Minerva McGonagall personality type: ISTJ

Minerva McGonagall’s first appearance is as a tabby cat sitting on a wall in Privet Drive, watching the Dursleys all day without moving. When Dumbledore finally arrives, she tells him plainly that leaving Harry with those people is a terrible idea. One chapter in, she has shown you her whole personality: patient, observant, and completely unafraid to disagree with her boss.

She is an ISTJ, a type that runs on precedent, standards and close attention to detail. She runs Transfiguration with exacting rules, remembers exactly who has been in trouble before, and takes fifty points each from Harry, Hermione and Neville for wandering the castle at night, her own house be hanged. In a crisis McGonagall gives orders, assigns jobs and expects them done. Underneath is a One with a Two wing. Ones live by an inner standard of right and wrong, and they are hardest on themselves. McGonagall stands up to Umbridge in front of the whole school, promises to help Harry become an Auror if it is the last thing she does, and takes four Stunning Spells to the chest trying to stop Ministry officials from seizing Hagrid. The Two wing keeps the strictness from turning cruel. She protects her students fiercely, even the ones she has just put in detention.

The softer side shows in deeds. She bends a firm rule in Harry’s first year to put a first-year on the Quidditch team, and she arranges a broom for him, because talent like that deserves a chance. Vague possibilities, on the other hand, get no patience at all. She calls Divination one of the most imprecise branches of magic, and she warns her class that Trelawney predicts a student’s death every single year. She hardly changes, and she does not need to. What changes is how much of her the books let you see. In Deathly Hallows she duels Snape until he escapes through a window, sends the castle’s statues and suits of armour marching out to defend the school, and admits she has always wanted to use that spell.

ESTJ is the main rival type, since she leads and gives orders so easily. It is close. I keep her as ISTJ because she prefers working inside her role and her classroom, and steps forward to take charge only when duty demands it.