#gave me an excuse to rewatch twotl for quotes and canon

[mousfri]

when he says this, hannibal refers to will's life after his arrest. will's life is 'polite', as in a formality, something he has been taught but that will only follows because it is the socially acceptable thing to do. not only that, but he implies that accepting hannibal, accepting himself, is the natural, rational thing to do, while living his life of normalcy (molly and walt and will as the perfect template of a nuclear family) is 'maddening'. it APPEARS equal parts scathing remark and encouraging reassurance.

but while hannibal is pretty terrible at showing he wants what's best for will from a 'maddeningly polite' perspective, he's really done a stella job from his own perspective. if he's being cruel with how he frames molly and walt, it's only because he knows exactly why will felt the need to have them in his life at all. he says 'don't worry about me' but what he means is 'i meant what i said. you'll always know where i am and i will forgive you for making me wait'. he says 'think about me' because he wants will to come to his own truth about how he felt with hannibal vs. how he feels now with molly. is it snarky and presumptuous and demeaning? yeah. is it a genuine expression of care and gentleness? YEAH.

will and bedelia speak about decisions shortly after that scene, and will essentially tells her he hasn't been doing a whole lot of making those lately. it mirrors something he says to jack earlier in the season - he hadn't decided what to say to hannibal until he heard his voice, he just picked up the phone. bedelia spends this scene being increasingly correct in her analysis. will IS becoming pathological - that old behaviour of thinking very little and then whining about/ignoring/enjoying the consequences as if they're not his doing is becoming primary.

he spends a lot of s3b manipulating everyone as much as possible, so that they make choices on his behalf without ever having to make a premeditated choice of his own. encouraging the dragon to go for hannibal; positioning chilton as his pet and denying his part in it later; making hannibal's escape possible but not really doing anything to make it happen directly; letting jack assume will's with him but being largely neutral to the whole thing; implying hannibal will live to go after bedelia almost entirely to fuck with her. not only does it absolve him of blame in the eyes of the law, it absolves him of acknowledging his own predilections for being just as fucked up as hannibal.

i don't think the moment where will thinks to himself 'this is it. i've reached my limit. i'm going to go apeshit if i have to pretend to be this person any longer' happens after hannibal encourages him to consider it. hannibal says it not knowing what will's doing in the background already. i think that moment hit the second jack delivered him back into hannibal's orbit. will is ALREADY doing things that are just so completely unethical, at the very least. he's not killing anyone directly, sure, but what he is doing is just as scheming and subtle as hannibal's careful manipulations throughout the first two seasons. they swap roles: will is carefully and precisely manipulating everyone around him just to see what happens, while hannibal loses a lot of his finesse because he has no need for that person suit anymore.

this isn't the only role swap you can see. will is a character with a very clear vision of what he 'wants' for his future, an image of who he should be, a life he 'likes', with a wife and kids where he is caring and sweet. in contrast (as mr. mikkelsen has recently interpreted for us), hannibal is someone who thinks little of the distant future. in s3b though, they flip. hannibal knows what he wants, a life with will, acceptance for hannibal but also for will too. will's perfect future is disrupted by hannibal and by the dragon, and he loses sight of it entirely - everything he does becomes about simply seeing what will happen, that pathology taking root in the wake of instability. in fact, he puts effort into making as many possibilities as he can, rousing as many players into as many contradictory and beneficial courses of action as he can manage.

bedelia sums it up the best: "We assign a moment to decision. What you propose is so thoughtless... I find it difficult to imagine that moment exists."

not only does this line go HARD, she's also right - will ISN'T making decisions. and he keeps not making them until he's falling off a cliff with hannibal and letting fate decide if they live or die.

“Maddeningly polite” is one of my favourite expressions from the show tbh. Cause Hannibal is soooo fixated on politeness himself, killing people because they’re rude, his entire person suit being the embodiment of “polite”. “When life becomes maddeningly polite, think about me, Will” ??????? He’s saying the politeness he forced down everybody’s throats maddens him. He’s hinting at taking off the person suit with/for Will. He’s ready to stop the polite charade