He’s the villain. He’s stingy, cross, and infirm. He’s ambitious. Without George he practically turns Bedford Falls into Vegas. He certainly fits a lot of tropes: greedy capitalist villain, angry physically-challenged villain, crotchety old man villain. If he had a mustache, he’d twirl it.
Underneath all of that stereotyping, do we have an Enneagram? When he realizes that Uncle Billy has left the bank deposit in the newspaper, does he have a brief moment, a flash, of sympathy? (Well, no. He takes an evil glee in knowing a secret.) When he and George are the only two to keep their heads during the bank run, he admires George as more than a competitor. And when he offers George a job, tempting him to sell the Savings and Loan for an easier life, isn’t he almost successful because he knows what pains George the most? Either he’s just the Devil, or he’s a man who has watched George over the years. Does he have — gasp — fatherly feelings toward George?
Let’s make some guesses. Potter physically declines with age, which in the most general and anecdotal way possible suggests a Head Type.
Five, Six, or Seven? Not a Six. He doesn’t seem to have a moral code, a black-and-white view of the world. He’s bad because he’s stingy and cheap, not because some great wrong offends him.
He’s a Five. A Five’s besetting sin is stinginess. They’re just knee-jerk that way. They’re also uncanny in their observation of others. Potter’s understanding of George, of what drives him and of what he fears, fits this. And the Bedford Falls he creates without George is just a mash-up of others’ vices. A Five would become overwhelmed with a bunch of competing desires and step away, letting everyone do as they want. As long as order was maintained a Five would turn hermit and escape.
Also, a Five’s social clumsiness can turn them into a curmudgeon. They want to be liked but other people are so baffling! Potter is a Five pushed to all the extremes.
