“ | Tonight's the night. And it's going to happen again and again. Has to happen. | „ |
~ Dexter's catchphrase and most famous quote. |
Dexter "Dex" Morgan (née Moser), also dubbed as The Bay Harbor Butcher, is the titular main protagonist of the crime drama TV franchise Dexter. He is a forensic blood spatter analyst working for the Miami Metro Police Department who leads a secret life as a vigilante serial killer.
Dexter witnessed his mother's brutal murder at age three, which resulted in mental trauma diminishing his capacity for normal emotions and an insatiable desire to kill. He was later adopted by police officer Harry Morgan. Recognizing Dexter's dark urges early on, Harry developed a code to channel Dexter's homicidal tendencies toward killing only other murderers who had escaped justice through legal means.
Throughout the series, Dexter struggles to maintain his outward appearance as a normal, friendly colleague and brother while hiding his true nature. He has a close but strained relationship with his adoptive sister Debra, and despite believing himself incapable of real human connection, he develops meaningful relationships with others and even becomes a father.
He is portrayed by Michael C. Hall. In the prequel series Dexter: Original Sin, he is portrayed by Patrick Gibson.
What Makes Him a Seinen Hero?[]
Basic Traits[]
- Heroic/Anti-Heroic: Given that he targets other serial killers, he objectively eliminates a large number of dangerous people who could harm others. There are also times where he directly protects and saves lives by acting before they can strike, such as saving the son of the abusive Trinity Killer (who had a kill count of 279+ people over many decades, whom Dexter finally put an end to) and the child whom Trinity was going to drown in concrete.
- While his motivations are usually selfish, there are times where he acts heroically for non-pragmatic reasons, such as stopping Beth Dorsey from terroristically gassing the Miami Metro building, which saved the lives of tons of people, rescuing his stepchildren from a house fire set by another killer, Lila West, and killing his biological brother Brian Moser, who was also a serial killer, to prevent him from harming his adoptive sister Debra. He also helped Lumen Pierce track down and kill her rapists and saved his infant son Harrison from a serial killer named Travis Marshall. He shows protective instincts towards innocent people, but mainly children, as he is wrathful towards those who harm children.
- Cynical: When he talks to the killers he is about to execute, he usually tries to pry into their motivations, where many of them try to justify their actions for one reason or another. Dexter, however, is self-aware, and claims that, just like himself, ultimately they are lying and kill people because they want to, and that neither he nor they will ever change.
- Apathetic: Dexter is infamous for not being able to form normal human connections and barely displays any genuine emotion. Even when his own wife, Rita, was killed by the Trinity Killer, he barely reacted and reported it to 911 in a completely monotone voice.
- Insightful: Dexter spends a significant portion of the series questioning philosophical questions and who he is, whether he cares about other people, whether him being molded into a killer was his adoptive father's fault, etc. He also tries to ponder the minds of other people, including ordinary people and other killers to understand the human condition. He is also a genius capable of recognizing clues in evidence or patterns to track his victims and ensure they are guilty, and he is a genius blood spatter analyst.
- Sophisticated/Mature: While he has his moments of rage and immaturity, his kills are always very methodical and ritualistic, and in his day-to-day, he presents himself as a professional and respectable forensics expert. He also displays emotional maturity when he admits to himself or other people (such as his sister Debra when she finds out he is a killer) that he is a bad influence and a bad person without blaming them.
- Pessimistic: Dexter believes that his urge to kill will never go away and that nothing can be done to stop it.
- Realistic: Dexter is an atheist who rejects mainstream religions and claims in the case of serial killer Travis Marshall that he just uses it to justify his fanatical murders. When Trinity said that he tried to stop killing by "praying to be changed," Dexter said that it wasn't him actually trying and instead him "waiting to be stopped."
- Strong Sense of Willpower: He has willpower and self-discipline to a degree. He is mostly strong in maintaining control over his violent urges and adhering to Harry's code, even though he doesn't truly have to because Harry had been dead for many years. There are also times where he displays mercy towards potential kills, even other murderers, when he finds them sympathetic or forgivable, even though he needs to kill someone.
- Nihilistic: He doesn't believe in traditional notions of good or evil and tends to view the world through a lens of moral relativism, where he is the judge and executioner. There are also times where he doesn't seem to value his own life very much, as he was willing to sacrifice himself for both Debra and Harrison on two separate occasions.
- Pragmatic: Dexter adheres strictly to a code where the two main rules are to only kill murderers and to never get caught. As a result, he does basically anything just to ensure that he can satisfy his kill and avoid detection, including interfering with police investigations to move them away from his targets to savor the kill for himself, and even having been willing to kill his own colleagues on occasion so they cannot report him.
- Morally Ambiguous: Ultimately, he is a serial killer who has killed 150+ people simply because he is obsessed with killing and has a compulsive need to do it. He also does so in a ritualistic fashion typical of many malevolent serial killers, and he even keeps drops of blood in a blood slide collection as "trophies" to remember. While most victims were murderers, he has killed or been willing to kill innocent people on multiple occasions, either by accident, in fits, or to avoid getting caught. He also manipulates everyone around him and endangered the life of his wife and sister (who were both killed by people he provoked) and commits many crimes including ruining police investigations, breaking into houses and invading personal details, drugging and kidnapping his victims, etc.
- Despite this, he remains morally grey because there are times where he acts very heroically or altruistically for no personal gain and is overall too tragic and sympathetic to be purely evil.
Bonus Traits[]
- Has Anger Issues: He is quite wrathful when dealing with killers he has a particular disdain for, such as the child murderer named Mike Donovan in episode 1 whom he shouted at, which is one of the rare times he expresses so much emotion towards one of his victims. There are times where he gets into a fit when his plans are unsuccessful, and after Rita was killed, he barbarically bashed a random man's head in within a public bathroom just to let loose.
- Has Killer Instinct/Has Bloodlust: For the most part, he is extremely lethal and kills tons of people simply because he enjoys it/needs to, and while he is merciful on occasion, it doesn't detract from his overall bloodlust.
- Lustful: He obsessed over Lila West and Hannah McKay, who were both killers, even though the first one was highly toxic and obsessive, and the second was literally on his kill table until he cut her loose and had sex.
- Reckless: He has botched his own plans sometimes due to foolish decisions and almost got caught, such as accidentally killing an innocent man who he thought was a serial killer or leaving a blood slide at Travis Marshall's murder scene that implicated him. He also avoided killing the Trinity Killer purely out of egotistical reasons and wanting to "learn" from him, which gave him the opportunity to kill Dexter's wife, Rita.
- Tragic Past: He is tragic because, as a young boy at the age of 3, he, his mother, and brother were kidnapped and locked in a container by a drug cartel run by Hector Estrada. The people who kidnapped them brutally killed his mother by chopping her up with a chainsaw, and he had to sit in their blood with bodies for two days until he was found by the authorities and adopted by Harry, but his brother was separated from him. This is the reason he cannot connect normally with other people and is a compulsive killer. Not to mention Harry's parenting is highly questionable as he encouraged him to kill.
- Has Trust Issues: He had difficulty trusting basically anyone who found out about his double life due to questioning their ulterior motives. Some served as temporary partners until they turned on Dexter (Miguel Prado and Lila West, both of whom Dexter killed) and others supported him (Hannah McKay and Debra).
- Vengeful: Dexter killed Oliver Saxon out of revenge due to killing his sister Debra, Hector Estrada and his goons for ordering the death of his mother, and Nick for killing Dex's friend Brother Sam without remorse.
- Has an Outfit with Black/Red/Blue: His work outfit is blue and his gloves in his kill outfit are black.
- Sociopathic/Psychopathic: He shows barely any empathy for other people, is extremely manipulative, and loves killing people. He admits to Little Chino (a killer) that he doesn't actually care about the victims he killed and just wants to eliminate him.
- Is an Edgelord: He is an edgelord as he frequently has dramatic monologues in his head about how he is a monster, is alienated from the rest of society as if he is inhuman, and is fighting his "Dark Passenger."
External Links[]
- Dexter Morgan on the Shonen Villains Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on the Heroes Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on the Villains Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on the Villanous Benchmark Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on the Dexter Wiki
- Dexter Morgan on Wikipedia