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A Brief Note About Holmes
I've seen claims for Holmes as an INTJ, but I don't think this is the case. Without going into much
detail, he is a pretty clear NTP. He kept extremely irregular hours and his apartment was a mess;
the traits are both excellent indications of Perceiving. Many people argue that Holmes was a Sensor
because he "noticed details." But Rational clearly do notice details in their area of study—it would
be difficult to do many kinds of research if this were not the case. Furthermore, Watson, who was a
Sensor, did not notice the details that Holmes noticed.
Another argument against sensing is that Holmes has many trademark Rational traits. He
complained the lack of imagination that Scotland Yard showed (police are mostly SJ). 317 He
performed chemistry experiments in his home and wrote up monographs on abstruse topics. His
methods were unconventional. He sought novel, challenging problems rather than well paying
ones. He figured out cases in flashes of intuition. He was described over and over as being a
dispassionate thinking machine who existed for the life of the mind. So there's a pretty solid case
for NT and P. Essentially, the only question is whether he is an INTP or an ENTP—one could make
plausible arguments for both.
Generally speaking, the way Holmes speaks and acts marks him as an ENTP. He has acting talent;
a knack for manipulating people; he says twenty words for every one word that Watson gets in; he
processes ideas by talking them out with Watson; and he prefers to work with and live with a
companion. However, Doyle consistently insists that Holmes is an introvert (i.e. going days
without speaking, thinking things through in silence for hours, and supposedly choosing to lead a
"retiring" life—which as far as I can tell never actually happened.) So which is correct, the way
Holmes is shown to behave, or the way the author tells us that Holmes behaves? This is actually a
common writer's dilemma that boils down to "show vs. tell." For example, take this sentence: "The
dark, looming walls of the crumbling castle presented a cheerful, welcoming sight." In the first part
of the sentence, the author shows us a forbidding picture—then tells us that it's a happy scene.
Introverted detectives are something of a necessity because they don't spoil the story for readers by
telling everything that they've figured out. Thus, even if they are extraverts, they have to be a bit
introverted.
Because of the divide between author and character, I doubt it is possible to assign a single type to
Holmes. Modern retellers of the Holmes stories, however, tend to depict Holmes as an extravert,
and often a very clear one at that.
I rather like Holmes as an ENTP, if only because of the interesting dichotomy it creates between
him and Moriarty the INTJ. Their differing types makes them perfect foils for each other in much
the same way that Watson serves as a foil for Holmes.
317 Hennessy, 1999