Enneagram – Page 48 – Enneagram and Encaustic

BURKE, THREE

The weasel. The corporate man. The back-stabber.

He’s so compassionate, so helpful to the just-returned from hypersleep Ripley! What a prince. He’s so sympathetic to her struggles. He’s got the demeanor of a caring Heart Type.

The faker.

His focus on the financial bottom line could make him a One, but he doesn’t strike me as a Body Type. The way he tries to hide when the aliens are attacking, backing through a door and right into one, seems physically clumsy. The lack of situation awareness is pretty dense. He’s more of a stereotypical egghead who blunders into his death.

Head Type?

Not a Seven. A Seven would be in the lab with Bishop poking and prodding at the alien remains.

A Five or Six? His almost blase attitude about the dangers of this mission seem to completely rule out those numbers.

So, he really is a Heart. He’s not a Two. Not enough sincere compassion in him. And not a Four. A Four would definitely acknowledge the utter clusterage of this mission, regardless of ulterior motives. Again, we have Hudson playing that role for the cast.

An evil, mustache-twirling Three. All false face of concern, all behind-the-back plotting to screw you over if necessary. The kind of character you love to hate. Well done.

CORPORAL HICKS, NINE

Is Hicks onscreen long enough to establish an Enneagram number?

Well, he sleeps! This actually is a character trait, the ability to nod off during a tense drop. We know he’s an experienced soldier, but still not every number could do that. I want to guess a Nine right away.

He’s not a born leader. Corporal. He’s efficient and competent, reliable in a fight. More than a Private but not a Lieutenant. When he’s given command he can lead, but it’s not a position he seeks. Also, when Ripley wants instruction on the pulse rifle, Hicks gives simple, complete directions. He has the leadership skills, just not the ambition.

And he’s got the secret shotgun for “close encounters”. Not a rule follower.

Hudson, Bill Paxton’s wonderful character, is the movie’s Heart Type. Hicks is not. He’s not a Head Type, either. The sleeping, the ease, he must be a Body Type.

He’s not reactionary enough to be an Eight and he’s not zippy enough to be a One. A Nine it is.

BISHOP, NULL

Is Bishop kind because his robot model is no longer “twitchy”, or is that a key character trait? He is programmed to do no harm. My first instinct is that, unlike Ash, Bishop may have no Enneagram.

He’s played very deadpan, very bland. When he does the knife trick on Hudson, he seems disengaged from emotion. Even the little smile he gives is more of a robot’s reaction to human cues.

In the lab he’s as blank-faced as he can be. Now, obviously, this is to create tension for the audience. We know what the last robot did. Nothing seems to be happening behind that stare, though. Later we see how mild he is, how helpful. He follows Company rules as Ash did, but only up to a certain point when his robot protocol takes over. He cannot harm humans, and that’s that.

It’s his helpfulness that leads me to say he has no Enneagram. Every number can be helpful but the intentions behind it vary. I see no intention in Bishop. Only programming.

This is no way diminishes the performance or the writing. Bishop is a valid character choice told well. I would guess that playing no Enneagram is actually quite challenging. Good job there.

The more I think about it, the more impressed I am. A tour de force.

ASH, FOUR

So, does Ash have an Enneagram, or is he just a Robot? And is the reworking of the Robot into Bishop in the second Alien movie a reflection of an Ash character, or just a clever trope undermine?

He’s a synthetic life form. In some ways, asking if Ash has an Enneagram is like asking if the propulsion system has one. He is programmed to follow orders and he doesn’t deviate.

Is his sneakiness a character trait or just part of his mission? This is a horror movie, ultimately, and Ian Holm must give us the squeaks in the seats. His menace goes with the genre.

He seems awfully protective of his mission, though. He seems to relish his special access to Mother, as if he’s more important than the others.

He’s an Envy person!

His camaraderie is false, which we only learn later. These traits are not necessary for a Robot. Ash could have done his job with a much blander personality.

Relish. What a great word for him. Yes, he’s a science machine studying the xenomorph, but his true job is as a Company Man. If a character seems like one archetype yet evolves into another, you have an Enneagram, baby.

Not a Two. He inflicts pain with no remorse. Not a Three. If he were, the science and discovery — his actual job — would sway him more. He’s here for the drama. Four.

ALIEN COMPANIONS, NULL

Like the Wizard of Oz companions, the characters in the first Alien movie are more archetypes than individuals with Enneagrams.

Dallas is the Diplomat, Lambert is the Nervous One, Brett is the Working Man, Parker is the Tough One, and Kane is the Sacrifice. Ripley, the Survivor, only becomes something more because James Cameron writes her into a sequel. He brilliantly takes her archetype and fleshes it into a true character.

This kind of storytelling — driven by atmosphere and feelings, plot and reveal — appeals to some people. Other people prefer that a protagonist’s arc provide the backbone. However, if you like the movie with archetypes, this one is a great one. The setting, the mise en scène, has become part of our cultural language.

Except for Ash, whom I will talk about in another post, this lovely film mostly bypasses the Enneagram personalities.

ELLEN RIPLEY, SIX

She’s one of the greatest heroines ever put on film. Strong and vulnerable, active and contemplative, she’s encompasses everything we’d all want to be if thrown in the same situation. So, what’s Ripley’s Enneagram number?

Just the first two movies, though. Her character is consistent within that parameter.

She’s a BIG rule follower. If the Nostromo had listened to her about quarantine the movies wouldn’t even exist. She’s very frustrated with The Company for looking the other way about the xenomorph in order to pursue profit. Justice. Ripley wants it.

She doesn’t particularly strike me as a Body Type. Hicks trains her in the pulse rifle, and she learns well, but physical battle is not her go-to intuition. I’m going to say no to the Heart Type, too. Ripley cares deeply about people, but emotion is not a moving force for her. She’s fairly disengaged.

Head Type.

Sigourney Weaver is a specific build — tall, slender. None of these traits match a Woman Head Type, so it’s difficult to pinpoint which Ripley is. Five, Six, or Seven? All of these are average height or shorter in real life.

Ah. Six. I want to say Six because of the justice trait, but it’s actually the fear trait that gives the clue. Anyone could and would be afraid to return to xenomorph country, but for a delicious plot and character arc a writer needs to make their heroine confront the thing she least wants to do. A Six, of all the Head Types, will be impacted by fear and worry. Getting Ripley back into space is one of the great plot turns. It’s what makes her arc so wonderful, and what gives Weaver so much to play.

It’s also a bit of an anti-action hero Enneagram choice. Good stuff.

FRANK COSTANZA, EIGHT

Because Jerry Stiller, the actor who gave George’s dad his vivacity, recently passed, I wanted to include his character in the Seinfeld Enneagram study.

I immediately jump to Eight. That loud, instant reaction he does!

And, like most of us, the mansierre burns in my brain when I think of Frank. It just seems like only a Man Eight would have the barrel chest that needs restraining. Gosh, it makes me laugh. And Festivus! Who but an Eight would want feats of strength and the airing of grievances? It really is perfectly, succinctly funny.

As with the other characters, this one’s number is pushed to the extreme. Real life Eights will not engage so brutally and vociferously with others. That’s what makes the humor. He’s a pleasure to watch. Also, a little bit of a wince. Genius.

ELAINE BENES, FOUR

Another envy type in the Seinfeld pantheon. Except for Jerry, they’re all Heart Types! Very interesting.

If that’s so, is Elaine’s Enneagram number a Two, Three, or Four?

Not a Three. Heh. Definitely not. She’s a train wreck. No Three would be so incompetent, so constantly humiliated by life.

Not a Two. She’s not charitable enough. Again, it’s quite funny. Like George, she’s locked into a bit of a “worst trait” syndrome in service to the humor.

So, a Four. She does feel the highs and lows. She does have a moderately successful career, but not overwhelmingly so. Her relationship with Jerry is solidly now in the friend zone but it didn’t start that way. It’s interesting and ironic that a Nine (Jerry) seeking a companion would start with the female Four and end up at the male Four (George). It’s very Nine-ish for Jerry to choose the Four with the lesser impact on his own feelings and expression.

The actors have done a good job at differentiating the dueling Fours in the show, but sometimes Elaine feels like a duplicate. Socially, she operates at a much higher level than George. She’s functional. Still, though, like George she’s challenged by romance, work, and socially appropriate behavior. My favorite storyline for her is the time she worked for J. Peterman. When she wrote catalog copy for the odd items, she followed a plot that could only belong to Elaine.

GEORGE COSTANZA, FOUR

Drama, envy, lies. George swims in the worst traits of whatever his Enneagram number may be. He’s an exaggeration in service to humor, but we still should be able to pinpoint him.

Everything about him screams Heart Type. The envy, which no real life person would exhibit in such detail, defines him. So, Two, Three, or Four?

He’s no Two. He’s not nice enough, frankly. The world is an aggravation to him, not a treasure to unlock.

A Three? He’s an anti-Three, a Bizarro Three, which may, hilariously, be the point. He succeeds at nothing. He’s disliked by almost everyone. He fails so often that he lives in total bitterness. Yet, as a humorous character, he’s adored. He’s a meme king. Is it possible to create an opposite Enneagram? Fascinating.

However, a Four seems most likely. The drama. The highs and lows. George lives at the extremes. The actor works against this. He is not tall and lean, so his real life body doesn’t suggest a Man Four.

I also like George as a Four if Jerry is a Nine. A Nine loves to have a Four around to exhibit all the feelings that a Nine won’t show.

But, man, I’m tempted by that Three call.

JERRY SEINFELD, NINE

Obviously I refer to the character, who may be very similar to the real life Seinfeld, but that is not something we can definitively know. We can discover the Enneagram number of the version of Jerry presented in the TV series, though, so off we go.

He’s incredibly picky, almost phobically so. It’s part of the humor. He’s in the Felix Unger (from “The Odd Couple”) realm of personalities. Jerry’s tidiness initiates or sustains many plotlines.

Wit, clearly. Sharp, quick thinking, and a willingness to say brisk or insulting things if it’s funny.

I’m leaning toward a One so far. But is Jerry a Body Type? Not really. Running a race and winning by cheating is an episode that defines Jerry as non-athletic.

He has a very strange group of friends, particularly Kramer, and yet he is peaceful around them. Their weirdness is comforting to him, I believe. Yes, this is a structure of the humor, but it’s what we have as a tool for judging his Enneagram.

Is this Six-ish? When a Six has decided on something, like who is his friend, he is unwavering afterwards. But is Jerry a Head Type? His comedy and his interests lie more in the social realm. I would guess him to be a Heart Type.

Two, Three, or Four? Not a Two. He’s too fastidious. He’s very successful and life is fairly easy for him. Very Three-like. Although the real life Jerry is not built like a Four, fictional Jerry is very dramatic. And that wit. Tough call.

And yet, after saying all this, I keep coming back to a Nine. It’s the diplomacy angle. The juggling of strange friends, the calm that Jerry mostly carries around, the humor that digs into human foibles. Jerry really doesn’t seem like a Body Type, but something about his social life feels like a Nine. Read the Elaine and George pages for more perspective. They are in his orbit.

They feel, they fail, in ways that he cannot. It’s the kind of symbiotic relationship in which a Nine thrives.