Throwing Light on Personalities and Daria

Years ago I worked for a game company that also published books. To help writers develop more lifelike and interesting characters, the editors recommended that writers take a look at a book on personality types that was popular at the time, called Please Understand Me. The book included a simple personality test, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), that sorted results by introversion vs. extroversion, thinking vs. feeling/emotional, and so on. The validity of the test in the real world is under question, but it certainly produces some interesting and useful results for fictional folk.

We can't administer the MBTI to Daria characters, but with some guesswork we can peg more than a few personalities in the series. I've mentioned Upchuck in a previous post, but here we will go after bigger fish: namely Daria and Jane. Let's cut to the chase and give you the personality types that each of them seems to be (to me, but feel free to argue it), with some reference links to give you a clearer idea of what the test result means. Take a minute to read the links and see if you agree with my assessment.

Daria Morgendorffer: INTJ

• http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html
• http://typelogic.com/intj.html
• http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/intj.htm

Jane Lane: ISFP

• http://www.personalitypage.com/ISFP.html
• http://typelogic.com/isfp.html
• http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/isfp.htm

Daria is an introverted thinker who relies on her intuition and likes closure. Jane is an emotional introverted sensualist who loves life's possibilities. Note that the links discuss what personality types these two are most likely to go after, too. More on this later, with guesswork on other characters and their personality types.

What do you think? Food for thought there? For those interested in checking out the original book at the local library, there's an updated version available. While you may not wish to take the test results too seriously for yourself, the book is an excellent thumbnail guide to personality types you can use in fanfiction, the Daria show being no exception.