Stephen Maturin

[Edmond Zedo]

Those looking for an INTP character to know are in luck.

I just started reading the "Master and Commander" series by Patrick O'Brian because I love the film. Maturin is Aubrey's friend and the ship's doctor. It didn't occur to me from the movie, but after reading it's clear, and watching it again was illuminating. I paid close attention. During a scene when the officers were dining, Jack toasts Lord Nelson, and Maturin doesn't participate. It's incredibly subtle, and beautiful. He's naive and hasn't balanced much toward "center", probably because of a rather sheltered academic life (Like many of you, in my opinion, and as I was several years ago).

[Edmond Zedo]

So, anyway. I read twice as much of Master & Commander, am halfway through now, and would bet everything I'm ever gonna have that Maturin is INTP. He's featured very heavily in the book, even in first person. By the way, it's amazing literature. Background for the following excerpt: Maturin met Aubrey at a concert, they became quick friends, Aubrey's ship needed a surgeon, and it's discovered Maturin is one. Here, after a few weeks at sea, they'd just gone through a vicious storm...

'...Stephen could see the colour of the petrel's dangling feet as it pattered across the Sophie's wake some twenty yards behind. "I remember the fact of extreme, prostrating terror," he said, keeping his eye on the tiny bird, "But the inward nation of the emotion now escapes me."
The man at the wheel and the quartermaster at the con exchanged a shocked glance.
"It is not unlike the case of a woman in childbirth,", went on Stephen, moving to the taffrail to keep the petrel in view and speaking rather more loudly. The man at the wheel and the quartermaster looked hastily away from one another: this was terrible--anybody might hear. The Sophie's surgeon, the opener (in broad daylight and upon the entranced maindeck) of the gunner's brainpan--Lazarus Day, as he was called now--was much prized, but there was no telling how far he might go in impropriety. "I remember an instance..."
"Sail ho!" cried the masthead, to the relief of all upon the Sophie's quarterdeck...'

O'Brian, the author, must be NT, probably INTP, to be so accurate. I even wonder about Jack Aubrey, the "lead". It's possible he's the more jaded and brash kind of INTP, which would make sense if O'Brian was the type and was creating characters with different sides of his own personality.

[Polystom]

Paul Bettany was just the man for Maturin. He does great work with everything he receives.

[ohnoaninfp]

He is also Irish. ;) The character I mean.

[Sally]

You SOB. (I'm not quite clear on obsenity guildelines in this thing - are there any?) I've been trolling your threads for the past... thirty seconds or so, and.... You Started a Post on Stephen Maturin??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I just finished the third book, myself. Now I'll actually have to go read what you said.

[Sally]

I concur with your diganosis of Stephen. Dunno about Jack, unless he's an expression of O'Brian's shadow: ESFJ. Perhaps it would take an ESFJ to judge. Stephen struck me as a sort of super INTP; his interests happily coincide with societal usefulness, and voila! He is good at everything he ought to be good at. Shooting, spying, languages, nerdy naturalist stuff... And then he has those few but sticky ideals that keep getting twinged by the hierarchy and hypocrisy of the navy.

Personally, I identified most with Diana. Her terror of emotional investment, anyway.

[Edmond Zedo]

After I finished M&C I didn't think Jack could be INTP too, but I'm not sure what he is. I've only just bought Post Captain, and haven't started to read it.