Truman Capote MBTI has become a major topic of discussion thanks to FX’s Feud: Truman vs. the Swans, which portrays his rise and catastrophic social downfall. In the series, Truman (played by Tom Hollander) displays classic traits of an ENTP personality type alongside an Enneagram 7w6, combining sharp wit, social charm, and impulsive self-destruction. His ability to spin stories, read people, and push boundaries makes him fascinating, but also ultimately leads to the betrayal that costs him everything.
ENTP 7w6 Characters
Why is Truman Capote from Feud: Capote vs. The Swans an ENTP? Continue reading for my argument using cognitive functions! The headers for each section are clickable, so you can easily access more information about the dominant function and the Enneagram type, or discover more characters who share the type.
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Extraverted Intuition
Truman is a man of ideas, who focuses entirely on being entertaining and on entertaining others through his stories; he verbalizes them on the spot for his “adoring audiences,” but also spends significant amounts of time writing, before he ultimately succumbs to alcoholism. He is a famous novelist by the time this story opens, whose Breakfast at Tiffany’s skyrocketed him to fame, allowing him to move in “all the best” circles. Only his friend Babe recognizes he drew inspiration from a particular socialite for the heroine, ??, and one reason he connects so strongly to Babe is that she alone understands him and from where he draws inspiration. He uses her as a sounding board for early drafts of his novels.
When telling stories, Truman reframes reality in real time, depending on his audience. The same event becomes funny, scandalous, or tragic depending on who he is talking to, which is typical of a Ne “changing the story” mid-stream or viewing it from several perspectives at once. And the moment he realizes the Swans’ secret could make a compelling narrative, solving his writer’s block problems, he pivots from being a friend into using them as source material. In his article, he treats them like concepts and archetypes rather than individuals.
When an ex-lover asks him if the book he has promised his publishers even exists near the end of his life, Truman replies that bits and pieces of it are on paper, showing that he writes in a non-linear manner, as inspiration strikes him, and then patches together the book based on individual scenes, saving structuring his plot for after allowing the ideas to take him. He makes up stories as he goes along and rarely knows what they are even about until he is in the middle of them, a Ne-dom trait.
Unlike most of the sensory Swans, Truman theorizes and speculates and peels back the motivations of those around him, commenting that this person intends this (with no evidence), he feels sure about it. He theorizes about what others are thinking about him, and about where his future life will be going. In a group, he is witty and irreverent and rude to the amusement of all, crafting puns on the spot to impress people with and lobbing jabbed barbs at his enemies by denouncing their tastes.
One reason he is so naïve is that he assumes words are just words; he can publish whatever he wants about the socialites around him with no consequences, because he assumes he can just talk his way back into their good graces. ENTPs often fall into this kind of self-destructive impulse, where they think because they are clever and charming (Ne/Fe) that nothing they say or do has long-lasting implications or consequences. Truman is, of course, wrong about this. He also picks abusive lovers, by focusing on what he idealizes about them, rather than taking seriously the physical problems within their relationships. In his world, men should just be queer and abandon their girlfriends or children to be with him, and it’s unreasonable to think that he is not desirable and able to turn others “gay.”
Introverted Thinking
Ultimately, Truman treats a lot of his relationships like transactions and thinks about them in those terms. When Babe comes to him, upset about her husband being caught in yet another affair, she has an intense emotional response; she wants to leave and divorce him. Truman says she should not be hasty, and that she should think about what she can “get out” of him, because right now he feels guilty. She should put up with his infidelities and get a nice Monet out of the affair, since he will be eager to win her over with an expensive gift.
This shows that Truman doesn’t take things personally, so much as he sees how he can exploit situations by bypassing the “hurt” to focus on a “gain” or a “reward.” This thinking is also what gets him into trouble many times; he promises publishers finished books and takes their money, only to turn around and squander it and his time on drinking and affairs. He thinks he can solve his financial problems by writing a tell-all about the socialites and is shocked when they are scandalized and insulted enough to cut him out of their lives forever. He doesn’t see it as a personal betrayal in the way they do, but as something that financially benefitted him. If only he can explain his reasoning to them, they will see that he is right and forgive him. Right??
He believes that if something makes sense to him, others should accept it. He cannot grasp why the Swans feel betrayed, because in his mind, writers use material. That’s what writers do. They should not be penalized for it. This internal logic operates separately from the emotional consequences.
His logic is sound even it is hurtful. He easily points out others’ flaws and admits to certain of his own that do not infringe on his ego; but he also wants to turn someone away from a party he is hosting because he did not invite her. This shows a total disregard for her feelings and reputation, which sets the stage for his later betrayal of his confidences. He sees secrets as negotiating power, rather than something he is entrusted with to bring closeness. And that eventually destroys his relationship with Babe, a fact that haunts him to an early grave.
Extraverted Feeling
Truman is more disconnected from his feelings than he realizes; it’s only after he loses his social connections and his friends that he feels the loneliness of solitude. But rather than introspect and admit he did anything wrong or to deserve this, he blames the women for being irrationally upset with him. Low-health Fe blames other people for its problems rather than to take responsibility for them, and Truman does this over and over in his bad relationships and his inability to meet deadlines. He can soothe and reassure, and make women feel good about themselves, and charm others in a social setting, but on an emotional level, he is shallow.
Truman is excellent at setting a tone, entertaining others, and making people feel special in the moment, but he cannot maintain their trust, respect their emotional needs and boundaries, or take responsibility for his own actions. He has a tactical Fe rather than an ethical one.
Much of Truman’s life is built around impressing people and fitting into society, in expressing his true feelings about people without hesitation (catty, witty, and even rude to their faces and behind their backs), and in connecting to people who think like him, but whenever he can’t force others to be on the same emotional page (when his little article spirals into a feud), he doesn’t know what to do about it, or how to fix it. If he can’t talk his way out of it, he has nothing left to offer them.
He also sometimes miscalculates situations and is too blunt in asserting himself, causing others discomfort or creating a scene in public. Truman knows exactly what to say to upset other people, and insults his lovers hurt them and provoke a response; only he misjudges the severity of their reaction and winds up being physically abused.
Introverted Sensing
In one episode, Truman takes in a young socialite and tries to help her fit into society, but after taking her to a hairdresser, she complains he picked something too “matronly” for her. When they arrive at the photoshoot, the photographer says she is beautiful and should look modern, not like an “old lady.” Truman has been trying to model her after Babe, a middle-aged woman, and is out of sync with what is “hip” and new.” He regresses into the past rather than moving forward, and tries to recreate a lost former emotional dynamic (a replacement for Babe) instead of a new one.
This also reflects in the later years of his life, when he gets lost in his memories of how society used to be, and in the individual moments of his life, instead of being relevant; he is shocked to reference people in conversations with younger writers and socialites and find they do not know who he is talking about, because that person’s time has come and gone.
Most of his stories he draws from real life and people he has known; he recounts with a funny twist, incidents, insults, and scandals from all of his travels and experiences. Truman also admits he is “worthless” with fixing anything and does not know where to start; he expects things to function as they should and to be predictable, and when they are not, he doesn’t fidget with them at all, or get his hands “dirty.”
Under stress, he often tries to reconnect with former relationships instead of starting new ones; he looks to past lovers and friends as a source of reassurance and comfort.
The Enneagram 7
Truman is a flamboyantly gay man whose habitual need to deny he has done anything wrong leads to chronic drinking to avoid the pain he creates in his life. Early on, he is happy and snarky, with a cruel wit and a keen eye for insults, enjoying all life offers and his “delicious” lunches with the ladies in which they dish on all the gossip. He, rather foolishly, assumes that writing about these women will not earn their ire, because it never dawns on him they will do anything but adore him; a 7’s coping mechanism and unconditional positive self-regard. When it backfires and gets him kicked out of their inner circle, Truman assumes he can just talk to them and convince them to see his side, and that everything will be “fine.” This is a massive bout of delusional thinking, because he is pretending the problem and the consequences do not exist.
From there, when his attempts to win them over fail, Truman drowns his feelings in alcohol instead of being productive. He chases new and exciting relationships, he starts affairs, he feuds with Gore Vidal, he drinks morning, noon, and night, he eats too much and goes on vacation and is miserable. He turns betrayals into stories, grief into dramatic performances, and isolation into melodrama, by changing his circumstances into self-entertainment. When Babe dies, rather than write about how much she meant to him, he crafts a eulogy that focuses on the positive and keeps him at the center of the narrative; she isn’t gone, because she is all around him. She is in Truman. They were alike. This is how he copes with the loss, and he is in denial of her death until he learns he missed her memorial service (and he assertively wanted to “crash it” until a mutual friend told him not to do it).
The 6 Wing
Truman can be spiteful, but when he loses his friend circle… he falls apart. He becomes more anxious and insecure, more seeking of external support. He begs the members of his former friend group who are not hostile toward him to intervene and get him back into Babe’s good graces. It distresses him to be ostracized.
Prior to that, Truman took a particular joy in tearing things apart, in questioning accepted reasoning, and in focusing on the negative attributes in everyone around him. Even though he likes his friends, he can be a scathing critic of them. In his musings, he talks about all of their flaws in depth, how they are shallow creatures with no taste, hollow, bad mothers, and so on. He admits that his own childhood was terrible and that his mother neglected and verbally abused him.
His “brutal honesty” causes him to confront people, expose their scandals, point out in public that he knows they killed someone, and to want to see “justice done.” 6s like to pick things apart.
The Swans
I don’t want to spend a lot of time writing up profiles for his socialite friends, but here’s my take on the rest of them.
Barabara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts): ESFJ 3w2
Despite her emphasis on perfection, the perfection she sees is performative (3ish). It’s all about how things look, on presentation, and on never being compromised on a reputation level, which is what makes Truman’s betrayal so devastating to her. As a 3, he exposed her dirty little secrets and made her look bad, and she cannot forgive him for that, even if part of her wants to reconnect. She feels a strong sense of sympathy for him and is easily emotionally affected by him (Fe). Babe tries to control and find comfort in familiarity and in the million minor details of party planning (Si). She also loves to theorize with him and brainstorm about his novels, and often knows instinctively who inspired particular characters (Ne). It’s only at the end of her life when she questions her own behavior in a desire to understand it (Ti).
Nancy “Slim” Keith (Diane Lane): ENTJ 8w9
Slim is… an unusual woman. She is highly aggressive, and once Truman crosses the line, he becomes “dead to her” except she wants revenge. Where Babe teeters on the edge of forgiving him, Slim never does, and thinks of him as an insidious little bastard who targeted her vulnerability and needs to be crushed like a bug. She is hypocritical, but unapologetic about it, because she is friends with Babe despite having an affair with Babe’s husband. Slim is business-minded, strategic, and practical, refusing to take most things personally (Te). She starts instantly theorizing on what Truman will do to get into their good graces and cutting him off at the pass after their falling-out (Ni). She is overindulgent of her sexuality and at Babe’s memorial service, says life is for living and they shouldn’t let it get them down (Se). She has a few firm principles by which she lives, but they really only show up when she cares about someone (Fi).
C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny): ISFP 9w8
There’s less evidence for this, but she’s more emotional than most of her friends, and also isolated from their pressure not to forgive Truman. They want to ostracize him, and instead, she forgives him, remains friends with him, tries to explain to him why his actions were so hurtful, and doesn’t bother to try to convince anyone to share her point of view (Fi). She spends most of her time outdoors, tending her plants, going hunting, and horseback riding (Se). She is overall pleasant and willing to give him a second chance, but unconcerned with moral absolutes (9w8).
