Is Dix Different?

I was thinking about the characters that we've been exposed to in the various types of noir fiction that we've consumed, and I have to say, I think Dixon Steele, despite having the most impressive name of the lot and being played my Bogart himself, was much, much different than how I imagined a noir protagonist to be. I don't think it can be argued that he's not a noir guy, but I do think that he is different in some fairly key ways. He's hardly hard-boiled at all! He's just a talented guy with some anger issues. He's the only noir protagonist that we've come across that I think wasn't the agent of his own destruction - at first, at least. He definitely had some hand in his eventual unraveling later, mostly due to the aforementioned anger issues. But I feel that if the police hadn't decided to single him out, everything would have worked out for him. He was in a relationship, he had a really good script going on, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him until he starts to come under suspicion by the police. Even his personality is different, it seems. He's obviously intelligent, but he doesn't sling around one-liners and stays mostly away from "baby." His affections towards Laurel seem more genuine than the other relationships we've explored, especially when contrasted with Walter Neff, whose relationship with Phyllis was always tenuous at best. He definitely elicits some pity from me. I'm not sure that he deserved what he got, anger issues or no anger issues.