Dexter, blood spatter analyst for Miami Police Department working with the Homicide department (Arellano, 2015), emerges a hero rather than a serial killer, because of his ability to kill other serial killers. Dexter became a serial killer for three reasons:
- having witnessed the murder of his mother when he was three years old,
- being mentally and emotionally twisted, and
- with the death of his mother, he becomes orphaned and is adopted by one of the policemen that were first to arrive at the scene of his mother’s murder, detective Harry Morgan.
Although Dexter cannot remember details of his mother’s murder, Harry realizes that Dexter exhibits sociopathic symptoms that could be as a result of witnessing the murder. Convinced that Dexter would ultimately become a serial killer, Harry determines to leave Dexter with a code for killing, to only kill those who deserve to be killed by collecting enough evidence to determine who deserves to be killed, how to avoid detection, and the best ways of cleaning up and disposing victims.
Dexter would get many of his leads from his work as a blood spatter analyst in Miami Police Department. He often would get involved in cold blood murders and would do subsequent research of his own to determine who is guilty before killing the victim and disposing off their bodies without a trace (Arellano, 2015).
It is clear that what Dexter is doing is illegal even when he is a mentally and emotionally twisted individual; this, however, does not make him a villain. It rather makes him a hero for the following reasons: Dexter is able to control his actions and is disciplined about who he murders, men and women who had used loopholes in the law system to get away with murder. He threatens only those that according to his investigations deserve death while posing no threat to those who are guiltless (Donnelly, 2012).
Dexter only kills other serial killers and is therefore able to protect his city of Miami from serious danger of serial killers on the loose. He is a hero because he is able to save the town of Miami. Other authors have argued that what makes Dexter a true hero is that he understands that what he is doing is evil, but he wants to use his greatest flaw in the best way possible to make his contribution to humanity.
So, he chooses to eliminate people like himself so that they don’t do kill innocent people. In the series, the district attorney in the movie, Miguel Prado, identifies Dexter as a hero when he finds out about Dexter’s actions and requests him to become his mentor and share with him his expertise on how to deal with criminals using Dexter’s code (Donnelly, 2012).
Other authors classify Dexter as an anti-hero since he lacks in the conventional attributes of a true hero like morality. And while his actions appear ultimately noble, murder remains a core moral fabric that calls for restraint and Dexter killed to feed the urge that burned within him. Viewers are often more sympathetic to anti-heroes which is the reason for everyone adoring and regarding Dexter as a hero and would not want anything happening to Dexter (Reisch, 2013).
Heroes are either borne or made; they either have stable heroic tendencies or they become heroes because they were pushed into circumstances that give rise to being heroes. Dexter’s narrative contains both. He appears to have inborn tendencies to murder that were triggered by the murder of his mother.
Additionally, according to Allison and Geothals, professors of psychology and leadership studies, Harry had a significant part in creating Dexter to be who he eventually became. Harry trained Dexter to channel his urges to kill in humanitarian ways (Donnelly, 2012).
Lastly, Dexter is a hero because a huge percentage of his fans support and root for him; if he were a villain, then very few would root for him.
