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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Son, there are people out there who do really bad things. Terrible people. And the police can't catch them all. | „ |
| ~ Harry Morgan to his son. |
Harrison "Harry" Morgan is the overarching protagonist of the Dexter television franchise.
He's the adoptive father of protagonist Dexter Morgan and biological father of Debra Morgan. Harry is a Miami Metro Police detective who discovered young Dexter's homicidal tendencies after he witnessed Laura Moser's murder (his biological mother).
Rather than seeking traditional psychological help, Harry decided to channel Dexter's dark impulses by teaching him a strict moral code - known as "The Code" or "Harry's Code" - which dictates that Dexter should only kill other murderers who have escaped justice through the legal system. Throughout the original series, Harry appears primarily in flashbacks and as a manifestation of Dexter's conscience.
He is portrayed by James Remar in Dexter and Resurrection and Christian Slater in Original Sin.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- He cheated on his wife Doris with numerous women while she was dying of cancer, including Dexter's mother Laura Moser, which is doubly questionable and unprofessional as she was working for him as an informant. It was also revealed that Harry had slept with other informants and not just Laura.
- He let his own son, Harry Morgan, Jr. drown in a pool because he was too distracted watching sports, albeit remorsefully.
- He manipulated and pressured Laura into being an informant for the Estrada cartel despite the fact that she was extremely fearful of losing her life and protecting her sons, and as a result, she eventually gets dismembered alive by Santos Jimenez in front of them.
- Although he took Dexter and Brian Moser in after Laura's death, he focused more on Dexter than he did Brian, who was equally traumatized.
- When Brian lashed out at him after trying to kill baby Debra Morgan for crying, Harry made the decision that he and Doris were unprepared for Brian's trauma and sent him away, keeping Dexter. In the intervening years from sending Brian away to when he re-encountered him, he made no effort to keep track of him. He also kept Brian's existence hidden from both Dexter and the law, to the point where he immediately destroyed a medical record that had information on Brian's relation to Dexter, even as he was going on a killing spree. When he encountered Brian again seventeen years after their last meeting, he held Brian at gunpoint the entire time (though this was justifiable given that Brian had become a serial killer).
- He trained Dexter to be an effective killer and how to fake emotions, which makes him partly responsible for the 150+ people Dexter killed and all the lives ruined by this, which includes Dexter himself.
- This is also highly problematic as his raising of Dexter is psychologically abusive, leading him to believe he is inherently a "monster" incapable of human empathy or ever going past his trauma and urge to kill; Harry never took Dexter in for proper therapy.
- He encouraged Dexter to murder Nurse Mary, who was poisoning him in the hospital.
- While she deserved it, he could have turned her over to the authorities instead.
- He gave Dexter permission to murder Tony Ferrer after Dexter showed him the evidence that he had acquired about Ferrer's kills.
- When told by his good friend Thomas Matthews that Juan Reyness had been released, Harry lost his temper and subtly directed Dexter to kill him.
- When Harry sees Dexter dismember the body of Reyness, he kills himself out of guilt and to escape the consequences of his actions instead of doing anything to make up for them, thus never redeeming himself.
- Due to being busy training Dexter as well as his job with homicide, he was rather neglectful of Deb, causing her extreme insecurities and reckless behavior both in her teenage and adult life.
- After he inadvertently caused a criminal, Levi Reed, to walk free, Harry got drunk and later approached Reed's house with a suppressed handgun. He was prepared to pull the trigger and kill Reed, but he was prevented by his own intoxication and by Dexter drugging him with M99.
- Harry would give Dexter explicit permission to kill Reed after Dexter demonstrated to him how his kill room works, and even gave Dexter a tip to use smelling salts so he wouldn't need to wait for his victims to wake up.
- Harry stands out in the series a bit due to the very unique crime of teaching his son to be a killer, as well as being responsible for another person becoming a serial killer due to his neglect and intentionally covering up his existence even afterwards.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While he easily passes the baseline for training Dexter and ruining several lives due to his carelessness, he fails the heinous standards to various villains in the series, many of which who do far worse simply execute other murders, including targeting mostly innocents and engaging in exceptionally worse forms of torture, mutilation, even rape, etc (such as Jordan Chase). Dexter's kill count (150+), for which Harry is indirectly responsible, is also lower than Arthur "The Trinity Killer" Mitchell's (270+), coupled with the fact he targets innocents and in more barbaric ways. Harry also fails to Dexter himself, who has killed innocents and whose death toll extends beyond Harry's life. Moreover, while Harry's neglect of both Brian and Laura Moser is rather cruel and selfish, it is too indirect and unintentional to make him stand out among the more deliberate villains in the series.
- He is an anti-hero/anti-villain, and a grey-zoned character to some degree; his decision in training Dexter, while problematic from a parenting standpoint, has also saved many lives.
- Harry genuinely cared about his family (wife and children) and friends:
- He genuinely loved both of his children, comforting Dexter and Debra in several flashbacks as a father figure, being motivated largely by a desire to protect his son and asking his friend Thomas Matthews to take care of them before he killed himself.
- Harry also had a son before Dexter or Debra: Harry Morgan, Jr. Tragically, Junior drowned in the Morgan's swimming pool and this loss haunted Harry even years later. This may have also motivated his decision to adopt Dexter.
- He cared about both of his two lovers, Laura Moser and Doris Morgan, and felt guilty for mistreating them. Part of why he took both Dexter and Brian in, even if he only raised Dexter to adulthood, was motivated by his care for Laura and his guilt over getting her killed.
- He cared about his friend Aaron Spencer and supported him when his son was kidnapped. When Dexter tried to convince Harry that Spencer was behind his son's kidnapping and the previous kidnapping and murder of a young boy, Harry refused to believe it due to his trust and care for Spencer, believing Dexter was projecting his own darkness onto the captain. When it was later revealed that Spencer had in fact kidnapped Nicky and had nearly killed him, Harry was shocked that his friend could do this.
- While he did leave Brian to the system after realizing Brian's trauma was too severe for him to handle, Harry did still care for the boy. Despite holding him at gunpoint and telling him to stay away from Dexter, Harry was unable to bring himself to shoot Brian when Brian tried to force him to. He even saw Brian as his younger self when holding him at gunpoint. He also made a point to reassure Brian that Dexter had thrived under his care.
- He cared about his co-worker Bobby Watt, being upset when he was hospitalized, giving blood with everyone else and consoling his upset wife.
- He is honorable and has standards as the code forbade harming innocents, thus saving Dexter from truly going off the deep end. Harry also made a point to go over any evidence that Dexter acquired on his targets for his first few kills, only allowing Dexter to proceed once he was satisfied with their guilt (but still being uncomfortable with what Dexter was doing). He also found it repulsive when seeing Dexter dismember one of his victims, claiming that nobody deserved that and to have their remains put in trash bags, even killers.
- Harry was also disgusted by the notion of trophies from kills. When Dexter let slip that he'd taken a pair of Nurse Mary's earrings to relive the kill, Harry was outraged and made sure to reinforce that Dexter was not to take trophies from his kills.
- At one point, he stopped Dexter from killing a boy who bullied him.
- When Dexter had messed up with what would have been his third kill and his target escaped but was killed in a hit and run, Harry was further outraged and 'grounded' Dexter.
- He lives by a code that dictates "taking a life must serve a purpose; otherwise, it's just plain murder."
- He is a well-intentioned extremist as he wanted to protect his son and ensure criminals got the justice they deserved. He even commented on disliking being the reason that any criminal walks free.
- He had a long career in law enforcement dedicated to bringing down dangerous criminals like serial killers or drug lords out of a desire for justice.
- He is a generally affable character. He is seen being polite around his colleagues, and he kept his word to send a thank you letter to Dexter's biological father Joe Driscoll after Joe saved him with a blood transfusion.
- He felt extreme remorse for his training of Dexter, so much so that it contributed to his suicide, and mentioned feeling guilty about killing a man on the job.
- He is tragic/sympathetic for several reasons:
- He had to live with the fact that he was responsible for his own son's death, as well as causing the death of his lover, which he didn't intend to happen. His decision in adopting Dexter was also partly in order to compensate for the guilt he felt.
- He has insecurities about being a poor father, lover and husband given his treatment of Dexter, Debra, Laura, Doris, etc.
- He is a villain by proxy, as he never wished to be unethical but was put in a situation that he didn't know how to properly handle. This is further reinforced by how he didn't truly grasp the horrors of what he told Dexter to do until seeing him dismember a body. Harry lived a very stressful life as a result.
- His death where he kills himself is played for sympathy. It has him witness Dexter dismember a body and cause him to recoil; when Dexter remembers, it plays the iconic "Blood Theme" as he regretfully realizes he "killed [his] father." It also mirrors the situation at the time, where an imprisoned James Doakes told Dexter to "stay away" after seeing him murder - exactly what Harry said - which triggered the memory in the first place, partly causing Dexter to realize the horror of his ways.
- While it was his fault, his fate makes him somewhat of a scapegoat, and Dexter even envisions Harry when Harrison calls him out for the undeserving people whom he harmed around him.
External Links[]
- Harry Morgan on the Heroic Benchmark Wiki
- Harry Morgan on the Heroes Wiki
- Harry Morgan on the Villains Wiki
- Harry Morgan on the Dexter Wiki
- Harry Morgan on Wikipedia