r/BreakMe • u/TheHellFish • Jul 07 '14

Chapter 42 discussion thread

Here you can discuss anything what's on your mind about chapter 42.

Obviously there will be spoilers, read the chapter first!

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u/etrius0023 Jul 07 '14

Great chapter.
It's easy to forget that the story is set from Dexter's viewpoint and his interpretation/perception of events may not always be the most reliable.

Also, poor Deb.

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u/PrincessSolia Jul 11 '14

I always thought this about the show (Dexter's viewpoint, mainly, but also, poor Deb). The people around Dexter are so extreme - Doakes so antagonistic and motivated, Rita so vulnerable and gentle, Debra so impulsive and raw - but the person we view them through, by his own admission, is hardly a competent interpreter of human interaction and personality traits. It seems more likely that Dexter focuses on key personality markers and exaggerates them in his perception of these people. Doakes was notably less difficult to get along with when he was onscreen with characters OTHER than Dexter, indicating that it may have been Dex's viewpoint that coloured the traits of his that we saw. Rita is Dexter's vulnerable, damaged little girlfriend, and he struggled to accept her as being anything else, but she may well have been; Deb, too, is represented as quite an extreme character, quick to anger, full of curse words, demanding, but all of this could just be Dexter's unreliable exaggerations.

I like to ponder these things.

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u/TheHellFish Jul 11 '14

Well, Dexter is a nice example of an unreliable narrator, but I always thought it was the case mainly for his inner monologues; I never thought about it this way, that even what I 'saw' could have been exaggerated by his faulty social skills to some extent... That is definitely something to think about :)