Nicole Dormer is one of the most charismatic and unsettling figures in The Man in the High Castle, blending charm, ambition, and ideological influence into a powerful social force. Portrayed by Bella Heathcote, Nicole exemplifies the ENFJ personality type with an Enneagram 3w2 core. Her ability to shape narratives, influence others emotionally, and reinvent reality to fit a desired image makes her a compelling example of how persuasion and ambition can work hand in hand.
ENFJ 3w2 Characters
Why is Nicole Dormer from The Man in the High Castle an ENFJ? 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 Feeling
Nicole is an at-ease socialite from a group of “purebred” Germans from a breeding program, who sees Joe’s discomfort with the manner of his birth and introduces him to others like them, to ease him into feeling that being a bastard for the master race is a noble pursuit. She wants him to grasp that he is part of something bigger than himself and has a place among them, that when the right moment comes, they will be the generation that steps into the shoes of their parents and changes the future.
Unlike Joe, she is warm and likable, easily making friends and convincing others to give her what she wants. She sees herself as part of a collective and often speaks in “we” terms. She knows how to talk to people on different levels; she is respectful to John Smith and others in authority, sexy and flirtatious with those she wants to attract; but strong-willed and authoritative to those under her (“If I pan away from him, the Reich will have me shot” her camera man says, and she quips back, “If you don’t pan to the Smiths, I will have you shot”). She is constantly adjusting her behavior to match her audience, and changing her tone, demeanor, and messaging to produce a desired emotional response.
Nicole sees what others at Thomas Smith’s memorial do not, that this is a defining moment in history that could radicalize the Nazi Youth, if she focuses on the right story through her biography. She has specific ideas about how to influence other’s actions and set an emotional agenda for them to follow. When dissatisfied with footage of American Nazis breaking up the Abraham Lincoln memorial, Nicole gives them a rousing speech about how they are the future of the Reich and an inspiration to generations to come, which motivates them to give her the footage she needs. She thinks that tearing down the “history” of America will motivate the upcoming generation for the Reich.
Rather than expressing her authentic feelings, other than to tell others she is not interested in a meaningful relationship, Nicole focuses instead on the response she wants to elicit from them. Her inner feelings get suppressed, leading her to dip in and out of people’s lives without forming meaningful attachments.
Introverted Intuition
She expresses herself in abstract, intuitive terms, ranging from her conversations with Joe to telling him drugs are a “doorway into the subconscious.” She admits at one point she had a vision of kissing a skull; that is how her Ni transforms the news of her dead lover’s death into a personal symbol. Nicole also likes to control narratives and to change people’s thinking, to make them see their own situation in a different light, which is one of the core components of a Ni user. Finding a different angle on a situation, one no one else has thought of yet. She likes to transform events into symbols by using imagery to give them “weight.”
She disdains the past and how things used to be done, and focuses instead on how she wants to define the “new” Reich. How the future belongs to them, and one day, all the “old” people will be dead, paving the way for them to change the movement into whatever they want it be. On those terms, she has highly specific ideas on how to shape it around the Hitler Youth, by using Thomas’ sacrificial death to bring the emphasis onto the younger generation and to create a mass anti-American movement that involves tearing down symbols of what America used to stand for, such as the Statue of Liberty. Nicole wants to replace it with a symbol of the New Young Reich, of a boy and a girl carrying the Nazi flag.
When Joe mentions they already have a Nazi filmmaker as a reason she is irrelevant, Nicole dismisses her, saying the woman is 60 years old and “should retire.” She has better ideas, and her insights should be valued more than someone who is past her prime. And Nicole is correct in evaluating her own instincts; when at Thomas’s memorial, she knows, instinctively, to pan away from the person speaking to the Smith family and capture the crowd; a few seconds later, the audience stands up to “hail” Thomas’s sacrifice, enabling her to capture it on film.
She knows instantly with whom she wants a sexual relationship, and what it is meant for (temporary pleasure rather than long-term dalliances), since it symbolizes her own freedom to live the life she chooses, without being tied to any outdated model such as settling down with someone.
Nicole doesn’t just document reality; she actively reshapes it, embodying the very propaganda she creates.
Extraverted Sensing
Her openness to experiences leads Nicole to drive fast cars, to make instant friends, and to encourage them to dabble in hedonistic behavior. She takes Joe Blake away from a stuffy political function to introduce him to all her friends, who are doing drugs and sleeping together. She and Joe have a brief tryst in a hotel room a few episodes later. She seeks out these intense, hands-on situations intentionally, since she would rather be engaged with people and events than watch from a distance.
In season three, she shows up to New York, instantly becomes an important figure in the political scene, and starts aggressively dictating policies and shaping her film career around being hands-on with people. She tells the cameraman that she wants gritty angles, to look up at the people breaking apart statutes “in a heroic light,” and likes to be in the middle of intense situations (in crowds, up front with her camera).
Even though bisexuality is illegal in the Reich, Nicole flaunts her sexuality in public by being affectionate toward a married woman and seducing her into a relationship that she does not intend to be long-lasting. When the woman says she wants this to be permanent, Nicole scoffs at the notion, because this is detached, unemotional lovemaking, a temporary pleasure rather than anything sustainable. She views sex as an outlet rather than a way to forge an emotional connection. Nicole thinks she can handle every situation and manage the consequences, but is proven wrong when her behavior leads to her being sent to Germany.
Introverted Thinking
Nicole doesn’t question her own motivations or actions enough to make rational decisions; she assumes she can get away with “indecent behavior” because she has status, and that the ordinary rules do not apply to her. She accepts all of her thinking as self-evident truth, and uses questioning as a tool to influence others, rather than to critically tear apart her own assumptions. Her confidence in her own perspectives leads to blind spots, and her assumption that she is immune to the consequences of her behavior.
But she wants to “understand” what John Smith did, to inspire such devotion in his son, and her biography about Thomas becomes one about his father, too. She also asks Joe questions and challenges his thinking to comprehend what is going on inside his introverted feeling. She s dismissive of the emotions he is having, since they do not mesh with her own thinking.
The Enneagram 3
Where Joe is upset to find out that he is a bastard born through a breeding program, Nicole rebrands their origins by saying that they are the new and improved future of the Third Reich. She sees the positives in their situation and how they can use it to their advantage. She is confident, assertive, and competent, focused on being a brilliant biographer and filmmaker, with a clear vision of how she wants to frame situations. Her sense of identity is tied to how she is perceived and how she can control that narrative, rather than her birth.
Her ability to rewrite scenarios and create a story that people will respond to on an emotional level is a combination of her Fe (awareness of impact), Ni (everything is a narrative I can use) and 3 working in tandem (I can succeed by framing this in the way I want people to interpret it). She resists being vulnerable to maintain a polished, controlled, professional persona by avoiding situations that might expose her weakness such as romantic entanglements. When involved with partners, she remains detached. She doesn’t want messy relationships that could pry under her armor. She just wants to be desired without being compromised.
Nicole confidently walks into a man’s office and takes his job, with the full belief that she deserves it and can do it better than he could ever imagine.
The 2 Wing
When she meets Joe Blake, Nicole sees him as someone whom she can “help” find himself within the Reich. She introduces him to her friends and to drug drips, tells him not to take things so personally, inspires him to be patient, asks him to get along with his father, and paves the way for him to be successful. She feels uniquely qualified to help him, without ever becoming involved with him other than as a project or a brief sexual fling.
Nicole’s desire to “help” others is often entwined with guiding them toward agreeing with her own worldview. She wants to influence them in the right direction, according to her superego’s beliefs about what and who they “should” become. 2s are prone to should-based thinking and assume that everything they do is done with good intentions. Her warmth is genuine, but also selective, in that she only shines it on those whom she wants to influence; she can be brisk and dismissive with everyone else. She is proud to be someone others look to for leadership.
Because she thinks she is in the right and “important,” Nicole assumes she is except from the rules under which others live, showing a subtle streak of Pride that winds up backfiring on her, when her bisexuality is exposed and she is sent home to be “re-educated.”
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