Type and Archetype

 

Many years ago I developed what I called the Room with Four Views:

Later, I discovered that 

Ken Wilber's 4 Quadrant Model 

mapped to my Room With Four Views.

Then I discovered the works of Lenore Thomson, a noted Jungian author - she used the squaring of Introverted-Personal-Subjective and Extraverted-Collective-Objective to map them to Archetypes.

She then mapped these to Jungian Archetypes

And then mapped the Jungian Archetypes to the Tarot 

The following are the classic Jungian Mental Functions

I discovered that the Perception Mental Functions (Sensing and iNtuition, Introverted and Extraverted) map onto the four different kinds of Virtual Reality (as outlined in the Metaverse Roadmap):

An earlier draft of the Room with Four Views:

How many classes? Part Two

For the rest of this thought-experiment, we will be referring only to the Top 3 Archetypal Roles in the Beebe hierarchy. The following table presented, for context, is from The Type Decoder http://www.baapt.org/news/january-recap-mastering-the-subtle-balance

<final link tbd>:

Position	Archetype: emotional energy	Role
1st	Hero/heroine: strength & pride	Organizes adaptation, initiates individuation
2nd	Parent (father/mother): fostering & protecting	Provides a channel for contributing to the world
3rd	Eternal child: immaturity & play	Source of play, creativity, enjoyment, and vulnerability
4th	Anima/animus:embarrassment & idealization	Activates projections that become a gateway to the unconscious
5th	Opposing personality:frustration & challenge	Defends by negating, avoiding, seducing; self-critic
6th	Senex/witch:limit-setting & control	Defends by offending, belittling, inactivating; sets limits
7th	Trickster:manipulation & paradox	Mischievous; creates double binds, circumvents obstacles
8th	Demon/daimon:undermining & redemption	Undermines self and others; creates opportunities to develop integrity

In this part, we will be examining the 1^st Heroic Role, using STR Attribute as an example. Eventually I’ll get to the other 5 Attributes (after the holidays), and even further down the line, the six Attributes as seen in the 2^nd Parent and 3^rd Child Positions.

Also from the Type Decoder, a more detailed view of how the Heroic Role functions in Jungian Psychological Type theory (as your read this, substitute the words Mental Function for Attribute in your head):

Hero/heroine: first, dominant

Keywords: Strength (not STR!) & Pride

Role: Organizes adaptation, initiates individuation.

Descriptors:

• Acts with confidence having seemingly effortless energy
• Source of strength (not str!), courage, and pride
• Seeks acknowledgment and thrives on admiration
• May lead to a superiority complex

Role:

• The Mental Function in this position provides strength to engage and to persevere against the trials and tribulations of life. It is the anchor on which one depends. However, it can become inflated and lead to zealotry and hubris.

One tends to experience the Mental Function in this position as:

• Without flaws
• All-powerful
• Deserving of admiration

Use of the function in this position can lead one to:

• Desire recognition and admiration for it
• Rush to defend challenges to it
• Trust it when it should not be trusted

Traps or pitfalls of the function in this position:

• Projects superiority over others
• Demands its use be admired
• Leads to self-centered behavior
• Treated as if it is always correct

Development of the Mental Function in this position entails:

• Freely engaging it without fear of repercussion
• Recognizing its limits and respectfully questioning its work
• Allowing others to use this function, even if they do so poorly

<end quote>

For brevity, I will be picking and choosing which of the bullet points from the above exhaustive list of descriptions to apply to Attributes. It is unnecessary to provide an analogous answer to every point, and sometimes it’s inappropriate. As we continue describing through the Attributes, I’ll try to consistently pick the same bullet points, for consistency.

So first up, we have STRength in the Heroic Position, which we'll get to in Part Three.

How many classes? Part One

 Over the last two weeks, I've been steeped in Keith Amman's excellent 

AN EQUAL PORTION DEALT:  CULTURE IN CHARACTER CREATION

(I highly recommend it - it decouples the +2/+1 primary attributes from Race and couples it with one's Culture - something that DnDOne 5.5 appears to be implementing as well, through Backgrounds)

After devouring it, I went back and analyzed it utilizing Jungian psychological type as a lens (which is different than using Jungian Analysis on it!).  Eventually, I'll post a review with that analysis, BUT...

This led me to considering a completely different topic: the results of which are the thought experiment below.

Sort-Ranking the six classic Attribute scores of Dungeons and Dragons

Part One:  Jungian Psychology

In Jungian Psychology, there are two primary modes of operation, Perceiving (gathering information) and Judging (or reasoning).  We gather information (facts, recollections, theories, ideas, meanings), and then make decisions (analyze, synthesize, execute, evaluate, rank, sort) on said information.  

There are four distinct Perception Mental Functions, and four distinct Judgment Mental Functions, for a total of 8.

In classic Myers-Briggs theory (an application of Jung's theories), the rank-order of the first 2 of these 8 Mental Functions results in the classic 16 Psychological Types of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (2x2x2x2).  The first preferred function is called the Dominant, and the second preferred function is called the Auxiliary.

On a side-note, in the rules of Myers-Briggs, a person has one Perception (P) and one Judgment (J) Mental Function as their Primary and Secondary preferred functions.  The rules of which 2 of the 8 are the first and second are slightly complex, but we won't be applying those rules here, anyway (eventually, I might).  I provide this as a completist's side-note.

In Singer-Loomis theory, a different application of Jungian Psychological Type, any two Functions can be in the first and second position.  This combination results in a possible 30 distinct pairings of the top two Mental Functions (and 40,320 combinations if we rank all 8!).  It is a version of this theory that we will be using when analyzing DnD.

And lastly, according to John Beebe, a noted Jungian lecturer, the eight Mental Functions occupy different functional roles depending on the order in which they are ranked, described by the Jungian Archetypes, as seen by the chart below.

1	Dominant	Hero/Heroine
2	Auxiliary	Good Parent
3	Tertiary	Child/Puer/Puerella
4	Inferior	Anima/Animus
5	Opposing Personality	Shadow
6	Critic	Witch/Senex
7	Amateur	Trickster
8	Ineffable	Demon/Daimon

For our purposes we will be focusing on the top two (and later, top three) rankings.

First, we have the Dominant, or Heroic role.  This is the captain of one's arsenal of functions.  It is the first one we develop, we develop it well, and it gets the right of first refusal.

Second, we have the Auxiliary, or Good Parental role.  This role provides guidance, support, and advice to the Hero function and keeps it in check.  

Third, we have the Tertiary, or Child role.  The Child role is the source of novelty, exploration, raw talent and has a touches of the qualities of both "beginner's luck" and "out of the mouth of babes."  

So, let's apply the rank-order model of 8 Mental Functions of Jung to the 6 Attributes of Gygax.

In DnD, there are the Mental Attribute scores (Intelligence, Charisma, Wisdom) and the Physical Attribute scores (Strength, Dexterity and Constitution) for a total of 6.  

This arrangement results in three axis, mapped to Jung's Judgment and Perception:

Functions

Judgment : Perception

Attributes

Physical - Mental

Strength (Red) - Charisma (Green) - the Presence axis
Dexterity (Orange) - Intelligence (Blue) - the Mind-Body Connection axis
Constitution (Yellow) - Wisdom (Purple) - the Wholistic Will axis

Another way to group the Attributes is by 

• the Primary Colors - Substantive
•     Red - STR
•     Yellow - CON
•     Blue - INT
• the Secondary Colors - Temporal
•     Orange - DEX
•     Green - CHA
•     Purple - WIS

Overlaying these two groupings, counterclockwise we have

• STR - substantive presence - red - the immovable object or the unstoppable force
• DEX - temporal (mind-) body - orange - the self through time (and space)
• CON - substantive wholistic will - yellow - life force in existence
• CHA - temporal presence - green - the influence from/to time-space existence 
• INT - substantive mind (-body) - blue - knowledge of the structure of existence
• WIS - temporal wholistic will - purple - understanding of the eternal self and existence

Using the scores of the six Attributes, they can be sorted highest to lowest (1-6) and given Archetypal ranks corresponding to their position.

Our rules, modeled after various versions of Jungian typology:

1) Any Attribute can be in any position, with no repeats.

2) The Archetypal ranks are listed here:

• The 1st Attribute is the Heroic Archetype (the captain of the Psyche)
• The 2nd Attribute is the Parent (co-pilot and supporting the first).

This results in 30 distinct pair combinations (table at the end).

Additionally, to expand the table further, you can add

• The 3rd Attribute (the Tertiary, or Child)

 resulting in 120 possible combinations.

3) While a character may have tie scores in Attributes (for example, Str 17 and Dex 17), for Reasons, there can only be one Dominant/Auxiliary/Tertiary

4) Since there are only 6 Attributes, the top three can be considered the Conscious Attributes, and the lowest three will be considered the Unconscious Attributes.  (In Jung, it is the top and bottom four.)

Referring back to Ammann's An Equal Portion, he combines the +2/+1 Attribute bonuses to create 30 distinct Cultural backgrounds.  The +2 bonus in this case acts as the Dominant and the +1 is the Auxiliary (Hero and Parent).  Rather than the bonuses as below, we'll be looking at the total score.

	Primary (Hero) +2	Auxiliary (Parent) +1
1	1. Str	2. Dex
2	1. Str	3. Con
3	1. Str	4. Cha
4	1. Str	5. Int
5	1. Str	6. Wis
6	2. Dex	1. Str
7	2. Dex	3. Con
8	2. Dex	4. Cha
9	2. Dex	5. Int
10	2. Dex	6. Wis
11	3. Con	1. Str
12	3. Con	2. Dex
13	3. Con	4. Cha
14	3. Con	5. Int
15	3. Con	6. Wis
16	4. Cha	1. Str
17	4. Cha	2. Dex
18	4. Cha	3. Con
19	4. Cha	5. Int
20	4. Cha	6. Wis
21	5. Int	1. Str
22	5. Int	2. Dex
23	5. Int	3. Con
24	5. Int	4. Cha
25	5. Int	6. Wis
26	6. Wis	1. Str
27	6. Wis	2. Dex
28	6. Wis	3. Con
29	6. Wis	4. Cha
30	6. Wis	5. Int

In Part Two, we will be ranking the final scores of our Player Characters, (not the bonuses), to create 6, 30, and later 120, Character Archetypes.