Anakin Skywalker – Darth Vader MBTI Personality Type
Analyzing Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader personality type using the Big Five Traits and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I’m also including other psychological theories and motivations.
Anakin Skywalker – Darth Vader Personality Type
As a young boy, Anakin had a passion for fixing and building things. It was Anakin who built C-3PO and his speeder in The Phantom Menace. He has the temperament of an engineer with a strong interest in things, he is also likely to be introverted, you have to enjoy spending time by yourself to build the things he did.
He does have a strong interest in people, as shown when Qui-Gon Jinn and Padme came to his home planet. However, this wasn’t to socialize. This was because he had an interest in helping people. This is due to a strong sense of morality. So I’m definitely going with Anakin as an introvert.
Due to his talent and passion for fixing things and building, it also leads me to a logical thinker type. With thinking being a dominant function and feeling being an inferior function. Anakin has difficulty dealing with and controlling his emotions. This is a big part of why he eventually turned to the dark side, out of his fear of losing Padme. He couldn’t handle the emotional pain, or general negative emotions.
His struggle with emotions can also be explained by the big five trait neuroticism. Anakin is high in the trait of neuroticism. Neuroticism is about emotional stability and general negative emotions. Anakin was never able to fully control his emotions, despite his training in the Jedi arts. This also explains why he can be impulsive in his actions. He acts on an emotional impulse.
Anakin is high in the trait of openness. You see this in his desire for creativity in his inventions or creations. You also see it in his interest in the dark side. He sees the Jedi’s focus only on the light side of the force as limiting. He has a curiosity about exploring the dark side. This shows a very open-mind, less restricted by traditions and conventions. This leads me to think he’s more of a perceiver on the MBTI. Perceivers are more open, flexible and free thinking.
I also believe he would be high in conscientiousness, he works hard and gets a lot done, as seen in his creations as a young boy. High in orderliness, which is connected to perfectionism, which manifests itself in his ambition to become the most powerful Jedi. Another association to the orderliness trait is being obsessively compulsive. He could be described as being obsessive in his desire for power and perfection.
Anakin Skywalker – Darth Vader – MBTI
The Myers Biggs Type I’m going for is (ISTP) Sensing over intuition. It was between an INTP and ISTP. However, INTP’s are just too detached from the current and reality to make a good Jedi.
His Turn To The Dark Side
Eventually, Anakin became overwhelmed by his negative emotions, becoming the Darth Vader personality. He was partly manipulated by Palpatine, who played into Anakin’s ego, desire for power, perfectionism, and fear of losing Padme. Once he crossed a certain line, he became fully committed to Palpatine and his quest for power. Especially after he believed Padme had died, it only strengthened his other desires and ambitions.
His good, moral side then became suppressed, and was rarely allowed to see the light of day. This is the conflict that Luke can sense in his father.
The Shadow
The philosophy of the Jedi is that of suppression of their dark side, and when the dark side is suppressed it’s more difficult to control, it makes those dark feelings unstable. As wise as Master Yoda was, he was not as wise as Carl Jung. Jung’s idea of the shadow and your dark side was not suppression, but integration of your dark side, because that’s how it can be more controlled.
Fear is also not something that should be suppressed, but rather brought into the light and controlled. Yoda said that “fear leads to the dark side” or down a dark path, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side”. The truth is, it’s unconscious negative emotions that lead down a dark path. When negative emotions are not brought into consciousness, they are not controlled, and they will likely control you.
The Sith is the shadow side of the Jedi. If Yoda had read some Jung, this whole galactic empire, light side, dark side nonsense could have been avoided.