Fangirling Dexter: Should Harry Have Read Dexter Fairy Tales?

Okay. When I decided to fangirl Dexter it felt risky. I've read all the stuff about branding and how authors should create a recognizable image that will help connect readers with their stories.

But Dexter is a show about a serial killer and I write fairy tale/fantasies.
But I love Dexter, its been my guilty pleasure for years.
And it's the LAST SEASON.

Seems (some part of me) was bursting to share my passion for the show. So I threw myself into it, hoping, somehow, somewhere along the way it would all make sense (and I wouldn't have to delete the posts hindsight). Because when I wrote the first post A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right… (Some part of me) was still asking myself, why are you doing this?

Dexter is your secret.

And although I was really enjoying the season, and really enjoying writing my Dexter posts, it continued to not make much sense to me until about mid-August. When it came to me: Delivered in  a dream… not really (although I do have things delivered in my dreams… DRAGONS!) what my final Fangirling Dexter post was going to be about, I was like, oh yeah.

This is how it all comes together.

Should Harry Have Read Dexter Faiytales?

I've been reading The Uses of Enchantment, The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (UE) by Bruno Bettelheim since April of this year (according to Goodreads.) It's taking this long to read, not because the book is so long, only 309 pages, but because it's so dense. Each paragraph is an idea to consider, absorb, and test against my own personal reality. Because as I wrote in my blog post about fairy tales, Good and Bad Have Long Tails…, when I was young those enchanted tales held out hope for a future where the truth might be set free, and I might be able to breathe.

Uh-huh. Fairy tales mean something to me. Sometimes its hard to verbalize how deep they go, even though I'm a writer. There are places in me that simply don't want to speak. But those places see and they hear and they act. Those places comprehend the theories of which Bruno Bettelheim writes.

A little bit about Mr. Bettelheim. He was born in Austria in 1903 and was exposed to the psychoanalytic theories of Freud as a teenager. Fascinated, he pursued the study of Freud's works, became acquainted with Anna Freud,  and underwent his own psychoanalysis. However, in March of 1938, Germany invaded Austria and Bettelheim spent the next year in the concentration camps, Dachau and Buchenwald, where he witnessed fellow prisoners being arbitrarily killed. Perhaps due to his training, he developed an analytic awareness of the psychological effects of terror, the terror that was wielded by the SS to, in Bettelheim's words, change the prisoners permanently into passive subjects without any resistance or without any ability to resist the Nazi system.

Bettelheim was released from the camps in 1939 and went to America, where he became the Director of the Orthogenics School for disturbed children in Chicago. Although there is controversy about his work, specifically his theory of the etiology of autism, he seemed to possess an uncanny understanding of children and their interior lives. He always attributed his ability to empathize with disturbed children to his own experience of terror in the concentration camps.

Watching the documentary, "Bruto Bettelheim: A Sense of Surviving," one gets a sense of  just how disturbed the children admitted to the Orthogencis were: homicidal, suicidal, psychotic, severely delinquent, and mute. To be eligible for admission a child had to have sought treatment elsewhere and have had the treatment declared a failure. One of the students, now a functioning adult, describes his state of mind when he entered the school as a child of ten. I had detailed, specific fantasies about murdering and dismembering woman. Very disturbing stuff.

How did Bettelheim's treatment of the most disturbed work? From the introduction to UE, my main task was to restore meaning in their lives. Then he goes on to identify parents and caregivers as having the primary impact on a child's ability to find meaning, with cultural heritage following. Accordingly, he believed that literature carried such information best. However, Bettelheim was not satisfied with much of the literature written and published for children because it fails to stimulate and nurture those resources the child needs most to cope with difficult inner problems.

Bettelheim believed fairy tale symbolism constellated a child's imagination in a way that helped the child make sense of their interior life and imbue it with meaning. Rather than being told what to feel, believe, and think a child could take from the fairy tale the developmental lessons that suited their personality and current circumstances. This could happen in three ways:

1. Justice. Fairy tales acknowledge the dark side of human nature: the wicked witch, the evil stepmother, the corrupt father, the ridiculing elder brothers. The child is given an indirect route to experience his own feelings about being treated wrongly, unjustly, and callously by the world of adults around him. When the children in fairy tales outwit the adults who terrorize innocent children, the child can imagine, one day, justice will triumph in his world as well.

2. Faith. Most fairy tales involve the hero leaving home. Whether they are sent out, pushed out, exiled, or run away, the children in fairy tales must grow up. Identifying with the hero's journey, children learn there is power to be gained by facing adversity, achieving competence, and gaining wisdom.

3. Hope. Because of the Happily Ever After/HEA, the child experiences hope that he too can find his way in the world: To run his own kingdom—his own life—successfully, peacefully and to be happily united with the most desirable partner who will never leave him. And it's the hope that is important, because hope allows us to trust the future and as Bettelheim points out, not trusting the future really means not trusting oneself.

Whew. Back to Dexter.

What would have happened if Harry had read the traumatized Dexter fairy tales? Maybe "Beowulf" for starters. We can imagine feelings of terror and rage flooded the psyche of Laura Moser's traumatized son as he sat in that bloody shipping container—abandoned—for days. As we saw, in Season One, when Dexter does a face plant at the crime scene especially prepared for him by Brian, those memories have been repressed and disconnected from the conscious urges of Dexter's Dark Passenger. Could a symbolic tale of a man slaying a beast devouring an entire town have assuaged the unconscious roots of Dexter's need to kill?

Or was The Code really the only answer?

What about "The Beauty and the Beast"? Could Dexter's psyche have called forth a life-affirming force as compelling as his Dark Passenger? And if it had, would he have needed Hannah?

Interesting questions.  Personally, I believe in the unconscious. I believe in the journey of drawing up as much from our depths as we can manage. And I believe in fairy tales. But I don't think Dexter is a fairy tale, because I don't think there's going to be a Happily Ever After. Sob. However, by externalizing Dexter's struggle with his Dark Passenger, the show has created an incredible entertainment vehicle that allows us to get as weighty as we want with its meaning.

As you can see, I've leaned towards heavy.

Thank you Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, James Remar, David Zayas, C.S. Lee, Lauren Velez, Julie Benz, Erik King, Yvonne Stahovski, Sara Colleton, Scott Buck, the writers, directors and the rest of the cast and crew that have made such an amazing show that I have loved watching for 8 seasons!

(I actually got tears in my eyes when I wrote that! No wonder I'm fangirling!)

And to close it all out… how about that Dexter-themed GIVEAWAY I've been promising!

Enter to win Dexter: The Complete Final Season

Scheduled to be released on November 5th
or a $40 Amazon Gift Card.
WINNER'S CHOICE

Awesome.

Fangirling Dexter Pick of the Week: Dexter Wrap-up Podcast 8.11 Monkey in a Box with writers Wendy West and Tim Schlattmann and actress Yvonne Strahovski.

And in case you missed the rest of the Fangirling Dexter posts:

A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right…

Episode 8.04 Scar Tissue

The Psychology of Dexter

Eating Magic: What's Ultimately Dark… & What's Ultimately Light?

Does Everyone Have a Dark Passenger?

Fangirling Dexter: Does Everyone Have a Dark Passenger?

Of course they do!

I answer yes unequivocally, without hesitation, and with absolute conviction. Jung and Freud would agree, except they would call it The Shadow or the Id, respectively. The religiously inclined call it Sin. With all those names and widespread acknowledgment, my bet is the Dark Side—those socially and morally unacceptable impulses we strive to keep a lid on—is universal.

What's very individual is how aware/conscious we are of those pesky little desires.

Now, I'm all into depth psychology and that's pretty much what Dexter is. What's so wonderful about Dexter is his awareness/consciousness of his inner darkness.

In fact, he's so aware that he's given it a name: The Dark Passenger. And he tells us about it in those impeccably written and delivered voiceovers: how it drives him, what it craves, and how he feeds it. What is even more fun is how he recognizes the darkness in others. As someone who is very clear about his own dark urges, Dexter's got X-ray insight into what others hide. This plays out in the series in two psychologically delightful ways.

Every season, Dexter has a major nemesis. It's usually the first kill of the season, the first homicide the department has to investigate. Dexter, the unassuming lab geek, blood spatter expert in his pastel button downs and hush puppies (are those hush puppies?) is called to the scene and meets someone else's Dark Passenger via forensics.

Initially, he's attracted to and/or intrigued by the clues the killer has left behind. His fascination swells as he begins his covert/unofficial/on-the-side investigation into this particular deviant. What's so cool is we, the audience, aren't just privy to the normal-homicide-investigation-analytics of your typical cop show, we get the bonus view of the Dark Passenger's analysis.

Let me stop right here and say motive is often the most CLICHE aspect of PLOT in many of the shows I watch. You can almost see the actors' and actress' groping through cheesy lines of "Why they did it." Not Dexter. From the incubation of Dexter's ravaged psyche to the events that feed every other character on the show, including the killers, I have to give the show 5-stars on developing their characters' motives. You're always left with a feeling of believability. Yeah, this is what drives them. Detailed backstories that aren't too convoluted. Whether its Hannah, Trinity, even Deb, Angel, and Quinn—and most recently, Dr. Evelyn Vogel, there's a feeling of reality as to this is what made these characters who they are.  It helps that the show has SUCH INCREDIBLE ACTORS AND ACTRESSES delivering the lines: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, Charlotte Rampling…

Okay, so that's the first level of insight we get from Dexter's Dark Passenger. The second one is his insight into us Normal Folks, i.e. non-killers, those of us whose Dark Passengers aren't inclined to murder. Heres' a quote from Season 1.01 that puts a big grin on my face:

Dexter is on a date with Rita. They've gone to a crab shack.

"Needless to say I have some unusual habits, yet all these socially acceptable people can't wait to pick up hammers and smash their food to bits. Normal people are so hostile."

Here Dexter is genius in giving us insight into ourselves. By openly sharing his Dark Passenger with the audience and its insights into other killers and normal people, the show creates a safe, creative, entertaining space for us to explore, acknowledge—perhaps, confess—become (more) conscious/aware of our own Dark Passengers.

Kind of cool, huh?

Of course in Daughter of Light, Umbra is humanity's Dark Passenger. (Can't wait to see how that's going to turn out!) I started writing the series and developing the concept of Umbra in June 2008. Dexter, Season 1, aired in 2007. Although it crossed my radar, my ego/superego completely rejected a TV series about a serial killer. When I finally broke down and watched it (see A Sympathetic Serial Killer… Right...) we rented at least the first two seasons from Netflix and marathoned them. I vividly remember the sun rising as we watched Lila's last moments in Paris. I can't remember if it was the third or fourth season we had to begin watching real time. But as I was already obsessed with depth psychology and the issues of "inner darkness," the slick genius of the show immediately hooked me. I gained even more respect for the series after reading the books, because the TV writers really balanced out Dexter's darkness with his Hero/Light/Ego side through his struggle to connect with others.

Which brings us to the final season—Hannah—and Dexter's struggle to become Whole.

Some viewers are put out that Hannah is the final catalyst in Dexter's inner battle. They want it to be Deb. The paradox is, without Dexter and Deb, there would be/could be no Dexter and Hannah. And while enduring bonds are the stuff that makes us human, I'd argue it's true love—the romantic experience of the irreplaceable other—that catapults us into the light of our best selves.

So… Will he? Will he? Will he?

Will Dexter become Whole?

Three more episodes to find out what happens in this epic story about integrating dark and light.

Fangirling Pick of the Week (there's two!):
Michael C. Hall on the Daily Show
Review of Dexter 8.09 Make Your Own Kind of Music by Gracie

Fangirling Dexter: The Psychology of Dexter

Since I've decided to fangirl Dexter on my blog, I feel kind of weird. The shows about a serial killer, you know. So I'm reading The Psychology of Dexter by Bella DePaulo Phd. I'm not sure it's helping. It's a collection of essays that were written post-Season 4. (No Dr. Evelyn Vogel insights.) Many of them focus on Dexter as a killer. UGH! That's not why I watch the show.

Finally, I get to an essay that zooms in on the issue's of Dexter's identity. His sense of self. His self-identity. It discusses how self-identity develops and it examines the development of Dexter's. Yeah. That's why I watch the show.

Two things in life fascinate me: Spirituality and Psychology. I guess that's why you find a post about Dexter following a post about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on my blog. I guess.

I'm super curious. I always have been. I'm fascinated by what makes people tick, including myself. Tick-tock.

I suspect that our spiritual beliefs and psychological realities are the two legs are psyches stand on. Even if we don't have spiritual beliefs, that is a spiritual belief.

Back to Dexter. The show is intensely psychological, offering a unique window into one man's psyche.

It works like this:

1. We see Dexter at work, the blood spatter expert.
2. We see Dexter interact in his personal relationships with his sister, his colleagues, and his victims. And of course with Harry's "ghost."
3. As the series evolves we became privy to the events in Dexter's life that make him who he is.
4. And yes, we see Dexter kill. Only killers of innocent people according to Harry's Code, unless things go awry.
5. Then we get that fabulous voice-over. Of it all.

The show wouldn't work without the voice-over. I've read a few of the books in the series, and no offense to Jeff Lindsay, but the TV show took an interesting idea and blew it out of the water. All the main characters in the show are in the books, but Dexter is a decidedly more disturbing character in the books. Just sayin. I stopped reading the books.

So it's the voice-over that makes the show, not the killing. My opinion. We see Dexter's mask, and how he creates it. We see what his mask hides, how disturbing that is, and perhaps, if we are inclined to believe, the plausible roots of his psychopathy. The voice-over, along with Michael C. Hall's impeccable acting and delivery, are what engages us. Okay, what engages me.

Dexter is constantly concerned with his identity. He's often confused by social expectations. Most don't seem to make a lot of sense to him, and they seem like a lot of bother. But Harry, his foster-dad, taught him that he needed to appear normal because he isn't normal. Harry and Dexter's relationship is very dark, but it's all delivered with such intense genuineness, you can't help but be charmed. Okay, I couldn't helped but be charmed.

To say the personality of the character Dexter is a multiplicity of constructions is an understatement. The fascination is in how he processes, adapts, accepts, and reorients himself. The gems are his incisive insights on the  ever-present absurdities of the social condition.

Deb, Dexter's younger foster-sister, is his most enduring counterpoint. She doesn't see behind his mask… [no spoilers here!] So there is this kind of crazy normalcy contrasted with this off-the-charts insanity, and we get  Dexter's inner thoughts on it all. Quirky. Irresistible. Dark Humor.

And then Dexter evolves. Each season he has a particular social conundrum, a new role to take on. How he experiments, fails, succeeds, and resolves the season's particular perplexity is woven deep into the fabric of the show's plot, which always includes a Dexter nemesis and a big crime that the department is working on.

The brilliance is in how these threads come together—sans cliches, season after season. We, the viewer, are constantly surprised, amazed and gratified with how it's pulled off. And that voice-over. Dexter aka Michael C. Hall charms us in spite of ourselves. Ick. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? No answer.

Okay, that's a pretty long-winded justification of my guilty pleasure.

Fangirling Pick of the Week: Episode 8.04 Scar Tissue Wrap-Up Podcast The first 30 minutes of the podcast writer Tim Schlattman provides incredible insight into the writing process that created the series. [SPOILER ALERT]

Fangirling Dexter: A Sympathetic Serial Killer…Right...

I've been a fan of Dexter since I discovered the series on a desperate Netflix hunt years ago. I wanted to find a series, and Dexter kept coming up in my searches. Once I read the description and realized that it was about a serial killer—a sympathetic serial killer no less, right… and that all the red on the cover was blood, I was like, eww, no way am I going to watch a series about a serial killer.

Gratuitous violence, uh-huh.

I don't think I would have ever ordered the discs if I could have found anything else to watch, but I couldn't. So it was one of those WTF moments.

I was so hooked.
I love dark, dry humor.
Dexter is loaded with that and so much more.

Recently, I wrote a guest post about my top 10 favorite TV shows. Dexter, of course, made the list, because it's not just Dexter. Debra. Debra. Debra. Dexter's foster sister is a magnet from the moment she utters her first off-screen expletive in Season 1, Episode 1.

"Dex, please, pretty f@%king please with cheese on top."

And then Dexter's monologue continues…

That's my foul-mouthed foster sister, Debra. She has a big heart but won't let anyone see it. She's the only person in this world who loves me.
I think that's nice.
I don't have feelings about anything, but if I could have feelings at all, I'd have them for Deb.

We mailed back Season 1 and watched Season 2 in about 24 hours. Finished about 6 am in the morning. Couldn't stop watching Lila—or Dexter wrestling with his dark passenger 12-step program style.

Then we were stuck, waiting…for Season 3. And since then, every year, I'm embarrassed to admit how much I look forward to Dexter.

What's the hook?

Dexter is complex, layered, well-written, and deeply psychological. Aware of his dark side, he's a Peter Sellers Being There-like chameleon.

Debra is his light. A strobe light, a lava lamp, and sometimes just a flashlight that needs batteries, but she has depended on her big brother, counted on him, hoped for him, and believed in him all her life.

When she was sucked into his darkness in Season 7, the finale had me frantic. Would the series violate what I loved most about the show? Would Debra slither down Dexter's dark rabbit hole and drop into his abyss?

Thank god the answer was no.

In Season 8, Episode 1, we learn that she's found her own abyss.

And that felt real and true. I was so relieved. But when Charlotte Rampling came on the screen I almost peed my pants. In that moment, I knew Dexter wasn't going to let us down. Season 8 is going to be epic. And I decided I wanted to do a little fangirling to celebrate.

Forty-five minutes until Episode 2.

But who's watching the clock?

Fangirling pick of the week: Jennifer Carpenter's Interview on the Season 8, Episode 1 "A Beautiful Day" Wrap-Up podcast.