If you’re not new around here, you may know that I like to post theories on the shows I like. Sometimes they’re my own; sometimes they’re not; sometimes they are ridiculous and suck; and sometimes they are dead-on. This is one theory that’s not my own, but I believe just has to be dead-on correct, and I’m ashamed I hadn’t figured it out on my own: Professor Gellar is a figment of Travis’s imagination, and he’s the only one who can see him.
That should sound familiar to you, since Dexter has that same sort of thing going on himself, in the form of his father, Harry Morgan. This season — and last season — we’ve seen an uptick in the amount of involvement Harry’s had with Dexter. That’s no accident — it’s there to build up to the big reveal, this season, that someone else has their own little Harry guiding them to do bad things.
It all makes sense, when you put the evidence of the past five episodes together. Not once have we seen someone other than Travis interact with Gellar, and we’ve only had to resort to taking Travis’s word that Gellar was committing the Doomsday Murders. The waitress in the diner all but ignores Gellar sitting there. Professor Porter adamantly denies Gellar could have any involvement with the murders, so how can she be so sure? Because he really has no involvement, that’s why.
The writers are being clever about this detail about Gellar, though, especially with the moment the girl Travis took home wound up bound and gagged in his kitchen. At one time she appears to acknowledge Gellar’s presence slightly, but only because Travis is talking in that direction. “Who’s he talking to?” she asks herself silently. And to keep that little secret, the victims have their mouths gagged so Gellar isn’t revealed to us with a simple, “who are you talking to?” from them.
But Gellar isn’t simply a Harry to Travis. Instead, it appears Gellar is acting more as a split personality to Travis, since he seems to believe Gellar is the one responsible for the murders, whereas Dexter clearly knows Harry’s in his head. Travis has also split himself so well that even Dexter believes Travis isn’t working alone, since Gellar’s technique differs so much from what Travis might do himself.
So where is the real Gellar? How is his blog being updated? One theory is that Travis killed Gellar a few years ago, when he disappeared, and Travis took over updating his site in his place. That makes a lot more sense to me than Gellar actually still being alive and following along with what Travis is doing. I guess it’s possible Gellar is so influential to Travis that he’s able to carry on a secluded life, all while Travis assumes two identities, but I doubt it.
I can see it now, when Dexter confronts Travis as head-Gellar stands nearby, and head-Harry stands by Dexter:
“Dexter, he’s clearly acting alone in these murders.” – Harry
“I know.” – Dexter
“Kill him. Kill him now!” – Gellar
“Yes, Professor!” – Travis
“… Who are you talking to?” – Dexter
“… Who are YOU talking to?” – Travis
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Nov 02, 2011 @ 11:45 EST5EDT
Thanks Keith for the credit!
I also thought it was odd, when they were standing next to the newspaper stand, and NOBODY reconized a person that is accused of those heinous Dooms Day crimes.
There is also other minor clues regarding Gellar being Travis’ “Dark Passenger” or “Voice in his Head” or whatever you want to call it. One example that comes to mind is that when Gellar picked up a knife in a seeming attempt to upset Travis, he actually cut himself rather than Travis. Obviously this maintains both Travis’ psychosis/guilt and keeps Gellar from touching anything else.
I can totally buy into this theory. How about the scene where Travis looks over at Gellar and appears to see Gellar’s head bleeding. He snaps out of it and we see that Gellar’s head is not bleeding. Does this mean Travis snapped out of one hallucination (Gellar bleeding) into another hallucination (Gellar not bleeding)?
The only thing against this, and it may be minor and just a mistake, but after he hits the girl with the car. You actually see Gellar open the car door to get out. If he were in his head, that wouldn’t have happened.
*POST AUTHOR*
To that I say who said the door ever opened at all? Same as with Gellar and drinking a cup of coffee — never happened.
the “whore” only speaks on Travis but not Gellar she only hears Travis voice and hears him refer to Gellar as the Professor… How can the most sought out man in Miami have cafe con leche in the middle of south beach? as we saw in this last episode “dark passengers” can pick up items (Dexters brother throwing a head over the boat) and even kill somone (pitch fork that turns out Dexter was holding)
Very good theory
That’s a cute theoretical scene. :)
Let’s be fair about the bar, though. Travis and Gellar were sitting in fairly good lighting, and at least ten feet from the also well-lit Miami Tribune stand with the large color photograph of Gellar with the same hairstyle and glasses—the same photo that the local news had plastered all over television screens that week. How could any of the 50 or so bar patrons have possibly noticed the only old man in the bar/club?
The car could easily have been an editing gaffe. The scene cuts a quarter-second after Gellar starts to open the car door, so you never actually see him get out, or close the door. In earlier episodes, I believe you can see him handling the mannequin pieces, but that also could all have been in Travis’s head, and he did all the labor himself later on.
He is real because in episode 7 Holly “the whore” that travis released refers to both of them.
Yes, but she was blindfolded….. he could easily disguise his voice..
Well the split personality fits in my opnion. In recent episodes Travis mentions he hasn’t killed anyone but wants to; but from what I remember of the first episode Travis kills the orange trader with the sword. I may be mistaken but that is what I remember.
As far as episode 7 which I am yet to see, if the woman refers to both of them it could still be covered under the split personality as she was blindfolded. Travis’s mannerisms could change massivly depending on who he believes he is.
I have actually thought for sometime now that Gellar is in Travis’ head, or rather that Travis is both Travis and Gellar. No one other than Travis ever interacts with Gellar or even acknowledges him. He simply appeared at the oddest times in Travis’ private life. Too many clues to mention, but there are lots of them. Holly said she heard two people but did not see two people. Travis could easily slip into another voice when he takes on the persona of conversing with Gellar (as posted above). Tho Travis and Harry are not the same. Similar, but different. I went looking today to see if anyone else thought this and found this site. Its fun to know others are thinking the same thing.
I suspected that Gellar was in Travis’s head from their first screen appearance, but I was convinced during the fourth episode, when Travis and Gellar are sitting in a diner and the waitress only asks Travis if he wants more coffee and completely ignores Gellar. Though I’m sure if she knew what was coming to her, she would have been a little more accommodating towards the invisible professor…..too soon??
I like how Travis closed the door on the professor during when he was at his siter’s house. I have a VERY bad feeling that somehow the Professor will convince Travis to hurt his sister.
Well, the victim that was let go described two people in the room. The older one was the leader, so unless she was hallucinating, there is a person on the show who’s heard professor talk, but not seen him.
If Travis has a split personality, he’s probably using two different voices (i.e. the movie “Psycho” – Norman Bates and his “mother”) which is what the “whore” heard.
Hmmmmm….but she never actually SAW the Prof, only heard him, and that could easily be Travis. And Dexter didn’t see Gellar either in lastest ep, so what we have is a situation where a) nobody has seen Gellar and b) all the people who should have seen him (waitress, “whore”) ignore him completely. Also, it’s odd that after Gellar smashed Travis in the face with a rock, Travis didn’t have a single mark on him, and if he’d just had his leg branded with a hot poker, Dexter didn’t mention it. It does occur to me too that, for the first time, Harry is not being shown with a ghostly aura and he and Brian appear to interact with things. I think they’ve done this so that there’s no difference between the 3 “spooks”, if you see what I mean :-)
It definitely seems like Gellar is in Travis’s head. Holly DID say she heard two people, but it was probably just Travis is a different voice or something.
The only thing I don’t like about the season is the fact that Colin Hanks is playing Travis. Colin Hanks. Is that the best actor they could get for the part?
At some point, when Gellar briefly seem to “interact in the real world”, isn’t it the same when for a brief moment, Brian (ITK) seem to fork the drug grower in Nebraska..but then it appear to be dexter when he snap out of the Brian Illusion? in the trailer of next episode, we also see harry nteracting with a plastic wrap that Dexter is deploying on the floor of the Church. Same here.
Thank God! I have been saying this for three weeks and my boyfriend has sworn I am crazy. The waitress does not pay attention to Gellar and he has nothing in front of him on the table at the diner. He does however have a drink at the second bar/diner, but presumably ordered by Travis. When the sister gets killed Travis BLACKS out allegedly from the shovel, but more likely a blackout of one personality to another. Even if this is wrong, I am so glad other people have thought it too. Happy Holidays
He’s definitely in Travis’ head. In the latest episode when Dexter goes upstairs in the church to look for Gellar, he sees an open window and it’s implied that Gellar escaped through there. I was like wtf he’s like a 60 year old man (probably older) there’s no way he jumped out of the top of a church. I actually think it’s a bit silly that Dexter would just pass this off as Gellar escaping through a window.
Did anyone else notice the broken board Dexter fell through? Could this be the location of Gellar’s body? – or a “DNA trap” that Dexter will have to answer to later?
Yeah I definitely think that is something that we’ll come back to. It seemed so pointless
Yeah it’s pretty obvious it’s a dissociative identity disorder deal. Very Fight Club style. I feel like an idiot for not noticing it much sooner. I’m a big fan of D.I.D. stories.
Using some slang I’ve encountered with this stuff you have three primary D.I.D. types.
1: Swooner – Each personality has no idea the other exists and no memory of the activities of the alters. Sometimes resulting in memory gaps, waking up in strange places, etc…
2: Pusher – The alters have full memory of all activities yet feel the different sides of themselves, often knowing they must keep their “Dark Passenger(s)” hidden. Despite the shared memory and knowledge of the often opposing sides of their personality the alters are usually not separate enough for the person to even realize they just “switched alters”. Not all alters are “Dark Passengers”, “Demons”, etc… some are good and could almost be called angels. Dip into your superhero stories and you can easily classify some major types… “Vengeance Demon” (Batman/Bruce Wayne), “Rage” (Hulk/David banner), “Chaos Demon” (Joker/Jack Napier), Defender (Superman/Clark Kent), “Nurturer” (can’t think of a good example),”Pleasure Demon” (can’t think of a good example),
The movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis has all of these alter types in it.
There’s also a alter type that’s more of a lack of personality than a separate personality. Kind of a lights are on but nobody is home kind of deal. It’s what’s left when neither the primary or any of the alters has any interest or need to interact with their surroundings. The subject is essentially functional but very out of it and creepy. I call this type a “buffer” (computer term for temporary storage space).
And then you have the best of all…
3. Snowflake: generally a freakish combination of the first two types with a bazaar combination of shared, separate, true and imagined memory of events.
Using this slang Dexter would be a pusher with his primary alter being a “rage”, aka his “Dark Passenger”. Travis would be a snowflake with his primary alter being Gellar, not sure what type that would be, some kind of combo between a rage and a chaos demon. Or possibly he has multiple versions of Gellar one a rage one a chaos demon etc… The horseman scene is definitely the work of a chaos demon but snakes in the bely is more along the lines of something a rage would do.
By far my favorite Chaos Demon is Tyler Durden from Fight Club. (And source of the slang term [unique and beautiful] snowflake) . The slang term pusher comes from Stephen Kings Dark Tower series that begins with The Gunslinger.
Oh… and the way I see it Gellar is an “alter” to Travis but Dexters dad is more of an imaginary friend relationship. In my opinion a very different kind of relationship.
wow! that’s really impressive dissection. All these terms were familiar but not that clear to me, now it’s crystal. it is nonetheless, as scary as it is fascinating.
Given this theory and Travis’ possible DID dx … I wonder if his sister exists..
ok….she is real..
LOL!
Yeah, it’s extremely obvious. Gellar’s body is in the tower, under the floor, and we’ll have a Bates Motel revelation scene soon… (yawn).
I do have to say, though, that during the last episode, I was actually hoping that there might a nice little twist in which Gellar would actually turn out to be real – but nope, it’s so evident now it’s almost vulgar.
And I was hoping Brian would remain as the “new Harry” until ep. 12 (though I would prefer nothing more than Brian as the permanent new Harry, and Dexter becoming more like him >:)) – but it was nothing but an awful copout. It’s all too clear now that the only reason to have Brian back was to club the clueless part of the audience on the head with the “Dexter is walking with Brian / the shady clerk can see only Dexter” scene, so that they remember it, have some point of reference and don’t go “duuh?” when Gellar is revealed to be imaginary. “See? Remember how Dexter ate with Brian, but Brian wasn’t really there? It’s just like that with Gellar and Travis!” – that was the only reason for showing Brian. Cheap, disappointing and predictable… though still watchable, admittedly.
I totally agree with everything you’ve written here. It’s been an enjoyable season but everything in this season has been really plain and bland and I’m not sure if I’m watching Dexter for the thrill anymore rather than just trying to enjoy his appearance on the screen. Also, the new addition of the black guy just makes me miss Doakes even more…
Oh, and I do hope that when the inevitable Bates Motel scene comes up, there won’t be any groan-inducing scenes with the guy who plays Travis trying to do “another voice” when switching to Gellar… not only is it just a cat’s hair from being ridiculous, but the only way to pull off a serious scene in which one actor does two separate characters who speak to each other is to have some really *good* acting. Maybe not necessarily Marlon Brando-level, but good. Otherwise such scenes turn out just… laughable. And the guy who plays Travis… well, he’s not capable of pulling that off.
I don’t think Gellar is imaginary. I think that’s what the show writers have gone out of their way to make us believe, and the result is probably going to be an awkward twist. I explained my reasons yesterday in Is Professor James Gellar real?. For a while I thought Gellar was a Harry-equivalent, but no more.
my only complaint with this theory is when travis has sex with the waitress and we, the audience, are shown gellar watching them through the door with travis completely oblivious to the fact he’s being watched. If gellar is a manifestation of travis mind we should only see these manifestations when he himself is aware of them. If he isn’t aware they’re there then how can the manifestation even exist? If he’d paused briefly and looked back giving the suggestion he felt he was being watched, that would give reason for the manifestation to exist. Otherwise we, the audience, shouldn’t be able to see things in travis’ mind that even he himself is unaware of.
For me that just makes it more convincing that Gellar is in Travis’ head. From the writers standpoint it gives the portion of the audience that believes Gellar is not real a reason to doubt their suspicions. It helps keep the portion that haven’t considered that possibility from developing that suspicion. And it can easily be explained that Travis was simply imagining him at the window. Not a full blown hallucination in that scene but more of a paranoid thought that crossed Travis’ mind at the moment and since Travis’ is used to having Gellar with him constantly he didn’t freak out and run to the window.
So yeah… that scene was a cinematic visualization of a thought that crossed the characters mind and also a tool to try and keep some of the audience in the dark about Gellar’s status as an alternate personality.
If you want to be a critic you can pick the writing apart, certainly more this season than any other of this particular show. If you enjoy that sort of thing then have fun. But is there really any TV series or movie you can’t criticize to death if you really set your mind to it. I prefer to try and overlook the flaws and immerse myself in the story and maximize entertainment value. If I find myself unable to overlook the flaws because they are so vast and plentiful then I simply find something else to watch.
I see what you’re saying, but it’s actually not “easily” explained that Travis was simply imagining Gellar, because that doesn’t play fair ball with the viewer. Nothing on screen suggests this. It wouldn’t take much to make the point: Travis wouldn’t even necessarily need to look in the direction where Gellar is spying. Just a close-up on Travis’ face as he’s having sex, showing a brief moment of guilt, perhaps, before the shot of Gellar would be enough. But as Danny says, there is nothing to signal any Gellar-awareness on the part of Travis. That’s why this scene points to Gellar’s reality, regardless of the show writers’ intentions.
I should note that none of this diminishes my love for Dexter, and on whole I’m loving this season.
This is a theory I came up with while watching, not from the web. It’s only after I developed it that I hit google.
No one that we know of has seen Gellar. When Travis was chained up by “Gellar”, I started to doubt my theory, but when Dexter started to chase after Gellar, he didn’t go after him because he saw Gellar. Travis dramatically looked in that direction, and Dexter reacted.
Gellar does not do anything: It’s always Travis who does. The kidnappings, buying stuff, the brandings, and the driving the car that ran over that person. I agree on the split personality.
Yeah its practically impossible to come up with a believable reason to argue against it. Guess we’ll see more evidence to the theory tonight. I’d be happy to be wrong as long as the twist is well written and implemented. And if those of us in agreement are correct I hope they make more out of it than a simple Fight Club homage.
There are some serious moral issues they could address here if nothing else. By legal precedent if Travis were brought to a court of law and the truth of his condition was conveyed convincingly to the jurors he should end up in a mental institution instead of prison. This fact is so upsetting to some that taking the law into their own hands is not uncommon here in the real world. Even more upsetting to these people is that the pure “pusher” class of D.I.D. sufferer (like Dexter) also belongs in a mental hospital instead of prison despite the fact that each side of the personality is fully aware of their actions and their moral implications.
My first guess would be that Travis ends up taking his own life when he realizes what he is and what he has done. If he jumps in front of a train then the full knowledge by the writers of these moral issues and those most opposed to the legal precedents would be nauseatingly comical.
While I do hope they address these issues in at least some vague manner I hope they make it interesting/entertaining and not cliché to those of us “in the know” of the current war under way with regard to multiple personalities and legal precedents.
As a side note I can confidently say you won’t see Travis pulling a Norman Bates and talking to himself in his mentors voice. They are clearly going “Fight Club Style” and any interaction between the two after the realization will be more along those lines. Like Travis realizing that he is the one holding the gun and magically a gun that was once in Gellar’s hand is suddenly in Travis’, blah blah blah …. etc… and so on.
Despite my own mild criticism of this season I would also like to say I am still an avid Dexter fan and will remain so until the (hopefully not too bitter) end. I would assume with the continued success of the novels (and a hopefully sound legal contract between the novelist and the network) that when the TV series does end it will be open for the novelist to continue his work as though the TV series was a few simple insertions to the storyline and world in which Dexter exists.
Just wanted to add and say I can’t believe you guys were right about the theory.
I just began to suspect this during the elevator scene when this all game blatantly obvious. Why else such clumsy storytelling elements? Now that I reflect on the previous episodes I’m beating myself for not seeing it sooner.
I’ll admit that I totally did not see this coming, and I am kicking myself for not having realized it sooner! The writers were brilliant at keeping his multiple personality disorder a secret.