Myers-Briggs personality types -- and quiz

[Arcadia]

Fitting for mine!

 

 

Intrinsic? How can someone be intrinsic? I'll take the INTP on this one, I like the sound of it better. :P

 

RE: least favorite things ... all of those describe me.

 

RE: purity ... what!?!!???!!! How dare they! I am as pure as the driven snow!

 

Nope. I'm, ahem, more complicated than any of these.

 

INTP, definitely. The stammering kind.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Intrinsic, I don't know more than you! I only know that word being used to differentiate money value, which doesn't help.

So I just consider it as essential, integral which probably applies to the purpose of doing things instead of the person itself.

 

Oh, I don't agree on the last one. Yes, I'm charmed by intelligence, but I compliment not for flirting.

The way I flirt is to ignore that person and make them think I hate them/don't know their existence. It's lousy and send opposite message (YOU THINK?!? :P)

Crappiest flirt, not denying. Worse than stammering or puns.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

What..why?

I was trying to give soothing advice. :p

 

 

Okay, I have two for the topic.

Agree with your type?

Me, of course. Otherwise I don't post them without decorating it with swears and curses. :p

 

 

Sorry, definitely more afraid of spiders than the uniqueness issue. Also, I am very emotional so not offended by being labeled a baby even though I don't consider myself one.

 

Fitting for mine!

 

 

 

Share the evilness? :p

 

You sure you don't want to be Peter Parker?

https://s12.postimg.org/qxfvhx8v1/images-151.jpg

Wait.. Peter Parker is brilliant but lazy. ~Dr.Octopus

 

 

Wait, I think you are INTP.

https://s2.postimg.org/sk6003jk9/images-55.jpg

 

My theory is you love puns but pretend not to.

(And don't say the opposite that this basically seals that you are not!) Nyah nyah.

While I lean INFP, the INTP also fits me well in the 1st, 3rd, & 4th images. And toss in some ISFP in the 2nd one along with the INFP. Of course I wouldn't fit into 1 area. Go figure.

[Shadow Dweller]

Some people call this particular system as fraud, a complete lie etc but for me it is useful to understand some of the idiosyncrasies of people in general. This time it is an ISTJ woman (yeah, I know at least one ISTJ woman here and I actually respect her), self-tested several times but I don't know the percentages. Sensors according to the MBTI classification system were moulded by their environment. If they grew up in a good one then they will adopt the value and be truly pillars of the society. However, if they grew up in an environment where there are plenty of bad examples then they have big chance to absorb and mimic the behaviours and mindset. This time it is my own sibling. She is bossy, loves to impose 'order' (which is actually her own version for it and according to my standard is idiotic and ineffective to deal with the actual problems), dumb but hates to learn and expand her horizon unless being prodded with the tip of sword called life's necessities, loves to try to control her surrounding (crazy, the only thing we can truly control is ourselves), and ego-driven most of the time. What is the female equivalent of the Peter Pan Syndrome? Because at the past she had several times expressed her wish that she is still a child. Childhood is not something I prefers to repeat unless I can bring the current mindset and abilities with me, it is the period where I am most vulnerable to the whims of my nuclear family, the period when I am most helpless on the face of their physical, mental and psychological abuses. I loathes that period in my life, at least now as an adult I can decide how I would like to live and away from their clutches. No, I don't have intention to help my sister, the way that spoiled brat treated me for years already ensured that I would watch her sink without lifting a finger at all. I envy people with family who did not treat them like freak who needs to be forced to fit the cookie-cutter ideal of how people should lead their life. I think after all of that that the most important lesson I need to learn in life, which I never get from my own biological family, is kindness and compassion. I saw them doing things that might look kind and good to outsider but actually was driven by their own need for gratitude. I saw how they reacted when the expected gratitude didn't came. Like it or not it shaped my view of the world. I am a blend of cynical and idealist most of the time.

[Artemis]

Yes, so much this.

I wish I could have this on a t-shirt or something.  Everyone thinks I'm argumentative because I question things; I don't argue for the sake of it, I'm trying to learn, to make sense of their logic and understand their perspective.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

That may be generic INT.  I'm definitely an INTP.  I'm well aware of the P/J difference, because Alex is definitely an INTJ.  And I do that ^ thing *way* more than he does.  In fact, when I do it, he thinks I'm arguing.

[T.o.b.y]

Oh gosh, yes, my husband does that too. It drives me up the wall sometimes. I definitely think of him as more P than J though in general. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Are you saying that he thinks you're arguing?

Because if you mean that he keeps asking for clarification and it sounds to you like he's arguing, we could trade husbands.  Problem solved!

[Hikari]

Apologies if something like this has been posted earlier but I don't feel like wading back 38 pages to 2014  . .  but the obvious question for this community is . . Sherlock Holmes:  What is his MBTI profile?

I found a website devoted to typology in the MBTI and one poster has reached his own conclusions about the Canonical characters and also their various recent visual medium interpreters.

https://www.typologycentral.com/forums/popular-culture-and-type/61582-sherlock-holmes-watsons-mbti-types.html

He types Holmes as an INTP, and Brother Mycroft as well. 

He types Watson as ISFP, saying a 'J' would be more careful with his money.  I get the 'Sensing' and the 'Feeling' parts; however, I do not regard Watson as an 'I'.  'Three Continents' must surely place as an 'E', with his love life and 'hail fellow well met' demeanor generally . . his attendance at his clubs and the relative ease in which he makes people like him.  The fact that he has few friends, rarely goes out and is suffering a depression of spirits when we first meet him is due to the severe trauma he has experienced in war, both physical and emotional.  If he has few friends when returning to London, it's because all of his friends are still on active service in Afghanistan or else, dead.  I call Watson as an ESFJ, though he is a mild Extrovert who is capable of being happily ensconced in a flat with one person.  But he often leaves the flat to seek out the social company of others--Sherlock only leaves the flat for a case, or for a day out with his Person--Watson.  If we make him an ESFJ, then he is effectively the diametric temperamental opposite to Holmes in every respect, which is really the point of Dr. Watson--to be a perfect counterpoint to his illustrious friend.

Besides, I'm a 'J' and I have credit card balances, so  . . .

[Hikari]

Here's another person's take. 

*******

Books: Sherlock INTP
Watson ESFJ
Mycroft INTP
Moriarty INTJ

Brett tv series: Sherlock ENTP
Watson ISFJ
Mycroft INTP
Moriarty INTJ

Guy Richie movie: Sherlock INTP intended - ENTP played by RDJ
Watson ISTJ
Mycroft INTP
Moriarty INTJ

Sherlock BBC: Sherlock INTP
Watson INFJ or ISFJ not sure
Mycroft ISTJ
Moriarty ENTP

Elementary CBS: Sherlock ENTP
Watson INFJ
Moriarty ENTJ

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I can see Watson as what’s referred to as an outgoing introvert. They appear to be extroverted but actually aren’t. They have the potential to make friends easily but only need a few instead of the many that gets associated with an extrovert. Being three continents would still be highly plausible with this type of introvert.

[Carol the Dabbler]

@Camper, I think I agree with you about the original Watson being an outgoing introvert.  That would make a lot of sense for a general practitioner -- he needs to have a good "bedside manner" with his patients, yet maintain a professional detachment.  He's their doctor, not their friend.

However, I must (once more) state that the whole "three continents" thing seems to have been blown out of proportion.  What Watson actually says (regarding Mary Morstan in "Sign of the Four") is "In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature."  That is the one quote that everyone holds up as evidence -- nay, as proof! -- that Watson was a playboy, and yet it says nothing of the kind.  The "three continents" surely refers to his experience as a military doctor, during which time he must have worked with any number of nurses, both in his professional capacity and (after his injury) as a patient.  He presumably also spent some time out and about in town, and thus met some of the local women in the markets, and may even have treated a few of them in the military hospital.

While it is, of course, entirely possible that he also availed himself of some rather more personal services, there is no evidence of it -- nor would there be, of course, since Watson was above all else a Victorian gentleman.

[Hikari]

52 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

"In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature."  That is the one quote that everyone holds up as evidence -- nay, as proof! -- that Watson was a playboy

No, of course not  . . never a playboy--Dr. Watson is, first and foremost, a Romantic . . a trait which has got to be highly unusual in a military surgeon with an SFJ orientation.  The ideal for a surgeon is a clinical dispassion, in order to be most effective in trauma triage situations (likely while getting shelled by enemy fire).  And yet our Doctor is also a general practitioner, which is the human side of medicine--GPs are as much counselors and compassionate listening ears as they are prescribers of treatment  (or at least, the family doctor used to be this way.)  The doctor is a writer, but it's not medical treatises to the Lancet he's always scribbling, but romanticized tales of his exploits with his singular friend.  His clinician's eye notices the details of the physical setting or the personage coming to consult (especially if an attractive young lady) . . and then his poet's nature turns these observations into rollicking pieces of creative writing.  (To Sherlock's verbal dismay but, I think, secret pleasure.)

I'm sure that many of the women on three continents he observed were in a professional or cultural capacity, but I think he means something more personal here.  After all, he takes pains to say 'women of three continents', when he had many more opportunities to observe men in professional or societal capacities.  I think JW loved also on three continents, and I don't mean that in a free love playboy sense.  Watson's prevailing trait is sincerity--when he loves, he loves for real, not just for show.  We can't even agree on how many wives he had, but he married all of them for life, as short as those lives were.   I'm sure some women crossed his path who caught his eye, and his regard, in a more personal sense, and that regard was sincere, for as long as he was able to stay with them.  It was not to be that he could marry every woman who earned his poet's appreciation, but I'm sure he remembered them all in later years.  Watson's other prevailing characteristic is hope--Hope perseveres in expecting the best, including love, even in the  most inhospitable of conditions.  Such as expecting recognition/thanks for his efforts in 221b. 

Sherlock isn't on the completely furthest end of the Introvert scale.  That honor would have to belong to Mycroft.  But Sherlock still prizes his own company above all others, even Watson's.   He can be happily employed to his own devices alone for days--or years--at a time.  Watson is a writer and spends many hours working at that quite solitary pursuit, but one gets the impression (at least until he is widowed) that he is working on his memoirs with Holmes or Mary or Mrs. Watson #2 in the room, or in short bursts between patients.  When it comes down to it, Watson is restive and at a loose end when he is left completely alone.  He's bored off his sticks when the patients don't come in.  When Mary goes off on one of her frequent jaunts to visit her sick aunts and her far-flung friends, John doesn't even sleep at his own house, but immediately goes back to Baker Street like a homing pigeon.  The Doctor craves company of other people, even when it's just one other singular person (though hanging out with Sherlock is oftentimes like being by oneself, apart from the secondary smoke one is forced to breathe.)  I think one has to be fairly Extroverted in the army or being in close quarters 24/7 with so many other people would drive one buggy.  It would me.  Even sharing a room with 2 other people was agonizing.  Introverts need their private space/time like they require air and food, for their mental health.  Extroverts might have to be on their own sometimes, but they don't really like it for very long.  Watson was not an Extrovert in the manner of say, a Sir Kenneth Branagh or a Winston Churchill, but surely it takes an extroverted personality to be a regular attendee at not one but *two* social clubs?  I'd flip 'outgoing Introvert' to 'reserved extrovert' to better describe Watson.   When among the company of regular blokes, I think Watson can let his  hair down a bit more, but Sherlock is so strong a personality (very unusual for such an Introvert, really) that Watson adopts more introverted characteristics when they are together.  JW has natural leadership qualities himself as an officer who had to make life-or-death snap decision in the field, and as a physician to his patients, he's a position of authority.  But SH is the universally acknowledged leader in 221b.  Watson has probably a far more conciliatory nature than a more forceful E.  Good thing, because otherwise the greatest flatshare/partnership in literature never would have lasted more than a week. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Excellent points.  I have only a couple of quibbles:

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

I'm sure that many of the women on three continents he observed were in a professional or cultural capacity, but I think he means something more personal here.  After all, he takes pains to say 'women of three continents', when he had many more opportunities to observe men in professional or societal capacities.  I think JW loved also on three continents, and I don't mean that in a free love playboy sense.  Watson's prevailing trait is sincerity--when he loves, he loves for real, not just for show

I assume the reason he mentioned his experience with women specifically was that he was in the midst of giving his opinion of a woman, the  "refined and sensitive" Miss Morstan.  It would hardly make sense to compare her with the men he'd known, especially not in an era when men and women inhabited two different worlds.  But it's also clear that the dear doctor is smitten, so I can't quibble very much with you on this point!

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

Watson was not an Extrovert in the manner of say, a Sir Kenneth Branagh or a Winston Churchill, but surely it takes an extroverted personality to be a regular attendee at not one but *two* social clubs? 

I think membership in such clubs was considerably less unusual back then. I get the impression that if you were a gentleman (in the social-stratum sense), you joined a club, just as routinely as a man today has a favorite football team.  And if you were a professional man, say a doctor, you were apparently also expected to apply to the club that doctors of a certain standing belonged to.  The clubs were, in modern terms, at least as much for networking as for socializing.

The clubs also served somewhat the same purpose as a man's den did a few decades ago when men had dens.  They were basically a place to get away from women, so you could read the newspaper in peace and quiet.

At least that's my impression from novels and movies.  I have never actually been a Victorian gentleman! 

[Arcadia]

On ‎5‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 12:08 AM, Artemis said:

Yes, so much this.

I wish I could have this on a t-shirt or something.  Everyone thinks I'm argumentative because I question things; I don't argue for the sake of it, I'm trying to learn, to make sense of their logic and understand their perspective.

Yes to all this and I'm not even an INTJ! INTP though, so close enough. It's so hard to find someone I can have a decent discussion about almost anything, because so few people want to toss ideas around. If you don't agree on something immediately, they get all frosty. Gah, it's crazy making.

[T.o.b.y]

Hmmm, what is Sherlock... Let me see what I think. BBC Sherlock, I mean. 

I can't decide whether he is an introvert or extrovert. On the one hand, he has an extremely vibrant inner life and retreats into his Mind Palace to solve problems or relax. He also has no time for chit-chat and avoids formal occasions. On the other hand, he doesn't thrive without an audience, so he needs a lot of external validation and he also relies heavily on outside stimulus and doesn't cope at all well with boredom. That actually sounds extroverted to me. I know that I think book Sherlock Holmes is an introvert but Sherlock... 

N or S? Also not so easy to decide. Theoretically S because of his extreme talent for observation, eye for detail, etc. But his deductions, while he claims they are built on pure logic and evidence, often come across as more intuitive. 

He also poses as a thinker but the show spent a lot of time exploring how he is actually a very emotional person at heart. So I think he would say T but I say Mrs Hudson is right - F. 

Definitely more J than P. 

So my options are INFJ, ISFJ, ENFJ or ESFJ. Hm. I don't think any of the descriptions of those sound much like Sherlock. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

Definitely more J than P.

Why do you say that?  Just curious -- my first inclination would be P, but not sure I could back it up.

[HerlockSholmes]

I took the test yesterday at Hikari’s suggestion. I’m unsure what this says about me though?

 

Introvert (47%)  Intuitive (25%)  Thinking (16%)  Judging (38%)

 

Apparently I’m Moriarty!

Introvert (47%) Introvert (47%) Intuitive (25%) Thinking (16%) Judging (38%) (25%) Thinking (16%) Judging (38%)

[T.o.b.y]

59 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Why do you say that?  Just curious -- my first inclination would be P, but not sure I could back it up.

Well, he's opinionated and decisive. I think Mycroft is a P and Sherlock is very J. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm opinionated even though I'm definitely a P (especially compared to Alex's J!).  But even though I'm opinionated I don't generally place a value judgment on my opinions -- I don't say this is wrong, I just observe the way it is and say I prefer it the other way.  Even if I really, really prefer it the other way, and will defend my position till convinced otherwise, I don't say the other way is wrong unless it's provably wrong -- and as a former math teacher, I have a very high standard for provability.

So I don't think opinionated = J.  I think Sherlock is more detached than that.  He observes and deduces, but he rarely seems to pass judgment.  Moriarty is merely a puzzle to be solved, at least until he blows up that old lady and all her neighbors -- and maybe even then he's merely a different puzzle.  He does pass judgment on Magnussen and Smith -- but I kinda agree with him there.

[T.o.b.y]

I see I have to have another look at what the letters are supposed to describe. 

Hm. One site says that judgers are structured and make decisions early, tend to take control and give specific instructions while perceivers are flexible, like to keep their options open and tend to let others be and do their own thing. 

With that in mind, I would say Sherlock is still a J with his 13 different scenarios and bossing John around, but on the other hand, he is very good at adapting to unexpected situations and doesn't seem to mind at all when he has to improvise. 

I guess when it comes to these personality traits, Sherlock is actually a pretty well-balanced individual. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

43 minutes ago, T.o.b.y said:

... judgers are structured and make decisions early, tend to take control and give specific instructions while perceivers are flexible, like to keep their options open and tend to let others be and do their own thing. 

That sounds exactly like Alex and me!  OK, I'm starting to think you're correct about Sherlock -- he does make snap decisions, sometimes (often?) before fully thinking things through.

[Hikari]

16 minutes ago, T.o.b.y said:

I see I have to have another look at what the letters are supposed to describe. 

Hm. One site says that judgers are structured and make decisions early, tend to take control and give specific instructions while perceivers are flexible, like to keep their options open and tend to let others be and do their own thing. 

With that in mind, I would say Sherlock is still a J with his 13 different scenarios and bossing John around, but on the other hand, he is very good at adapting to unexpected situations and doesn't seem to mind at all when he has to improvise. 

I guess when it comes to these personality traits, Sherlock is actually a pretty well-balanced individual. 

Well balanced apart from the drug abuse . .

I am enjoying all the comments here.  Sherlock is definite an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, tied with a bow of mystery.

Carl Jung was a younger contemporary of Conan Doyle's, but I'm pretty sure ACD did not purposely set out to construct his characters from a psychological standpoint.  Arthur was a bluff sportsman and man of action not unduly prone to analysis.  His two most famous characters were copied from his own life:  Sherlock was Dr. Bell of Edinburgh, even down to the clothes, and Dr. Watson was even easier to do, being a stand-in for Conan Doyle himself.  Doyle was focusing on crafting adventures, not psychological case studies . . which accounts for his frustrating tendency to give some of his primary characters such short shrift.  Moriarty and Mycroft are both potentially fascinating individuals, but Conan Doyle grew bored with them and dropped them both after a couple cursory introductions apiece.  Boo.

Sherlock Holmes seems like he *should* be easy to deconstruct, but he's got all these warring impulses within himself that defies easy compartmentalization.  If we go strictly by what Holmes says about himself--which he repeats often in various forms, almost as if he is adamant to convince Watson of something which is still in dispute--that he is an emotionless machine of deduction--we get one set of letters.  Sherlock seems to want to be an ISTJ--an empirical data-collecting, incisive black-and-white opinion giver, a tireless thinking machine.  But there are too many anomalies to this template provided by Dr. Watson.  Underneath the rigorously cultivated intellect and deductive method and stated abhorrence of emotions or frustration with Watson's propensity for embellishment and 'romanticism' in favor of hard, cold facts . .there are deep waters.   Strong feelings are simmering beneath the surface, like the parts of the iceberg we don't see.  SH can act like a kid on Christmas morning when presented with a really juicy case . . or be equally childish in petulant mode when he is bored or displeased.  For a guy who claims that all emotions are abhorrent to him, he's prone to a lot of them.  I think a modern diagnosis would be bipolar disorder, possibly.  Sherlock experiences the peaks and the valleys of his life with equal strength.   If you accompany him through 60 adventures with Dr. Watson on the page, you meet a mercurial individual who isn't quite the untouchable, immovable Temple of Reason which he claims.  He is in fact, a whole lot more human than he wants people to know from his own PR . . or perhaps even than he knows himself.  Sherlock's more human side seems to take even himself by surprise.  He lives so thoroughly in the moment and really *wants* to be this idealized version of himself that I think he is caught unawares every time the Black Dog descends and he has to hit the cocaine bottle again.  If he were, in fact, the pristine Mind Engine he wishes he were, he wouldn't have need of such a base distraction.   Can it be true that the man who can see into the motivations of all the other human hearts he comes into contact with has a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to his own?  It seems like that at times.

In Young Sherlock Holmes, we meet SH as a 16-year-old schoolboy.  The nascent detective is already a crack hand at deducing things from his physical environment and the people in it.  He is a musical prodigy who taught himself how to play the violin in a matter of days.  But the adolescent Sherlock is prone to impulsivity, temper, making emotional attachments . .getting things wrong.  He is being mentored in the art of cool dispassion by his fencing tutor--who castigates teenage Sherl for being too much of a hothead and leaping before he's looked.  Some of this impulsivity and emotionality are par for the course with the teenage developing brain--but the adult Sherlock we meet some 10 years later in A Study in Scarlet still retains some of these characteristics.  To his chagrin, probably.  SH started with a prodigious intelligence gifted to him by birth, but a lot of what is the persona of the Great Detective was rigorously cultivated by the application of logic, self-discipline and self-denial.  Holmes willingly set himself apart from his fellow man because his chosen profession and ideal vision of himself in it means eschewing much of what 'ordinary people' call normal life.   His idealized self is basically a god, but for all his extraordinary gifts. Sherlock is a human being.  In seeking to purge the messy, human parts of himself (at which he was never completely successful) SH was essentially at war with his very human foibles.  'The best and wisest man' was far more interesting than a mere calculating machine.

Sensing vs. Intuition seem almost equal in him.  He always starts from a place of Sensing when collecting data about a case or a person, but oftentimes the breakthrough comes as a result of his equally finely-honed Intuition.  Someone who was orientated to a strictly Sensing mode would not be able to make the creative connections Intuition requires, so N edges S, though he probably wouldn't like it.  As for the 'P' vs. 'J' debate . again, SH is very strong in both.  A strong sense of justice predicates a 'J' . . but look how many times Holmes lets the perpetrator go free, with stern instructions to go and amend their lives.  In choosing compassion over legalism, Holmes can be a Christ-like figure--despite not being a church-going man.  Also, the very first thing he says, to Dr. Watson and to us is, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."  Even if the perception is backed up by deductions, which he proceeds to make, I like the synchronicity.

Sherlock Holmes: INTP, with very strong S orientation and less strong, though healthy, J characteristics.

[T.o.b.y]

I agree that both the original Holmes and BBC Sherlock seem to want to be a different person than who they naturally are and spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to convince other characters of their chosen identity. That does make the character hard to analyze. 

[Hikari]

1 hour ago, T.o.b.y said:

I agree that both the original Holmes and BBC Sherlock seem to want to be a different person than who they naturally are and spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to convince other characters of their chosen identity. That does make the character hard to analyze. 

In addition to the MBTI elements, there is the matter of birth order dynamics and how that impacts the development of a personality.  Sherlock is a younger sibling to an exceptional older brother.  I'm an oldest myself and I can't help but look at the dynamics of Mycroft and Sherlock from that place.  Both the Brothers Holmes are genius INTPs, with differing foci for their very similar minds.  Little Brother is much more active in the world, which makes him both less Introverted and more in tune with the physical Sensing as compared to Big Brother.  Mycroft's intelligence is almost entirely dealing in analytical theory and various scenarios that 'Might' occur as opposed to 'already have occurred'. He never personally experiences the stimuli of the outside world if he can help it, but he must be polished and urbane with people when he position demands it, as it often must.  Sherlock exhibits the tendencies of the younger sibling in his more (relatively speaking) impulsive, emotional, occasionally petulant demeanor.  Sherlock is in many ways a Superman . . .but as incredible as his talents are, there was already a Superman in the family who was the First.  When the firstborn is exceptional and/or perceived as commanding the lion's share of parental love and resources by virtue of their seniority, this can make later borns feel resentful and/or inferior.  These feelings either make a kid apathetic or they spur them on to equal or surpass the elder sibling.  Canon Sherlock admires his brother as an example of that perfect ratiocination machine untroubled by inconvenient/disruptive emotions or demands of the outside world.  Sherlock would like to be Mycroft, one thinks--but he's too restless, too hyper, too interested in the events beyond his windows to be the nearly Buddha-like figure Mycroft is.  Does he feel inferior to his big brother?  Possibly, but he has crafted his own path that suits his own individual gifts best.  Sherlock's emotionality or impetuousness would seem very mild compared to a 'normal' person with these characteristics, but they stand out in relief against the embodiment of Zen that Mycroft is.  One wonders what growing up in the Holmes household was like.

The relationship of the BBC pair is a lot more polarized, but then, Conan Doyle hardly gave us any scenes with Mycroft.  He only appeared twice.  Mark Gatiss's Mycroft is one of the best improvements or  should say, amplifications, that the show made--though Sherlock is very much the bratty little brother vs. superior elder sibling in it . .and the brotherly love seems most often to flow only from Mycroft's side.  Mycroft's regard for his little brother is almost paternalistic, which is no doubt what BBC Sherlock objects to, but Myc's interference in Sherlock's life really does come from a place of love . . and, despite being the less emotion-prone of the two brothers, he's the only one who actually expresses his love aloud to his brother.  BC's Sherl stays pretty much the aggrieved bratty little brother throughout.  This is an invention of Mofftiss, because it's just not there in Conan Doyle.  Book-Sherl is not that immature nor ungrateful toward his brother.