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Red Rooms (2023) dir. Pascal Plante

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After the Wassail by Meraylah Allwood

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All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

MACBETH at The Donmar Warehouse (x)

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Is HWPOV! Bedelia in love with Hannibal? Please talk more about them, I am so fixated with her like Hannibal

God I know, she's such a bottomless well, isn't she? I've spent so long living in Hannibal's mind that he isn't much of a mystery to me anymore. But Bedelia? Shivers, who is she?

My instinct is yes, she is in love with him. Underneath her cool self-possession is a fierce possessive love. She has helped Hannibal tailor his person suit to sartorial perfection, she has watched him adopt her own taste and habits, thinking this was the ultimate testament of Hannibal's devotion to her. Then Will came along.

Bedelia is almost the opposite of Will. For her and Hannibal, love (or, at least, attraction) came first, understanding much later. Bedelia had to suffer quite a bit before she understood Hannibal, and now she's proud of that hard-won knowledge; she flaunts it. But here's Will, who understands Hannibal without trying! Seeing him, it's a kind of divine punishment for Bedelia.

Even at the end of HWPOV she is still very jealous of Will, though she realizes that her escape from Hannibal's orbit was only possible because of Will's entrance into it. So she resents Will even as she knows she has him to thank for her freedom. She isn't sure whether she wants to help Will or destroy him utterly. (Much like Hannibal.)

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Do you have any headcanons for Barney? I love him so much! He sees how dangerous Hannibal is. How he is only playing nice with Doctor Chilton. I wonder what gave it away that made Barney realize Will is innocent, Is there a backstory for him in HWPOV?

As a kid, Barney was caretaker for his grandmother and mom in swift succession. He has seen a lot of shit, and has been forced to develop a pretty keen intuition about people -- though not keen enough to stop working for Chilton, the worst boss in the world. But Barney is driven to help people in extremis, people otherwise abandoned, so even when the workplace conditions aren't ideal, he still devotes himself to his work. I think he and Will are kindred spirits: if Hannibal reflects all of Will's darkness then Barney reflects his goodness, and like always recognizes like.

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What is TGSOE! Hannibal plan with Bedelia?

She has escaped him, fair play to her. He has set her aside for now. If she can hold true to her resolution never to enter his orbit again, he might even be impressed enough to let her go forever. But that's the question: can she really stay away?

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— Planetarium, by Adrienne Rich

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This is super random, but I was wondering if you ship Brownham. This is Matthew Brown x Will Graham, and how would it somehow transpire in HWPOV and what would be the good doctor’s reaction and actions towards it

I can't say I ship it, really -- Matthew Brown had more chemistry with Hannibal in the pool scene, imo -- but I enjoyed that plot a lot. A pretty devious remixing of "Avid Fan" from Red Dragon, a funhouse-mirror version of Dolarhyde. I love a funhouse mirror.

Will's manipulation of Brown feels of a piece with Will's chess moves in HWPOV. Sending a killer after Hannibal is arguably less morally repugnant than some of Will's late-story tactics, like deliberately leaving Chilton undefended during the spree in the hope that Hannibal might try to kill him. I can totally see HWPOV!Will sending Brown after Hannibal. Will would be disappointed at having to go this route as he'd rather take out Hannibal himself - but he'd still do it if pushed. (Beverly, obviously, wouldn't be pleased - not only would this make Will a murderer-by-proxy, it would also destroy their investigation).

As for Hannibal's reaction, I don't think it would be all that different from what happened on the show, though I wouldn't let Hannibal get so excited that he'd actually bail Will out of the BSHCI. That mid-S2 plot resolution always felt a little cheap to me: Hannibal masterminding this prison-cell chess match only to blow the whole thing up at the first sign of Will being a brilliant player. But of course I would say that when I set my entire fic inside the prison!

But I do love the idea of Brown as another mirror, thinking he's reflecting Will when really he's reflecting Hannibal. That's a heady idea.

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Ana Luna aka Luna Ana (Mexican, b. 1989 in Guanajuato, Mexico) - Skull Guy, 2024, Paintings: Acrylic on Canvas

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Since Hannibal knows Will understands him, wouldn’t he realize that the letter is a lie? Was it one of Hannibal’s intention to write a letter that would show his deep vulnerability and hurt, thus provoking Will to visit him? Sorry if my interpretation is wrong!

Hannibal announces at the start of the letter that the letter is full of lies, lol. To mess with Jack, yes; to give himself the freedom to write whatever he wants, absolutely; but also to stay ahead of Will. He knows Will will see more in the letter than Hannibal intended to put there, and this is Hannibal's way of trying to undercut Will's certainty.

It doesn't work. In TGSOE Hannibal initially regrets sending the letter: "The letter is wrong, all wrong!" Because deep down Hannibal knows Will is going to see everything, he'll see Hannibal's throbbing loss and all his failed efforts to heal it, and that prospect terrifies Hannibal even as, in the end, it's exactly what he wants and needs.

I wouldn't say provoking Will into visiting him is Hannibal's primary aim here. Hannibal wants the comfort and thrill of perfect understanding, and writing a heavily obscured letter, the meaning of which even he isn't sure of, to a reader who perfectly comprehends its deeper meaning, is a balm for Hannibal's wounded soul.

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Hannibal putting the same old hat routine of seducing and dating someone Will is attracted to. He did that to Will by dating Alana 😭

re: this.

Well... yeah. Hannibal wants to have every experience Will has, inhabit his place in the world. He would be very interested in Molly. I mean, she married Will post-HWPOV! It takes a hell of a lot of guts to do that. She must be someone to reckon with.

I love pushing back against fandom tendencies in my fics, so challenging the trope of sidelined Molly, Molly the sad third wheel, is high on the agenda.

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Trying to whump a character and trying to figure out how they would react to the most painful horrifying things being done to them based on their personality but also considering the type of torture you want to put them through and how that would realistically shape them

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/ Saul Leiter. New York, 1950

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boy toys 🎾

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If TGSOE!Hannibal found out Will was interested in dating or already married to Molly, what would he do?

He would immediately try to seek out/talk to/date Molly.

Aghhh you got me with this one! Can't answer. And I torture myself because this isn't even spoiler territory for TGSOE, it's spoiler territory for Zero Doors! A fic I have no idea if I will ever write! But the events of said fic, unrealized though they may be, live behind a locked door inside my palace, and some doors simply cannot be opened.

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How do you think TGSOE! Hannibal would react to Will somehow dying either by a killer or by suicide? I don’t know which one Hannibal would hate more. What do you think he would do, and do you think he might kill himself? I am super sorry if this is a dark or inappropriate question

You were born with something beautiful, and to subject that beauty to willful destruction is a crime against nature, a crime against God, and even I can’t forgive that. The thought of you putting all that potential to waste, knowingly, spitefully; I can’t bear it. It gives me very good cause to hate you, Will. Be warned.

A partial answer to your question from the man himself! I say 'partial' for two reasons, 1) because Hannibal's letter is full of lies wrong versions of the truth and 2) the future Hannibal describes, what he sees as Will's self-destructive commitment to living a conventional life, isn't quite the same as Will dying by suicide or by someone else's hand. But for Hannibal these outcomes are no different. In the event that Will kills himself, Hannibal would see that as Will destroying himself to spite Hannibal, and if Will is killed by someone else, Hannibal would blame Will for that too, for in Hannibal's mind Will is a superior being, and the only way a lesser man can destroy a superior being is if the superior being allows it to happen.

I think Hannibal would hate Will's suicide more than he'd hate Will's murder, because at least if a third party were involved Hannibal could fixate on divine retribution. Without an easy target, Hannibal would be forced to pass the blame to everyone even nebulously connected with Will's death: Jack, Bev, Barney, Jo from the boatyard, etc etc. I don't know if he would kill all these people necessarily, but he'd absolutely obsess over them, churn them up, torment them. Hannibal loves passing blame, but refuses to pass it to himself, so the very last thing he would do is kill himself out of despair or to punish himself for Will's loss. Or so he tells himself, anyway.

Because, circling back to my number one above, the letter is a lie the wrong version of the truth. Hannibal writes the letter because he is terrified of losing Will, so terrified that he has preemptively convinced himself that he has already lost him! His threat ("Be warned." snort) is a raggedy-ass piece of provocation, and we see the vulnerability peeking out.

Not to mention the hypocrisy! Hannibal is preaching against self-mutilation when he's the one who has just torn one of his own memories to pieces. What Hannibal does in his memory palace is self abuse! And he suffers from its effects even as he worries about Will doing the same.

TGSOE!Hannibal is more capable of punishing himself than he thinks, but he approaches self-punishment creatively, through Rube Goldbergian means. So while I can't see him killing himself over Will, I can absolutely see him undergoing a brand of spiritual metamorphosis, a death-and-rebirth, emerging from the chrysalis as someone new, someone capable of living in the world without Will.

((mandatory disclaimer that the fic is still on hiatus))