Author’s note: Medium put the original color wheel article (with its 19,000 claps!) behind a paywall without my permission and without me being able to change it, so I’m rehosting/reposting here. Bonus: it’s been updated with, like, 7% new additional content and some small corrections and improvements!
Hey there! I've had your article bookmarked for over a year now. I shared it like crazy when I first read it, and had as many conversations as I could about it. It's really done a lot for me, and the temperance with which you approach the tool is admirable.
Thank you for moving it over here. I re-read it every now and then, so this helps me a lot. I'm eager to check out the changes :]
This is an masterful and impressive achievement, it has sparked a ton of amazing ideas for me, outside of MTG (which I barely ever played). So thanks for this incredible intellectual artifact!
I've been using Jungian Cognitive Functions under the name "Color Model" for nearly a decade now, both as a personal tool and a teaching one. It's amazing to me how much of what you've said of this 5part model maps to that 8part one, both in the source of major insights and in the best usecases.
EG, how one's colors alter one's perceptions, internal world structure, and actions all at once. The mistake of using Blue/Red intuitions when giving advice to someone thinking in a Yellow mode. How the same word can be used in different ways.
Meanwhile, having a categorization model gives really solid starting heuristics for how to interact with people. Walk into a Blue venue and begin with a Blue language model, then alter from there. If someone is consistently using terms/impressions on a single color, then you can mirror that color OR challenge their assumptions with another. It won't bring mastery, as individuals are more complex, but it lets you quickly get close and gives a starting point from which to deviate.
Downside of using an 8part model, it's honestly too wide to quickly generate intuitions or easily explain. I've regretted it multiple times. Probably this 5 part model outperforms it by being more memorable and useable!
I was also interested in the Jungian model at the time when I read Duncan's earlier version of this essay a few years ago (in the time since then, I've found the MtG model more useful overall) and had the instinct to try to create a mapping between them. I'm curious if yours matches mine? (or maybe when you said MtG "maps to" Jung, you just meant that in a broader sense of them having similar uses?)
Anyway, while any attempt to establish a correspondence between them will necessarily be a bit forced in some places, if I had to establish such a correspondence, I would do it like this:
I did mean that they had similar uses, but I separately think that a mapping is a fun thought exercise! It seems intuitive to me that both models are cutting up the same ideaspace, and so a mapping should be possible.
My mapping ended up very similar to yours, although I allowed myself the right to smear functions across multiple Colors where it made sense.
White: Primarily Fe, through harm reduction via making the world safe for everyone. Secondarily Se's communal aspect of Known Hierarchy.
Blue: Primarily Ti/Ne, the quest for new knowledge and organization there of.
Black: Primarily Te. Secondarily, the less-ascetic Si's desires for material comforts. It also splits Fi/Ti, sometimes it's personal and sometimes it's not, different cards give different vibes depending on Black/Red or Black/Blue, respectively.
Red: Primarily Fi, passion and drive. Secondarily Se's individual aspect of Drama.
Green: Primarily Ni, the long history of life. Elements of both Se and Si's forms of predictability, both in social order and personal life. Splits Fe/Te, every being is natural and it's natural some get eaten. Green is the weird color here, being neither particularly emotional (F) nor particularly rational (T), but rather about What Is.
I think this is born out by the conflicts as well:
White vs Black is the classic Fe/Te conflict, Mistake theory versus Conflict theory, Raise the quality Floor versus Raise the quality Ceiling. (I'm not completely happy with Orzhov's take on this split)
Black vs Green is Te/Fi individual optimization against Ni/Se/Si communalism and conservatism. What can I take vs what can I keep.
Green vs Blue is Ni's Metis and Stability vs Ti's Episteme and Ne's Rampant Growth. What can I make vs what can I keep.
Blue vs Red is the classic Fi/Ti conflict, Red Oni Blue Oni, Passion vs Truth (but I love how Izzet bridges this difficult split)
Red vs White is the classic Fi/Fe conflict, "be yourself regardless of who is watching" versus "be no more than what those around you find palatable", "A safe space is where you can be yourself" vs "A safe space is where you won't be harmed"
Nice, I hadn't thought about how there's not only parallels between the individual colors and the individual function-attitudes, but also between the conflicts between colors and the conflicts between function-attitudes - that's really neat!
Hm, say more about Wolverine being green? He doesn't parse that way to me. (At least not Hugh Jackman's portrayal, which is the only one I'm familiar with.) I'd label him red.
I can see the X-Men as a group being green. But Wolverine specifically has generally seemed a reluctant member, restless if he stays in one place too long, tied down by and fighting for people in front of him - Rogue, Jean Gray, Professor X, X-23 - rather than any ideal.
> In our own society, the two major political parties have absolutely become white/black in their motivations in recent years, with the most disappointing example being the Republican party’s unwillingness or inability to do anything about the excesses of the president.
NBD but it's not entirely clear when "recent years" are, since the publication date hasn't been preserved. But I guess you'd still mark it as true except the specific word "president".
Wolverine is base red, as you note, but his (strong) secondary color is green. This isn't super emphasized in the post, since it's harder to translate to humans-living-in-the-modern-era, but ferality and ferocity and wild instinct are also green.
It's a subtle line—the rage of a berserker is red, but the violence of wolves caught up in bloodlust during the hunt is green. You could think of it as red being heart, and green being gut. Red is anger and wrath, and green is a mother bear destroying everything that might be a threat to her children (it's got ... less model behind it? It's less totalizing? The mother bear probably does not HATE the threat to her children, it just ... needs to die).
Wolverine often acts from this place, of a sort of dispassionate, instinctive brutality, as opposed to an emotionally-driven, passionate anger. (He ALSO acts with emotionally driven, passionate anger, of course—I usually cite him as a red-green character but I needed more characters I could mention AT ALL in the green section.)
I read this the first time in 2019 or 2020, (When I first started playing MTG Arena, that's the only format I've played it in). I was also looking at similar personality systems at the time, and have actually used it as a mental jog as suggested, along with some other personality systems. I do like how you straight up use it as a simple intuition pump and nothing more, since a lot of systems are the same thing but people try and read more into them.
Some suggested changes and other comments, though overall it works great.
-The color wheel kind of matches up with DISC, which is a simple little 4 part system that apparently lots of HR people like to use. Black and D are pretty similar (Ambitious, willing to push boundaries, often combative), C and blue kind of fit (organized, patterns, though color wheel blue is more open to new things), White and Green mesh well with S (like to keep things as they are, community emphasis), Red somewhat with I (strong emotions, passionate, energetic), though the matches are nowhere near exact.
-Black: Descriptions of black always sound straight up evil, despite claims otherwise. ("amoral", "strong should take advantage of the weak", the second is popular on official Rosewater posts.) Which doesn't work with those claims otherwise. Personally, if you look at interactions/conflicts I have, black describes them well, but I don't go around thinking about how morality doesn't matter or how everyone just has to look out for themselves. Some ways to make black less evil:
--Slogan change to "Satisfaction through opportunity", which combines (I think) two official slogans. Could still represent a con man, thief, supervillain type person breaking rules and wrecking things for personal gain, but could also represent someone with friendlier goals, looking to satisfy them in ways other people might not think of.
--Emphasizing the personal agency, ambitious, big goals as the center of the personality, and the questionable morals parts get dropped. Philosophy, personality, way of thinking are big on personal agency, big goals, willing to do things their own way. Which like anyone else could go well, or badly. Seems to be what official MTG has done at points, but not as a core part of how the color is described.
-Black and White Friendly: Tribalism does seem like just one way of combining the two colors, which doesn't capture close to everything. Hierarchy or meritocracy could be another, a system which is organized but big on personal advancement within it. Though how to turn this into a personality or way of thinking that a random everyday person relates to is trickier (Creatrivity, heroism, etc. are easier to imagine as part of a personality) "Status" is what I thought of after some brainstorming, that a person with lots of black and white qualities wants to visibly be considered above others in some social system, while people with qualities of other colors don't care so much. I'll see how others comment. (This would include tribalism, where other tribes are below, plus other hierarchies. And fits the "corrupt priesthood" black white cards often are.)
--Black White Conflict: Stag vs. Rabbit doesn't seem a great example, since Stag is clearly the better option if you can get it. You could argue people with black qualities are less trusting and more likely to pick rabbit, but they'd still want more food. "If the group is happy, the individual is happy" vs. "Groups exist to serve the individuals in it" are actual phrases I've seen used to describe people, something based on these maybe could work, though off the top of my head I don't think of any obvious examples. I'll let my brain work on this and see if it spits anything out.
--Black Green Conflict: I was thinking "use resources instead of wasting them" vs. "preserve them" was a better way to describe black green conflict, and you went and edited it exactly that way. :) A really clear example I heard of recently: Titanic (and probably other archaeology sites) has a dispute over whether to leave artifacts in place, or take them to the surface. Argument for first is that it is a gravesite and should be treated as such, argument for the second is that the stuff will be buried and/or decay anyway, so might as well get it before it goes. Seems an example where most people could easily understand both arguments, even if strongly agreeing with one. Though I didn't think of a quick way to write this.
Hey there! I've had your article bookmarked for over a year now. I shared it like crazy when I first read it, and had as many conversations as I could about it. It's really done a lot for me, and the temperance with which you approach the tool is admirable.
Thank you for moving it over here. I re-read it every now and then, so this helps me a lot. I'm eager to check out the changes :]
This is an masterful and impressive achievement, it has sparked a ton of amazing ideas for me, outside of MTG (which I barely ever played). So thanks for this incredible intellectual artifact!
I've been using Jungian Cognitive Functions under the name "Color Model" for nearly a decade now, both as a personal tool and a teaching one. It's amazing to me how much of what you've said of this 5part model maps to that 8part one, both in the source of major insights and in the best usecases.
EG, how one's colors alter one's perceptions, internal world structure, and actions all at once. The mistake of using Blue/Red intuitions when giving advice to someone thinking in a Yellow mode. How the same word can be used in different ways.
Meanwhile, having a categorization model gives really solid starting heuristics for how to interact with people. Walk into a Blue venue and begin with a Blue language model, then alter from there. If someone is consistently using terms/impressions on a single color, then you can mirror that color OR challenge their assumptions with another. It won't bring mastery, as individuals are more complex, but it lets you quickly get close and gives a starting point from which to deviate.
Downside of using an 8part model, it's honestly too wide to quickly generate intuitions or easily explain. I've regretted it multiple times. Probably this 5 part model outperforms it by being more memorable and useable!
I was also interested in the Jungian model at the time when I read Duncan's earlier version of this essay a few years ago (in the time since then, I've found the MtG model more useful overall) and had the instinct to try to create a mapping between them. I'm curious if yours matches mine? (or maybe when you said MtG "maps to" Jung, you just meant that in a broader sense of them having similar uses?)
Anyway, while any attempt to establish a correspondence between them will necessarily be a bit forced in some places, if I had to establish such a correspondence, I would do it like this:
Blue: Ne/Ti
Red: Se/Fi
White: Fe
Black: Te
Green: Si/Ni
I did mean that they had similar uses, but I separately think that a mapping is a fun thought exercise! It seems intuitive to me that both models are cutting up the same ideaspace, and so a mapping should be possible.
My mapping ended up very similar to yours, although I allowed myself the right to smear functions across multiple Colors where it made sense.
White: Primarily Fe, through harm reduction via making the world safe for everyone. Secondarily Se's communal aspect of Known Hierarchy.
Blue: Primarily Ti/Ne, the quest for new knowledge and organization there of.
Black: Primarily Te. Secondarily, the less-ascetic Si's desires for material comforts. It also splits Fi/Ti, sometimes it's personal and sometimes it's not, different cards give different vibes depending on Black/Red or Black/Blue, respectively.
Red: Primarily Fi, passion and drive. Secondarily Se's individual aspect of Drama.
Green: Primarily Ni, the long history of life. Elements of both Se and Si's forms of predictability, both in social order and personal life. Splits Fe/Te, every being is natural and it's natural some get eaten. Green is the weird color here, being neither particularly emotional (F) nor particularly rational (T), but rather about What Is.
I think this is born out by the conflicts as well:
White vs Black is the classic Fe/Te conflict, Mistake theory versus Conflict theory, Raise the quality Floor versus Raise the quality Ceiling. (I'm not completely happy with Orzhov's take on this split)
Black vs Green is Te/Fi individual optimization against Ni/Se/Si communalism and conservatism. What can I take vs what can I keep.
Green vs Blue is Ni's Metis and Stability vs Ti's Episteme and Ne's Rampant Growth. What can I make vs what can I keep.
Blue vs Red is the classic Fi/Ti conflict, Red Oni Blue Oni, Passion vs Truth (but I love how Izzet bridges this difficult split)
Red vs White is the classic Fi/Fe conflict, "be yourself regardless of who is watching" versus "be no more than what those around you find palatable", "A safe space is where you can be yourself" vs "A safe space is where you won't be harmed"
Nice, I hadn't thought about how there's not only parallels between the individual colors and the individual function-attitudes, but also between the conflicts between colors and the conflicts between function-attitudes - that's really neat!
I remember reading this article when it came out, but had no recollection that you were the one who wrote it! Glad it's back on the open web.
Hm, say more about Wolverine being green? He doesn't parse that way to me. (At least not Hugh Jackman's portrayal, which is the only one I'm familiar with.) I'd label him red.
I can see the X-Men as a group being green. But Wolverine specifically has generally seemed a reluctant member, restless if he stays in one place too long, tied down by and fighting for people in front of him - Rogue, Jean Gray, Professor X, X-23 - rather than any ideal.
> In our own society, the two major political parties have absolutely become white/black in their motivations in recent years, with the most disappointing example being the Republican party’s unwillingness or inability to do anything about the excesses of the president.
NBD but it's not entirely clear when "recent years" are, since the publication date hasn't been preserved. But I guess you'd still mark it as true except the specific word "president".
Wolverine is base red, as you note, but his (strong) secondary color is green. This isn't super emphasized in the post, since it's harder to translate to humans-living-in-the-modern-era, but ferality and ferocity and wild instinct are also green.
It's a subtle line—the rage of a berserker is red, but the violence of wolves caught up in bloodlust during the hunt is green. You could think of it as red being heart, and green being gut. Red is anger and wrath, and green is a mother bear destroying everything that might be a threat to her children (it's got ... less model behind it? It's less totalizing? The mother bear probably does not HATE the threat to her children, it just ... needs to die).
Wolverine often acts from this place, of a sort of dispassionate, instinctive brutality, as opposed to an emotionally-driven, passionate anger. (He ALSO acts with emotionally driven, passionate anger, of course—I usually cite him as a red-green character but I needed more characters I could mention AT ALL in the green section.)
Hm.
Rand al'Thor: WRB?
Matrim Cauthon: UBR?
Perrin Aybara: WG? and RG as Young Bull?
I read this the first time in 2019 or 2020, (When I first started playing MTG Arena, that's the only format I've played it in). I was also looking at similar personality systems at the time, and have actually used it as a mental jog as suggested, along with some other personality systems. I do like how you straight up use it as a simple intuition pump and nothing more, since a lot of systems are the same thing but people try and read more into them.
Some suggested changes and other comments, though overall it works great.
-The color wheel kind of matches up with DISC, which is a simple little 4 part system that apparently lots of HR people like to use. Black and D are pretty similar (Ambitious, willing to push boundaries, often combative), C and blue kind of fit (organized, patterns, though color wheel blue is more open to new things), White and Green mesh well with S (like to keep things as they are, community emphasis), Red somewhat with I (strong emotions, passionate, energetic), though the matches are nowhere near exact.
-Black: Descriptions of black always sound straight up evil, despite claims otherwise. ("amoral", "strong should take advantage of the weak", the second is popular on official Rosewater posts.) Which doesn't work with those claims otherwise. Personally, if you look at interactions/conflicts I have, black describes them well, but I don't go around thinking about how morality doesn't matter or how everyone just has to look out for themselves. Some ways to make black less evil:
--Slogan change to "Satisfaction through opportunity", which combines (I think) two official slogans. Could still represent a con man, thief, supervillain type person breaking rules and wrecking things for personal gain, but could also represent someone with friendlier goals, looking to satisfy them in ways other people might not think of.
--Emphasizing the personal agency, ambitious, big goals as the center of the personality, and the questionable morals parts get dropped. Philosophy, personality, way of thinking are big on personal agency, big goals, willing to do things their own way. Which like anyone else could go well, or badly. Seems to be what official MTG has done at points, but not as a core part of how the color is described.
-Black and White Friendly: Tribalism does seem like just one way of combining the two colors, which doesn't capture close to everything. Hierarchy or meritocracy could be another, a system which is organized but big on personal advancement within it. Though how to turn this into a personality or way of thinking that a random everyday person relates to is trickier (Creatrivity, heroism, etc. are easier to imagine as part of a personality) "Status" is what I thought of after some brainstorming, that a person with lots of black and white qualities wants to visibly be considered above others in some social system, while people with qualities of other colors don't care so much. I'll see how others comment. (This would include tribalism, where other tribes are below, plus other hierarchies. And fits the "corrupt priesthood" black white cards often are.)
--Black White Conflict: Stag vs. Rabbit doesn't seem a great example, since Stag is clearly the better option if you can get it. You could argue people with black qualities are less trusting and more likely to pick rabbit, but they'd still want more food. "If the group is happy, the individual is happy" vs. "Groups exist to serve the individuals in it" are actual phrases I've seen used to describe people, something based on these maybe could work, though off the top of my head I don't think of any obvious examples. I'll let my brain work on this and see if it spits anything out.
--Black Green Conflict: I was thinking "use resources instead of wasting them" vs. "preserve them" was a better way to describe black green conflict, and you went and edited it exactly that way. :) A really clear example I heard of recently: Titanic (and probably other archaeology sites) has a dispute over whether to leave artifacts in place, or take them to the surface. Argument for first is that it is a gravesite and should be treated as such, argument for the second is that the stuff will be buried and/or decay anyway, so might as well get it before it goes. Seems an example where most people could easily understand both arguments, even if strongly agreeing with one. Though I didn't think of a quick way to write this.