If we’re going to talk about criminals, which I did with Baxter, then we’d better get to Bates. Actually, he commits no crime, but he does go to prison.
He’s difficult for me because his and Anna’s story is very soap opera. Like Sybil and Tom, some parts of their characters only exist to further plot tension. Finding the Enneagram requires extra digging.
He limps, the result of a war wound. Anyone can have an injury, but I want to say he’s a Body Type simply because he seems defined by it. I feel sure that the writers invented this character trait for dramatic purposes, but it becomes more than that. He spends one season using some newfangled corrective leg brace that tortures him.
Eight? He can be impetuous and intemperate about his first wife, which leads him into trouble. Also, Anna refuses to confide in him about her rape because she fears he’ll kill the man.
However . . . in the later seasons the limp is only incidental. We forget about it and so do the storylines. Nothing else about Bates is particularly physical. Okay, look. He can’t be a Heart Type; he has no Envy. He’s no Head Type; the life of the mind never influences him. He’s obviously not a One. That only leaves Eight or Nine.
Wow, is Bates a Null? He’s a kind of Eight/Nine amalgam. Sometimes he’s volatile, sometimes he’s easygoing. Sometimes he’s reactive, and sometimes he’s measured. He takes on an awful lot of conflict for a Nine, yet he doesn’t have the vibrancy of an Eight. Holy cow. No wonder his character bugs me, even though I couldn’t put my finger on why. Interesting.