The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [62]
The two most important rules of the code—be sure the victim is a killer and don’t get caught—have guided Dexter’s behavior on several occasions. For example, in season four, Dexter considered but then rejected the idea of killing defense attorney Ellen Wolf after Prado said she should die because she repeatedly put guilty criminals back on the street. And in season two, when Sergeant James Doakes discovered that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher, Dexter faced a unique dilemma in which the two rules of the code conflicted with each other. On the one hand, Dexter had an opportunity to uphold the second rule by killing off Doakes, but doing so would violate the first rule because Doakes was not a killer. Faced with this conflict, Dexter actually considered turning himself in to the police rather than break Harry’s first rule and kill an innocent. Luckily for Dexter, Lila resolved the conflict by killing Doakes herself.
Because the Wise Old Man represents the Hero’s moral compass, bad things usually happen when the Hero fails to heed this archetype’s advice. For example, in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker’s friends are captured but he is warned by Obi-Wan and Yoda that it is a trap. Luke ignores their advice, travels to Cloud City, and is lured into a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Ultimately, Luke pays a steep price for his insolence when Vader cuts off his right hand in the fight.
A similar pattern can also be seen in Dexter. On the few occasions when Dexter has gone against Harry’s advice, it has inevitably led to devastating results for Dexter. For example, in “The Getaway” (4-12), Dexter was trailing the Trinity Killer when he received a call from Rita. Harry warned Dexter not to take the call, but Dexter disregarded his advice and during the call accidentally side-swiped a vehicle. This in turn led to Dexter’s arrest and, because he was in jail, Dexter missed his opportunity to finish off the Trinity Killer.
Dexter also ignored Harry’s incessant warnings that he should not marry Rita and start a family because doing so would both put Dexter in danger of getting caught and put his family in danger of being harmed by those out to hurt Dexter. Dexter, of course, rejected this advice and paid the ultimate price with the death of Rita in the season four finale.
Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego
Otherless-pronounced archetypes likely exist within Dexter, but the heart of Dexter’s story clearly revolves around the three archetypes described: Shadow, Hero, and Wise Old Man. Interestingly, this trilogy of archetypes also maps onto Freud’s conception of the psyche: the Id, Ego, and Superego.
According to Freud, the Id represents the most animalistic urges of human behavior. The Id acts in accordance with the hedonistic drive to seek out pleasure and avoid pain. Thus, it is the most amoral and selfish part of our psyche. As Freud put it, “It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality . . . and most of [it] is of a negative character.” Not only is the Id mostly negative, it also comprises the largest part of the human psyche. Textbooks often use the drawing of an iceberg to represent the Freudian psyche, with the iceberg tip pointing out of the water as a representation of the conscious part of self and the mammoth base of the iceberg that sits underwater as a representation of the unconscious part of self. And housed within this large unconscious are all of our most immoral, irrational, and violent urges (our Id). Notice how this take on humankind’s dark side differs from the Jungian perspective. Whereas Jung treated humankind’s dark side as an entity separate from the “core self,” Freud perceived the dark side as our core self, in the sense that it makes up the majority of our personality.
The opposing force of the Id—the entity that keeps it in check—is the Superego. The Superego is the part of the human psyche that strives for perfection. It is comprised of our ideals, our goals, and our conscience. The Superego is the part of self that gives us