Cruella’s MBTI and Enneagram typing makes her one of the most unpredictable forces in Once Upon a Time as an ESFP 7w8 brought vividly to life by Victoria Smurfit. Cruella’s love of chaos, sensory boldness, and boundary-pushing energy perfectly reflect the adventurous yet impulsive spirit of an ESFP 7w8, a personality drawn to excitement and attention but capable of shocking emotional depth in Storybrooke’s magical world.
ESFP 7w8 Characters
Why is Cruella DeVille from Once Upon a Time an ESFP? 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 Sensing
When the Author meets and frees Cruella from her mother’s household, she says she doesn’t want to go somewhere quiet to talk; she wants excitement! So he takes her to a club full of loud music and dancing, in which she comes alive. Cruella is all about the sensory pleasures of the moment; she steals a radio so she can listen to music and stagnates while being locked in her mother’s attic. She used her favorite poisonous flower to kill three of her mother’s husbands, without fear of being imprisoned for it, then manipulates the Author by making up a different story on the spot. When given the power to control animals, she returns home, turns her mother’s dogs on her to kill her, then sits down and makes a luxurious fur coat out of their hides. When the Author tries to contain her, she almost kills him—stopped by his assertion that she can never kill anyone ever again. In Storybrook, she kidnaps Henry and tries to use him against his parents and against Emma. Cruella primarily cares about her appearance, about owning beautiful clothes, driving cars too fast, and getting whatever she wants, as soon as she craves it.
Introverted Feeling
She is a sociopath, so she shows no concern for anyone other than her own feelings. Cruella disliked her stepfathers so she murdered them all, then resented her mother for keeping her imprisoned. She hated her mother, so she killed her, then her dogs as well. If it were left up to her, she would not save Maleficent in the cave. And she easily turns against the Dark One and the author. Cruella is consumed with getting whatever she wants, no matter whom else it hurts. She does not seek approval, justification, or consensus on any of her decisions, nor frame them in the context of victimhood; she just leaves out the truth or states the facts around it, and lets people assume whatever benefits her in the long run.
Extraverted Thinking
Cruella gets whatever she wants through tactical uses of logic. She provokes people to get the measure of them and so they lose emotional control, giving her the advantage. She exploits the rules and looks for obvious solutions to her problems—kidnapping Henry, blackmailing her enemies, using her control over dogs to intimidate and hurt others. Cruella just wants a tangible result, and often gets it—her car, her freedom, her mother’s fortune, jewels, control over her own life. Her brutal honesty often leaves others bruised or bleeding from her remarks.
Introverted Intuition
Cruella struggles to think beyond the moment or to enact long-term plans without others helping her develop them. She is shocked when her own recklessness finally destroys her, since she thought she could manipulate Emma and force her into doing what she wanted in exchange for Henry’s life.
The Enneagram 7
Cruella hates her life with her mother, because it’s boring; she says that the only reason to live is to have “fun, darling.” She avoids her own inner emptiness with thrills, by seeking anything that excites her—dancing, drinking, jewels, fast cars, getting her revenge. Cruella treats life as a game and the people around her as pawns, using them to her own advantage. She baits and teases them, always with a sense of entitlement and arrogance. She feels that she is splendid, and if you can’t see it, then you’re blind and stupid. Cruella does not excuse her own behavior, but justifies it because it was necessary to get what she wanted. There’s no point in being alive if you can’t enjoy yourself, and she spends zero time reflecting on the painful consequences of her own actions or their implications about her.
The 8 Wing
Cruella is not apologetic for her evil; she embodies it and finds it “Delicious.” In her mind, people are either weak or strong, and she is the latter. She loves to push people, point out their flaws, sneer at their need to “do good,” as if that is something pathetic, and does not shy away from conflict. She boldly faces down a soul-sucking demon, assuming that she is the worst one out of the trio and might draw its ire; she taunts Emma and baits her into attacking her; she makes fun of Maleficent by calling her nasty names. It pleases her to have power and control and wield it against her enemies; rather than run away, she confronts her mother and enjoys watching her be torn to death by her own dogs, whom she then murders (off-screen), skins, and sews into a coat, so she can wear their spots.
Cruella’s a Mean One
In my opinion, Cruella also had an under-used arc, but her single episode is one of the best ones in the series. The show doesn’t give her a tortured back story, or try to make her humane; it just presents her as a selfish, soulless monster who enjoys being empty. There’s no chance for her redemption, because she is truly a monster, and the actress absolutely knocks it out of the park. Not to mention, she looks damn fabulous in those outrageous outfits. It took some skill to weave Cruella, a woman from “our world” into Storybrook, but it works. And it works well.
