Alexander Mahone

Alexander Mahone from Prison Break comes closest to the EN(T) type in Classic Jung theory. People would immediately dismiss it because he doesn't match the stereotype of being a comedian in equivalent MBTI. Jung's description of type was deeper about how psyche process than mere superficial roleplay. I will prove that he is EN(T) and then debunk the famous typing of IN(T). EN/Ne (Principle Function): Extraverted Intuition is perception of hidden potential (N) where objective factor is given more importance (E) than subjective factor, while principal function is the most consciously differentiated function for an individual to use. Which one is it for Mahone? It is EN. Why? Mahone was primarily using perceiving resource potential most of the time in an intense manner, and giving his insights high importance. He was driven by his desire to checkmate Michael Scofield by outmaneuvering him through prediction of how things would unfold, i.e. perceiving hidden potential in objects and seeing how it develops over time, or was back in time. This is objective for coming from the object, and not being influenced by subject's (Mahone) inner compass which is known as subjective factor. He is seen regularly being obsessed with the map, trying to track down where Michael is as per available links. And at the end of season 2, he becomes frustrated and furious for not being able to hunt Michael and Lincoln down. He sees potential in the present situation and makes a fair prediction of where to hunt others down. IT/Ti (Auxiliary Function): Introverted Thinking is judgement through logical reasoning (T) where subjective factor is given more importance (I) than objective factor, while auxiliary function is the slightly less differentiated consciously than the principal function, being different in nature and supporting the principal than opposing it. This applies well to agent Mahone as he starts from axioms, which are the information about the inmates and keeping them in mind he builds his model of understanding them and their psychology. And then he is back to predicting where the inmates would be geographically as per how much of the information he has decoded so far. How is this form of reasoning subjective? Subjective judgement is about an inner sense of judgement, which in case of logic is inner logic. What does inner logic mean? Subjective logic judges if an information seems correct or incorrect, and if it survives the base axioms which subject has established. Mahone similarly interprets available data and builds a custom model of how inmates actually think like, and using this to aid his principal function i.e. EN. IS/Si (Inferior Function): Introverted Sensing is perception of sensation (S) where subjective factor is given more importance (I) than objective factor, while inferior function is the least differentiated function which remains unconscious and archaic in subjects. Mahone is highly haunted by his memory of murdering the child predator Oscar Shales, who kidnapped his son and he had to kill Shales to later hide his body in his family garden. So any sensation that triggers his association with that memory troubles him, and he uses drugs for that. Being haunted by sensory association in itself is not inferior function being used, but its abrupt consideration and impulsive reactions towards it is plausible. Moreover, Mahone was working under a lot of pressure and threats from shady companies. And inferior function as defined by Jung, compensates for the overused principal function, which applies very well to his case. Associative sensation is subjective because objective sensation remains focused on the objectivity of sensation, while subjective factor filters the sensation through how it is seen by the subject. Counter-argument against popular IN(T) type: Alexander is often typed as IN(T) in famous typing platform which don't have guarded and protected review as in Typology Atlas, and people instead use stereotypes or shortcuts to type others. Type IN(T) means principal IN/Ni, auxiliary ET/Te, and inferior ES/Se. Firstly, Ni is perception of hidden potential where subjective factor receives greater importance, making the perception symbolic to the subject perceiving it. People would argue that Mahone was expert in decoding Michael's tattoos which encoded very sophisticated information packed in a compact manner. But let me point that in many scenes it is seen that Mahone applies mathematical formulae while cracking down Michael's tattoos, making permutations, combinations, and possible interpretations. And in some rare cases he perceives what alternative symbolic meaning the tattoos might carry. But again, when he is cracking the tattoos which were symbolic embedded by someone else, how does that make it subjective? Answer is that the perception wasn't subjective to even begin with. Moreover Mahone is a trained FBI investigator, so its obvious he knows how to investigate such peculiar cases. And even with that, preference for Ne and Ti is shown heavily. Now for auxiliary ET/Te, people would say he considers evidences. But simply considering evidences doesn't prove someone to be Te-oriented. Point to note is that a majority of his predictions making use of Ne was based on his personal modelling of how inmates actually think like, and taking decisions as per that. And he relied more on them. For example, when finding where Michael is heading after escape he finds it to be Utah because Westmorland died in jail during escape. And when his junior asked, "How you know? Did you looked into evidence?", he violently replies, "No! Because he met Charles Westmorland, he is heading to Utah, its obvious." Inferior ES/Se? If we assume Mahone to be IN(T) who has inferior Se, then his withdrawal from overused principal function would be in form of seeking intensity of sensation, absorbed in sensory qualities of objects. But instead he appears very withdrawn from the actuality of sensation around him, and lives in a more "what would happen next" mindset. He is observant, true, but that doesn't make his photographic memories necessarily Se, because that requires regular and differentiated usage than just a few isolated display.