Dexter: A Non-Traditional Hero

Among the thousands of TV shows that are available to us, what makes certain shows have more of an appeal to the human audience? Shows of this nature have something that is mesmerizing, something we can not take our eyes off. Something that is so bizarre we must continue to watch it because we acquire devotion to the characters life. In the hit series Dexter, a man named Dexter Morgan is a Miami blood splatter analysts but, as dawn approaches he becomes a vigilante who seeks to murder atrocious people that have gotten away with horrendous crimes. By this nature he is a non-traditional hero because he kills and goes behind the law. Dexter’s main objective is to kill, but in order to achieve this goal he does other anti-hero notions as well. For the purpose of this essay I will only be looking at season 4 of Dexter because this is when he is most like an anti-hero. The ultimate reason Dexter is a non-traditional hero is because he eliminates enemy characters who have committed murder to other people with no justified reasoning behind it. As the protagonist of the show people would expect him to follow the law and allow the criminal justice system to handle these individuals. However, since Dexter

If Dexter has intel on the whereabouts of a killer but the police are also tracking them Dexter will withhold the information. This is not the quality of a typical hero because as the good guys they know that the police has the final say in matters. If they don’t receive all the information they need innocent people can get harmed. This is exactly what happens int the show. The conclusion being that Dexter is an anti-hero because he puts innocent people at risk in order to decimate malicious mortals. After seeing these notions we can establish that Dexter is an anti-hero but, why do we as the audience still root for him and think he is in the end a good