Dexter and AS - Similar *no spoilers*

Post Reply New Topic

First, let me say it first that I know Dexter Morgan from Dexter does not have AS. He was not born with it, and he does not have motor difficulties, sensory issues or all that jazz. Do not think this is a speculation thread.

There is a show called Dexter on HBO. In it, a man named Dexter Morgan works for the Miami Metro-police as a blood splatter investigation. He is very obsessed with blood. Also, as his mother died in-front of him when he was young, he has no emotions. He has to pretend he has them. This means he gets along well with seemingly everybody in the office, but his girlfriend (and later in the season, wife) Rita, notices some odd behavior which she later ties to drug use (irrelevant).

He also calls other people normal, and he wishes he was like them sometimes. He once went a month without killing, and he started to get very agitated. His ritual is quite ornate. He also follows a set of rules which keeps him out of trouble and keeps the ritual working. Dexter studies his "prey" very, very well and knows pretty much every detail about him/her when it's time to kill.

What do you think? I think it was the best portrayal of aspergers without having it. Ironic.

That seems like a very accurate portrayal to me. I see a bit of all of us, in him.

As many ugly, negative stereotypes as there are floating around in the media and the public mind right now, I think making even the slightest correlation between a character like that and someone with any form of Autism is unwise in the extreme. The haters and the bullies will grab that idea and run away with it. Do you want people copying and pasting your post to their blogs so they can point to it and say: "See - even one of them says they're like dangerous sociopaths - they all need to be severely medicated and institutionalized, for the public safety!"

uhm. AS /=/ lack of emotions, it's just not expressing or noticing them the way others do.

I wouldn't want to associate Dexter with AS, although there are occasions on which he says something about understanding other people that makes me think, "Yeah, that part is kind of weird."

But the author of the original novels, Jeff Lindsay, wrote this little passage (from Dexter's point of view)...

"Many times in my life I have felt like I was missing something, some essential piece of the puzzle that everybody else carried around with them without thinking about it. I don't usually mind, since most of those times it turns out to be an astonishingly stupid piece of humania like understanding the infield fly rule or not going all the way on the first date.
But at other times I feel like I am missing out on a great reservoir of warm wisdom, the lore of some sense I don't possess that humans feel so deeply they don't need to talk about it and can't even put it into words."

Of course, hence why I said that he didn't have AS. I said it was similar. lol.

Dexter is a psychopath. Hardly similar.

Meh, I'm going to say that I actually agree. When I watched Dexter, I sympathised with some of it. Mainly the feeling of being at an odd angle in contrast with the rest of society, having to consciously cover up your differences and play along at acting like everyone else, trying to emulate their behaviors and interests as best you can. It's a common ND thing.

I'm also against stifling conversation on the off-chance of it being misinterpreted by people out to hate ND folks. If people would interpret a discussion on this as 'Oh look, Aspies/Auties are really psychopaths!' then they're going to pick up on anything and throw it out of context. When someone hates you they'll find a reason to nomatter what, so self-censoring for the sake of the opinions of your antagonists is counterproductive.

I think it's a mistake to overlook the fact that the reason why Dexter has to cover up his differences and play along with everyone is because he has a psychopathic need to kill people.

But both are symptoms of the same issue.

Two different types of people can face the same problems

I think it is silly to deny the fact that a complete lack of emotion and an inability to communicate or fully understand emotion can look the same or cause similar problems in relationships with other people. The effect of each condition on the person themselves is a night and day difference, because they are very different, but externally they can look similar.

I have had people call me a sociopath before because I have not reacted the way they expect to a situation, and in this I don't think that i'm alone. I want people to know that not only sociopaths can act strangely in an emotional situation, so that someday this won't be the first thing people think of.

If that takes admitting that you have to compensate in some of the same ways, is it not worth it?

I have a theory that autism and sociopathy/psychopathy are on very similar spectrums or possibly the one is an off-shoot of the other.

There are a lot of similarities between the two and some serial killers are said to have fit the criteria for Asperger Syndrome.

We aren't the same but it's like we are some kind of 'relative' of sociopaths. We have a lower level of empathy and they have practically none, yet they can put a very good act on but we can't.

There's definitely a connection between them and us though. Perhaps it's autistic genes plus the ones for sociopathy that make one of them hence we have common ground up to a point.

People with AS certainly aren't above murder - there have been a number of cases I'm aware of. It's as if the moment murder becomes involved though the AS community tends to say 'Oh you can't be sure they really had AS' as if AS means a person can't do anything wrong - this is ridiculous in my opinion and I tend to think 'There but for the grace of God go I' when one of these murders occurs.

We have defective empathy but not as defective as that of the sociopath. We are very similar in having to 'fake it' but for differing reasons. We mainly do care about people and we're trying to fake being 'normal'. Sociopaths are faking giving a damn about anyone.

I really like the Dexter character but I don't think he's that accurate a portrayal of a psychopath - he's too nice for a start. I think he'd be a lot more narcissistic and cutting to people if he really was one. His character wouldn't be sympathetic to the viewer then though.

I also think that people with AS are the natural enemy of the sociopath ie we can see through them. They can pick up on this very quickly and realise they can't con us and sometimes try to befriend us as we have a lot in common.