[ONE PIECE] The Personality of Monkey D. Luffy

over 3 years ago (Edited)

A commenter on Read.cash provided a stronger argument that Luffy is ENFP! I agreed with them. Leaving my post below unchanged for archive purposes:

Tl;Dr: Personality Type "ESFP: The Entertainer." For my reasoning, read on.

I loved watching ThoughtBubble's "The Personality Of..." video series, in which he analysis his favorite characters and decides which Personality Type they fit the most. If you're interested in Psychology his videos are amazing!

Earlier this year, I decided to do the same with my favorite characters but for some reason, I always had a priority to do something else. I'm using my #OnePiece1000 opportunity of celebrating Chapter 1000 of the Manga to write about Luffy's personality.

You can follow this article even if you don't know anything about personality types as I will explain everything I'm going to write!

New to ONE PIECE? Article Contains SPOILERS

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in Personality types and I didn't study Psychology. I just read too much about this topic! Don't take my analysis of Luffy personality so seriously.

Figuring Out Monkey D. Luffy's Personality

Luffy is a fun-loving person who acts in stupid ways and without thinking most of the time. Yet he's a loyal friend and one of the most charismatic people in ONE PIECE world. He has a simple world view and always finds the simplest solution to a problem. (Which most of the time, it amounts to "I'll beat up the strongest guy here, you do the rest.")

He does whatever he wants at the moment and doesn't plan ahead. Luffy knows that he lacks many qualities for his adventures so he surrounds himself with people who can help him achieve his dream.

Luffy is selfish. He doesn't limit himself to what is considered "good." He will only help you if he likes you personally. When you're one of his friends, though, he will die for you if he has to. They are part of his dream in the first place.

His dream to be The Pirate King in a way a manifestation of his ultimate goal: "To be the man with the most freedom in the world."

That's how I describe Luffy as a fan of the series, and now I'm going to use the MBTI system to put it in one of the personality types. (Although Luffy should be a personality type on his own since he's so unique.)

To do so we have to know what MBTI means:

What's 16 Personality Typing

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a test that helps to identify a person's personality type, strengths, and preferences. It uses self-reflection to put the person in one of 16 groups of personalities. Each personality type is named after four letters that show the person's preferences. The MBTI system goes much deeper, but we will only talk about surface-level stuff in this article.

You get to know your type by knowing the answer to these questions:

Where do you get your energy from? (Introvert/Extravert)
Which information you prefer to use? (Sensor/Intuitive)
What process do you use to make decisions? (Thinker/Feeler)
How do you deal with the world around you? (Judger/Perceiver)

While it may seem easy at first, every human has all the qualities listed above. His true self lies somewhere in the huge spectrum between them. Also, everyone has parts of their personality hidden from themselves. Knowing your real personality type takes a long time of self-reflection.

The system isn't perfect. You can only get an accurate result if you study the person for years. Some people can't be categorized in any MBTI type. You shouldn't act with people based solely on their personality types.

Still, MBTI types are useful despite the flaws. If you know your personality type, it could be used as a framework to decide some life decisions. It also reveals your inherent weakness that you need to work on improving about yourself.

Analyzing Luffy's Place in the Spectrum

While we can't ask Luffy to take the test, we have enough material from the manga with him that we can figure out where in each spectrum his personality is placed.

*Fun fact: Despite Luffy not having any thought bubble in the whole series, we know what he's thinking most of the time. Because he rarely hides how he truly feels.

- Where Does Luffy Get His Energy From?

One of the most obvious differentiators in Personality types is whether the person is mostly Introvert (I) or Extravert (E) with the former being classified as someone who gets tired quickly in a social situation while the Extravert gets his energy from being around people.

This has nothing to do with linking being around people or not. It's just how long you can handle being alone x how long you can handle socializing.

Luffy is definitely an Extravert. Not only he finds it easy and rewarding to make new friends, but he also goes out of his way to meet people and help them. His favorite activates always include his friends in it, and he seems the most tired when he's alone and has nothing fun to do.

The first letter of Luffy's personality is "E."

- How Does Luffy Process Information?

The second spectrum of MBTI personality type is whether the person is Intuitive (N) or Sensor (S.) Sensors focus on their five senses, they take the details that they can see, hear and touch and this is how they gather information. Intuitive people focus on patterns and symbols. They don't take what they're seeing as "it actually is" but as "what it means" to them.

All people can be both concrete and abstract but most people have a preference for one over the other.

Despite Luffy being an unusual person in how he processes his worldview, Luffy is most likely a Sensor. Luffy has a hard time with abstract thinking. While his world view itself is abstract. I believe he doe not abstract it more than that in his mind.

Luffy calls things as he sees them, and he doesn't think more than he needs to. Which leads to things like calling an Alligator "Mr. Banana." Like Sensors, Luffy prefers everything he does and says to have an effect on the world around him at the moment, which is evident even in his fighting style.

Luffy is the "enjoy the moment" type of person which is something more in common with Sensors than Intuitive personalities.

The second letter of Luffy's personality is "S."

- How Does Luffy Make Decisions?

What we call in the fandom "A Luffy moment," is actually the perfect example of "Feeler decision making" in action!

The third letter of personality types represents the preference in making decisions. The two types of personality when it comes to decision making are Thinking (T) and Feeling (F.) Each person has both of them but each personality type puts a bigger emphasis on one.

You can say that Thinkers would put more emphasis on the result of their actions, while Feelers will put more emphasis on the motive of their actions.

Luffy doesn't care about the consequence at all, which is evident when he punched a world noble, and in every battle with an arc's big bad. This an evidence of his lack of Thinker decision-making. This proves that Luffy is so high on the "F" side of the spectrum.

The third letter of Luffy's personality is "F."

- How does Luffy Interact With the World?

The two personality types when it comes to the outside world are Judgers (J) & Perceivers (P.) These doesn't mean that the person is judgmental or describe that he sees something. Judgers use mainly use their decision-making function to interact with the world, while Perceivers will use their information gathering function to interact with the world.

Judgers tend to prefer structures and plans to navigate their life, while perceivers are more spontaneous and prefer to leave their options open for as long as possible.

Luffy is without a doubt a Perceiver! He mainly uses his Sensing tendencies to interact with the world and strives to have the freedom to do what he wants when he wants them. He's so lacking in the Judging side of the spectrum that he refuses to follow a plan. Luffy always moves bases on instinct.

The final letter of Luffy's personality is "P."

ESFP: The Entertainer

With all these combined, I can't imagine Luffy being any personality other than ESFP. This personality type is widely called by the name: The Entertainer. According to 16 Personalities website:

If anyone is to be found spontaneously breaking into song and dance, it is the Entertainer personality type. Entertainers get caught up in the excitement of the moment and want everyone else to feel that way, too.

No other personality type is as generous with their time and energy as Entertainers when it comes to encouraging others, and no other personality type does it with such irresistible style.

Yup! That's Luffy!

The Future King of Pirates

Since Luffy is the captain of his crew, I looked up ESFP leadership. Reading that page is like reading about our favorite captain! Luffy is the type of leader who leads by example. I could say that Luffy embodies that type of leadership exactly!

One thing I want to mention. Luffy faces all the problems that come with being ESFP in the story, and admittedly he does a good job with most of them (while doing a bad job with other weak points of his.)

The biggest challenge Entertainers face is that they are often so focused on immediate pleasures that they neglect the duties and responsibilities that make those luxuries possible.

Luffy does make a lot of hard decisions that a leader should make but someone with his personality would never make without determination! One event that sticks to mind is abandoning Merry for the sake of his crew. Something he himself wouldn't be able to do if not for their sake.

What do you think?

That's what I have today... I hope you learned something from this. I learned a lot of things as I was researching/writing it myself! If you have any suggestions for an article about ONE PIECE please let me know.

This article is cross-published on Hive & Read.cash.