Harry Morgan - Dexter

For a long time, watching Dexter, I have noticed that many of the aspects of his personality do not mesh with the typical attributes of someone with antisocial personality disorder. While he did have a few of the traits (almost ticked off in order to his character) such as artificial charm and a lack of most emotions, something was off. People with antisocial personality disorder do not possess empathy, which means that they do not have the ability to care or connect to anyone. Dexter clearly had strong feelings for his father and he also protected and cared for his wife and sister. He also showed signs of guilt and fear, something that sociopaths cannot do.


I wrote these off as oversights or inconveniences in truth, however, lately with the turn of events in the series, it seems like perhaps this was intentional. Perhaps Dexter himself was made to feel like a sociopath and grew up the way that his father raised him, never stopping to question it for fear that if he did he would make a mistake, breaking the 'code' and ending up in prison or worse.


A young boy who has experienced a trauma cannot be 'made into' a psychopath. Psychopaths are born, not made. We do not yet know everything there is to know about this incurable disorder, but what we do know is that A) Their brain's function differently than ours, their frontal lobes are damaged and there are other fundamental neurological differences which make up their neural networks and B) In studies of siblings and twins, there have been quite a few cases of one twin having antisocial personality disorder, while another, raised in the exact same environment, does not. This leads most experts in the field to assume that psychopathy is not something which can be in any way 'created'. What can be affected by environment is how this psychopath will evolve. Those who grow up in affluent and supportive homes tend to be quite successful businessmen, doctors and the like. Those who grow up in impoverished or violent homes tend to be petty theifs going in and out of prison. And a rare few do turn into killers. A horrific act of violence like the one Dexter and his brother endured can turn a psychopath (like his brother) into a killer, but it cannot turn someone who is not a psychopath into a psychopath.


It is also very unlikely that both boys would suffer antisocial personality disorder as it is not genetic and while it is more common than most people would assume, it is still relatively rare. What a traumatic event can do is make someone act out temporarily, or permanently if they do not receive the help they need. Dexter's father -acting either out of love, guilt and panic for what may become of his adopted son who had already been through so much (of which he felt somewhat responsible for) or out of a twisted desire to use his son to exact the revenge on criminals he could not- may have convinced his own son that he had no other option than to become a coldblooded killer. And by instilling this belief in an already troubled boy, he may have sealed Dexter's fate.