The heroes of the The Staircase are those who embrace the muck. Michael's lawyer, David Rudolf, can’t say whether or not his client is innocent, but he does believe he can prove in court that Michael is not guilty — that these two things are not equivalent doesn’t faze him. Michael’s daughters, who have lost their birth parents and their adoptive mother, must believe their father is innocent in order to preserve some sense that their lives don’t exist in a complete vacuum of chaos. But this belief is made all the more tragic by the fact that the girls seem to understand and struggle with their magical thinking.