In the Melancholic-Choleric, melancholic measure rules and choleric action serves it, supplying power, mobilization, courage, and execution. The result is practical conquest guided by criterion: measure sets the destination, and power sets the path. The image is magnetite, a polarized crystal that has direction and draws to itself what it has recognized.
In them, comparison becomes a project. They notice a discrepancy and ask, almost at once: how do I get there? They may take on a position before being fully ready and complete their preparation in the exercise itself, and their comparison is directed more at the relation between themselves, the other, and the desired position or good. In my observation, the Melancholic-Choleric has more difficulty getting over the defeat itself, even when they recognize that the result was formally correct.
Their inverse pair is the Choleric-Melancholic, and the question returns: does power achieve what has been measured, or does measure perfect what one intends to achieve? In the Melancholic-Choleric, the assessment of the good or of the position defines what power will go after, and if the criterion changes for a good reason, the aim of the action can change with it.
The good proper to this form is turning a relevant judgment into a possible work, instead of merely registering the distance between what is and what ought to be; that is why they can serve justice, reparation, and the building of something they have recognized as valuable. The temptation proper to it is turning one’s own worth into a title to the good: this corresponds to me, so it is owed to me. Capacity, effort, and excellence do not, by themselves, create a right to the prize, although a just rule, a promise, or another’s duty can ground a true claim, which they need not keep quiet about.
The mature form of the Melancholic-Choleric is to desire and conquer without turning capacity into a right. They keep the desire and the strength to conquer, but accept that perceived merit, real capacity, and right are different things, and that not everything that seems just to them is owed to them. And it is in this renunciation that the twelve temperaments meet, each by its own path: the good that each structure knows how to perceive becomes virtue only when the person stops claiming it as theirs and begins to receive it, once again, as a gift.