MBTI Type: ESTP
Dominant Extroverted Sensing – living in the moment, hands-on opportunism, and learning by doing: Beetlejuice is an opportunist of the highest order. Originally, he lived during the 14th century and made a living as a grave robber during the black plague. One night, he met and fell in love with a witch named Delores, and promptly married her, not realizing she was a soul-sucking monster who intended to sacrifice him. This pissed him off so much, he hacked her to pieces before he died of the poison she fed him. In his original film, he reads a newspaper about the recent death of the Maitlands and figures they’ll be stupid enough to convince to call his name three times, thus allowing him to come out and “play” in the physical world. He likes to terrorize and gross people out with his physical transformation (changing into giant snakes, tossing people around, showing people his horrible “undead” face, crashing cars, and literally “spewing his guts” everywhere). He spends his free time in a brothel called the Inferno.
Auxiliary Introverted Thinking – looking for loopholes to exploit existing systems, and a desire for logical consistency: Beetlejuice is a manipulative trickster, who likes to cut corners and figure out how the rules shouldn’t apply to him. He doesn’t believe in doing something for nothing; if he does a nice thin for Lydia, he feels entitled to something in return, namely for her to marry him—twice. And while Beetlejuice is pretty good at double-crossing people, he doesn’t appreciate it when they do it to him in return. (Sometimes, ETPs aren’t all that considerate of people and their needs, other than to figure out a logical way to get what they want by leveraging the situation to their best advantage.) He is a practical man, a businessman who wants to get clients who can help him get back into the real world for a short time, in trade for scaring the living hell out of whomever is occupying their house. Beetlejuice sees Lydia as a means to an end, a way to “live again.”
Tertiary Extroverted Feeling – gauging the emotional environment with a desire to influence it in their favor, and often being out of touch with their true feelings: Beetlejuice thinks he’s more charming than he is, and that he can talk his way out of bad situations. He is manipulative and cunning, using his mind and tricks to get people to repeat his name three times, and sees people as a useful tool to get what he wants in the end. He likes to trick people to get the upper hand over them, and builds a reputation as a “bio-exorcist.” When working in the Afterlife Call Center, Beetlejuice became quite good at managing the lower level employees and getting them to be fairly loyal to him.
Inferior Introverted Intuition – a desire to experience deeper meaning and a singular path, but sometimes being wrong in their intuitive conclusions: Beetlejuice shows no long-term thinking and seems oblivious to the consequences of his choices.
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Enneagram: 7w8
Enneagram 7 – a fast-talking schemer who seeks pleasure and tries to avoid pain with temporary distractions: Beetlejuice is nothing if not a head type; he processes everything with his intellect and thinks about how to manipulate it in his favor and cast himself in a glowing light, even if his motives aren’t altruistic. He is easily able to outsmart other characters… or at least, out-talk them and dazzle them with “razzle-dazzle,” while being out of touch with his own personal image (he thinks he’s super charming, in reality, he’s decaying and gross). Beetlejuice is a screwball comedian with a mean streak; he loves to tease people, prey on them, and generally act in ways that unnerve, threaten, and otherwise tick them off.
8 wing brings in gut energy and a willingness to use force to get what it wants: Beetlejuice has some gut instincts that guide him through his head-type processing. He knows what he wants almost instantly and intends to get it, even if it means going through people or scaring them into submission. Though employed by Juno to work in the afterlife, he went ‘rogue’ and styled himself as a ghost who can exorcise humans in various disturbing ways; Juno warns them not to trust him, because he will quickly get ‘out of control.’ Indeed, he is very intent on being free to wreak havoc, cause destruction, mock everyone and everything, hurl humans through ceilings and throw them over banisters, and tries to trap a girl into marriage so he can remain in the human world. He feels guilt and shame about none of it, because he sees life (and the afterlife) as his personal playground and something over which to gain control.
Learn all about your Enneagram type in 9 Kinds of Quirky: The 9 Enneagram Types!
