History Headscratchers / Dexter

* Dexter: Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good? Go!
** I'd say he's somewhere between Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil, but one that prefers to keep its evilness secret from the world at large so its evil can continue unopposed. Really though I think this is an example of why ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' alignments don't really work in the real world.
** Well that would be neutral evil (in between) which could fit season 2 onward (I just finished it) because he said he was going to leave the "Code of Harry" (the reason I considered him lawful evil) behind and evolve. If he just kills people how he wants, because he wants to, he is neutral evil.
** The thing is though, Dexter doesn't want to be evil. It's clear, especially in the flashbacks to his childhood, that Dex hates what he is, wishes he could change, and hates himself even more because he knows he can't. Hell, the whole reason Rita made him so happy is he thought she was starting to change him into a normal person. From the NeutralEvil trope description, it seems to me that one has to want to be evil and revel in one's evilness in order to qualify. A normal serial killer would qualify, but not Dexter IMO.
*** I dunno, I'm just not seeing the remorse. Dexter really does seem to like what he does: torturing and killing people. He was thrilled by the Ice Truck Killer's crimes and the prospect of working with him ("yes, I do want to play.") among other things. Are we discussing Dexter from the novels or Dexter from the TV show?
*** TV!Dexter. And TV!Dexter does show on numerous occasions that he doesn't like being what he is. He doesn't feel remorse for the people he kills any more than a soldier would feel remorse for the enemies he kills, but it's made clear at several points that if he could snap his fingers and make himself normal he would. See for instance the flashback to his teen years when he comes within a gnat's wing of ''killing himself'' just so he can "feel alive" for a few moments. He's described his condition as feeling "empty" inside and he feigns normality so it won't feel so "bottomless". During the Lyla arc his urges were even likened to an addiction, and addictions are pretty much bad by definition. No one wants to be addicted to anything. We also saw when he was with Rita how surprised he was that he actually cared about another human being. The fact that he felt an emotional connection with someone for the first time in his life overjoyed him because he thought maybe he was turning normal. Regarding the Ice Truck Killer, I think the thing he was "thrilled" by wasn't the thought of working with him but more the cat and mouse game of trying to catch the ITK and add him to his kill list. Also I think he was eager to meet someone who understands what it's like to be a sociopathic serial killer.
*** Then I agree, TV Dexter has emotions unlike the Dexter from the novels. The suicide attempt was to try and feel fear (and have his heart race), which he did later when the bodies were discovered on the news, he felt rage at Paul and sadness when [[spoiler:he discovered his father's suicide]]. So yeah, he is a far cry from the total sociopath in the books. I disliked the addiction arc, it didn't really go anywhere, wasn't explained enough (you needed fridge brilliance to make sense of it) and detracted from the Dark Passenger as an alter ego. I hadn't considered that Dexter immediately wanted the pleasure of killing ITK, I thought he wanted to learn the ITK's techniques because they satisfied his needs better than his own ritual ("No blood!").
*** He figured out what techniques the ITK used on his own (he's a forensic scientist, remember?) it just never occurred to him to drain the blood from the bodies in that specific way. And the cat-and-mouse thing was pretty obvious. The game Dexter wanted to "play" with the ITK was the game of finding him and catching him as the ITK tries to dodge him at every turn. The addiction arc is YMMV I suppose, since I rather enjoyed it. Regardless, the Dark Passenger has never been as much of an alter-ego in the tv show. I'm told that in the book the DP even talks to Dex at some points.
*** Lawful can be ruled out straight away. He's a serial killer. Chaotic can be ruled out too, because he aims to blend in to society as much as possible, and lives by his own (quite specific) Code. So that leaves either Neutral Good, Neutral or Neutral Evil - depending on how you see the morality of a SerialKillerKiller. Personally I'd stick him in the odd sock draw that is True Neutral.
*** I say Lawful Neutral. Lawful because, while he is a serial killer and thus shuns societies laws, he operates by Harry's Code pretty strictly and it defines almost everything he does. Neutral because he shows genuine love for Lumen and his family, but is pretty uncaring about most people. Plus he kills a couple guys for some pretty flimsy reasons.
** He's lawful evil. One thing that is often forgotten or overlooked (partially because TSR and later Wizards of the Coast phrased it poorly) is that law vs chaos is more accurate order vs chaos. Batman isn't chaotic but he breaks several laws every night. Dexter is the same way. He has a very specific code with very specific rules to be followed in all situations. As opposed to chaotic which doesn't describe him at all. He's also evil. Good and evil in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' terms are generally better described as either selfless vs selfish or constructive vs destructive but either way Dex is both selfish and destructive.

*** In RealLife it's almost unheard of. Even organised crime syndicates (which Dexter has nothing to do with) rarely target law enforcement officers in the United States unless the officer is corrupt and involved in their activities already, since doing so just makes them even more of a target. Dexter deals with sexual predators and serial killers, neither of whom tend to know much about who is chasing them at all, especially the names of lowly forensic investigators who rarely interact with suspects (that's the job of detectives). Real murderers usually try and avoid law enforcement like the plague since, you know, they don't want to get caught, and this would be doubly true if they thought the police officer chasing them was actually a murderous vigilante intent on slowly torturing them to death. All that aside, the real issue is that most of these interactions with murderers the Morgan family has seem to be pure coincidences, as neither Dexter nor the killers know about the identity of the other at all 90% the time until after the first meeting, which is just very contrived.

** In RealLife it's almost unheard of. Even organised crime syndicates (which Dexter has nothing to do with) rarely target law enforcement officers in the United States unless the officer is corrupt and involved in their activities already, since doing so just makes them even more of a target. Dexter deals with sexual predators and serial killers, neither of whom tend to know much about who is chasing them at all, especially the names of lowly forensic investigators who rarely interact with suspects (that's the job of detectives). Real murderers usually try and avoid law enforcement like the plague since, you know, they don't want to get caught, and this would be doubly true if they thought the police officer chasing them was actually a murderous vigilante intent on slowly torturing them to death. All that aside, the real issue is that most of these interactions with murderers the Morgan family has seem to be pure coincidences, as neither Dexter nor the killers know about the identity of the other at all 90% the time until after the first meeting, which is just very contrived.

** I've read the books, but somehow I can't remember if it ever got specific about their age difference. Deb's {{Wiki/Wikipedia}} page mentions her being 16 when her mother died, but Dexter's article mentions him being 16 at the time as well. So if Wikipedia is to be believed, they're less than a year apart. Doesn't say anything about who's older, though.

** Thanks. I actually read on Wiki/TheOtherWiki that Dexter dumps the plastic in the ocean ''along with'' the dismembered bodies, so there you go.

* Hannah McKay is a fugitive. So why on earth didn't she think about something as simple as dyeing her hair or wearing a wig or wearing contact lenses or glasses or do something to alter her looks? I mean, that's like Fugitive 101... and don't even get me started on taking Harrison to the ER and then giving his real name and Debra's real contact information...

* In the early half Season 7, [=LaGuerta=] asks Masuka if anyone uses blood slides for collecting evidence after she discovers one, to which Masuka states that the only person who ever collected blood sides was Doakes (due to him still mistaking him as the Bay Harbor Butcher). However, in Season 4, Dexter is seen using a blood slide when collecting an old blood sample found next to the tub of the Trinity Killer's recent victim before Lundy comes in and says hello to Dexter. No one reacts to Dexter having those blood slides, not even a "Hey, maybe you shouldn't be using those. You know, because of Doakes?" But not one person acknowledges that. So, people have seen Dexter using blood slides to where it appears to be common that Dexter has used blood slides out in the field before. Yet, Masuka's response to [=LaGuerta=] seems like no one has ever seen him use them out in the field. Is this an error on the behalf of the writers, mostly due to the show's previous showrunner leaving or has Masuka not been there any of the times that Dexter has used blood slides in the past?

** EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, indeed. I read the first book, and I believe that like Laguerta's 'thing' for Dexter, this was all just part of the Pilot episode, which was made whilst they were still planning on making the series closer to the book than it ended up being. Perhaps the high ranking executives said "MAKE IT LESS GRAPHIC!!" or the writing team thought "Fuck the book, let's just do something creative so we can't be accused of not being good at making books TV shows." Blame the Pilot, is what I say.

*** [[spoiler: Why would it make Quinn more suspicious? He didn't even know he had blood on his shoe until La Guerta pointed it out. He probably just assumed the blood was from someone else. For instance, if Dexter doctored the report to say it was Quinn's own blood on the shoe Quinn would naturally assume he had cut himself and dripped blood on his shoe without realizing it.]]

* How many years apart are Dexter and Deb? The characters seem like they're only about 2-5 years apart, and in the flashbacks of them as children they look like they're fairly close in age, yet Micheal C Hall is almost ten years older than Jennifer Carpenter. Do the books say anything about the characters' ages? This isn't something that really bugs me, I've just always wondered.

*** To me Ritas boss did decidedly NOT seem the kind you could go to with a pregnancy and expect to be not very quickly fired (for osternibly another reason, probably cussing to guests). Hint was for me the dealing with the guests. While Rita defininitely should not have insulted the woman (though she deserved it) - her boss stood in earshot and didn't seem awfully busy at the time and she saw that Rita was in over her head but she didn't react, neither to ease Rita out of the situation, nor to placate the customer who definitey whould not have spoken to the manager of the place with he same voice she spoke to a reception lady. In short, maybe Rita didn't tell her boss because she reasonably feared a very quick kick-out. Alternatively Rita DID tell her boss in order to clear up things about her Maternity leave. And the boss - reacted by behaving the way she did (hoping it would result in a reason for her to fire Rita without being sued for discrimination). Stuff like that happens in countries with better regulatins egarding maternity leave, soit DEFINITELY happens in the USA.

** Chalk it up to plain 'ole RuleOfDrama.

* In the sixth season finale, just how Dexter managed to get an unconcious Travis out of a building like that one and put him in his trunk without nobody spotting him? There must be cameras and police and people who would recognize Travis from tv. And if there were cameras, how come nobody remember to check them?

* So this Sal Price dude is planning to release a book exposing the killings of the never convicted Hannah [=McKay=]... cool story, but are there no laws against libel and difamation to prevent these kind of things?

* As was noted above, in the early seasons, Dexter pretends that he's a friendly and cheerful guy, he is everybody's buddy, he never fights with anyone, never argues, and brings doughnuts to everyone. The only one who sees through this was Doakes, and Dexter never confronted him at the station -- he never even gave him an unfriendly look. Headscrather: Why does he act so hostile towards Quinn when he joins homicide, and more importantly, to Luis Greene the intern? Surely there are more polite ways to hint them to back off. There might be a FridgeLogic moment because nobody likes and gets on well with everybody, so having some less enthusiastic acquaintances might be useful for Dexter's mask. But still, their early interactions didn't make that much sense.
** He got along with both of them initially but they both wound up getting on his nerves for different reasons. Lewis was "intern puppy dog" always trying to be his buddy and get his approval and other irritating fan boy mannerisms. Quinn tired to butter him up because of the crime scene money Quinn stole, and things just kinda went to shit from there.

* At the end of season seven's finale...why didn't Laguerta call for back up? And why did Dexter assume she wouldn't call for backup?
** After her last gaffe she is a toxic / crumbling asset without real friends or leverage inside the department. She has authority in name only and is on a personal / unsanctioned errand. She did bring some unis for Hector Estrada, so IdiotBall aside, it's likely no one would want to help her at that point, on New Year's eve to compound things further.

* Laguerta had a warrant for Debra's cell phone GPS, signed by a judge. We're led to believe that she got it after she saw the video of Deb getting fuel...AFTER the debacle where it is made to seem like she set Dexter up to clear Doakes' name. What judge in his right mind would let a pen come ANYWHERE near that paper? Even if she tried to exercise her connections, it was made clear that the clusterfuck was known by all. Even if they might have been able to sway emotionally, she is already known to have tampered with evidence.
** It would be really difficult to fake a recording with a timestamp (and mike got the recordings not her)and it was a genuinely suspicious piece of evidence. Also I don't know how these things work but I'm guessing it takes less proof to get someone's past cell phone GPS then to...say get a warrant to search an apartment, since assuming Deborah wasn't lieing or doing anything wrong then she wouldn't have been put out by it in any way.

** He became really suspicious when Rita was murdered, and it worried him that nobody at homicide considered that Dexter might have done it, even though everybody knows that it's always the husband. Plus he took the artist's sketches and thought that the mysterious Kyle Butler looked like Dexter, and was thus connected to The Trinity killer.

* Hannah McKay is a fugitive. So why on earth didn't she think about something as simple as dying her hair or wearing a wig or wearing contact lenses or glasses or do something to alter her looks? I mean, that's like Fugitive 101... and don't even get me started on taking Harrison to the ER and then giving his real name and Debra's real contact information...

* Season 8 has tons of headscratchers from every perspective. However, one moment is VERY stupid in an objective way. In S8e11, how could Dexter possibly think it was a good idea to [[spoiler: leave Saxon alive for Deb to take in? Even taking WHY he does that out of the equation (I could go on for ages about how stupid that was), it makes no sense. Saxon has to have some kind of proof Dexter is a serial killer through Vogel's files. He would immediately rat out Dexter upon being taken in. Deb would be screwed trying to explain things away with Dex gone.]]

* What happens to Hannah and Harrison? We know they managed to make it to Argentina but Elway knows where they went and even if he can't collect on the bounty once she's out of the country he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd just walk away at that point. Not only is she a murderer, without Morgan to back up her story she's also a kidnapper at this point. There doesn't even seem to be a mention of the fact that Harrison is missing and he wasn't a secret from the department. Someone, like say Angel's sister should have put Dexter's dead together with where's Harrison pretty quickly. While we don't get much of how the department's final feelings for Dexter were I think if their final thoughts of him had been of him killing himself and his son by committing suicide in the storm. . .instead of in a moment of grief taking his fatally wounded sister out to sea and dying that we would have gotten that impression.
* In the series finale, [[spoiler: Dexter sails into an active hurricane, at least a mile offshore from the looks of it, abandons his boat with at best a life vest to help him to shore. Yes it's implied in early episodes that he's a decent swimmer, but with the waves already deeply affected by the hurricane, just about anything could go wrong trying to swim back to shore within.]] People have chided the ending for being a non-sequitor but I can't suspend my disbelief enough to even accept that, let alone the contrast with Dexter's character development over the years.

* In Dexter By Design [[spoiler: the video of Dexter chopping somebody up is still on Website/YouTube, as well as Rita tied up by Brandon Weiss. Sure, Brandon died but the video is still there online for anyone to see. Dexter isn't worried about this all of a sudden?]]

* How is it that Dexter -never- runs into a locked deadbolt or a security system whenever hes breaking into places?

* In episode 1 Dexter seems to be emoting. He is yelling at his kill, seeming to be genuinely mad, yet moments later he tells us he a sociopath and can't feel emotions. This is unlike any other kill, not simply because he found the bodies of his victim, but because he felt so vindicated with this kill for some reason.

** There's also the fact that sociopaths actually ''do'' feel and express emotions like anger, happiness, and even sadness. They just don't feel them on behalf of others due not having empathy. When a sociopath gets mad, it tends to be a violently explosive burst of anger that ends almost as soon as it begins. Plus, it's pretty obvious that Dexter isn't a sociopath, or at the very least an extremely poor representation of one. He feels love for his family, something no sociopath can really feel on anything more than the most shallow, physical level if that. For another, he has [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards]], which requires a conscience and a degree of self-control beyond "if I do this I will get caught and I don't want to be punished", which actual sociopaths often lack. If Dexter were actually a sociopath, he wouldn't care about Rita, Astor or Cody one bit. They would be a means to an end, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and he would discard them as soon as they were no longer useful to him]], got in the way of what he wanted to do, or became a liability. Real-life sociopaths are a LOT more unstable than they appear in the movies, but even Hollywood Sociopaths aren't as ethical as Dexter. Dexter is something else entirely.

*** What's bugging me, is that he has the tendencies of both a psychopath and a sociopath. And though the overlap between them is fairly huge there are generally identifiable distinctions. The typical profile for a psychopathic homicide involves impulse and emotion (for dexter ie: the dark passenger, his obsession with his "trophies") which generally leads to unplanned murders and a higher catch rate for psychopathic crimes. Where as sociopaths have a difference in temperament, they are not readily driven by impulse and thus plan their crimes down to every last detail, and can often wait for long periods of time to ensure they go smoothly (ie: most "normal" episodes in the series). So despite their overlap, the two tend to have separate criminal and psychological profiles. However, it seems like Dexter switches between these whenever the plot feels like he needs to, something that originally annoyed me. I've thought about it and maybe this might be FridgeBrilliance unintended or no, maybe a good deal of Dexter's afflictions are constructed and are not things that would have organically manifested if Harry hadn't of reinforced his urge to kill.

** I think he likes keeping them close and easily accessible. The blood slides have meaning for him, so it makes sense that he keep them somewhere that's semi out in the open where he would always be able to know they were there. They're very much a part of his psychosis. He seems to need to get them out every once in a while just to look at them and touch them to appease his Dark Passenger.

* I'm not sure how the police work (I tend to avoid them like the goddamn plague,) but why is it that Deb responded to the domestic dispute call involving Rita? I thought she was working Vice, and I was under the impression that they dealt with hookers and such? Is that kind of call a "whoever gets there first" sort of deal, or what?

* How long does Season 1 span? It was starting to strain credibility IMO that the Ice Truck Killer was able to work a full-time job, commit his own murders, maintain a relationship with Deb, * and* keep perfect surveillance on Dexter and still somehow sleep and eat. Some of the things the Ice Truck Killer knew seemed to flow naturally from breaking into Dexter's house and being his brother, but there were others (like Dexter's offshore dump site, his preferred method of killing victims, etc) that he could only know from following Dexter and personally observing him.

*** She could also have assumed he didn't use his arms. I'm no experct, but don't some addicts shoot between their toes?

** More likely that Miguel is suspicions of Dexter from the very beginning. He doesn't know what Dexter is but, like Doakes, can tell there's something "off" about him. So he decides, rather than making an enemy of Dexter, to gain his trust. After all, he believes that Dexter has just killed the man who killed his brother, and so wants to help and protect him. We find out by "About Last Night" that Miguel has been "using" Dexter from the start.

** Was it really a hanging thread? To me it that marriage-thing appeared as a random MacGuffin for Dexter experiencing him being the one Rita deliberately lies to. For a change. The point was him accepting her secrets and not confronting her because of all the lies he tells her.

** Dex's not a psychologist, nor psychiatrist, so he may just be referring to the "Dark Passenger" as an erroneous assumption brought on by his observing her situation and comparing it his.

** Thanks. I actually read on TheOtherWiki that Dexter dumps the plastic in the ocean ''along with'' the dismembered bodies, so there you go.

** I've read the books, but somehow I can't remember if it ever got specific about their age difference. Deb's [[TheOtherWiki Wikipedia]] page mentions her being 16 when her mother died, but Dexter's article mentions him being 16 at the time as well. So if Wikipedia is to be believed, they're less than a year apart. Doesn't say anything about who's older, though.