#THIS IS LIKE WHEN I SAW HANNIBAL FOR BEDELIA

[aparticularbandit]

Okay so. Admittedly, I have only seen the anime and played one case.

But if Junko is the Ultimate Analyst. and then spent how many years with the group in DR1 before wiping their memories. and she was a good enough analyst to be able to analyze big world events and trends and etc. then. how could she not be able to see how each of these people would act and react the way that they did? How could she not guess that Sayaka would try to murder someone to get out? Not know that Makoto would be able to turn everyone to his side against her?

This either suggests that Junko never really knew them at all (possible, but then how do we play with her charismatic manipulative etc.) or that Junko is good at analysis on the large scale but not on the small scale. Predict trends, but not people - not individuals.

Like. Junko can predict that the masses are asses, but she can't predict when a singular individual will be. Because she never has enough of a complete dataset to know that with complete certainty.

...which means really if we could Junko fascinated with people, she would end up being Hannibal. Specifically show!Hannibal. Who liked to wind people up and then send them after people just to see what they would do.

[honeygrahambitch]

"So, Hannibal, seeing that we are having a very lovely dinner," Bedelia started, looking at her own leg being the piece de resistance, "have you told Will about Anthony?"

Hannibal brought the wine glass to his lips in a bit of a hurried manner.

"Anthony." Will repeated the name. "Anthony." He said and turned to Hannibal.

"You met Anthony, my dear. Or, at least, you saw him. Heart-shaped."

Will nodded as the image of the body shaped heart from Palermo flashed through his mind. "What did he do to end up like that?"

"He might have twisted Hannibal in an uncomfortable position." Bedelia said as she gracefully reached for her own glass.

Will put his fork down and arched an eyebrow.

"He was clearly interested in me but I didn't return his feelings."

"Debatable." Bedelia commented. Hannibal looked at her as if he was giving her a warning.

"Not at all."

"Please." Will stopped Hannibal. "I want to hear about it." He said and nodded towards Bedelia.

"I am missing details, forgive me, Will. I don't know what happened after they slept together. But Hannibal was so annoyed he killed him."

Will turned his head back to Hannibal.

"I am really pleased with the new oven." Hannibal commented and admired the piece of meat he had just carved.

"Slept? Together?"

"I'll give him that, Anthony looked just like you."

"Pardon?"

"He was having a hard time. He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt but his misery makes for a good defense that he might use."

"I am right here." Hannibal said even though he did not dare to look Will in the eye.

"Misery?" Will asked.

"In the nights when he wouldn't cry himself to sleep with a bottle of wine he would get himself a man...or two. As a coping method, you know?" Bedelia replied as she tasted a piece of her own leg. She had nothing else to lose.

"Wow." Will said and laughed nervously, giving away some sort of anger. "I was the one with perforated guts yet poor dr. Lecter was feeling miserable. And in top of that sleeping with men who looked like me."

"I hope you are aware this is the last night that tongue of yours is in your mouth." Hannibal threatened elegantly and looked at Bedelia.

"No, I insist on hearing more." Will encouraged Bedelia. "Imagine coping by having sex. I couldn't afford that since I was in the hospital for a few months."

"I am not proud of it. And all of them lasted for a maximum of 12 hours. I could not bear the thought of giving my affection to someone who was not you."

"Really?" Will asked. "Not even to your wife?"

Bedelia had not seen that coming. She had to keep Will on her side.

"That is different. She is a woman."

"I have noticed that much."

"I could also bring up the fact that you got yourself a wife. And forgot about me." Hannibal said. "Besides, we are currently eating my ex-wife. You did not agree with eating yours. Did you hear me make a fuss about it? I don't think so, amore."

Will sighed. "No, you never make a fuss about anything, Hannibal. Just imagine if I had been the one to sleep with hundreds of men."

"I would ask for their business cards. Just for my own curiosity." Hannibal replied honestly trying to look as innocent as a lamb. "Do you know what I find curious? Bedelia had insisted all along that she had been so drugged she had forgotten everything. Yet she remembers each man we had for dinner." Hannibal added and clapped his hands.

"This is a miracle. Dr. du Maurier retrieved her memories." Will said and smiled funnily in a deadly way. He was not sure whether Hannibal or Bedelia should be his next victim.

"They come and go." Bedelia said as she grabbed the grapes in front of her. "Like the men Hannibal slept with."

[evadne01]

Hadrian rambles

Let's talk about the thing we got robbed off, at least according to me.

Will and Bedelia's possible relationship.

Think about that: Bedelia is the only one that goes to Will while he is in jail just to tell him that she believes him. She is the only one that gave him physical touch. The comfort Will needed.

The next time they saw, Will thanks her for her words. Because at that moment, in jail, Will needed to hear that someone, anyone, believed him.

And then, the next time they saw each other, Will is 'petty' with Bedelia and Bedelia sarcastic with him (See image above to have an idea).

Well, I read that Will is jealous of Bedelia because she was with Hannibal.

I don't think it is like that.

In my mind, Will is disappointed of Bedelia. Not because she went with Hannibal (he would have wanted to go with him as well, so I don't see him hating Bedelia because of that, especially considering that Hannibal could have killed her very easily), but because she hide herself.

She told everyone Hannibal kidnapped her, that she didn't have a choice.

Will, when Jack asked him why he called Hannibal, he admitted that Hannibal was his friend, and that a part of him wanted to run away with him.

Bedelia, even if she chose to run away with Hannibal, lied to get away from everything.

And Will is disappointed because it isn't what he expected from the same one that went to his cell and comforted him.

Did I want a friendship between these two? Absolutely.

[cedarxwing]

Hannibal Season 4 Plot Ideas

The main concepts that keep coming up in interviews of Bryan Fuller and some of the cast are:

"Will Graham's broken mind" and "memory palace bullshit"

"Inception meets Angel Heart"

an interesting return to season one dynamics, but flipped

deeper exploration of Will and Hannibal's relationship than in previous seasons

stuff from Hannibal the novel that no other adaptation has done yet.

we're in Cuba

So based on that, here are some possible story beats for S4 (picking up right after the Fall as if the show was never cancelled):

We start out in Cuba. The most obvious reason? To hunt down one of their victims that have fled the country, as Hannibal does at the end of Silence of the Lambs. Based on interviews, it's clear that Chilton would remain in the US to head the BSHCI again (how is he alive, let alone working?), so it's more likely that they're hunting Bedelia for the post credits leg scene.

Will Graham's Broken Mind

During the Fall, Will suffers a mental schism that splits his personality, similar to the detective in Angel Heart. I don't think he literally has a split personality disorder, but he compartmentalizes his killer/Hannibal self from his moral self. When he participates in murders, he's not quite himself, viewing it through a dream lens (we saw a little of this when he was killing the Dragon). It's possible that he takes on personality traits from killers in season one, or even has to fight against a Red Dragon personality ("You can always toss the Dragon to someone else." "Will Graham interests me.")

I think we'll see a return of the teacup metaphor relating to Will's mental schism, since their reunion represents the "teacup coming together again" the way Hannibal wanted it to in Digestivo. "Not even in your mind?" Well, the teacup HAS come back together in Will's mind, because there's no other way for him to accept his feelings for Hannibal. He mentally regresses back to season one/two and we see the return of the Abigail imago we last saw in Primavera, as well as Beverly and Hobbs and Gideon and all our other friends. Maybe Will thinks they're all alive again! Or maybe he thinks he's dead! This would be really poetic from Hannibal's perspective, since his arc in the novel is about dropping a teacup and "being satisfied when it does not gather itself together." So it would be perfect for the cup to gather itself in Will's head and for Hannibal to realize that's not at all what he wants.

Will hallucinating Abigail would be a fun way to get the "murder family" dynamic. "It's hard to grasp what would've happened, could've happened. In some other world… did happen." Well, we can see that world in Will's broken mind!

I don't have a clear guess of what a "return to season one but flipped" might mean. There are lots of possibilities...

1. Could refer to Will's encephalitis days when he wasn't sure if he was committing the murders or not, except this time he's committing them. Maybe he has a pendulum wipe moment and thinks he's reconstructing a murder instead of committing it (like a reverse of the Georgia Madchen murder in Buffet Froid). Going extreme in this direction, maybe he analyzes his own crime scenes with Hannibal in therapy. Maybe Beverly shows up at an actual crime scene and helps him "analyze the evidence."

2. Could refer to his dynamic with Hannibal. According to the rest of my bullet points, they return to their therapy sessions, but with memory palace elements and hallucinations, etc., but this time Hannibal is trying to fix Will instead of breaking him down.

Something from Hannibal the novel that no one else has adapted

This could be a few things, but I think it's most likely the end of the novel where he's brainwashing Clarice. Hannibal would use drugs and hypnosis ("therapy") to help Will merge his two halves and fully accept who he is. This happens in different places in their memory palaces, kind of like the white space dinner scene from Dolce, or when they were jumping around to different places in the Red Dragon investigation. To be clear, they're on friendly terms. Will consents to this. He has ample opportunity to escape and go back the US if he wants. We might get a lot of information on Will's childhood and backstory, maybe a "saving Hannah the slaughterhorse"/"silence of the lambs" moment. I'd like to see him as a cop working in New Orleans. The time he got stabbed. The time he didn't have the stomach to pull the trigger. This would be a nice reverse from the S3a dynamic where Will was delving into Hannibal's backstory. :)

Part of this "therapy" could be helping Will let go of Abigail the way Hannibal helped Clarice let go of her father. This plot beat has already been done twice in the show (1. The Primavera line "A place was made for you, Abigail. The only place I could make for you" refers to the place in Will's mind. 2. The WCWTS scene where Hannibal helps Abigail let go of her father. "What you need of your father is here, in your head.") BUT I still want to see it with Will/Hannibal. What I'm really saying is it would be cool if Hannibal showed Will Abigail's skeleton to convince him that she's dead and Will cried over her skull.

For the other half of Will's therapy, Hannibal has to get him to really delight in a murder when he's fully present as himself (Similar to how Clarice ate Paul Krendler's brain. Similar to how Hannibal wanted Will to kill Mason Verger.). Ideally the victim wouldn't be a criminal (Will is already fine killing murderers like Dolarhyde and Bedelia), but a representative of the corrupt judicial system. Someone who has personally slighted Will. An FBI official that Will HATES enough to eat their brain. The perfect option is Kade Prurnell (whose name is an anagram for Paul Krendler!). So yeah I think Hannibal catches Kade Prurnell and they have a dinner party where Will kills her and realizes, "Hey, I don't care what Jack or Alana or the FBI or anyone thinks about me anymore. My personal ethical code is good enough for me because I am MORE ethical than the law." And then he and Hannibal can be full murder husbands after that.

Side character subplots

While all this is happening, there's an international manhunt for Will and Hannibal going on. Jack/Price/Zeller are still at the FBI, probably beefing with Kade Prurnell to establish how awful her character is. Either Clarice Starling, Miriam Lass, or Alana Bloom are on the case. The murder/disappearance of Bedelia (or whoever) in Cuba is their first lead, so everyone gets to go to Cuba!

It's been nearly two seasons since Will interacted with Prurnell, so maybe they need to have a cat and mouse dynamic in Cuba to reignite his loathing. Idk why she would be in Cuba, when she works for the OIG... but who cares! She's there, motivated by greed, basically acting as Will's Pazzi. Maybe she's bullying her underlings in true Krendler fashion.

At this point, Jack is the only somewhat moral person in the entire cast. His primary motivation is saving Will. Yep, that's right, he still thinks there's a chance to bring Will back. He's leading the investigation, but he's hoping to catch Will alone before anyone else finds him so he can try to talk him back onto his side. This would continue the God vs. Devil thing with Hannibal, fighting over Will's soul.

Maybe Jack finds Will when he's in his broken state of mind and they have a chat. I'd want this scene to function like Clarice's hypnosis scene where she talks to her "father." Jack and Will address the vague father/son dynamic they have ("I'm not your father, Will." "Abandonment requires expectation." Jack as God/Will as the Lamb). Jack forgives Will for his crimes. Will forgives Jack for sacrificing him. The conversation helps Will along in his "therapy."

Last time we saw Alana, she was fleeing on a helicopter with Margot and their son. My first thought was "Omg they're going to Cuba! They're going to get Chilton'ed in Cuba!" but Fuller has mentioned that Margot would be actively managing the Verger meat packing company as a vegan girlboss lesbian so idk. (I personally don't see how a vegan could run a meatpacking company... maybe it transitions to tofu packing).

Anyway, I think Alana's character has gotten even darker since Hannibal's escape. She's given up on Will and is completely focused on protecting her family. Knowing Hannibal is going to come to kill her, maybe she sets up some sort of trap for when they come (or she puts Will's dogs under a cardboard box held up by a stick and waits). Maybe she catches Will and Will has to pull a Bedelia and pretend he was kidnapped and brainwashed (and he kinda was, if Hannibal used hypnosis and drugs like in the book). I think it would be fun for her to finally give into her "professional curiosity" about Will and try to study him (like a Bedelia/Mason hybrid character). Maybe she teams up with Jack to use Will to catch Hannibal. It would be wild if W+H actually killed her, but maybe! Maybe she gets the Chilton treatment and lives, but gets a nice facial scar like every other fallen character in the show.

Freddie Lounds would have to come back! And I want her DEAD haha. She's escaped punishment for too long, so in my ideal S4, she writes a book about Abigail even though Will asked her not to. Maybe she's investigating/contaminating Will's crime scenes in Cuba? She's definitely gonna die, but not before W+H use Tattlecrime for some shenanigans!

Chilton loses a limb (that's really all he has left to give). In an actual S4, I'm sure there would be a plot reason for this and some other killer would probably do it, but in my mind it's a comedy beat. W+H don't even set out to get Chilton. They don't hate him, they just find him pathetically entertaining at this point. Through Chilton's own incompetence or some karmic twist of fate, he runs into them (like Barney at the opera). W+H take one look at each other and go, "You know what would be funny..."

I have NO idea what to do for Molly. I assume she's living with Wally's grandparents in Oregon. Maybe Will mails her some signed divorce papers and that becomes evidence in the investigation lol. I'd rather leave her in peace!

More serial killers who used to be Hannibal's patients! W+H read about a former patient's murders in the news and go to catch him before the FBI can (running into the FBI in the process, of course).

Other stuff

I'd love to skip around to Brazil or Buenos Aires, the South American locations from the books. Maybe Hannibal gets injured and needs surgery in Brazil, and his medical records are another lead for the investigation. Maybe the season ends with a happily ever after in Buenos Aires. <3

They pretend to be recovering from plastic surgery to hide their faces in bandages. I just think that would be funny.

Will escapes Alana's clutches by using all the serial killer skills he learned in season one. He pretends to be a dead body, wearing someone else's face as in SotL. (This was actually in the Digestivo script but it got cut.)

They steal an ambulance (and turn off the radio!) again like SotL. And then the "This is very educational" line from Sorbet would come full circle.

Someone has to send a secret message using book code. What if W+H got separated and that's how they had to communicate? Or maybe they communicate to another killer that they're hunting? Or maybe they do it just to taunt the FBI?

Jack vs. Hannibal fight scene (round 3)! This time over Will's soul. Will watches, amused (maybe in broken mind state).

(If anyone else has thoughts I'd love to hear them!)

[tasha-tasha]

'Will Graham wants peace and luxury' NOOOOOO

Saw something along these lines on Tumblr and I disagree HARD. It said something along the lines of: 'Will wants to be in comfort and luxury, he craves pamperment, and he wants to feel peace away from pain and discomfort' (We can all have our own headcanons, but this is mine and why I really do not agree).

Will claims he wants a peaceful life, but it isn't what he needs, it isn't what he craves.

Will was a police officer, he then went on to teach college students about how to identify victims, murders and motives. He then went on to work for the fucking FBI and lands himself at Hannibal Lecter's dinner table.

Will Graham is drawn to chaos, drawn to the grotesque and drawn to battle. He lives to suffer and watch others suffer. He revels in the morbid and the battle. His empathy has thrown him into the minds of the insane, and his battle is in accepting that he enjoys being them.

Will's acceptance, if he wished for peace, would end the moment he started a life with Molly. It would have ended the day Wally called him 'Dad'. But that is not what he truly needed, it was something he told himself he wanted. So the show continues.

Will's final development was him dragging Hannibal off the cliff with him. Will had finally given into his carnal nature, and he stood with Hannibal, in a moment of bliss and peace, as they looked at each other and knew that they brung out what society deemed their worst.

At a moment of peace and becoming, Will throws them both off a cliff and delves right back into the adrenaline and chaos of the fight. To perhaps kill both himself and Hannibal. To end his life in perfect chaos and discomfort, because he is addicted to it.

Hannibal lets him.

Will is not a 'housewife', nor a man who wishes to sit idly by and have Hannibal preen and pamper him. He doesn't want to live like Bedelia did and just accept Hannibal's darkness, and turn a blind eye to the disorder. He is not the type to lounge in the sun and sleep like a housecat.

He wants to be there. He wants that havoc, that madness, it is truly what he craves. If he was with Hannibal, even after acceptance, he would forcibly shove himself into it. They would never be safe, they would never be fully forgotten. Neither of them wants that. They enjoy the madness that comes with the vengeful and carnal.

Will is more wild animal than pet, and Hannibal slowly begins to treat him as a part of himself, rather than a plaything.

Will stops looking for Hannibal when he stops running. I don't think it's out of comfort or safety. I think Will stops chasing because there's no longer any prey to chase. So instead, he chases what he thought he wanted, chases a family and a lover; convinces himself he is comfortable in normality.

As soon as Jack returns, as soon as Hannibal re-enters his life; he practically forgets they exist. We barely see Molly for the last few episodes, because Will is not thinking of them. Will no longer puts in the effort with chasing that ideal family, because his lust for war and pain is so much greater.

Will does not want to be comfortable or at peace. Will is happiest in constant battle.

Of course, there is more to this, I'd love to do a deeper dive one day.

[tethered-heartstrings]

Do you think Hannibal was in love with Alana and Bedelia the same way he was in love with Will? Or how do you see their relationship with Hannibal compared to Hannibal's intense love relationship with Will?

I think Hannibal cared about Alana and Bedelia when it suited him. He did care and possibly love them, but it wasn't that deep. He wasn't in love with them. They were pawns just like everyone else. They only knew the things about him they let them see and he made sure it was superficial at best. He shared more about himself with Bedelia than with Alana but it still wasn't all that much. It was vague, enough to keep her interested. She was only there because Hannibal intrigued her, like a bug under a magnifying glass, definitely not because she loved him or really even liked or trusted him. If they could ever accept who he truly was, then maybe it'd be different, but they couldn't (and wouldn't).

Will, on the other hand, he was in love with. Will saw deeper into who Hannibal was, down to the very core of him. And he understood it, and by the end he accepted it. From the very beginning, Will dissected him without knowing who the Chesapeake Ripper even was. But he still understood. How could someone already know more about him without even putting a face to a name as Will had done, and so effortlessly?

Hannibal looked Will in the eyes and said "I let you know me, see me. And you didn't want it." He had never let anyone know him so deeply. It was heartbreaking because not only did Will see it, he understood it, and pulled back. To be rejected is one thing, but to lay yourself bare and then be shot down is a pain Hannibal had never felt. A pain one can only feel if they really loved someone. We are hurt most by the people we love and let ourselves be vulnerable with. And then he held him as he gutted him, and kept holding on. That was a raw intimacy not granted to anyone else. Even when Will rejected him, Hannibal waited. and waited. and waited. He was patient. He'd never grant anyone else his freedom or his time like he has for Will, because he truly loved Will.

By the end, Will loved him back, and with that love, Hannibal let Will pull them both off a cliff. No one else would have the pleasure and chance of killing him so easily except for Will. To die by his hands, in his arms, was a reciprocation of love and confession all its own.

[22drunkb]

Do you think he was ever in love with Bedelia like he was in love with Will? I ask this because Bedelia says they were both the "brides of Hannibal". But Hannibal never courted her like he did with Will, Bedelia came into Hannibal's life much before Will but he never pursued her like he did with Will. Mads said he wanted a future with Will unlike with other people he hooked up with Alana, Bedelia or Anthony. He took her to Italy as a consolation prize when Will betrayed him. Even in Italy H was pining about Will all the time and telling Bedelia how much he loves Will. I know he slept with Bedelia but he probably slept with Anthony too and he slept with Alana, Hannibal is a hedonistic guy who sleeps around. For him sleeping with someone doesn't mean he is in love with them. But when Will confronts Bedelia, she pretends as if Hannibal held them in the same regard which is obviously not true. Hannibal would choose Will over her in a heart beat and even she knows it but yet she acts as if Hannibal sees them both equally. I don't understand why? 😭 Why do you think?why make herself seem like a competition when she is not?

I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of "bride" here. It doesn't mean beloved. It doesn't mean favorite. It doesn't necessarily mean sex. It means something more like what Chiyoh meant when she called Bedelia "his bird": "He puts us [birds] in cages to see what we'll do."

Hannibal collects people, generally. Most of his therapy patients are collectibles. He collects them because he sees potential in them for "becoming," for expressing an inner potential that interests him and that he thinks, in his own way, it would be good and true to themselves for them to express. (This generally amounts to some kind of murdering or violence.) He may be interested to see what will happen when his collectibles are transformed, but he doesn't find it terribly hard to imagine or predict. The people he has sex with don't even all fall into this category; I don't think he particularly was interested in Alana's potential becoming, for instance, though things did work out that way (but, in some ways, more at Will's hand than at Hannibal's).

That said, the category of "collectible" is large and includes both Will and Bedelia. However, there's another category, a subset, within that, which Will, Bedelia, Chiyoh, and Abigail occupy: that's "bird." These are people whose behavior is less predictable and therefore more interesting and engrossing. In the process of transforming his collectibles-in-general, he doesn't necessarily show these objects of interest much about himself. His true self, that is, rather than the mask. The four I just named get more of a look. However, Chiyoh and Abigail get their views not entirely at Hannibal's choosing: Chiyoh is from his past, and Abigail figured a fair amount out herself. (It's more complicated than this, but for that reason I don't think it's helpful to get into these two further here.) There are, as far as we know, only two people who've gained much insight into him entirely of his own volition: Bedelia and Will.

Both Will and Bedelia are people Hannibal collected and then cultivated in order to have someone to share himself with. I am not saying that that meant he felt exactly the same way about them, or that he shared the same things or to the same degree. But Hannibal put his therapist in a position to murder not only because he saw that potential in her and wanted to bring it out, as with all collectibles, but also to gain a certain degree of control over her so he'd have a therapist he could actually talk to. It's hinted in their pre-Florence sessions that she does not want to continue being his therapist but feels she has little choice.

Hannibal saw that collectible potential in Will and, like Bedelia, wanted him to be someone he could show himself to, albeit in different ways and to a more profound degree. Less utilitarian and more romantic. He made it very clear in the s2 finale that he wanted that more than anything: "I let you see me, know me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn't want it." (Or something like that, I'm paraphrasing from memory.)

What is necessary for him to select these two people to be seen by is for him to respect them, in his own way. He does not respect all his collectibles, though he's interested in them. He respects Chiyoh and Abigail more, but in a "precocious child" kind of way, rather than anything peerlike. But, Bedelia: he does actually listen to what Bedelia says. He forces her to let him play patient to some degree, but, within the role of patient, he squirms at some of her insights and defends himself the way a patient who feels that their therapist has power does. He values her input enough to subject himself to it. He enjoys her company enough to take her to Florence. She can't "surprise" him the way Will can, and he's not enamored and fascinated with her the same way. But he does hold respect for her. If we were to view what I said about the patient dynamic he has with her as a BDSM thing (which....it is), he chose her to play the dom, which is a pretty big deal, really.

I don't disagree with you that his interest in Will is qualitatively different. But they have both, at different times, been someone he chose to know him. That's a special status. It is also a status of being kept, to some degree: Bedelia didn't have the option not to be his therapist, and, as Will feels once he gets sucked back in after his time with Molly, he never really had the option to escape either. Birds again.

In the "We've both been his bride" conversation, it's Will who comes in with an aggressive, competitive energy, not Bedelia. He calls her "bride" first, and she responds by saying that Will has been too--i.e., why are you so mad at me? Why are you displacing your feelings here? (That is, she's being a therapist.) Through the whole conversation, Bedelia is actually trying to get Will to see that they aren't the same, and that Hannibal cares for him and belongs to him in a way he didn't to Bedelia. It's just that to get Will there, she first has to get him to admit that he has been attached to/chosen by Hannibal at least as much as she has, before she can show him that his position goes further. She's not setting herself up as a rival at all. Will came in angry because he subconsciously saw her that way, and she is working with that starting point to get him to understand better. This is the conversation that leads Will to ask, "Is Hannibal in love with me?", which he never could have brought himself to consciously articulate without her guidance.

I wrote a whole post just about this conversation, if you'd like further explanation. See also this and this from @bonearenaofmyskull.

[k-s-morgan]

Why did Will reject Hannibal after Muskrat farm? I see a few justifications saying that Will was tired after Hannibal almost eats his brain and is fucked up by Mason, but that doesn’t seem reason enough.

Will also talks about the rejection when he visits Hannibal in TWOTL, saying Hannibal would only turn himself in if Will rejected him. What was Will’s intent here?

Hi! So, this is a very complex arc that has many interpretations. This is how I see it - and I'll start from the start of S3 because it's important to keep track of the change of Will's attitudes.

In the first several episodes, Will is operating under the knowledge that Hannibal loves him, and his emotions come to the surface more openly. He can't and doesn't want to move on: the first thing he does upon waking up is voicing his pain at Hannibal leaving him to die, then berating himself for lying to him, then realizing Hannibal left him alive deliberately and that he wants to be found. Will begins to analyze their conversations and quickly figures out where he should go to look for him. After being released from the hospital, he starts building a boat to travel to Hannibal by sea. The nature of this action is romantic by itself - also, this scene is intercut with his Mizumono memories, namely, with Hannibal's face that emerges every time he moves yet another part of the engine. This is a vivid demonstration of Will trying to repair what is now broken. He openly admits to Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal.

Similarly, Will spends some time sitting in Hannibal's empty house. He is pining hard, his feelings are so intense that he no longer even bothers to hide them from Alana and Jack. The whole E2 is Will's love letter to Hannibal - he's reverent about him, he thinks about him non-stop, and he tries to find him very hard, even literally chasing him down. He even lies at the place where Hannibal left him his "broken heart," as if needing closer physical contact.

Things begin to shift as Will meets Chiyoh. I feel like Will starts drawing comparisons between them and comes to a conclusion that Hannibal doesn't love him after all. That if he abandoned Chiyoh, whom he was supposed to love, so easily, for so many years, without bothering to return to her, then maybe he's just not capable of love. Will's torn now, wondering if he was mistaken about Hannibal's feelings as well as about his and Abigail's importance because if Hannibal left his family so easily once, who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again? Will is insecure by nature, he often doubts himself, and textually, that's the first time when he starts considering killing Hannibal again. Seeing Bedelia as his replacement just reinforced this idea, so Will returned to his bitter and vengeful state, hence his half-attempt with a knife in Dolce.

After Hannibal reacts to this attempt by trying to (half-heartedly) saw Will's head open, and then the whole disaster with Mason happens, it all becomes a breaking point for Will. The initial excitement and determination he felt have passed. He has grown disillusioned, bitter, hurt and hurtful once again. He's tired, he's no longer certain of anything, and he needs to re-retreat. It's similar to how people often feel a boost of energy to do something daring, but at some point, they lose this spark. They stop feeling like they could move the mountains, and Will feels it, too.

He rejects Hannibal because of this, as I see it. He doesn't know what he wants again, he isn't sure Hannibal loves him, and he's no longer willing to break the fragile, shattered semblance of normalcy he has been cultivating for decades. He's clinging to what he's used to instead of jumping head on into something new and mysterious, even if it's much more exciting. Will has no strength for excitement and passion right now.

I never quite bought that Will knew for sure that Hannibal would give himself up if he rejected him. Yes, Will was probably lying when saying he wanted everything to be over, and maybe on a subconscious level, he hoped for some grand proof of love, but I don't think he could be actually sure that something like this would happen. For one thing, Hannibal's response is genuinely unexpected - just in Mizumono, he gutted Will after his betrayal; in Dolce, he attempted to kill him after Will betrayed him again. Giving himself up is something new - Hannibal has grown a lot during these months and days, but Will doesn't know it. Also, I don't think Will is nearly confident enough about his place in Hannibal's life to predict that Hannibal would give up his freedom for him. In addition, he just strikes me as surprised and pained when he sees Hannibal's surrender.

So, maybe Will was thinking about it a lot afterward, and during that moment in prison, he wanted to hurt Hannibal, so he exaggerated the depth of his manipulation.

If this is the case, then why did Will want to hurt Hannibal at all later? In my opinion, it's for several reasons. Will is feeling extremely petty. He's hurting Hannibal just because he can - he now fully realized the power he holds over him, and he's enjoying it. He's paying him back for everything he's still angry and hurt over. It's possible that he's also playing it up for the cameras, making Jack and Alana believe that he's leaving for good and wants nothing to do with Hannibal. That would make his break out plan easier. He lies not just to Hannibal here, he lies to everyone who's watching. He claims he had nothing to do with setting up Chilton, even though he took the responsibility for him with Bedelia; he claims he's going back to Molly, even though they broke up.

[arkashas]

tbh will not loving hannibal but desiring him and being conflicted about his attraction to him - in every sense of the situation here seems not impossible. After all bedalia was emphasising how hannibal was deep distracted by him but he seems to be more simmering in rage and vengeance for having been seduced and letting his shell of humanity die out

sorry anon, I disagree. and i'm going to get in depth into why i disagree. verrry in depth. first we gotta examine the whole show through a narrative lens.

it's hammered into us the whole show that hannibal and will are mirror images of each other. and that's also true for the respective arcs/journeys they each undergo.

take for example, season 1 and season 2. season 1 is about will allowing hannibal to see him and being manipulated and betrayed by hannibal. season 2 is about hannibal allowing will to see him and then being manipulated and betrayed by will. season 3 is actually two seasons condensed into one, because the show was cancelled and they didn't have the budget to stretch the whole thing into two seasons. that means season 3a and season 3b follow the same formula as season 1 and season 2, with the two seasons being reflections of each other.

season 3a is the season where hannibal tries to live without will, and fails. he absconds with bedelia, then slowly realises his life is empty without will and tries to get him back. but, at the same time, he also realizes how terrifying his love for will is for him, because it causes him to "betray" himself, i.e. lose the control he's always had over his emotions and his life, and this is terrifying to someone like hannibal.

dolce is the episode where both hannibal and will want separation from each other for different reasons. hannibal because as stated, will upended his life and makes him lose control, and will because his magnetic attraction to hannibal makes him feel and act like a murderer, as chiyoh helps him understand.

it's hannibal who almost succeeds in this when he saws open will's head, but he's interrupted by mason verger. later at the verger estate, when alana sets him free, hannibal still has an opportunity to let will die and save his own life. and he doesn't take it. he chooses to save will, mowing down like 13 of mason's associates to get him. he risks getting caught tucking him into bed, and then gives up his freedom for will.

all of this is hannibal making a decisive choice. it's him realising will is more important to him than anything else in his life. remember what he says to dolarhyde about reba?

he's talking from experience. he's no longer worried about feeling love for will, he wants him alive. because will is more important to him than his self control, than his comfort, than his luxuries, than his freedom. everything.

so that was hannibal's attempt at rejecting his feelings for will and then him subsequently giving in to his feelings for will. a self contained arc within the show.

as I mentioned, hannibal and will are on twin journeys, which means will will follow the same arc as hannibal.

just like how hannibal runs off with bedelia, will marries molly, but he's unfulfilled and secretly longs for more. will giving up his perfect life of fishing and dogs and choosing to go back to the "madness" hannibal warns him about in his letter mirrors hannibal getting fed up of his perfect life in florence of art and dinner parties and wrecking it in favour of will's company.

will's attempt at killing hannibal was stopped by chiyoh, just like how hannibal's attempt at killing will was stopped by mason. so will trying to get hannibal killed at dolarhyde's hands is the actual attempt at separation that mirrors hannibal having an opportunity to let will get killed by mason and cordell, and just like hannibal tried to kill will because he makes him "betray himself", will tries to kill hannibal because, once again, he was sucked into hannibal's orbit, and that led to the attack on molly and walter and chilton's immolation. hannibal brings out the "enemy inside" that will tries so hard to repress.

and finally, will saving hannibal from dolarhyde mirrors hannibal saving will from mason and cordell.

WHICH MEANS, in TWOTL, will is now at that stage hannibal arrived at in digestivo. where he's no longer worrying about his love for hannibal, and is choosing to have him alive. when hannibal asks him, "save yourself, kill them all?" he answers with this:

this quote is further put into context by what will says to hannibal in su-zakana:

will doesn't know if he can be saved from being who hannibal perceives him to be - a killer. in a more literal way, he's also saying he doesn't know if he can kill hannibal and dolarhyde to save himself from hannibal's influence and from certain death at dolarhyde's hands. and he says, maybe that's just fine. when he saves hannibal from dolarhyde, kills dolarhyde together with hannibal, and goes over the cliff with hannibal, he's made a choice. it's no longer a maybe. he's accepted he can't live without hannibal and be without him. he's given in. he's given up everything for hannibal just as hannibal did for him.

and when he killed dolarhyde with hannibal, that was the greatest moment of will's life. will finally understand what hannibal wanted to show him all along - and he says it's beautiful. is he mad his humanity died out? well yeah, but he's never felt this fulfilled. it's something worth giving up his humanity for. will also can't really stay mad at hannibal, no matter how hard he tries, and in TWOTL i never got the sense he was simmering with anger and hatred. all i see from him is resignation. and finally, relief and acceptance.

so at the end of season 3, will has realised he can't kill hannibal by proxy - he couldn't watch hannibal get killed by dolarhyde. he can't kill hannibal with his own hands - he tried in dolce, it failed, and the whole reason he co-opted dolarhyde into his plans was because he knew he wouldn't be able to finish the job personally. he couldn't even keep away from hannibal while hannibal was in prison, which was an attempt at separation without having to kill hannibal.

the cliff dive becomes will's last and final attempt at separation, and since it's confirmed they live, he no longer has other choices open to him. all that's left is making peace with his love for hannibal and trying to build a life with him. which is what season 4 would have been about, will diving headlong into his life with hannibal and whatever it entails. and given how fuller and co. have spoken about that season, the plot seems to be about will's mind fracturing and possibly entering alternate realities to deal with the murder husband identity while he's on the run with hannibal. and season 5 is when will is apparently happy, so I think they're somehow going to reconcile will's darker side with his lighter side. somehow!

I think I went off on a tangent here, but this is why will continuing to fight his feelings for hannibal, resenting him and trying to kill him, etc. doesn't make sense to me post season 3. it would be played out. it would be frustrating when we've already seen 3 seasons of will denying hannibal and himself. and lastly and most importantly, it wouldn't fit the narrative arc set up.

remember, hannibal never diverts after he gives in to his feelings for will. he doesn't hurt will again even when will threatens his sense of control (except emotionally) - he sends dolarhyde to the cabin when will isn't home. he agrees to the plan to fake his escape even while expressing doubts to alana about his own safety and telling jack he's aware will will wreak vengeance on him as the lamb of god. he let's will threaten him with getting killed by dolarhyde and doesn't do anything when he's shot until will makes a move himself.

so that's why i don't agree with hugh dancy that will wasn't motivated by being in love with hannibal in season 3, whether he meant that will wasn't aware of the love, whether will wasn't acting on the love, or whether will wasn't accepting of the love. will's own words and actions show he is aware of his feelings for hannibal, at least by TWOTL. will leaving everything in his life behind to bring about hannibal's escape, saving him from dolarhyde, and then embracing him and going over the cliff is him acting on that love and him accepting that love.

you can't say "will was on a personal journey, realising things about himself, and that was more important than his relationship with hannibal" because will's relationship with hannibal is will's relationship with his darkness and desires. you can't separate the two of them.

[super-who-locked-me-in-here]

Do you think he was ever in love with Bedelia like he was in love with Will? I ask this because Bedelia says they were both the "brides of Hannibal". But Hannibal never courted her like he did with Will, Bedelia came into Hannibal's life much before Will but he never pursued her like he did with Will.  Mads said he wanted a future with Will unlike with other people he hooked up with Alana, Bedelia or Anthony. He took her to Italy as a consolation prize when Will betrayed him. Even in Italy H was pining about Will all the time and telling Bedelia how much he loves Will.  I know he slept with Bedelia but he probably slept with Anthony too and he slept with Alana, Hannibal is a hedonistic guy who sleeps around. For him  sleeping with someone doesn't mean he is in love with them.  On the other hand he took a bullet for Will, went to prison for years for Will, made a human heart for Will, jumped off a cliff for Will, committed a whole massacre for Will. But when Will confronts Bedelia, she pretends as if Hannibal held them in the same regard which is obviously not true. Hannibal would choose Will over her in a heart beat and even she knows it  but yet she acts as if Hannibal sees them both equally. I don't understand why? 😭 Why do you think?why make herself seem like a competition when she is not?

My personal take on it is that Bedelia is Hannibal's Molly. Molly/Bedelia was the second choice, pursued after the man that Will/Hannibal wanted acted unexpectedly and now he has to live without him.

Bedelia and Will were both Hannibal's brides, the same way Hannibal and Molly are both Will's.

The ultimate difference between Will and Molly and Hannibal and Bedelia lies in what the women saw and how much they accepted. Will worked hard to keep his true self from Molly and she was content with the fact that she'd never be able to see all the way behind the mask. Hannibal exposed a lot of himself to Bedelia, and what little he didn't show, she forced the mask the rest of the way off so she could see it. Molly offered common courtesy and a happy family picture to escape to whereas Bedelia offered a safe façade to escape with, with no remorse for her prying actions.

I do think Hannibal slept with Bedelia because regardless of the intimate hints that were there (unzipping Bedelia's dress, him walking around shirtless without his hair slicked back, her bathing him), Bedelia is a curious creature and her curiousity shows itself as gluttony. I don't actually think it's lust that she felt for him, and definitely not love, but she wanted to glut herself on every detail about the way Hannibal's mind and body worked, and she wanted to be the only one to know both, or at least be the first. She's a hedonist, just like Hannibal, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if between her curiousity and both their hedonism, they slept together once to experiment and it ended up working for both of them, even if it was an emotionless act, so they continued doing it.

And I think Will was tolerant of his marriage with Molly. It's really funny the way the loop works out because I've already elaborated on how Bedelia is Hannibal's Molly, but I think Molly is also what Alana would've been to Will if they'd pursued a relationship earlier on. She's sweet and friendly and beautiful. She's good with kids and Will's dogs. She appears delicate and lighthearted but is actually quite headstrong when those she cares about are put in danger. She's tolerant. She's the perfect wife, and she always will be until the moment Will exposes himself and his desire to pursue darker interests, to pursue Hannibal. Then he's not a good husband, and it's hard to be a good wife for a bad husband. Molly at the very least didn't have the chance to leave Will; he made that choice for her.

But in the end, hedonism and tolerance are very different than true happiness and acceptance. So no, I don't think Hannibal loved Bedelia. I think she was a distraction and a means to an end and an escape to an unfulfilling life because Hannibal couldn't have the good life that he wanted with Will. And to some extent I think Molly was all that for Will too.

[bonearenaofmyskull]

Hi there! I need your thoughts on the Dolce head-sawing scene. I have read different analyses, and the most recent one I read was saying that the reason Hannibal wanted to eat Will was because Will rejected him and eating him is the only way they could be together. Also, some say that he decided to kill Will only after Will tried to stab him. Additionally, was he slowing the process and waiting for someone to show up and stop him? What are your thoughts on this theory?

My thoughts about this can be more or less represented as, Well, yes, kind of, but also not really, and also definitely not. All these pieces are disjointed from the development of the relationship in the context of the season itself, as well as the series as a whole.

First off, I don't think Hannibal was super excited about the decision to eat Will in the first place because the expression on his face when he's talking to Bedelia about it looks pretty sick to his stomach. In the scene itself he has kind of a mournful tone--tender sometimes, cruel others: a little angry, a little bitter, a lot regretful. He talks about it, how he's sorry to be leaving Italy because he would have liked to do some things for himself there, but mostly that he would have liked to show it to Will. So it's not a stretch to believe that Hannibal didn't really want to eat Will very much (except insofar as he's probably curious about eating most people just as a general rule of thumb, and ofc since this is Will eating him would probably be omg so much better than eating anyone, so there is that).

But the decision had been made. After all, he did have the location prepped with a bone saw all ready to go. He made the decision all the way back in "Secondo" when Bedelia helped him draw the connection between how his sister influenced him in ways he could not control to the way that Will influences him in ways he cannot control: from love, to betrayal, and thence into forgiveness. That Will, through his interactions with Chiyoh that reflected Hannibal's interactions with Bedelia, had come to his own version of the same conclusion that Hannibal came to--that each's influence on the other was so sufficiently out of control that the only way to end it was to kill (and in Hannibal's case, eat) the other--was of no particular consequence to Hannibal's choice, at least not in a cause-and-effect fashion.

Thus it is not a rejection on Will's side any more than it is for Hannibal: it is a gesture of their forgiveness. "You dropped your forgiveness, Will," remember? "You forgive how God forgives," he complains, in his usual hypocritical fashion (which Will turns around on him with the comment about God gloating, which of course Hannibal approves of, since they are each God in his mind). This is, God-like, forgiveness through retribution. Seeing it as rejection is far too sane and rational--and certainly far too conventional--for these two delicate creatures. Hannibal eating Will and keeping a part of him inside forever in the Hobbsean style of cannibalism, as he did with his sister, is an acceptance of how important Will is to him. On Will's side of things, choosing to kill Hannibal is the exact same gesture of acceptance: Will cannot reject Hannibal through the choice of killing, of all things, which is exactly what Hannibal influences him to do. As we see later in "Digestivo," Will can only reject Hannibal through choosing not to kill him. What happens in "Dolce" or any other point in time in S3 isn't ever a rejection (including the hug, I might point out)--not as long as Will is playing their zero-sum game. Not as long as violence is involved. Never forget that violence is love and sex and all things in between on Hannibal.

Thus they each must attempt to kill the other simultaneously because they are one, not in spite of it. Bedelia observes that "Will Graham is en route to kill you, while you lie in wait to kill him" as an extension of the conversation about the reciprocity inherent in Hannibal and Will's relationship. Everything they do, they do reciprocally, at least at this point. This is why they can have such a tender meeting below La Primavera before getting down to business: all the deceptions are gone, and they're both seeing each other with not just truly clear eyes, but truly appreciative eyes. They each can see how much they mean to the other just as much as each thinks the only path forward is to subsume the other in order to regain self-control. They each offer the other "understanding and acceptance," Jack explains to Pazzi, right as Hannibal and Will are coming to same conclusion to off each other. Will can no more reject Hannibal in this moment than Hannibal can reject Will because they are the same.

As for whether Hannibal was slowing the meal process to wait for someone to show up and stop him, we have to look at the evidence of both what Hannibal knows and whether what he knows observably influences his choices.

Hannibal may have been able to deduce that Bedelia would give him up to the Polizia just as he would count that she'd give his location to Jack, but he might not have--Bedelia's kind of a wild card in that fashion, and her choice to give him up seems to have been made specifically in exchange for the investigator telling her that he'd let her off the hook for her and Hannibal's crimes in Italy. If she had not been able to solicit that commitment for whatever reason, then there's no reason to think that she'd have betrayed their location. She wouldn't play her card without getting her win. So it seems unlikely to me that that could be something that Hannibal would be able to know confidently one way or another.

Even if he did, it's hard to see it in the scene itself. He does wait for Jack initially, but that's because Jack has an important role to play. Hannibal doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry in the scene even after Jack shows up, but then he never is, so that means nothing in itself. He doesn't really waste any time once Jack is there, either. He incapacitates Jack and drugs him (he needs to do that to ensure Jack will eat), finishes his mise en place while he waits for Jack to become coherent-ish, and then to be fair, it's pretty minimal conversation before breaking out the bone saw. Just a couple minutes. So there's no evidence in the scene itself to suggest delay, and a certain amount of evidence to suggest otherwise. If the show had wanted to demonstrate delay, it would have been prudent to write Jack getting to the table earlier in the episode, and then use their conversation to emphasize the delay, with more than one scene in the episode. They could cut the elevator scene without any significant bearing on the plot. God forbid they speed up a scene with Bedelia in it. xD

But I think the real reason I reject the notion that Hannibal was delaying is because Jack was there. Hannibal is the devil, his punishments are symbolic retribution, the three of them are literally there in Florence acting out their own version of the Inferno. Hannibal may have been eating Will's brain to try to regain his own peace of mind, but he was absolutely involving Jack in the action because Jack deserved it. He played: it's his time to pay. And it isn't like Hannibal to half-ass a murder dinner, especially if he has a guest. How rude that would be!

I think these analyses that you've read tend to fall apart in kind of the same places as a lot of analyses these days, wherein they seem to assume that because the Hannigram relationship is the heart and foremost hook of the show, the only things that are analyzed are the actions of the two men. Where their actions and words don't directly and explicitly explain something, then people fill in the gaps with their own imagination and values, when in fact the other characters' words and actions and the overall context of the show usually explain things pretty clearly. The other characters are important, as is the overall path of the relationship.

[after-the-ellipsis]

How do you think Hannibal felt for Miriam Lass? I read another Tumblr account state that Hannibal had some fondness for her. He liked her bravery and intelligence in discovering him. The account said that since he held her captive for 2 years, her being released did impact him a little. Evidence of this was in the scene where Hannibal and Jack are drinking together, and Hannibal asks how Miriam Lass is. They also brought up how when she was found she was wearing a night dress, not any rags. She was also physically healthy not underweight and there were no obvious bruises found on her body (minus her arm). I am so interested what you think, I love and agree with all your analysis! Also, thank you for answering my previous ask <3

Miriam is a tough case because of how little we see of her and how thoroughly our perception of her is manipulated by Hannibal. So any answer I can give you is mostly going to be interpretation and headcanons. Here's my big Miriam meta post-Yakimono; the TLDR of it is that Miriam, while immensely compelling and sympathetic, has no agency in the story. Like, zero. The most depressing character in all of Hannibal, imo -- abused, discarded, and forgotten -- a fate doubly gutting as she's so reminiscent of Clarice.

We really can't be sure how Hannibal feels about Miriam as they never have a real scene together other than the hypnotism scene, which isn't a moment of real connection between them, only a show Hannibal is putting on for Jack. We can make some assumptions about Hannibal's feelings, of course. We know, from his relationships with Will, Abigail, and Bedelia, that Hannibal is capable of feeling affection for the people he manipulates. Miriam Lass survives her tango with the Chesapeake Ripper, which puts her in rare company, implying that Hannibal saw her as someone worthy of survival. As you said, she discovered him. She was brilliant enough to track him down and connect him with Wound Man. She did what no full FBI agent was capable of doing. These are laudable qualities that Hannibal recognizes. But does he actually care about her?

It's crucial to remember that Hannibal never spared Miriam for Miriam's sake. "He was saving me for last," as she says. Hannibal spared Miriam because she was useful to him. He spared her so that he could use her arm and voice and body to torment Jack over the years. That moment you highlighted when Hannibal asks Jack about Miriam; that moment is about Jack. That's Hannibal playing the role of concerned non-murderer for Jack, using his concern for Miriam to connect with Jack and allay Jack's suspicions. He also spared Miriam so that he could use her to frame, and later shoot, Chilton. All part of the master plan to close the Ripper investigation for good.

Hannibal treats Miriam well, feeding her and caring for her, because he has no reason to treat her badly. He dresses her in a nightgown (creepy, imo!) because that's the image he wants to create. Little girl lost, now found. Miriam's discovery, like all of the Ripper's crimes, is heavily stage-managed. Hannibal treats Miriam like his instrument, and Hannibal takes good care of his instruments, as he wants to play them well. But that doesn't count as real affection.

[miraquinsworld]

I’ve been thinking lately about the exact time hannigram feels love for each other for the first time.

It’s very obvious when it comes to Hannibal because we all saw his heart-eyes when they first met.

Like dude you don’t even try to hide it! You’re so fond of him and fascinated by this rude-but-beautiful man. (Also the “READY FOR LOVE in 5 days” describes him in 100% at this moment. Good work, marketing team!). But I don’t think this is exact time when he became aware of his feelings.

This scene is my favourite in the whole show and I think in this moment Hannibal truly knows how deeply he’s in love. He thought Will was dead and then he finally sees him he was like - 🥺. I’m sure if Will was really dead Hannibal would sob in Bedelia’s place and then kill everyone in FBI (because they couldn’t save Will) and then himself.

It’s far more complicated with it comes to Will. Partly because Will denies his feelings and tries to concentrate on Chesapeake’s Ripper’s murders. Even when he found out that Hannibal is a murderer and generate all this plan with Freddie he tried to warn Hannibal (And wanted to run away with him as we know) in Mizumono. And partly because Will just hide this feelings better than Hannibal (which is very funny because Hannibal had a complete control of his emotions but when Will was around Hannibal was like 😍🥰🥺☺️).

Also we can’t exclude that Will is from south which is quite homophobic part of the country. I think it was more hard to him to accept the fact that he’s attracted to man than it was to Hannibal. So it’s obvious that Will would deny his feelings even if he wouldn’t fall in love with the cannibal but just a man.

Did Will feel sort of love in this scene? Well, I don’t think this was exactly love but I’m sure he felt a huge gratitude that he’s not alone in this situation. He didn’t know Hannibal much by this time but he thought that this man deserves to be in his life. He felt interest maybe (soon after the “I don’t find you that interesting” scene lol).

In this scene Will said “I have to deal with you and my feelings about you”. (Some people might say that he meant hate in this scene but I think he meant love/hate) So by this time we know that he’s aware of his feelings about Hannibal. I’m 100% sure that Will fully accepts his feelings only in Mizumono. (A giant black deer as a metaphor of his feelings for Hannibal is literally bleeding when Hannibal runs away).

Soooo I think that he feels so sort of butterflies in this scene. Some of you can argue with me saying “well he compares Hannibal with Chesapeake’s Ripper here” and maybe you’re right but it’s only 1x07! It’s too early for him to realise that! Will is a man of labour and he always sees Hannibal as pedant and clean person and right now he’s saving man’s life without minding. Will sees Hannibal as strong and professional as he is. And I think in this moment he felt something.

Sorry for my grammar. English is not my native language. I also would like to see your opinions and thoughts about this topic.

[cedarxwing]

What was the most romantic scene in Hannibal for you?

The end sequence of Antipasto, hands down. Just everything about it. It makes me tear up every time.

The way Hannibal, heartbroken at Bedelia's rejection and betrayal, sits alone on the train en route to Palermo with Antony Dimmond's corpse in his trunk, recalling his last dinner with Abel Gideon while Ravel's Pavane plays.

The way even Gideon, who was always the Ripper's biggest fan, now finds Hannibal banal and tiresome, calling him pathetic and lonely to his face. The way Hannibal is disgusted by Gideon's poor manners, but puts up with him because he's that desperate for connection.

HANNIBAL: Why do you think I'm allowing this? GIDEON: Snails aren't the only creatures who prefer eating with company. If only that company could be Will Graham.

The way Hannibal is speechless at that. Not only does Gideon call out his obsession with Will, but he compares Hannibal, Mr. Firefly himself, to a snail. That's what Will's reduced him to.

Side note: LOVE how Gideon becomes a prophetic figure as he approaches death, "becoming brighter" as Hannibal puts it. Remember, this exchange takes place before S2b, sometime between Futamono and Yakimono.

Gideon can see how Hannibal longs for the kind of cannibal date night Will gives him at the end of Naka Choko, but refuses, out of sheer pettiness, to be his perfect dinner partner, snarfing down those snails with the utmost incivility. Love him. <3

"I'm just fascinated to know how you will feel when all this... happens to you." <- referencing how Mason will try to eat Hannibal, but on a deeper level how Hannibal's heart will be eaten as in the first sonnet of Dante's La Vita Nuova (which he quotes earlier in the episode):

Joyous love seemed to me, the while he held My heart within his hands, and in his arms My lady lay asleep wrapped in a veil. He woke her then. Trembling and obedient, She ate that burning heart out of his hand; Weeping I saw him then depart from me.

The way Hannibal looks SO SAD as he folds the Vitruvian Man into an origami heart, obviously still thinking about La Vita Nuova and how Will's eaten his heart. The way he extends the heart metaphor into the Three of Swords tarot presentation in the Norman Chapel to signify betrayal. The way the soundtrack swells with violins and the solemn heartbeat of a drum over beautiful close ups of Dimmond's skinned carcass.

Side note 2: I have searched high and low for the track that plays during the Vitruvian Man folding, but it doesn't seem to have been published anywhere. Tunefind says that it was adapted from Hayley Westenra's Never Say Goodbye (which is sooo romantic lol), but it doesn't sound anything like that song to me.

Finally, this is the most insight we, the audience, get into the conception of any Ripper tableau and it's a valentine for Will. Oughhhh. I'm going to cry just thinking about it.

[The Naka Choko dinner scene is a close second tho! The audacity they had to score it with Mahler's Adagietto... And the end of TWOTL would be my third pick.]

[t3acupz]

1, for the ask game :3

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Abigail

So many people portray her as completely innocent, and her involvement in her father’s murders was just a survival strategy. But I think a part of her enjoyed the hunt, and that’s a major reason why Hannibal was drawn to her as a surrogate daughter.

Hannibal finds would be/fledgling killers; inserts himself in their lives to wind them up and watch them go. He saw that same potential in Will, Randall, Chiyoh, Bedelia, and Francis.

I like to think about what purpose each character serves, and Abigail’s is to show the audience that killing can be done out of love. Initially, Abagail’s reaction to finding out she has been eating the victims was horror. With Hannibal’s coaxing (and ulterior motive to convince her to become his protégé/daughter) she then came to the realization that helping her father kill those girls was an act of love. This motif continues as a thread between Will and Abigail — both being loved by Hannibal while also hurt by him in the process.

Similarly, Will and Abigail found ways to excuse killing if it served a greater purpose. In Will’s case, he saw it as a way to exact justice (at least that’s how he justified it to himself at the time). For Abigail, killing wasn’t murder as long as every part of the victim was consumed or repurposed.

Even her apparent apathy concerning her mother’s murder, and her nonchalant attitude when realizing that Hannibal was a serial killer is often excused as a trauma response or Stockholm syndrome. I see it as more evidence that she is a psychopath like Hannibal and Will. Abigail kills because it makes her feel powerful. Even her killing Nicholas Boyle wasn’t purely self defense, and she acknowledged that. What makes Abigail unique compared to the rest of the serial killers in season one is that she is able to hide her true nature behind a veneer of girlish innocence.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

CHIYOH: I met the beast and I saw him grow. Someone wants to kill him. BEDELIA DU MAURIER: More than one someone, I'd say. (then) What do you want? CHIYOH: I want to cage him. That makes Bedelia smile. BEDELIA DU MAURIER: I thought Will Graham was Hannibal's biggest mistake. But I have to wonder if it isn't you.

This is interesting, if underdeveloped in canon, because it’s another parallel between Will and Chiyoh vis a vis Hannibal - in this case, Bedelia attempting to take Hannibal’s influence of them and turn it back against Hannibal. This manifests much more fully in the second half of season 3, when she tries to push Will into recognizing the extent of Hannibal’s influence on him and turn against Hannibal. She tells him that Hannibal “convinced you you’re a killer” but that she doesn’t believe that he is, only that he is “capable of righteous violence” out of compassion. And of course she wants Will to crush someone instead of helping them, which certainly feels as though she’s inciting Will into violence against Hannibal.

The idea of Will as Hannibal’s “biggest mistake” here indicates that her view of Will as a potential catalyst for Hannibal’s destruction was already in place here, which is also evidenced by her dialogue in Contorno about Will and Hannibal lying in wait to kill each other. But here she also seems to pinpoint Chiyoh as a potential means of quelling Hannibal - another murder protégé of Hannibal’s where the approach didn’t quite take. (In Chiyoh’s case, this is fairly true, because she never followed through on the murder that Hannibal set her up for until Will came along.)

But Bedelia ultimately turns out to be wrong about Chiyoh, who decides not to go through with caging Hannibal. And she’s also wrong about Will, at least in terms of his ability to turn against Hannibal. She realizes this by the end of season 3 - that Will is Hannibal’s “agency in the world.”

There are some interesting fluctuating character dynamics at play here, because in the scene in Dolce, Chiyoh compares herself and Bedelia to Hannibal’s “birds” - birds that Hannibal is trying to neither crush nor rehabilitate, but cage and observe. Bedelia later casts herself as the arbiter of a hypothetical bird’s fate, the one with power, and implicitly casts Hannibal as a wounded bird who can either be saved or destroyed. And while Bedelia, like Will and Chiyoh, is herself a subject of Hannibal’s influence, she also tries to exert a similar influence over Will and Chiyoh in trying to turn them against Hannibal. Indeed, encouraging others to action seems to be Bedelia’s primary method of protecting herself against Hannibal, as opposed to trying to kill him herself. When Will asks her why she didn’t just kill Hannibal in Florence in 3.10, Bedelia evades the question and steers the conversation back towards the intensity of the bond between Will and Hannibal (“my relationship with Hannibal is not as passionate as yours”). She seems unwilling or unable to go through with the act herself, perhaps both because of her “devotion” to him in Florence and because of the horror that violence seems to stir up in her, even as it compels her.

But although she seems to be aiming for Hannibal’s attempts at influence to backfire on him, her acting indirectly through influence actually backfires on her instead, at least in the case of Will - which we all know from the leg scene at the end of Wrath of the Lamb. And while the Chiyoh angle is woefully underexplored in the show itself, this is why I maintain that it would be thematically appropriate if Chiyoh also had some role in the capture of Bedelia there.