SPN favorite episodes and typing
I meant to put this up ages ago when I did the lists for Buffy, Angel, and BSG, BUT!
Most-rewatched
S1: never did it for me. I've tried to sit through rewatches of S1 and the first half of S2, because I think the show had kind of a unique look at that point? Grainy shots, odd camera angles. But there's very little there there, except what I know see as some level of foreshadowing and groundwork for the stuff I do like. Mostly I just want to ruffle Sam's hair and give him a sippee cup of demon blood. IT'S OKAY, LITTLE BIG MAN. YOU'LL GET SOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SOON.
S2: HotH, Tall Tales. Tall Tales has some issues in the just..near-explicit rapiness of the frat guy's story, and the way in which it's played as being just as kooky as the rest of the episode. But the rest of it is so much fun! Also, a thing to rewatch in S2!
S3: Bad Day at Black Rock, Red Sky at Morning, Fresh Blood, Mystery Spot, LDC, Time Is on My Side ("IS THERE BELA? THEN I LOVE IT!" is my very sophisticated thought process on this one)
S4: UMMMM ALL OF IT?! Lazarus Rising, ItB/Metamorphosis, Yellow Fever, It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, Wishful Thinking, IKWYDLS, H&H, Sex & Violence, Death Takes a Holiday, Head of a Pin, The Monster at the End of this Book, the one with Adam, The Rapture.
S5: The End, Fallen Idols, Changing Channels, Sam Interrupted, Song Remains the Same, Hammer of the Gods, The Devil You Know
S6: ALL THE SOULLESS. Sometimes I skip Weekend at Bobby's but I've still seen it plenty of times for my bby. So, eps 1-10 + Unforgiven, And Then There Were None
S7: Meet the New Boss, Hello Cruel World, Shut Up, Dr. Phil, Slash Fiction, PPMM, Repo Man, Born-Again Identity, D&D Tattoo
S8: tougher to do because the whole season isn't available to be re-watched yet. BUT the episodes I couldn't get enough of when they were up for streaming were: Heartache, Hunteri Heroici, Citizen Fang, Torn and Frayed, LARP and the Real Girl, As Time Goes By (HENRY <3333), Remember the Titans, Pac Man Fever, Great Escapist, Sacrifice
None from S1, 2 from S2, 6 from S3, 14 from S4, 7 from S5, 11 from S6, 8 from S7, 10 from S8. Those numbers are actually reflective of how much I like the respective seasons. S4 is the clear favorite, with S6 and S8 in a respectable double-digit place. Middling numbers from 3/5/7. S1&2.....are alright too.
top 10% of episodes, as ordered as I can bring myself to make them:
Also, because it was fun to do for the TVD characters, I started thinking about the Myers-Briggs types of the Supernatural characters. Typing is a useful description for a small set of psychological tendencies, I wouldn't put this out as my #1 definitive statement on any of them, but it was a fun exercise that made a few things click. Based on the finest psych education that can be had from personalitypage.com and typelogic.com
Sam: INTP
Introverted Thinking: Sam's character is established with his impressive LSAT score, suggesting a high aptitude with formal logic. He moves on to learn other complex systems, becoming so proficient at research that he takes it upon himself to reconstruct the Men of Letters library. Though he's not quite as much of a whiz as Charlie, he has respectable hacking skills himself. His "anywhere but here" attitude toward his stifling home life home life leads back around to his Ti and its need for independence. Until an INTP's major principles are violated, or their autonomy severely threatened, they prefer their interactions with others to be very "live and let live." Due to the intellectual independence his Ti affords, Sam creates his own value system despite a great deal of pressure from his environment to conform, and one of his self-selected priorities is of the value of knowledge.
Ne: Sam is big on theoretical possibilities. The world could be improved if hunters would learn to chill out, if Lilith were dead, if someone could close the gates of Hell. In keeping with the Perceiving tendency, he does not respond well to foreclosing future possibilities, as John, Dean, and most recently Amelia find out when they use ultimatums in their attempts to push him into making long-term commitments.
As his strongest extraverted function, Sam tends to use his Ne socially as well as strategically. He connects with monsters and witnesses alike by finding and sharing analogous experiences of his own life (examples: Max in Nightmare, Madison in Heart, the young female witness in LDC).
INTPs enjoy knowledge, and are satisfied by personal feelings of competence, but do not necessarily feel the need to master a subject, not when there's a whole world of shiny new toys out there. Sam becomes as good at something as is useful for his goals, no more or less. Throughout the early seasons, Dean references Sam's many passing hobbies when they were young - theater, Mathletes, magic, soccer - Sam doesn't seem to have had any particular interest in these things, so much as, he just has a lot of curiosity generally.
Si: Weak Sensing, turned inward, can lead to the infamously disheveled INTP demeanor. Sam's unkempt hair and goofy clothes suggest that he's not particularly interested in his own appearance. (If anything, they're a subconscious choice to avoid looking impressive and intimidating, thus avoiding interpersonal conflict and entanglements which might impede his Ti preference and force him to prioritize the less-comfortable Fe.) Sam does have an excellent memory, though, so his use of his Sensing tends more toward memory of past experiences, supplementing his Ti with his existing databank of knowledge.
Fe: Though this function isn't particularly strong, it is extroverted, which means Sam is concerned about the emotional well-being of the people close to him, he just isn't always great at reading them - he’s quite compassionate, but not particularly empathetic. Sam's understanding of others tends to be rooted in his Ne observation and interpretation of patterns and parallels. As he tells Dean in the S3 episode Fresh Blood, his understanding of his brother is rooted in decades of deliberate, conscious observation (and even with all that painstaking effort, he frequently misreads Dean). His heartfelt outreach to Cas toward the end of S7 is well-intended, well-thought-out, and well wide of the mark as to how Cas is actually feeling. And when he’s without sufficient information for his Ne to go on, he has a pronounced tendency to trust the wrong people - Brady, Ruby, Samuel.
Externalized Feeling also means that Sam is really Not Good at dealing with his own shit. (OH, YOU THINK?) INTP feeling tends to be all or nothing, either overwhelming or deprioritized. Sam responds to intense emotional stress by the huge externalized bursts of anger we see throughout S5, attempts to numb himself through substance use, or through disconnecting entirely (what, you thought this wasn't going to be about Soulless? You're so weird). In order to avoid the landmine-littered Fe at a critical moment, INTPs attempt to circle back around to Ti and treat all problems to be solved logically, only the unacknowledged emotion remains strong and so distorts the logical reasoning, which then happens in an introverted echo chamber. S4 is perfect, is the point of this post.
(ed note: OKAY YES I OVERIDENTIFY BUT ~REASONS.)
Dean: ESFJ
Fe: Dean is, by nature, a people person who works hard and plays hard. In order to relax and recharge after a long day, he gravitates toward lively social areas like bars wherever feasible. He tends to make and keep contacts with other hunters or associates. Individuals with strong Fe tend to have a great read on the people around them, but with Feeling turned outward rather than inward, Dean doesn't have much awareness of his own desires and moral code.
Dean’s prominent Fe can be seen in his drive to do things for, about, and to his loved ones. Dean does what he decides others would want done, and then expects them to do the same for him in return. And in this, he's just not speaking the same language as any of his introverted associates.
Si: Strong Si creates a black-and-white value system. Unfortunately for Dean, this can often result in a clash with the communitarian impulses of the dominant Fe. Save Sam ("he's your brother!" is the priority of the Fe) or kill him (Si tells him "all demons must die!"). The interest in others caused by the dominant Fe, combined with the Si of data and expectations, makes the ESFJ individual highly invested in the roles people occupy. Dean places great weight in seniority, deferring wholly to John and expecting that deference in turn upon John's death. In contrast to his brother's weaker Si, Dean is highly image-conscious. He dresses to impress, if not with labels then with his powerful frame. Not for nothing is his alter ego Smith a man of surprisingly creative (Fe expressiveness) and tasteful (Si appropriateness) style.
Ne: Dean doesn't imagine and embrace real-world possibilities the way Sam does - he rarely depends on the tertiary Ne - but he enjoys possibilities of the imagination. Dean is well-read, loves movies, and seizes all kinds of opportunities to play pretend.
Ti: Under stress, Dean tends to both catastrophize and rationalize his sense of impending doom. ("I feel hurt by Sam, therefore Sam aggressively intended to hurt me, therefore Sam isn't really my brother, he probably never was, he isn't even entirely human, it's only logical that I feel hurt by Sam.")
I would stand behind my typing of either brother independently, but I think it's worth pointing out that Sam and Dean are totally opposites/counterparts, however you prefer to look at it. And I think this shows both why they can work together well (ie, Dean makes quick, useful judgments on witnesses, and Sam is just as adept at applying the information Dean is so good at getting), but also how they misunderstand each other. Dean underestimates the seriousness of Sam's shadow function outbursts, because he thinks of strong emotions as normal, while he mistrusts Sam's Ti because he associates it with stress and unproductivity; Sam isn't well-equipped to provide the level of emotional engagement Dean's strong Fe needs.
John: ISTJ
Si: John trusts only himself. John's main method of understanding the world around him is through experience and data. He works his way through cases by extrapolating from his own journal.
Te: Whatever else he might be, John is a doer. He fell into the hunting world knowing nothing, and figured out a way to cut it as a hunter. (Not so much as a parent, ofc, but he seems to have done okay for himself on the circuit, even without any pre-existing knowledge base.)
Fi: John's feelings seem to come pre-repressed, even well before the trauma of the pilot episode. He is terrible at expressing or demonstrating his love for his sons, and shows little understanding of either of them. His value system, unlike either of his Fe-using sons, is rooted in abstract, internal notions of right and wrong. Unsurprisingly, he becomes gloomy and fatalistic, insisting on a suicide run against Azazel so justice can be served.
Ne: John's ability to manage patterns and predictions is not well-developed. He tends to think in heavily-moralized stereotypes ("all monsters must die, including ghouls who aren't hurting anyone").
Cas: ISTJ. No need to re-invent the wheel on this one.
John and Cas are kind of a great study in how tendencies aren't determinative, but they are influential in who we bond with and how we interact with them. Dean’s all-or-nothing swings between “devotion and attachment” and “bitter disillusionment” toward Cas mimic those he still feels toward his father. Cas, like John before him, sees Dean as both a beloved charge and a precious weapon. Both characters experience a metaphysical, interdimensional “fall” for Dean. Sam has a strong and deeply complicated attachment to both of them, and oddly enough, John and Cas have remarkably similar reactions to Sam. Perhaps due to the tendencies toward black-and-white thinking of their dominant Si as supported by the weak and overgeneralized logic of their Ne, they are highly discomfited by his oddness and so allow themselves to be callously reckless about his well-being. They consistently act about him without his consent or even knowledge, whether those actions are in or against his best interests.
angels and demons:
Anna: INTJ. Anna fights off substantial coercion from Heaven to be an outside-the-box freethinker, first in embracing humanity and then in attempting to thwart the apocalypse (Ni). In pursuit of the ideals of her Ni, Anna is relentlessly efficient (Te). Anna’s value system focuses singularly on her internal moral code. She has little patience or consideration for others, particularly those who oppose or do not comprehend her mission (Fi). Though it’s not much of a motivation for her, Anna revels in the sensory pleasures her temporary humanity offers (Se).
Both Balthazar and Crowley fit the hedonistic, smooth-talking ESTP profile.
Ruby: ENFJ. As seen with her ability to bond with and mess with Sam, Ruby is an excellent reader and manipulator of emotions (Fe), which she uses in service to her idealistic freedom-fighting quest (Ni). She is a thrill-seeker who lives in the moment (tertiary Se), who seems to cope with worry about the future by convincing herself that Lucifer will save and protect her, and that she can ~logic Sam out of being pissed (inferior Ti). Incidentally, this personality type is an “Advisor” to ENTPs (Lucifer) and a “Pedagogue” to INTPs (Sam).
archangels:
Lucifer is an ENTP. Lucifer, as Sam's shadow self, shares all of Sam's cognitive functions, but he prioritizes them differently. Where Sam tends toward self-reflection and searches for stability, Lucifer turns his energies outward into the universe, aggressively attempting to change the will of God and be admired by all. Or narratively, the E/I difference is a regular "villains act/heroes react" contrast. Lucifer is more interested in setting things in motion than in understanding them for their own sake; he is better at understanding the motivations of others but consistently fails to learn from his mistakes.
I’m less sure about Michael, but what we do know of him, along with his similarities to Dean, his position as a counterpart to his brother, and the precedent set by Sam/Lucifer, suggests he’s an ISFJ. Michael shows a strong SJ preference toward order and heirarchy, but he prioritizes recreating the past (Si) over finding harmony in the present (Fe).
Gabriel: ESFP. As a "Performer," Gabriel revels in the moment and all its attendant pleasures (Se). Those pleasures include his pranks, which are also expressions of his warped vengeance-oriented value system (Fi). Gabriel avoids big decisions for as long as he can, though ultimately he can be trusted to take action (Te). He does not like the self-reflective place of the inferior Ni.
That leaves Raphael, about whom we know less, but I think we can take a stab based on her brothers' strengths and weaknesses. We have two dominant Sensors and one Intuitive, which are all information-gathering functions. Someone had to keep the whole celestial enterprise up and running with dominant Te. Between the two choices, I'd put Raphael with the ESTJs, the tough-minded guardians of tradition.
other humans:
Amelia: ISTP
Ti: Like Sam, Amelia is a thinker who has a tough time communicating those thoughts. She struggles to ask Sam to stay, although it's clearly the conclusion to which she hopes he'll come. She respects Sam's privacy, though, and his own need for the space to think things through.
Se: Amelia has a hedonistic streak, frequently indulging in the basic pleasures of food and drink. Her job at the animal hospital shows that she can act quickly and decisively in emergency situations.
Ni: Amelia makes "gut instinct" decisions - she admits fully that she has no reason to trust Sam, but she lets him into her life and happily settles down with him.
Fe: Amelia clearly cares deeply about the people in her life, but she struggles to express those feelings. ex: Her gesture with the birthday cake is sweet but insensitive, and she doesn't seem to pick up on Sam's distress over the whole thing.
I wasn't quite sure about this, because IMO she's meant to be representative of Sam's journey toward accepting himself, and so her Being Sam archetypally would've been cool. But I think this captures the character a little bit better, and she's still very similar to him, sharing those dominant and shadow functions. Anyway, I liked the idea of her being the anti-Ruby psychologically as much as she is narratively, so that tipped the scale.
Bobby: ISTP
Ti: Bobby has an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide. He likes to have a lot of space and autonomy in order to process. He's pretty hands-off and respectful of others' autonomy, though. Like the INTP pairup of Ti and Fe, Bobby takes a "live and let live" approach the vast majority of the time, but when there is a confrontation he doesn't handle it well.
Se: In hunter terms Bobby seems fairly even-keeled, but he's still a professional monster-chaser by choice, which suggests strong thrill-seeking tendencies. When he's not directly involved in the action, he's basically a freelance PI, a profession where ISTPs are common.
Ni: Tertiary Ni shows up as “gut instinct.” Bobby tends not to dwell on hypotheticals or get distracted by tangents.
Fe: Bobby cares deeply for those closest to him. However, being a Ti type, he doesn't have much confidence in his ability to get involved, which leads him to bottle things up until he's pressured to an outburst.
Charlie: ENFP. Charlie is a creative problem-solver who believes nothing is a puzzle she can’t solve, with a “spark” of insight that Dick acknowledges is literally irreplaceable (Ne). Charlie is generally cheerful and sociable. When her deeper emotions are brought to the surface, they are utterly (sometimes heartbreakingly) sincere. Her political ideals are very important to her (Fi). She’s extremely bright, and capable of using her intelligence to act on her Ne-curiosity, though not always great at predicting where it will take her (Te). Under stress, Charlie frequently tries to escape important truths, even such as the reality of monsters or her mother’s condition, but she never loses sight of them entirely (inferior Si).
Mary: ISFP (Note: I'm only counting appearances that are really Mary, and not "some demon/hallucination played by Samantha Smith.)
Mary lives by a strong internal values code, one which she has had to construct in extreme privacy (Fi). Mary lives in the moment. Kids raised by hunters are probably encouraged to sharpen their Se skills as much as possible, in order to be able to react to dangerous situations. Mary exhibits maybe too great an ability to live in the moment, when she puts Azazel's deal out of her head for as long as she can (Se). Mary makes big decisions on impulse and alone, as with her demon deal (Ni). When stressed, Mary acts quickly and decisively to save those around her (inferior Te).
WHAT DO WE THINK WHO'D I FORGET?!
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Most-rewatched
S1: never did it for me. I've tried to sit through rewatches of S1 and the first half of S2, because I think the show had kind of a unique look at that point? Grainy shots, odd camera angles. But there's very little there there, except what I know see as some level of foreshadowing and groundwork for the stuff I do like. Mostly I just want to ruffle Sam's hair and give him a sippee cup of demon blood. IT'S OKAY, LITTLE BIG MAN. YOU'LL GET SOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SOON.
S2: HotH, Tall Tales. Tall Tales has some issues in the just..near-explicit rapiness of the frat guy's story, and the way in which it's played as being just as kooky as the rest of the episode. But the rest of it is so much fun! Also, a thing to rewatch in S2!
S3: Bad Day at Black Rock, Red Sky at Morning, Fresh Blood, Mystery Spot, LDC, Time Is on My Side ("IS THERE BELA? THEN I LOVE IT!" is my very sophisticated thought process on this one)
S4: UMMMM ALL OF IT?! Lazarus Rising, ItB/Metamorphosis, Yellow Fever, It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, Wishful Thinking, IKWYDLS, H&H, Sex & Violence, Death Takes a Holiday, Head of a Pin, The Monster at the End of this Book, the one with Adam, The Rapture.
S5: The End, Fallen Idols, Changing Channels, Sam Interrupted, Song Remains the Same, Hammer of the Gods, The Devil You Know
S6: ALL THE SOULLESS. Sometimes I skip Weekend at Bobby's but I've still seen it plenty of times for my bby. So, eps 1-10 + Unforgiven, And Then There Were None
S7: Meet the New Boss, Hello Cruel World, Shut Up, Dr. Phil, Slash Fiction, PPMM, Repo Man, Born-Again Identity, D&D Tattoo
S8: tougher to do because the whole season isn't available to be re-watched yet. BUT the episodes I couldn't get enough of when they were up for streaming were: Heartache, Hunteri Heroici, Citizen Fang, Torn and Frayed, LARP and the Real Girl, As Time Goes By (HENRY <3333), Remember the Titans, Pac Man Fever, Great Escapist, Sacrifice
None from S1, 2 from S2, 6 from S3, 14 from S4, 7 from S5, 11 from S6, 8 from S7, 10 from S8. Those numbers are actually reflective of how much I like the respective seasons. S4 is the clear favorite, with S6 and S8 in a respectable double-digit place. Middling numbers from 3/5/7. S1&2.....are alright too.
top 10% of episodes, as ordered as I can bring myself to make them:
- Head of a Pin
- Levee
- Sacrifice
- Mystery Spot
- Changing Channels
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Hello, Cruel World
- It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
- The Man Who Would Be King
- Lucifer Rising
- The End
- In My Time of Dying
- Bad Day at Black Rock
- Torn & Frayed
- Dark Side of the Moon
- All Hell Breaks Loose 1
- The Monster at the End of This Book
Also, because it was fun to do for the TVD characters, I started thinking about the Myers-Briggs types of the Supernatural characters. Typing is a useful description for a small set of psychological tendencies, I wouldn't put this out as my #1 definitive statement on any of them, but it was a fun exercise that made a few things click. Based on the finest psych education that can be had from personalitypage.com and typelogic.com
Sam: INTP
Introverted Thinking: Sam's character is established with his impressive LSAT score, suggesting a high aptitude with formal logic. He moves on to learn other complex systems, becoming so proficient at research that he takes it upon himself to reconstruct the Men of Letters library. Though he's not quite as much of a whiz as Charlie, he has respectable hacking skills himself. His "anywhere but here" attitude toward his stifling home life home life leads back around to his Ti and its need for independence. Until an INTP's major principles are violated, or their autonomy severely threatened, they prefer their interactions with others to be very "live and let live." Due to the intellectual independence his Ti affords, Sam creates his own value system despite a great deal of pressure from his environment to conform, and one of his self-selected priorities is of the value of knowledge.
Ne: Sam is big on theoretical possibilities. The world could be improved if hunters would learn to chill out, if Lilith were dead, if someone could close the gates of Hell. In keeping with the Perceiving tendency, he does not respond well to foreclosing future possibilities, as John, Dean, and most recently Amelia find out when they use ultimatums in their attempts to push him into making long-term commitments.
As his strongest extraverted function, Sam tends to use his Ne socially as well as strategically. He connects with monsters and witnesses alike by finding and sharing analogous experiences of his own life (examples: Max in Nightmare, Madison in Heart, the young female witness in LDC).
INTPs enjoy knowledge, and are satisfied by personal feelings of competence, but do not necessarily feel the need to master a subject, not when there's a whole world of shiny new toys out there. Sam becomes as good at something as is useful for his goals, no more or less. Throughout the early seasons, Dean references Sam's many passing hobbies when they were young - theater, Mathletes, magic, soccer - Sam doesn't seem to have had any particular interest in these things, so much as, he just has a lot of curiosity generally.
Si: Weak Sensing, turned inward, can lead to the infamously disheveled INTP demeanor. Sam's unkempt hair and goofy clothes suggest that he's not particularly interested in his own appearance. (If anything, they're a subconscious choice to avoid looking impressive and intimidating, thus avoiding interpersonal conflict and entanglements which might impede his Ti preference and force him to prioritize the less-comfortable Fe.) Sam does have an excellent memory, though, so his use of his Sensing tends more toward memory of past experiences, supplementing his Ti with his existing databank of knowledge.
Fe: Though this function isn't particularly strong, it is extroverted, which means Sam is concerned about the emotional well-being of the people close to him, he just isn't always great at reading them - he’s quite compassionate, but not particularly empathetic. Sam's understanding of others tends to be rooted in his Ne observation and interpretation of patterns and parallels. As he tells Dean in the S3 episode Fresh Blood, his understanding of his brother is rooted in decades of deliberate, conscious observation (and even with all that painstaking effort, he frequently misreads Dean). His heartfelt outreach to Cas toward the end of S7 is well-intended, well-thought-out, and well wide of the mark as to how Cas is actually feeling. And when he’s without sufficient information for his Ne to go on, he has a pronounced tendency to trust the wrong people - Brady, Ruby, Samuel.
Externalized Feeling also means that Sam is really Not Good at dealing with his own shit. (OH, YOU THINK?) INTP feeling tends to be all or nothing, either overwhelming or deprioritized. Sam responds to intense emotional stress by the huge externalized bursts of anger we see throughout S5, attempts to numb himself through substance use, or through disconnecting entirely (what, you thought this wasn't going to be about Soulless? You're so weird). In order to avoid the landmine-littered Fe at a critical moment, INTPs attempt to circle back around to Ti and treat all problems to be solved logically, only the unacknowledged emotion remains strong and so distorts the logical reasoning, which then happens in an introverted echo chamber. S4 is perfect, is the point of this post.
(ed note: OKAY YES I OVERIDENTIFY BUT ~REASONS.)
Dean: ESFJ
Fe: Dean is, by nature, a people person who works hard and plays hard. In order to relax and recharge after a long day, he gravitates toward lively social areas like bars wherever feasible. He tends to make and keep contacts with other hunters or associates. Individuals with strong Fe tend to have a great read on the people around them, but with Feeling turned outward rather than inward, Dean doesn't have much awareness of his own desires and moral code.
Dean’s prominent Fe can be seen in his drive to do things for, about, and to his loved ones. Dean does what he decides others would want done, and then expects them to do the same for him in return. And in this, he's just not speaking the same language as any of his introverted associates.
Si: Strong Si creates a black-and-white value system. Unfortunately for Dean, this can often result in a clash with the communitarian impulses of the dominant Fe. Save Sam ("he's your brother!" is the priority of the Fe) or kill him (Si tells him "all demons must die!"). The interest in others caused by the dominant Fe, combined with the Si of data and expectations, makes the ESFJ individual highly invested in the roles people occupy. Dean places great weight in seniority, deferring wholly to John and expecting that deference in turn upon John's death. In contrast to his brother's weaker Si, Dean is highly image-conscious. He dresses to impress, if not with labels then with his powerful frame. Not for nothing is his alter ego Smith a man of surprisingly creative (Fe expressiveness) and tasteful (Si appropriateness) style.
Ne: Dean doesn't imagine and embrace real-world possibilities the way Sam does - he rarely depends on the tertiary Ne - but he enjoys possibilities of the imagination. Dean is well-read, loves movies, and seizes all kinds of opportunities to play pretend.
Ti: Under stress, Dean tends to both catastrophize and rationalize his sense of impending doom. ("I feel hurt by Sam, therefore Sam aggressively intended to hurt me, therefore Sam isn't really my brother, he probably never was, he isn't even entirely human, it's only logical that I feel hurt by Sam.")
I would stand behind my typing of either brother independently, but I think it's worth pointing out that Sam and Dean are totally opposites/counterparts, however you prefer to look at it. And I think this shows both why they can work together well (ie, Dean makes quick, useful judgments on witnesses, and Sam is just as adept at applying the information Dean is so good at getting), but also how they misunderstand each other. Dean underestimates the seriousness of Sam's shadow function outbursts, because he thinks of strong emotions as normal, while he mistrusts Sam's Ti because he associates it with stress and unproductivity; Sam isn't well-equipped to provide the level of emotional engagement Dean's strong Fe needs.
John: ISTJ
Si: John trusts only himself. John's main method of understanding the world around him is through experience and data. He works his way through cases by extrapolating from his own journal.
Te: Whatever else he might be, John is a doer. He fell into the hunting world knowing nothing, and figured out a way to cut it as a hunter. (Not so much as a parent, ofc, but he seems to have done okay for himself on the circuit, even without any pre-existing knowledge base.)
Fi: John's feelings seem to come pre-repressed, even well before the trauma of the pilot episode. He is terrible at expressing or demonstrating his love for his sons, and shows little understanding of either of them. His value system, unlike either of his Fe-using sons, is rooted in abstract, internal notions of right and wrong. Unsurprisingly, he becomes gloomy and fatalistic, insisting on a suicide run against Azazel so justice can be served.
Ne: John's ability to manage patterns and predictions is not well-developed. He tends to think in heavily-moralized stereotypes ("all monsters must die, including ghouls who aren't hurting anyone").
Cas: ISTJ. No need to re-invent the wheel on this one.
John and Cas are kind of a great study in how tendencies aren't determinative, but they are influential in who we bond with and how we interact with them. Dean’s all-or-nothing swings between “devotion and attachment” and “bitter disillusionment” toward Cas mimic those he still feels toward his father. Cas, like John before him, sees Dean as both a beloved charge and a precious weapon. Both characters experience a metaphysical, interdimensional “fall” for Dean. Sam has a strong and deeply complicated attachment to both of them, and oddly enough, John and Cas have remarkably similar reactions to Sam. Perhaps due to the tendencies toward black-and-white thinking of their dominant Si as supported by the weak and overgeneralized logic of their Ne, they are highly discomfited by his oddness and so allow themselves to be callously reckless about his well-being. They consistently act about him without his consent or even knowledge, whether those actions are in or against his best interests.
angels and demons:
Anna: INTJ. Anna fights off substantial coercion from Heaven to be an outside-the-box freethinker, first in embracing humanity and then in attempting to thwart the apocalypse (Ni). In pursuit of the ideals of her Ni, Anna is relentlessly efficient (Te). Anna’s value system focuses singularly on her internal moral code. She has little patience or consideration for others, particularly those who oppose or do not comprehend her mission (Fi). Though it’s not much of a motivation for her, Anna revels in the sensory pleasures her temporary humanity offers (Se).
Both Balthazar and Crowley fit the hedonistic, smooth-talking ESTP profile.
Ruby: ENFJ. As seen with her ability to bond with and mess with Sam, Ruby is an excellent reader and manipulator of emotions (Fe), which she uses in service to her idealistic freedom-fighting quest (Ni). She is a thrill-seeker who lives in the moment (tertiary Se), who seems to cope with worry about the future by convincing herself that Lucifer will save and protect her, and that she can ~logic Sam out of being pissed (inferior Ti). Incidentally, this personality type is an “Advisor” to ENTPs (Lucifer) and a “Pedagogue” to INTPs (Sam).
archangels:
Lucifer is an ENTP. Lucifer, as Sam's shadow self, shares all of Sam's cognitive functions, but he prioritizes them differently. Where Sam tends toward self-reflection and searches for stability, Lucifer turns his energies outward into the universe, aggressively attempting to change the will of God and be admired by all. Or narratively, the E/I difference is a regular "villains act/heroes react" contrast. Lucifer is more interested in setting things in motion than in understanding them for their own sake; he is better at understanding the motivations of others but consistently fails to learn from his mistakes.
I’m less sure about Michael, but what we do know of him, along with his similarities to Dean, his position as a counterpart to his brother, and the precedent set by Sam/Lucifer, suggests he’s an ISFJ. Michael shows a strong SJ preference toward order and heirarchy, but he prioritizes recreating the past (Si) over finding harmony in the present (Fe).
Gabriel: ESFP. As a "Performer," Gabriel revels in the moment and all its attendant pleasures (Se). Those pleasures include his pranks, which are also expressions of his warped vengeance-oriented value system (Fi). Gabriel avoids big decisions for as long as he can, though ultimately he can be trusted to take action (Te). He does not like the self-reflective place of the inferior Ni.
That leaves Raphael, about whom we know less, but I think we can take a stab based on her brothers' strengths and weaknesses. We have two dominant Sensors and one Intuitive, which are all information-gathering functions. Someone had to keep the whole celestial enterprise up and running with dominant Te. Between the two choices, I'd put Raphael with the ESTJs, the tough-minded guardians of tradition.
other humans:
Amelia: ISTP
Ti: Like Sam, Amelia is a thinker who has a tough time communicating those thoughts. She struggles to ask Sam to stay, although it's clearly the conclusion to which she hopes he'll come. She respects Sam's privacy, though, and his own need for the space to think things through.
Se: Amelia has a hedonistic streak, frequently indulging in the basic pleasures of food and drink. Her job at the animal hospital shows that she can act quickly and decisively in emergency situations.
Ni: Amelia makes "gut instinct" decisions - she admits fully that she has no reason to trust Sam, but she lets him into her life and happily settles down with him.
Fe: Amelia clearly cares deeply about the people in her life, but she struggles to express those feelings. ex: Her gesture with the birthday cake is sweet but insensitive, and she doesn't seem to pick up on Sam's distress over the whole thing.
I wasn't quite sure about this, because IMO she's meant to be representative of Sam's journey toward accepting himself, and so her Being Sam archetypally would've been cool. But I think this captures the character a little bit better, and she's still very similar to him, sharing those dominant and shadow functions. Anyway, I liked the idea of her being the anti-Ruby psychologically as much as she is narratively, so that tipped the scale.
Bobby: ISTP
Ti: Bobby has an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide. He likes to have a lot of space and autonomy in order to process. He's pretty hands-off and respectful of others' autonomy, though. Like the INTP pairup of Ti and Fe, Bobby takes a "live and let live" approach the vast majority of the time, but when there is a confrontation he doesn't handle it well.
Se: In hunter terms Bobby seems fairly even-keeled, but he's still a professional monster-chaser by choice, which suggests strong thrill-seeking tendencies. When he's not directly involved in the action, he's basically a freelance PI, a profession where ISTPs are common.
Ni: Tertiary Ni shows up as “gut instinct.” Bobby tends not to dwell on hypotheticals or get distracted by tangents.
Fe: Bobby cares deeply for those closest to him. However, being a Ti type, he doesn't have much confidence in his ability to get involved, which leads him to bottle things up until he's pressured to an outburst.
Charlie: ENFP. Charlie is a creative problem-solver who believes nothing is a puzzle she can’t solve, with a “spark” of insight that Dick acknowledges is literally irreplaceable (Ne). Charlie is generally cheerful and sociable. When her deeper emotions are brought to the surface, they are utterly (sometimes heartbreakingly) sincere. Her political ideals are very important to her (Fi). She’s extremely bright, and capable of using her intelligence to act on her Ne-curiosity, though not always great at predicting where it will take her (Te). Under stress, Charlie frequently tries to escape important truths, even such as the reality of monsters or her mother’s condition, but she never loses sight of them entirely (inferior Si).
Mary: ISFP (Note: I'm only counting appearances that are really Mary, and not "some demon/hallucination played by Samantha Smith.)
Mary lives by a strong internal values code, one which she has had to construct in extreme privacy (Fi). Mary lives in the moment. Kids raised by hunters are probably encouraged to sharpen their Se skills as much as possible, in order to be able to react to dangerous situations. Mary exhibits maybe too great an ability to live in the moment, when she puts Azazel's deal out of her head for as long as she can (Se). Mary makes big decisions on impulse and alone, as with her demon deal (Ni). When stressed, Mary acts quickly and decisively to save those around her (inferior Te).
WHAT DO WE THINK WHO'D I FORGET?!
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