MBTI Type: ESFJ

Sofya is a passionately emotional woman who knows exactly how to appeal to other people and influence them to her side, by sensing their emotional vulnerabilities and needs and offering affirmation and warmth when they most need it. She ranges from being an objective voice of reason amid the chaos of her home environment to infusing it with tension, through her melodramatic behavior. When her mediating appeals do not work, she falls into hysterics in an attempt to guilt others into giving her what she wants. Sofya is concerned not merely for herself, but their family. She seeks harmony for the group, but is unafraid to go against them when she believes they are wrong. Though her first appeal is always emotional, Sofya can become cold, critical, nitpicking, and accusatory when she is taxed to the end of her endurance. She is fully able to bring herself under control as Tolstoy is dying. She takes fully rational steps to try and protect his book legacy, even if it means destroying the happiness of the household in the process. Unlike her husband, Sofya believes in preserving the status quo that has been in place in Russia for generations. She is practical and determined to fight to retain the property rights to her husband, despite his intention of “giving them away.” Sofya knows how her husband’s mind works, thanks to her long association with him; she is deeply hurt and upset when her children do not respect her traditional role as their mother and side against her, to destroy something that she and her husband have built over tireless years of devoted work. Sofya also believes that their pacifistic religion, based in her husband’s “crackpot theories,” is total nonsense; she prefers to ascribe to her own Russian Orthodox beliefs. As her relationship with her husband disintegrates, Sofya becomes increasingly paranoid and suspicious, but many of her anxieties prove to come true when others align against her in an effort to smuggle Tolstoy away from her, so she cannot prevent him from signing away his book rights. She is keenly observant and senses that Valentin is in love before he knows it himself. She is also well aware of the schemes against her, and concerned for the potential unforeseen fall-out that will inevitably wreak havoc within the family dynamic.

Enneagram: 2w3 so/sp

Sofya is destroying her relationship with her husband by being all the things he as a 9 dislikes the most – highly emotional, hysterical, melodramatic, and needy, because she no longer feels loved, wanted, or needed. She admits that her happiest days were when Tolstoy let her read over and copy out his books, because she felt she could contribute to his genius – he needed to discuss plot points and ideas with her, and that made her feel included. Now that he has others he relies on more, Sofya has no sense of her place in his life – and is angry about it. She still knows how to appeal to him, how to seduce him, how to make him laugh, how to make him focus on their past and what they shared, and she does it well. She also manages to find allies within his ranks that are sympathetic to her plight. But under stress, she disintegrates into 8 – she becomes explosive, shooting her rival’s photograph full of holes, waving around a gun, ridiculing her husband and his “new boyfriend,” and even screaming at her daughter in public that “I lost five children; why weren’t you one of them?” Her 3 wing is image-conscious, aware of how things look to other people (“I have behaved rather badly, haven’t I?”), and adaptable. She can often become whatever Tolstoy needs in the moment to appeal to him, even if it’s silly or demeaning (drawing his mind back to their younger bedroom games).