John Smith’s MBTI type is one of the most compelling aspects of Man in the High Castle. Portrayed by Rufus Sewell, Smith embodies the calculating precision of an INTJ personality type combined with the vigilance and loyalty of Enneagram 6w5. His ability to anticipate threats, control outcomes, and compartmentalize his personal life from his role in the Reich makes him one of television’s most psychologically complex antagonists.
INTJ 6w5 Characters
Why is John Smith from The Man in the High Castle an INTJ? 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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Introverted Intuition
John’s inferior officers are four steps behind him, only just figuring out what he has discerned in advance, from guessing people’s motivations (“I knew you were hiding something from me”; “I hoped I was wrong about you, Joe”; “I knew he was lying, but wanted to test you”). Joe’s ability to keep his focus on the broader picture and its implications at all times makes him one of the show’s most intelligent, dangerous characters. He is a sharp judge of character, instantly sensing what people are up to, and shaping his actions around what will happen in their aftermath, in sharp contrast to Joe and Juliana Crane. (What will this do to his career, his standing, the lives of his family and friends? This is Ni working with Te.) He is not only good at predicting other people’s decisions and actions, but their reactions to him and to various situations (how Joe will respond if challenged or pushed, how the Resistance will interpret their punishment of prisoners, and how suspicion can be moved around and off him).
When a Nazi wants to overthrow Hitler, he gives John a couple of minutes to decide which side he will be on in this war, or face death. John considers briefly and says he doesn’t think the man they sent to Germany to kill Hitler can succeed; and he’s right. A second later, the phone rings. It’s Hitler. Then a bullet rips through the room and takes out the man ordered to shoot Smith. He figured out what they were going to do and had his personal aide follow them in secret and kill his kidnappers. Even though he made plans for if it went wrong before he left (telling his wife not to let that monster near their children, and giving her a gun), he was in control the entire time and gambled on the singular conclusion that proved correct (they would fail). His Ni locked into one conclusion (“this will fail”) and committed to it, even at the risk that he could be wrong; this is how Ni converges on an insight, rather than explores options when others are presented.
When the doctor discovers his son’s incurable illness, John decides he wants to cover it up, so he stages the doctor’s death, plants evidence in another direction, and makes it possible for his son to leave the Reich for somewhere he can be safe, only for his son to foil his plans by volunteering to die for the very Cause John raised him to believe in; thus, none of his long-term plans come to fruition, because the single-minded, zealous idealism he installed in his children worked so well, they will sacrifice themselves for it. John constructs cover stories and controlled narratives to control how others perceive his actions and their consequences, which Ni is very good at doing.
He does not like to think into the past, but desires to always “move and look forward.” And for better or worse, while his wife questions Nazism after losing their son and reconsiders, John never changes his mind because he is so devoted to the Cause. He has settled into a narrow view of reality and how it needs to be interpreted, and that causes him to pick the wrong side. His downfall is not his lack of insight, but his overconfidence in how he interpreted it; that the Reich could not fail, and that he needed to adhere to its beliefs. His inability to revise his thinking gave him tunnel vision (and frankly, broke my heart; I wanted him to change).
Extraverted Thinking
He believes in rules and regulations and doing things “by the book.” He informs Joe Blake that if one is part of a machine, one cannot do whatever one wants to, because then the machine ceases to function properly; each “cog” must function according to its intended purpose. John issues orders and expects them to be obeyed. This is extraverted thinking at its core; the realization that for society to function, everyone has to play their part, and those who cannot contribute to it are “worthless” from a purely logical standpoint. (This becomes a lot harder to swallow when his own son’s life hangs in the balance.)
His assigning of roles to people (assets, problems, tools) is how Te organize people into functional systems. He does not enjoy cruelty, but accepts it as necessary to complete his mission. Unlike the bounty hunter, John doesn’t torture people for no reason; it’s for information, and their death is to serve a purpose or send a message to their friends. He also creates situations to force the outcomes that he wants, including testing others, leading them out onto rooftops, arranging their “suicides,” and to execute his vision. He works with Inspector Kido to convince the Reich not to start a war with Japan, respecting him as a fellow thinker-strategist even despite their personal differences.
John has no qualms about turning in an old friend to preserve his greater idealism or his futuristic ambitions. Sensing Joe is not entirely honest with him, John sets up a trap to gain proof and catch him in the act, which he then leverages against him to gain additional loyalty from him. He is comfortable in the chain of command and rational in all his decisions, even the risky ones. His decisions make sense from a logical point of view, even if they are callous; he orders a man beaten to death, even though he has told them everything, so the Resistance will think he didn’t, giving them the advantage. For his son to live, the doctor has to die. And so forth.
Introverted Feeling
His actions cold to outsiders, but glimpsing John at home and with his son shows another man than the one who brutally orders beatings and executions; he loves his wife and children, and tries to protect them, even risking all their lives to ensure his son survives. When learning devastating news about a member of his immediate family, John does not discuss it with anyone but grieves in private.
His emotions are compartmentalized; he cares about his friends and family, but less so about those outside his own small circle. It doesn’t matter how the doctor’s family will feel about his death, provided it protects his son from being discovered as terminally ill. In this sense, his emotions are walled off from his actions. He puts them in a box and does what he “must” to survive.
His honor is sometimes put aside for a “greater moral good,” but he tries to help an old friend gain footing after a betrayal of the Third Reich, and his personal values are absolute. John doesn’t do enough introspecting as the series acknowledges his inner contradictions and his lack of morality, because doing that would destabilize him. He would know that he is not objectively a good or moral person, which would force a crisis of conscience and ask him to change, and that could put everyone around him (and his own sense of self) at risk. John has to believe that his sacrifices mean something, that his Cause is just, because if it’s not, he has destroyed his soul for nothing.
Extraverted Sensing
When his car is detained and he is nearly assassinated, John has to think and react quickly on his feet and he responds fast enough to save his life, by diving into a ditch, grabbing a gun, and shooting the men trying to assassinate him in the head… but he much prefers to plan things and handle them on his own terms. John plans what happens in the cabin, but also realizes it could go wrong and he might not be able to correct it in the moment, so he puts contingencies in place for his family (“If I don’t come home…”).
He is prone to risk-taking, but he plans his decisions rather than commit to them in the heat of the moment; even the murder (“suicide”) of an insubordinate officer comes across as premeditated, rather than impulsive (inferior Se). Under stress, John can become more violent, aggressive, and reactive than his usual calm, measured self.
The Enneagram 6
John is careful and distrustful. All his actions, even when he comes to power, are about protecting his family from outside threats and influences. He thinks nothing can threaten his family if he controls everything and has thought about everything in advance. To keep them and himself safe, he carefully thinks situations through and tackles them objectively, but his strikes are always preemptive to prevent anyone from learning the truth (he kills the doctor, and covers it up, to conceal his intention to smuggle away his son out of the Reich). He plans what to do if people expose him or betray him, and is careful to say the “right” things around his superiors (to always repeat the Nazi ideals and beliefs, to gently remind others to watch their words, etc. ).
John has a deep sense of loyalty in Nazism; even when he has the chance to break free of it, much to his wife’s astonishment, he continues to promote its values, because he has not given up on it, even having faced tremendous sacrifices on his behalf. He stays loyal out of fear of the consequences and a lack of self-confidence; they want him to be “the” head Nazi in the former United States, and that intimidates him; he does not see its potential to change things instantly for good with a reversal of policy, but a way to double down on the Reich’s ideals.
John suspects Joe and his motives; he questions his loyalty and tests him to determine whose side he is on, but he also has the warmth and family-focus that comes easily to 6s. He has an emotional duality that is common to a 6, where “my family” sees the supportive, humorous, protective side, and everyone else outside his inner circle sees the worst of him. (This is the splitting unhealthy 6s are known for; “us” and “them,” and “they” are the enemy.)
The 5 Wing
John is cold and calculating, and most of that comes from his 5-wing’s ability to suppress emotions and step back from them altogether. He can order someone’s execution and then go home and be a loving father and husband because he can mentally separate his feelings into boxes; this is how I act at work, this is necessary, and this is how I am at home. He reframes his horrific actions as logical and necessary, a mental justification to protect his feelings.
He sees what he does as necessary for his survival and the preservation of his beliefs, so he withdraws, treats situations analytically even when they become personal, and tries to observe for as long as possible before he acts to resolve the problem. As competency types, 5s want to get rid of the problem, not to prolong it. They don’t have the 7’s idealism or optimism that this could work out somehow; they see a threat and neutralize it, which is why John acts with such fierce determination.
He gathers, withholds from others, and deploys information carefully and strategically, since he sees it as knowledge leads to power and security. He reveals only what is necessary and doesn’t expose his thoughts to anyone, even his wife, until he is sure of what he wants to do. Rather than open up with his concerns, John introverts to try to figure out how to problem-solve.
He is patient, waiting for others to make a dangerous mistake and unraveling their deceit in gradual layers. John unnerves them because he watches and listens, but much like Michael Corleone, the more John pulls into his 5 behaviors of detachment, the greater the emotional distance from his family.
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