John Kreese MBTI Personality Type
Personality
What personality type is John Kreese? John Kreese is an ESTJ personality type in MBTI, 8w7 - sx/sp - 836 in Enneagram, SCOEN in Big 5, SLE in Socionics.
I think Kreese is an aux-Si user rather than aux-Ni, 'cause of the way he uses his past experiences in the Vietnam war as a means to form his Karate teaching techniques. I'm not saying he is a Si just because he clings too much to his military past and of his traditionalist views of the world, since that kind of traumatizing experience helped to shape his personality, and it's normal for any type to keep remembering something when that something is a trauma (so, this could happen even to high Ni users, mainly ENTJs, in regard to inferior and ill developed Fi projection, and it is pretty common to mistake a high Ni user who clings too much to a past trauma for a Si user). But the thing is that Kreese does not cling to his past in Vietnam only as a traumatic experience, he analyzes his past through a variety of perspectives (Ne), separating the things that he deemed useful to him as he grew from the ones he found useless, as a means to detect the best way to proceed (Si) and create the most efficient defense and attack techniques to put the "enemy" down and win (Te). So, his thing is not simply Fi emotional/personal projection of values in situations of emotional tension (although he also projects his Fi twisted values into the students), but a structured and rational method based on comparisons of past experiences that considered the external knowledge rationally (external thinking) to find the best way of defeating the opponent. When he saw his method failing for the first time, after Johnny's defeat to Daniel, he got angry and attacked his own student, projecting his failure as a teacher into him (unhealthy dominant Te and ill developed inferior Fi), because he was too stuck into this method that he had created and that, too him, had no failure points, refusing to let it go and admit defeat. But after some time, as we've seen in Cobra Kai, as a way to survive 'cause of his terrible experiences living on the streets and everything else, he again analyzed his possibilities, choosing the best way to deal with things (tert-Ne and aux-Si in favor of dom-Te), such as using his badges of honor as a way to get into places and people's good side, using Johnny's soft spot for him as a parent figure (besides his debt to him as a teacher) to get a place to live, using Johnny's lack of information about renting places to ensure his space in Cobra Kai etc. This was not tert-Fe (ESTP) or aux-Ni (ENTJ)'s manipulation as some people had said, it was just dom-Te choosing the most effective way (by using Si-Ne knowledge) to ensure stability and self-protection. That's why I think he is ESTJ and don't see Ni as one of his main functions. Also every explanation that I've seen here talking about Ni were just stereotyped opinions based on the fact that he is smart and schemy, and not talking about the actual function. And although he could be a counterphobic 6, or a 6 disintegrating to an unhealthy and competitive 3, I'll go with enneagram 8 for now, 'cause of the way he were already into finding his own leading ways in Vietnam (when he was still to some extent shown as an emotionally healthy person and had no characteristics of a counterphobic 6), not so dependent of others, and kept this kind of personality after the trauma (now in a very unhealthy way), as shown in the show, by trying to take Cobra Kai's leadership back from Johnny, even after the later had helped him.
Biography
A Vietnam vet and original sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo, Kreese firmly believes in winning at all costs, espousing a "no mercy" philosophy through his dojo, and seeking to teach this attitude to all of his students, especially his prize pupil Johnny Lawrence. 34 years later, Kreese returns to the Valley after hearing that Johnny has resurrected Cobra Kai, reentering Johnny's life to bring the dojo back to its former glory.
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