“If I put an arrow through Loki’s eye socket, I’d sleep better, I s’pose.”
Hawkeye, the bow-wielding superassassin member of the Avengers, seems to fall somewhere between an Assertive Logistician (ISTJ-A) and an Assertive Virtuoso (ISTP-A) on the personality scale.
Despite being one of the longest-running characters in the Avengers comic books, Hawkeye (a.k.a. Clint Barton) hasn’t been given a lot of attention in Marvel’s Avengers-related movies. This makes it a little challenging to settle on his exact personality type. So let’s take a closer look.
Personality Analysis
Introverted, Observant, Thinking, and Assertive
First, the easy personality traits: Hawkeye is strongly Introverted, solidly grounded in the real world of an Observant personality, and a logical Thinking type. With an Assertive Identity, he doesn’t have a lot going on when it comes to inward-focused tension. He’s all about shooting things with arrows – so that about covers that.
Judging vs. Prospecting
Whether Hawkeye is truly a Judging type or a Prospecting type is a little harder to determine. Let’s break down his Tactics personality aspect.
When Clint Barton’s mind is taken over by the Mind Stone, he slips into something that looks a lot like a classic Logistician type. He becomes 100% focused on his objectives and nothing else. The Mind Stone, from a personality perspective, acts to amplify and twist aspects of personality. For Hawkeye, what we see might be the most extreme form that his personality can take. While under the stone’s influence, he acts most consistently like a Logistician.
In his regular mind-set, he doesn’t have an overarching purpose that he follows. Hawkeye views the Avengers more as a job than many of the other Avengers do. When he’s on the job, he executes his assignments with all the focus of a Judging type, but only on a task level. When he’s not on a mission, we would guess he spends his time putting together arrows. Then he practices with them a whole lot. We’re pretty sure there is nothing much beyond arrows and an occasional visit to his family for Hawkeye.
On any personality scale, no individual is purely one trait or another, and in some cases, individuals settle quite close to the center. That might be where Hawkeye ends up.
But let’s add in some seriously nerdy info before we settle on a final type. Hawkeye, in his comic book and graphic novel forms, tends to be depicted as a much more roguish character – perhaps more like a Prospecting Virtuoso. In fact, if you break out all the Avengers movie scenes with Hawkeye in them (you can find some compilations out there, such as this one), his pattern of somewhat quippish, offhanded behavior becomes much more obvious. (When he’s not under the influence of the Mind Stone, that is.)
It’s not an accident that he winds up on the rebellious, antiauthoritarian side in Captain America: Civil War. That is where he seems to naturally gravitate when left to his own devices.
Allying himself with groups like S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers provides him with an overall direction and purpose that he would otherwise lack. This again makes him seem a bit more like a Logistician, or it would if this were something organic to his personality. Instead, his alliances become good symbiotic relationships where he can put his whole arrow thing to use and appease his conscience for a while.
He may have a similar relationship with his wife. His home life has a more wholesome, stable Sentinel quality than what a spontaneous, boundary-pushing Explorer might have. That said, we have to guess he’s hardly ever there, and it may be his wife bringing that structure and order to his household when he is away. We hope to get a better look at Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame.
“You want me to slow him down, sir? Or are you sending in more guys for him to beat up?..
You better call it, Coulson, ’cause I’m starting to root for this guy.”
Conclusions
The truth is, we may not have seen enough of Hawkeye at this point to make a final judgement on his personality type. We will settle on him as an Assertive Logistician based more on his movie persona, but ultimately, he appears to be an Assertive Virtuoso based on his persona in other media forms and on some early reports of his behavior in Avengers: Endgame.
When typing fictional characters here at 16Personalities, the type we present is determined only by what we’ve seen of the character’s behavior and actions in the movies or books in which they appear. Ultimately, they are fictional and are used as a way to help others better understand aspects of personality type.
This personality typing is based on the character as portrayed in Marvel’s Thor, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers movies dating from 2011–2018, and in Matt Fraction’s graphic novel Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon, published by Marvel in 2013.
So, do you have your own thoughts about Clint Barton’s personality? Let us know in the comments below!
Further Reading
Okoye: Nobody’s Sidekick (Avengers Personality Series)
Doctor Strange: The Rational Mystic (Avengers Personality Series)