MBTI Type: ESFJ

This is the most spoilerific character profile I’ve ever written, so consider yourself warned. Jack frames everything in terms of the people impacted by it—and was also an effective con man, before he came to town. He has a silver tongue and is extremely skilled at talking people into trusting him, engraining himself in their lives, and then getting them all to work together for a common cause—but before he met Laurel, he would ride off with their goods or money, never to be seen again. He played this same scam several times, until he found a life and a wife that suited him, playing the role of someone else. He assumes (accurately) that he can just march into her life, and convince not only her, but everyone the real Jack Sommersby ever knew that he is the same person. He uses a combination of knowledge gained from Jack during the many years they spent in a prison cell (he memorized all the intimate details of his life) and… a reliance on his charm and likable nature. Jack sees the other man’s death as a way to start a new life… or perhaps, to pull a new con, but then falls in love with Laurel and changes his plans, determined to become a good person and do some good to avoid his wicked and selfish past. He mobilizes the community to plant tobacco and all profit equally off the shares, and also allows everyone able to pay for a bit of land equality in doing so (including the freed slaves). Later, Jack comes up on trial for murder, and refuses to divulge his true identity, even arguing actively against it, because to admit it would cheat everyone who signed an agreement with him out of their investment and life savings—so he chooses to die instead. He has a large capacity to retain details and use them successfully, and is also pragmatic in his approach to their plight of having a run-down plantation – he decides to divide it up, invest in a new crop (tobacco) with the hope of it helping to pay off the mortgage, and sell off acres to anyone who wants them. But he has a bit of trouble reading between the lines at times; he naively stumbles into a word-trap set by someone who suspects he isn’t who he says he is, which proves the truth about him. He shows decent Fe/Ti in how he realizes the repercussions of his own actions and how they will devastate everyone he has come to care about, but also has no ability to detach from his feelings and choose to live, by exposing his fraud (he doesn’t want to die, but refuses to give up his new identity when it will hurt many, other than just his wife).

Enneagram: 3w2 sx/so

Jack is playing a persona, and refuses to give it up to save his own neck, because he can’t stand how people would think about him or remember him a certain way (as a con man); he is trying to atone for his past, and feels like he has been given a new chance at life. He will enter a situation and adapt to whatever the needs are within it, or the expectations of those around him – being a tender and loving husband, being aggressive to those who threaten to expose his identity, being warm and friendly to the community, etc. He was also an exceptional con man able to make everyone like him immediately, and is good at thinking on his feet to stay out of trouble (swiftly changing the subject, to avoid one of his mistakes, like not fitting in the other Jack’s actual shoes). He shows a lot of 2ishness in how he genuinely wants to do what is best for the community and those around him; he treats everyone as equals, and is generous to a fault (to make up for his previous misbehavior).

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