MBTI Type: ESTP
Bender is the ultimate opportunist; he’s pretending to be legless and blind when he notices the chance to woo a pretty girl and abandons his “post” to pursue her; he notices an empty bed in a hostel and charms his way into it; he senses something ‘amiss’ about the old man and sticks around to see what opportunities arise; he volunteers himself for many positions, plays many roles, and leaps on many opportunities (misleading the priest, pretending to be a government official, signing himself and his partner up as ‘actors’ to get close to the missing chairs, and pulling different cons) … all in pursuit of futuristic riches. His inferior Ni shows in his willingness to move on, when he sees there’s no profit to be had in seeking the jewels, but also his lack of attentiveness to future implications (he never thinks about what might happen if all his thieving, conning, etc., catches up with him!). He quietly, rationally takes each situation as it arises, with total confidence in himself in being able to figure out a way around or out of it; his decisions are all motivated through logic, and he becomes a bit impatient with his partner’s tendency toward intense emotions. Bender does not mind being false, misleading people, pretending to be someone he isn’t, reading them and playing off their insecurities, or calling upon their emotions in his cons (he’s very good at persuasion, at acting authoritative, at manipulating people, and at begging for their pity). He has an emotional breakdown at one point, when he becomes furious over someone criticizing his ‘begging’ as ‘lower class’ (“I’ve begged all my life!”) but overall he has a good-natured tone about his behavior, while not really caring that much for anyone other than how they can help him.
Enneagram: 7w8
Bender is ultimately a good-natured hedonist, who winds up kissing a married woman (that’s all right, until her husband comes home) and assumes he can talk his way out of any problem (and he does, for the most part). He ranges from being happy and positive to being infuriated, but usually falls back on the side of confidence, assuming things are going to work out in his favor, messing with people, and thinking carefully his way out of problems. Even when he gets disappointed and things don’t work out, Bender usually comes around to being cheerful again in short order. But his 8 wing does kick up now and again – he’s primarily invested in the chairs for his own profit, he can be quite cruel to his “business partner” (hitting him, shaming him, and yelling at him), and he does lose his temper from time to time. His line to 1 also comes out in how he criticizes his friend for his uncouth, rude, and piggish behavior in the food line.
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