ISTP 8w9 Characters

Eko’s life before he came to the island was as a drug smuggler; as a child, he could shoot a stranger in the head to save a younger village child from having to do it, because of his own detachment. Prior to having a religious conversion experience, Eko was an opportunistic man who sold heroin, smuggled it out in figurines of the Virgin Mary, and shamelessly exploited those around him, all while insisting on doing it for the greater good. Even after his transformation, Eko catches on to things quickly and easily gets into immediate action. He is physically powerful and assertive, he manhandles people, he puts on a priest suit and pretends to be one to get out of his former lifestyle. Elsewhere, he punches Locke to keep him from having a tantrum, and immediately goes out into the jungle to track down an escaped prisoner, climbs a cliff to get a better view of the plane, and breaks into another secret hatch. He stands up to a local gang of thugs while working undercover as a priest in the parish and winds up getting a woman killed, then kills them all when they attack him a few weeks later. He is not often careful, because he knows he can handle anything that happens to him. Eko has a lot of tert-Ni as well, but he and Locke do not think in the same way. Locke questions everything; Eko wants to believe in it. He has a mystical connection to the island and sees it as the solution to all of his problems; he believes in things firmly without explanation, such as that they “must” push the button even when the evidence suggests it was all an experiment and nothing bad will happen if they cease the countdown. He feels a strong need to start a church on the island, for an eventual payback of his brother (“I owe him a church”). Eko has a universal sense of morality, not an inner sense of ethics; as a child, under duress, he shoots someone at the behest of bad guys. As an adult, he works as a drug dealer and satisfies his conscience by telling his brother at least they get the drugs out of Nigeria, so their “own kind” are not taking them (but someone else is). He often goes along with Ana Lucia’s plans without complaint, and is a philosophical ponderer at heart, trying to figure out whether the good or the bad of his deeds is enough to shift the balance in his favor in the afterlife. He refuses to repent, out of a sense that “I did nothing wrong.”

Enneagram: 8w9

Eko is the “strong silent” type – a man of very few words and a strong presence, who gets things done and can be intimidating when he needs to be. Much of the time, he is mild-mannered, but also aware of his authority – he often uses force and aggression to seize control over situations, enforce his brand of “justice,” and rationalize away his actions as being necessary – he kills three men who attempt to kill him and has no remorse for it. He finds the most peace on the island, in merging into it, and sensing what it wants from him – the peace it is driving him toward, away from his former life as a drug dealer and “sometimes” priest. He used to use that as a cover, without remorse for misleading people or killing them, but now seeks atonement.