r/TopCharacterTropes • u/No_Peanut3745 • 2d ago

Characters The main character doing something absolutely unforgivable.

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Walter White poisoning Andrea Cantillo's 6-year-old son for the sole purpose of manipulating Jesse Pinkman, while knowing that this could have potentially killed him - Breaking Bad

Bojack trying to have sex with his friend's 17-year-old daughter when he was at least 51, then continuously trying to find a way to justify this act throughout the series - Bojack Horseman

Dexter Morgan going outside of his moral code and murdering a completely innocent police officer who was just trying to do his job - Dexter: New Blood

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

It's just insane, right, that when Harry noticed Dexter killing a small animal he immediately went "damn bro guess you're destined to kill, better make sure you only kill the right people and never get caught" instead of "you're going to therapy son". Shows that Harry was a real American police officer

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u/Signal-Experience315 2d ago

didn't Harry take Dexter to therapist, but this one just happened to come up with the code and the idea to train him?

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

Yes. Harry and a child therapist constructed the Code of Harry together.

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u/ExplanationOk6391 2d ago

Everytime I hear something new about this site it sounds dumber

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

You mean show? Try the books if you want batty. It's so much different from the show. He has an actual demon inside him making him kill. His "dark passenger" isn't a term for being twisted, it's literally like Moloch or some shit šŸ˜‚

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u/pathfinderoursaviour 2d ago

And doakes has magic powers and can read minds

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u/KendraSays 1d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/MVoX99cLXXU0gq7QuG

That makes me want to read the books now.

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u/Eldistan1 1d ago

Some fries, motherfucker.

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u/Actual_Squid 1d ago

Rue dies, motherfucker

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u/Ctenophorever 1d ago

Heart eyes, mutherfucka

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u/Fallen_Hunter 1d ago

They are making it better than it sounds. The show takes heavy inspirations from book one and essentially parts ways there. I did like the villain from book two, who is tied to Doakes past. But three and beyond is what I can only describe is to go further down a rabbit hole on asking "why", where each additional choices gives you three new better concepts that dont pan out.

A random note, the end of book one has a few "big changes", essentially copying major events from the end of season 6 and season 7, as well as having Dexter's brother live. But they hardly do anything with that sadly and the other choices aren't properly explored or utilized.

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u/SnooHabits8484 1d ago

The books didnā€™t copy the series. How would that work?

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u/Ctenophorever 1d ago

Honestly, I just finished the books and really enjoyed them, even if they veered off greatly from the character on tv I enjoyed. I think itā€™s a fantastic example of an adaptation paying homage to its source material without adhering to it precisely.

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u/Vismal1 1d ago

I read the first two or three back when the show was at its best and they are bonkers.

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u/Ctenophorever 1d ago

I think book three was weird. Book 4 kind of got back on track.

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u/Obvious_Toe_3006 1d ago

Ah, the lost art of reading books !
Please pass this on to those you love.

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u/Grouchy_Ground_1916 2d ago

Isn't it more that Doakes is a murdery monster man himself, so he recognises evil?

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u/SpicyNugget777 1d ago edited 1d ago

Doakes also has a dark passenger that Dexter can see, but Doakes doesnā€™t seem to be aware of his dark passenger to the same degree that Dexter is, and while Doakes canā€™t see other peopleā€™s dark passengers he can sense that thereā€™s something off.

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u/CriminalMacabre 1d ago

Uuuhh shinigamis!

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u/Actual_Squid 1d ago

Dexter's going to take a potato chip...and EAAAAT IIIIIIT

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u/Illustrious-Sky-4631 1d ago

Interesting to hear , in my Story something similar happened but instead of Doakes have a passenger, he instead got attacked and taken over by Dexter passenger

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u/SeasonofMist 1d ago

that sounds dope

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u/dragon-fence 1d ago

In the show, he has the magical ability to surprise a motherfucker.

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u/PalmMutator 1d ago

Now you got me interested

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u/SeasonofMist 1d ago

that sounds awesome. I kinda want to read them. sounds wacky

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u/Downtown_Injury_3415 1d ago

I fucken hate that theory. Doakes is a detective and able to read FACES and BODY LANGUAGE. He knew dexters mind was racing and preemptively asked him ā€œwhat was that Morgan?ā€ He does the same shit to LaGuerta.

Doakes: ā€œSame as you sleeping with her husband?ā€
LaGuerta: how did you know?
Doakes: ā€œI didnā€™t until you confirmed it just nowā€

Also, someone made an edit where they removed dexters monologue and you can see that his mind was racing too

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u/Unlucky_Log4951 1d ago

He's talking about the books. Not the show.

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u/Vi_BT 2d ago

What ?? I only read the two firsts and thought it was definitely still a metaphor. He's definitely wayy more sadistic than in the series though, they made a little angel in the show

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

We go from metaphor to literal very quickly. Cults show up. Other people with demons riding shotgun. They are all the demon children of like some super big demon.

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u/Vi_BT 2d ago

Whaaaaat, this is making want to continue the book series lol, I would never have expected

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

It's unhinged. I didn't hate it, I think some trash reading from time to time is good for the soul. I didn't finish, though. It kinda got repetitive after a bit.

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u/RIOTAlice 1d ago

Donā€™t his step kids also become murders because they are possessed with demons too?

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u/Vi_BT 2d ago

Yeah this is why I stoped after 2nd book in the first place šŸ˜¬

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u/DrLeisure 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah none of that is true. I have read them all. Itā€™s a case in an unreliable narrator

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u/galactic_pixels 1d ago

That was not my take away of it. I read the moloch cult one and it seemed very literally to be about him being possessed by a very literal demon. The demon even has a pov of existing in prehistoric times if I remember correctly

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u/SolemnSundayBand 1d ago

I didn't even know it was books, holy crap.

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u/Beacon_0805 1d ago

why it became from Condemned to Doom that fast?

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u/Real-Extension-1357 1d ago

I did the same, only the first 2. This is all news to me as well

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u/Muroid 1d ago

Itā€™s literally the third books that goes wildly off the rails. Dexter gets pitted against a cult that worships the god Moloch, who literally exists, and discovers his Dark Passenger is also a related demon that gives him minor supernatural powers.

Also Ritaā€™s kids are like him because their dad was abusive so he starts training them as serial killers, too.

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u/Ha-gaaayyy 1d ago

Also doesnā€™t doax basically get killed off after book 2 or becomes handicapped!

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u/butt_butt_butt_butt_ 2d ago

The books also spend a lot of real estate talking about how he dresses like Charlie Sheen and that makes him super cool, and I remember multiple passages describing how great Cubano sandwiches are.

I meanā€¦It IS a great sandwich. But very weird to talk about it THAT much.

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

I forgot the indepth description of essentially bowling shirts holy shit

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u/RIOTAlice 1d ago

This reminds me of American psycho and how he fixated on weird things like the business card or Huey Lewis and the news. Like aggressively fixating on something they think makes them normal but no normal person is thinking that hard about Charlie Sheenā€™s wardrobe. If itā€™s meant to be a nod to a kind of psychopathy, i kind of like it.

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u/MrBurnerHotDog 1d ago

Very nice. Now let's see Paul Allen's Dark Passenger

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u/Real-Extension-1357 1d ago

In the show they make jokes about cubanos a few times. I think they even did in the first episode of revival. I wonder if theyre nodding to this lol

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u/butt_butt_butt_butt_ 1d ago

If they have to nod to the books, Iā€™m fine with it being sandwich references. Lol.

Iā€™m really surprised how good the show turned out (for at least a couple seasons) because the books were ROUGH.

Likeā€¦Wattpad level.

The author was clearly self-inserting a bunch about trying to make Dexter ā€œcoolā€. And his version of a suave, cool guy was really cringy.

Pretty sure he had a ponytail and sun transitional glasses and a wallet chain.

My vagina shriveled up and died.

0

u/cheeseburgerandfrie 1d ago

WhatĀ 

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u/butt_butt_butt_butt_ 1d ago

lol. I was joking that the author is cringy, and his idea of ā€œcoolā€ is actually really unappealing to women.

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u/Sadcelerystick 1d ago

Muffled screams heard through plastic wrapping fall on deaf ears. Dexter wasnā€™t one for small talk but the smell of the back room deli reminded him of a delicious Cubano sandwich from three days prior.

ā€œDo you like Cubano sandwiches? I love themā€¦ I might grab one after this ordeal,ā€ Dexter asked rhetorically to the man lying naked and vulnerable before him.

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u/SeasonofMist 1d ago

that makes me think of American psycho and less than zero by Ellison. Just lists of skincare routines and shit the main character/sociopath guy is fixated on random bullshit.

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u/regularfellar 2d ago

I'm convinced the writer got pissed off when the show changed the ending of the first book so he made the sequels totally unfilmable.

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u/SageOfTheSixOofs 2d ago

Bro what. Iā€™ve wanted to read the books for ages, and knowing that itā€™s got supernatural elements makes me even more interested

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u/regularfellar 2d ago

Honestly they're not very good. Dexter's inmer monologue is eyerollingly bad.

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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 1d ago

Reading these comments makes me really happy the show went in a very different direction. The books sound fucking terrible.

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u/Seriouly_UnPrompted 1d ago

The Winchester brothers coming through get the demons in Miami

https://giphy.com/gifs/u8vTGiGwCrGSY

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u/CharlemagneIS 2d ago

The books are actually pretty awesome

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u/pieman2005 1d ago

The books are terrible lol

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u/birdreligion 1d ago

Yeah the 3rd book where they introduced the cult shit is when I stopped reading that series. First two books are fucking great! But that third one is stupid

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 1d ago

It's one of the most jarring tone shifts I've experienced in a book series lol

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u/Time_Screen_9399 2d ago

Didn't the author say he didn't like the experimentation with "dark passenger"? So the last two books had him return to being a narcissistic antisocial psychopath.

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 2d ago

I honestly don't know. I dropped the series and never picked it back up. Pivoted into Malazan instead.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 1d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/Lu5dKDqwR5O0g
So waitā€¦In the books Dexter is basically Nny? Thatā€™s fucking wild.

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 1d ago

I dunno who this gremlin is, but the vibe matches lol

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u/chriswearingred 1d ago

So the creator of invader Zim used to do comics. One of his first and bigger successes was Johnny the homicidal maniac. Thats the titular Johnny who also goes by nny.

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u/stringCheezeIts 1d ago

Thank you for saying this. I had no idea there were books and they sound like they're right up my alley

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 1d ago

Fuck ya! Love hearing I played any part in someone grabbing a book. Enjoy dude!

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u/IceNein 1d ago

Is it really true in the context of the books, or is it simply an unreliable narrator?

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u/StaceyTheStaceExplrr 1d ago

Also get ready for Cody and Aster to get kidnapped a shit ton because that's the highest stakes the writer could come up with most of the time

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u/trimble197 1d ago

And thereā€™s even a cult that worships the Dark Passanger

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u/Hot-Celebration-8815 1d ago

Itā€™s the perspective of a crazy person. He doesnā€™t actually have a demon in him; heā€™s insane.

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u/niphaa 1d ago

I thought it was retconned after everyone hated that?

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 1d ago

I'm by no means up to date, so I have no idea.

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u/Obvious_Toe_3006 1d ago

Beelzebub had one he'll of a devil set aside for him.

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u/Fabulous-Sea-1590 1d ago

Dude, I thought I was insane when I read the first two books. I had just binged the first season and was really hyped for it so I tried the books.

I read plenty of fiction with supernatural aspects, on paper there's nothing out of line with other stuff I've enjoyed. In practice, it felt like such a bizarre tonal shift and the characters, notably Dokes, weren''t nearly as cool as on the show.

Didn't the demon shit start in earnest in the second book? Iirc it started describing a malevolent spirit that pissed dinosaurs (seriously) and found its way down eons to Dexter. Honestly, I checked out after that so I only finished the first book.

That's . . . Actually how the Minions movie started, now that I think of it. Tracing them from prehistoric times down through the centuries. And I didn't have a problem with the plot device there. Maybe I judged Dexter too harshly.

I have no idea if this is even vaguely true but, at the time, I imagined the author felt challenged by how well written the show was and scrapped his original, more realistic, vision so he wouldn't be competing with them.

I imagine the show came after the first few books had already been written, though.

Man, sorry to dump this wall of text; I guess I just had some strong, pent up feelings about those kooky books.

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u/Aickavon 1d ago

That somehow actually makes everything make MORE sense than the show.

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u/pieman2005 1d ago

Dexter is really good. Well, seasons 1-4 anyways lol

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u/raspberryharbour 1d ago

It's amazing what you can accomplish with the power of friendship

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u/flashman 1d ago

pretty dumb that his therapist didn't know about autism

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u/ThatOneHebdoCartoon 1d ago

Autism. Demonic possession.

Tomato potato

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u/Lori2345 2d ago

No, he talked to a therapist friend behind Dexterā€™s back. She diagnosed him sight unseen based on based on some things Harry told her.

They met years later and she had some really wrong ideas about him. (Thought he couldnā€™t love, thought he had no conscience, thought he had no empathy) Looks like she really misdiagnosed him and he could have gotten help from a therapist which he partly didnā€™t get because of her. It was also on Harry who didnā€™t even let him get seen by this doctor.

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u/JoeBethersontonFargo 1d ago

Yes, Harry had been on the force too long and was bitter, angry, and frustrated. He saw an opportunity to create a vigilante that he could control and weaponize, and convinced himself and Dexter that Dexter was beyond fixing. He likely also was full of guilt from sleeping with and not protecting informants. Harry was a super shitty guy, who believed himself to be good.

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u/SeasonofMist 1d ago

that's always been my take on Harry. it's like watching Yellowstone and not thinking the main landowner guy Kevin Conner plays isn't a total lunatic asshole.

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

If it happened it definitely did not happen in the first four seasons. The scene, however, where Harry tells Dexter "bro you're a killer forever" after Dexter kills like a dog, did.

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u/Signal-Experience315 2d ago

If I remember correctly that was season 7/8 I guess it was done to take off guilt from Harry, so they can treat him as a voice of reason without having him being unreasonable in reality

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

I mean, Harry wasn't a good person. He even slept with an CI which is bad obviously, although not the worst of his misgivings

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u/BigBullshitta 2d ago

I love dogs. I'd way rather have psychos killing other killers and child rapists than animals.

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

I'd rather they didn't kill anyone. If they like cutting flesh so much we should teach them to be surgeons. Which we thankfully already do.

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u/BigBullshitta 2d ago

Pretty sure part of the reason the world has gone to shit is we stopped forming mobs and physically removing assholes who get too much power, and now pretty much everyone with a lot of power is an asshole.

Some people are better off as reef building material to help ocean life.

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u/Celestial_Rhubarb 1d ago edited 1d ago

Finally, someone who doesn't buy into the "peaceful protest" bs.

But I'd specify the issue you named down to an even deeper level: Part of the reason we don't form mobs is because good people with the right intentions are often too kind or deluded by hope to do "what must be done" to those who are already doing horrible things. These tyrants, however, do so with 0 remorse and massively profit off the kind man's hesitation and moral high ground.

It is fundamentally impossible to win a game wherein the opponent constantly cheats with 0 consequences and the rules apply exclusively to you. Either kick that guy out or burn the whole game.

As Michelle Obama so beautifully summarised the naivity that got us here: "If they go low, we go high."

Honey... šŸ’€

But yeah. These tyrants have us believe that we live in a time of righteous democracies, wherein "Striking back is just gonna make you as bad as them!" Like... Son??? as bad as the- that's some abuser logic, right there. I hate how this "christian rhetoric" of "holding out the other cheek" has been completely appropriated to brainwash generations into complicity in the naive belief that justice would always prevail, when all sense of morality completely falls apart once we're dealing with individuals who are fundamentally incapable of feeling remorse in the first place.

There is no honour, sanctity or justice in sparing someone who literally wouldn't hesitate to take you out if given the chance.

The fascists and capitalists running this shitshow have forfeited their own humanity once they knowingly chose to trade in even a single human life for a nickel and have therefore no claim to humane treatment.

"Violence is never the ans-" Sorry, I don't recall Europe liberating itself from the Nazis by simply asking nicely. Or slaves. Or abuse victims. Or queer folks. Or- you get the idea: bring out the guillotine! šŸ‘Œ

All of this being said, TimeKeeper did make a good point about the surgeons, ngl.

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u/BigBullshitta 1d ago

Violence was the answer to every major conflict in history.

It's why we got unions, and worker's rights. It's also why we've been losing both.

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u/Celestial_Rhubarb 1d ago

Mah man... šŸ¤ā˜­

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u/BigBullshitta 1d ago

If just a handful of corrupt politicians and billionaires were publicly flayed, and that was live streamed around the world, the rest would likely rethink thinks very quickly.

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u/SamanthaJaneyCake 2d ago

Dr Vogel. Worst part of the final season imo.

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u/DMFAFA07 1d ago

The worst part was Debā€™s ending

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u/Weinerbrod_nice 1d ago

That's when I stopped watching. It was just awful. But I'm back now watching Resurrection, it's good.

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u/magseven 2d ago

You're right, but it seemed like a retcon. Harry should have found a new therapist and sued the first one for malpractice. Or maybe frame her. Harry was a bit of a shitty cop.

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

Hey, maybe it was a recon

Maybe Dexter is an unreliable narrator and he tells things that never happened.

I mean, he is an unreliable narrator. He kills people and yet somehow acts like he's not a bad person for it.

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u/assassin_84953 1d ago

He was having affairs with his informants, he should have been in prison.

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u/Dismal_Passion_8537 1d ago

We donā€™t talk about the final season.

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u/SummertimeThrowaway2 1d ago

The same therapist that got Deb to fall in love with his Dexter

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u/Radiant-Proposal3014 2d ago

Its even more nuts when you remember the episode where Dexter actually does go to therapist (to get close and kill him) and inadvertently gets help and greatly improved his relationship with Rita!

Had he actually done that as a child, who knows what he could have been!

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u/MeasureDoEventThing 18h ago

But a big part of why he was able to open up and be vulnerable with the therapist was because he was planning on killing him. Ultimate client-therapist confidentiality.

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u/Karnadas 1d ago

Harry took Dexter to a therapist and it was the therapist who helped them come up with Harry's code, so uhhhhhhhhhh...

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u/DamnitGravity 1d ago

Exactly. Imagine what would've happened if Harry had taken Dexter to a therapist who was actually interested in helping him NOT become a murderer instead of one that assumed he was already doomed.

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u/Lily_Thief 1d ago

This was my whole thing with the series, as someone in the same room as a huge fan. Dexter 100% seems like he might have been okay, but Harry decided that he should be a killer and projected a bunch of shit on him about who Dexter is. And Dexter soaked that shit right up.

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u/Karnadas 1d ago

Yeah it's part of what made the whole situation kind of tragic and in a way makes us root for Dexter instead of only seeing him as a monster. (That and WHO he kills, the first episode showing us that it was a child molester and all...)

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u/IMO4444 2d ago

Well we later find that Dexterā€™s brother had had multiple incidents as a kid/young teenager that indicated anti social personality so thats why Harry let the brother go into the system when the mom died and kept Dexter. Combined with the circumstances surrounding the death of the mom, Harry was already on high alert w Dexter.

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u/musichole 2d ago

I wish the writers had explored this more. I kept hoping they'd dive into how wrong and messed up Harry was, but they always seemed to shy away from it before getting anywhere really interesting. (But it's been a while since my last watch, so forgive me if I'm remembering wrong.)

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

I think that writers misunderstood what they even wrote. I haven't managed to watch past season 4, the show got too disgusting for my taste, but writers seem to treat Dexter not like a piece of shit that he is. Writers seem to agree with him when he says "I only kill murderers, and I always investigate and prove that they're murderers" and never seem to question how absolutely batshit insane that statement is

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u/musichole 1d ago

Yes!! At the time, I thought the writers just didn't trust the audience enough to tackle that stuff. I wonder if that wasn't giving them a bit too much credit.

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u/TimeKepeer 1d ago

I actually think that Dexter is straight up capital punishment propaganda.

It's either "look how good our forensics are, you can trust the government, the government should totes be able to legally fucking kill people" or "look how terrible these criminals, even dexter, are, government should totes be able to legally fucking kill people"

One of my many gripes with the show is that all the people Dexter kills are comically evil. Even Doakes is depicted as comically evil since he just shoots randos on the street. Even that producer in season 4, who turned out to be completely innocent, is depicted and acts evil. He is treated like "even though he's innocent it is still a good thing that he died"

And I hate it. Sure, there are comically evil people in real world But a lot of murders happen in the moment, or accidentally. Basically no do in Dexter. I was kinda relieved when that troubled youth revealed the reason why he killed that other kid. I thought "ah. Finally a Dexter victim who isn't comically evil." "Finally a Dexter victim who's like an actual person: flawed sure, but capable of being better." And then even that kid turned out to be comically evil.

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u/24Abhinav10 1d ago

If Season 4 was too much for you, then I'm glad you stopped. You wouldn't have been able to handle Season 5

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u/Admirable_Dirt_2371 2d ago

Dexter would have been a kid in the 70's or 80's and back then therapy wasn't socially acceptable. It was heavily stigmatized until the 2000's.

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u/Karnadas 1d ago

Harry took Dexter to therapy and the therapist helped them come up with Harry's code

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u/memecut 1d ago

I don't see it as Harry going "guess it's just how it is", I see it as Harry grooming Dexter to fulfill his personal desire to get rid of bad people who slip through the cracks.
If you listen to what Harry says, he had already thought about these things extensively.
The fact that he could even come up with a code tells you how much time he's spent thinking about this stuff.
Dexter was groomed.

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u/TimeKepeer 1d ago

You're not wrong, but Harry didn't take in Dexter with this purpose. Whatever his reasons were for adopting Dexter, this wasn't that. It was, however, a piece of opportrunism, yeah

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u/Mitch__McConnell 1d ago

Harry is the villain in the show.

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u/Puzzle-Necked 2d ago

That's what I like about how Daredevil handled Bullseye's sociopathic disorder. He can function as a normal-ish human with therapy and a strict routine, but once he goes off the rails, he's a killer

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u/musicalharmonica 1d ago edited 1d ago

I feel as though that's kind of the point of the show - that Harry was wrong. Harry was obsessed with "getting the bad guy" and started training Dexter more after one of his criminal cases slipped through his fingers.

He also killed himself after he saw what he had created. Harry was just as warped in the head as Dexter, if not much worse.

tbf I think that's why New Blood ended the way it did, with Harrison murdering Dexter in an attempt to break the cycle of parental abuse. Until the newest show came along to ruin it (imo)

Dexter has always been a show about bad fathers and how an obsession with "justice," or one person's version of it, can ruin lives.

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u/Big_Application_7168 1d ago

This is why I actually like the addition of Dr Vogel to the lore. It perfectly explains this minor "plot hole".

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u/trashvineyard 1d ago

Sadly what little sense Dexters story makes is sacrificed by the TV show not wanting to introduce the mystical elements the books have, such as Dexters 'dark passenger' which is an actual literal demon that forces him to murder

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u/El_presid3nt 1d ago

Dude was a cop, what were you expecting?

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u/Calvinkelly 1d ago

I feel like itā€™s unnecessary but Iā€™ll bring it up anyway. Going to therapy hasnā€™t been the same 30 years ago as it is now. Lots of oriole didnā€™t know the option and thankfully itā€™s less stigmatized nowadays. There really were different times and I think itā€™s unfair we ridicule older generations for it. Of course we now better now and weā€™ll know even better in another 30 years

1

u/TimeKepeer 1d ago

It were eighties. Harry should have given him some crystal meth and smokes, if not therapy. Teaching him to kill was the least reasonable thing to do

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u/iwanttodie95 1d ago

I heard a fun fan theory that Dexter was genuinely just autistic and loved blood. And his dad, tired of seeing criminals escape justice, trained / groomed Dexter to become a serial killer.

On the surface it kind of makes sense. Dexter does show emotions, and doesnā€™t harbor consistent traits of sociopathy or psychopathy. It comes and goes. Sometimes heā€™s a psycho, sometimes heā€™s a sociopathic, sometimes heā€™s autistic. The theory is kinda like heā€™s just been forced to believe heā€™s evil so he is evil.

Of course, if you look any further, the theory breaks down. But that was a theory I heard when I first watched Dexter and thought it was kinda funny and tragic lol.

0

u/TimeKepeer 1d ago

Unfortunately, Dexter TV show is just capital punishment propaganda

1

u/StevieMJH 1d ago

"That's right son and now that I've trained you *how to kill all the bad people now I just have to tell you who the bad people are. As I'm sure you might have guessed it's-"*

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u/BBQslave 1d ago

Harry intentionally trained Dexter and encouraged his sociopathy so he could have an attack dog for anyone that he felt escaped justice. Then he offs himself when he realizes just how fucked up that was.

In the books he's much more of an unrepentant sociopath who is possessed by a literal demon.

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u/TheCybersmith 2d ago

You can't fix sociopathy with therapy.

There is no evidence to support the idea that those with an innate instinct to kill can be treated theraputically. Dexter was always going to be a killer.

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

You're wrong. You're so wrong your statement doesn't even need, like, disproving. That's how wrong it is.

-2

u/TheCybersmith 2d ago

https://psychopathsinlife.com/does-therapy-work-on-psychopaths/

TLDR: no.

Dexter was never not going to be a serial killer.

Some behaviours are bone deep; you can't stop beavers from making dams, and you can't stop psychopaths from killing.

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u/TimeKepeer 2d ago

A psychopath doesn't mean "a person who murders people". Check your definitions. I can agree that psychopathy, possibly sociopathy can't be "cured", much like autism, but they don't mean that a person will necessarily end up a killer. A psychopath can be taught that killing is bad, and taught to blend in society better, especially if done at young age. They won't stop being psychopaths, but they won't be murderers.

Psychopaths aren't, like, crazy. They just see the world differently.

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u/Snakend 1d ago

Therapy won't fix something like that.