orsay and lots of other things she wanted to see is itself a manifestation of his Extraverted Feeling, in his empathy and generosity towards Amy after Rory’s apparent death. His Fe also manifests itself in his need for affirmation, for example, of his fashion choices (“bowties are cool”).

Eleven also has a darker, brooding, tortured side to his personality which simmers beneath the surface. I think this is a manifestation of his inferior Introverted Sensing (Si), particularly in the way his subjective memories, and the sensations and emotions associated with those memories exert an influence over him. The negative emotions associated with his negative memories (negative because his memories are processed through the subjective, internalised filter of Si) of things like the Time War, his past companions, and his own actions weigh intensely heavily upon him, and create this bubbling well of regret and self-loathing inside of him which sometimes boils over onto the surface. I also think we see him in the throes of a Si-grip in The Snowmen, where, after losing Amy and Rory, he retreats into reclusion and self-hating isolation, spiting the thought of engaging with the world and with new people again, being full of regret over the fate of his two best friends (for which he blames himself).