ESFJ 3w2 Characters
Gwendoline Cristie’s Larissa Weems, headmistress of Nevermore Academy in Netflix’s Wednesday, is a fascinating portrait of the ESFJ personality type with Enneagram 3w2 traits. Outwardly warm, professional, and invested in her students, Weems is determined to protect her school’s reputation and build bridges between the “outcasts” and “normies.” Yet beneath her carefully curated image lies insecurity, jealousy, and a relentless drive for recognition. She embodies the strengths and shadows of the ESFJ 3w2 archetype: supportive, ambitious, people-oriented, and willing to bend the truth if it means keeping up appearances.
Extraverted Feeling
Larissa when she pops up in season two is eager to see what the school will do to commemorate her, and is angry and disappointed that the new headmaster (“whom I didn’t select”) wants to erase all memories of her entirely, just because she “hired one bad teacher.” She enjoys telling Wednesday she won’t regain her psychic abilities until she reconnects with her mother, and that their unstable and tense relationship is the reason for her limitations in the first place. She grasps the complex emotional dynamics in play and knows that the only way to bring balance is for them to communicate with each other.
And that’s what she starts off doing with Wednesday when she first arrives at Nevermore: she encourages her to participate. In her tenure, Larissa is a skilled communicator who easily builds bridges between people and wants everyone on the same proverbial page. She does not like Wednesday’s defiant attitude, or her approach to investigating the series crimes happening around Nevermore, since it makes the school look bad.
Rather than isolate the students from the rest of society, Larissa wants them to integrate and make inroads into the normal community in an attempt to make everyone get along. She defends her decisions by insisting it is helping “us” and “we” are benefitting from it. She’s humiliated whenever Wednesday causes a public scene that results in the school looking bad, or sabotages how the locals feel about them. EFJs are community-oriented, and want to bring people to common ground, by identifying what’s the same about them rather than what is different, which is why Larissa encourages her students to associate with the non-freaks in town, to take part in community efforts and days, and feels upset when the melting of the statue results in “undoing” all her good work.
She is nice to people’s faces, even though behind the scenes she hates them, such as when she passive-aggressively rips Morticia’s page out of her school yearbook, but is polite and sugary when they meet in her office.
Introverted Sensing
Larissa wants to maintain a lot of the traditions of the school, while bringing in the outside world by allowing her students to spend time in town and take part in local events. She hopes to expand their influence, help them be seen less as “freaks and outcasts,” and to honor the past, but in Wednesday’s eyes, she is simply rewriting it and ignoring the horrific atrocities committed against the outcasts. She’s upset when the students accidentally damage school treasures like the missing journals of their founder, because to her, they represent a piece of the school’s long and important history; you can’t tell where you’re going and how much you’ve grown without remembering where you were.
Larissa hates the new principle’s behavior and approach to the school; she sees him as a trumped up carnival salesman rather than the dignified person the position demands. She did not vet him, and does not want him there, but can do nothing about it in her newfound role as a spirit guide.
She was jealous of Morticia during their years at school, in which Morticia beat her at everything, and stole Gomez’ attentions away from her, and holds onto this grudge, as if it happened yesterday and not decades ago. She expects Wednesday to be like both of her parents, and preemptively decides how to handle her (with a bit of prejudice), but she also knows that Morticia is a skilled Dove with positive visions, and that she can stop her daughter from making foolish mistakes. So, she enlists Morticia’s help in revealing the truth about the body switched students and in resolving the crisis with Tyler and his mother.
Extraverted Intuition
Larissa wants to expand into the community and move forward, but has no clear vision; instead, she sees opportunities based in the town’s established traditions (Si-Ne), such as volunteering them for Founder’s Day and inviting the students to perform music at the local festival. She hires a teacher who turns out to be a sociopath based on her credentials. Her decision to conceal the murder of a student leads to more murders, and inevitably, her own death when the Hyde and its master turns on her.
In season two, Larissa understands that Wednesday and her mother must work together to solve their problems and restore Wednesday’s psychic abilities. Much like Morticia, she senses that Wednesday’s recklessness will be her undoing and encourages caution rather than blindly going to the headstone and consulting with a ghost for help. She senses something is amiss with the new principle and accurately pegs him as a fraud, but does not carry the thought further or suspect him of nefarious aims, just being a hack.
Introverted Thinking
Larissa doesn’t like to separate her emotions from her judgments, or to question her own methods and motives. She finds it hurtful when others do not listen to her, refuse to play along with her, or won’t heed her warnings to be cautious. She does not question whether she should cover up a student’s murder, since she believes logically that it’s better not to panic the students than to reveal the truth and alienate them further in the eyes of the public. In that way, she’s unable to detach and be analytical.
The Enneagram 3
The first thought Larissa has upon returning as a spirit guide is excitement to see how they will commemorate her on the Day of the Dead. She looks forward to a painting on the wall, or a plaque, or even a shrine with little stuffed animals around it, because, after all, she gave her life to save the school. It shocks and irritates her to have all of her hard work and efforts diminished because of one mistake (which shouldn’t matter). But she also eagerly steps into the role as Wednesday’s spirit guide and takes it seriously, because every 3 feels better with a role to fill.
Wednesday accuses Larissa of caring only about protecting the school’s reputation, and not looking after its students, which offends her, because she sees them as connected. She has skillfully improved relations between town “normies” and the “freaks” in her school, to link them together and make everyone on both sides look good. She does not appreciate Wednesday making public scenes and destroying a town statue, because even if it is a lie, Wednesday has now made them all look bad.
Even though she hates Morticia, she is still civil to her, successfully covering up her feelings except for small, biting comments. Her desire to control public opinion means covering up a murder by taking on their form to stop tongues from wagging, and concealing all the information she knows about Hydes. 3s tend to cut corners, don’t mind “cheating” to get results (it seems rational to do so), and don’t see a problem with it, because it achieves their intended aim.
The 2 Wing
Larissa really does care about her students as much as she cares about their reputation. She wants them to be accepted, to find mental healing, and to be able to function in normal society while still using their gifts. She can sometimes be intrusive, forcing Wednesday into family therapy and inflicting curfews to keep the students safe. In her mind, it’s helpful to urge people in the way that they “should” go, that will be beneficial to them in the long term.
Because she sees herself as a good person, she looks down a bit on Morticia and her family for their unorthodox behaviors, and struggles to accept the fact that she made some mistakes while serving as the principle. She does not want to admit to being flawed.
A Fabulous Shape-Shifter
Because Larissa Weems is such a fabulous character, I was so upset at the end of season one… but season two brought her back to us, and in a fabulous way. I empathize with Larissa’s desire to bring normality to her students, and her need to always put on a polished presentation. But you can also see the deep resentments and wounds that are boiling in her blood, just under the surface. She resents Morticia for her family, her husband, and her popularity, and that bleeds into her treatment of Wednesday, who proves to be her intellectual foil in every sense of the word. As a personal aside, I love seeing Gwendoline Cristie embody this part. It’s glorious, and she’s absolutely exquisite in the part.
