Juliana Crain’s MBTI type has sparked a lot of debate among fans of Man in the High Castle. Portrayed by Alexa Davalos, Juliana displays strong traits of an INFP personality type and aligns closely with Enneagram 9w1. Her quiet idealism, deep moral conviction, and willingness to risk everything for what she believes is right make her a fascinating example of how personal values can clash with a dangerous, authoritarian world.
INFP 9w1 Characters
Why is Juliana Crain from The Man in the High Castle an INFP? 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 Feeling
Juliana has moral independence from everyone and everything around her; she refuses to outsource her morality by rejecting the state’s ideology and refusing to go along with the Resistance’s questionable ethics (she agrees to bait Joe Blake into a trap, but has a twinge of conscience and chooses to “believe him” against all evidence the film shows her of him being a Nazi, and lets him escape).
Her arguments against certain behaviors are all along emotional lines, based on humanitarian concerns—these are people; if we do this, we’ll be no better than the Regime we are fighting, etc. She could use information about John Smith concealing his son’s illness to get him killed by the Reich, but refuses to do so on moral terms; what would happen to the boy? She doesn’t justify doing harm to others, even for the greater good. Juliana won’t become a person she can’t live with, for anyone or any cause. But she also won’t change her mind for anyone; countless times, her determination to find “the truth” causes her to put others in danger. She feels bad about that, but it doesn’t stop her from acting, because not to follow what feels right to her would violate herself (“I have decided what is right, and I am not backing down”).
Sometimes, her emotions overload her common sense (pursuing “answers” about her sister’s death even when it nearly gets her killed). Juliana is compassionate and worried for other people, wishing she could help and save them during riots.
Juliana is good at hiding her feelings and doesn’t talk about them with others; she allows others to make their own decisions, and she expects them to do the same for her. She also bonds selectively and deeply with a few people, while remaining guarded with most. (She instantly forges a connection to Joe and trusts him even when it makes no sense to do so, while arguing with Frank Frink that he can trust her, that she has no feelings for anyone else, and “nothing happened” with Joe.)
Extraverted Intuition
Juliana throws away her life and her safety in pursuit of hope after seeing a video in which her life is different, where America won the war. She doesn’t care if it means a lack of safety in the present moment, so long as she believes something better is possible. To her, the films are not just a mystery but a possibility, a source of hope, and a belief that “what if our lives really could be… different?” That is her intuition, seeing alternate realities and pursuing them, hoping to make them “real.”
She follows intuitive hunches without a plan, jumping into the Neutral Zone and establishing a presence there, following leads with minimal structure, even knowing the risks involved, and expecting it all to turn out fine. She naively disregards the potential consequences for her loved ones at home and is horrified to learn that her vanishing act caused the deaths of Frank’s sister and his family. Her all-consuming obsession with the idea of resistance and the meaning behind the films drives her.
Later, when reunited with Joe, Juliana senses a change in him and reacts to it (Fi and Ne). She knows when something feels off or doesn’t fit in her dealings with the Man in the High Castle. She realizes he is using her to get at her friends.
Introverted Sensing
Juliana thinks she can “go back” to her old life after her adventure, and nothing will have changed. This is low Si, thinking that one mistake won’t change anything about their life. But it does. She comes home and has to shift everything. Her old job is not there, and she has to find a new one. Julianna is a different person, with different values and dreams. Her relationship with her mother and stepfather is now different, since she knows things about him. She gets involved in the Resistance. Her relationship with Frank has changed because of her leaving without telling him, the consequences of that, and his awareness of her emotional attachment to Joe.
She frequently makes dangerous mistakes and underestimates the consequences of her decisions because she relies on what she has experienced before rather than a broader understanding of how reality works. She assumes because people behave this way at home, they’ll be the same way in the Neutral Zone… and that’s not true. She is uncomfortable in a new, risky environment and is often surprised by its brutalities.
Most of all, it takes her time to adjust to major events and to accept that this is how her life is now; she doesn’t want too rapid of change, and doesn’t enjoy being thrown into a new life.
Extraverted Thinking
Julianna has weak logic if her emotions get involved; she spends an enormous amount of money to get Joe back, even though he is possibly a traitor to the cause, because she has feelings for him. She doesn’t think in terms of cause and effect because she struggles to know how her actions are going to affect her in the real world. (Stronger Te is a lot better at this; look at John Smith for comparison.)
When she is forced into action or violence, she hesitates, feels overwhelmed, panics, or doesn’t know what to do. She insists she can ‘handle it,’ while handling it poorly. Because she has no ability to plan or execute safe investigations, Juliana just throws herself into dangerous situations all the time. She thinks she should help the Resistance, and gets a job in a government building, then goes snooping around where she doesn’t belong; she goes out to see her sister’s body; she baits the man chasing her; she assumes someone in a diner is her contact, with no proof.
Under stress, Juliana becomes more reactive, suspicious, and hesitant about what she is doing, but she never resorts to callous thinking.
The Enneagram 9
Julianna has survived in a dangerous place by being pleasant, accommodating, and doing whatever the Japanese tell her, including obeying all their rules. She does not like others to be angry or to escalate around her, and is apologetic. She wants things for herself, and is determined to get them, but doesn’t like to pressure others to go along with her; she just tells them “I am doing this,” with no expectation that they will support her or go along with her. (9s take up as little space as possible in others’ lives, and don’t assume anyone is going to help them along the way. They also forget to include others.)
She loses herself in the mission, in what others need, and in what needs to be done, which is discomforting for her. She has lived a fairly low-key, dull, and safe life until her sister’s murder in front of her wakes her up and causes her to realize that something has to change. She is compliant and agreeable at first, then later, quietly defiant and stubborn. Often, if others get upset around her, she tries to calm them down or will retreat to a corner to recover.
Many times, she trusts her intuition because she doesn’t have any evidence, but something “feels right.” As gut types, 9s do this; they trust themselves and follow their instincts, even if other (head) types don’t understand. Under stress, Juliana moves more into a 6ish distrust of others and waffling, but is rarely careful enough for the 6s around her to feel okay with her decisions.
The 1 Wing
Juliana is very principled in standing by her ethics; she won’t murder someone, and says that killing someone in self-defense was awful, and she doesn’t want to repeat it. She sees a clear line between defending oneself and killing someone who can’t defend themselves. The latter would be doing something wrong, so even when she has committed to it, she struggles to follow through on it.
Over time, she becomes more rigid in what she will or won’t go along with as she works for the Resistance. She also drifts into militant behavior by joining groups that defend or free people and fight against their oppressors.
Juliana feels a harmony with another 9w1, her Japanese boss. They both want peace and to find common ground, to be pleasant and untouched by cruelties, and not to be forced to do anything unpleasant.
Why is Juliana Crain Not an ENFP?
I felt indecisive about Juliana at first, because she has a lot of blind faith in where her decisions will lead her, and is proactive in making things happen around her, which usually is a trait of an extraverted heroine… but Juliana blocks her intuition and grasp of the bigger picture with her singular ethics.
She rules out possibilities and discussions she doesn’t want to have or that violate her principles, rather than to explore them on an intellectual level the way an ENFP heroine would. She always comes around to right/wrong; I will/won’t do this. Even when her decisions could hurt other people (which she feels guilty about), she doesn’t stop pursuing what feels “right” to her, which is Fi over Ne.
An ENFP would see the big picture and be less gullible about danger. She is shocked to come home and find Frank and his family have suffered on her behalf, and an ENFP would have thought about that, since they focus on the external world and are aware of how it works, more than on their internal need to know what the films mean. Juliana is driven by conviction rather than exploration. She does not brainstorm or second-guess, or revisit; she commits and follows through on whatever she sets her mind toward.
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