#he clearly was never very moral but cannibalism was something of a line drawn in the sand to him

[enobariasdistrict2]

what's fascinating about the capitol's aversion to the behaviors of the district 6 tribute katniss mentioned, the one that katniss said went mad in his arena and started eating the dead to the point where the gamemakers had to electrocute him just to remove the bodies from the arena, is how it probably provoked a lot of trauma for people like snow, who had to witness that type of desperate, cannibalistic behavior, during the war. the gamemakers wouldn't have been alive during the war, so their disgust would only be caused by capitol standards of polite behavior and "humanity." (thinking of how effie commented on the barbarism of katniss and peeta's eating habits, despite the fact that she and the other capitol citizens literally watched children murder one another for their entertainment.) but for someone like snow, who actually had the misfortune to experience the horrors from before the games, cannibalism had an entirely different meaning. people always talk about how peeta and katniss reincarnated sejanus/lucy gray and brought down snow by being the ghosts of his past, but clearly his past came back to haunt him in other ways, too.

[k-s-morgan]

I am really sorry you received that kind of ask. It is ok for different people to perceive things differently but sharing with you doesn't make sense since you clearly ship Hannigram. I have a genuine ask here. I came to know some of the main blogs. And they all turn out to be shipper of Hannigram or Hannibloom. I like some of the writing but some bloggers seem to demonize Will. Also why do you gloss over the problems and the abusive part to look like it is romantic. I am genuinely clueless.

Sorry if it came across as anything else, but my problem is that when I watched I saw those problems. Then what am I missing if so many bloggers are saying something else. Is it not true that abuse happened, Will was turned into something bad like Hannibal. They develop some bonding but how can that be good or true bonding ? It looks like trauma bonding on part of Will and obsession from Hannibal. And represents Will's seduction to madness and evil. How can this be love or good ?

And really sorry if this feels not ok ask for you since you ship it. I am confused about the romantic thing fans represent as if soulmate and true love. Then maybe fans like to imagine it's like that ? Or is it really seen as something sweet nice. It is ok if you don't wish to answer. Have a good day.

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Hello! Don't worry, I don't mind getting genuine asks even if I disagree with them)

The first thing to understand is that no one thinks Hannigram is healthy or sweet by real-life standards. It's a dark romance between two awful people, so what's sweet for them is giving each other gifts made from corpses and sharing a cannibalistic dinner. Such pairing is not for everyone, so if dark romance isn't your sort of genre, you are highly unlikely to appreciate it. It's simply about preferences. You also need to understand that real-world morals cannot and shouldn't be applied to a show like this. Unless you can, you won't be able to understand why fans love Hannigram or even this show (and since it’s majorly about their relationship, it’s not surprising most fans ship it).  

If you addressed the "glossing over abuse to make it romantic" part to me, then I have never done that) Most other fans don't do it either. 'Hannibal' is a very complex show. What Hannibal has been doing since the start of S1 is help Will accept himself and become stronger - this is a fact. Is it romantic? In a way, yes - he just met this man and became so invested that he started planning a family for them, taking personal risks to ensure that Will gets freed from society's expectations. Is it a normal thing to do and is such 'tough love' approach acceptable in real life? Of course not. That's why the two shouldn't be confused. 'Hannibal' is pure fiction, a show set in a heightened reality, so any attempts to tie it to our standards will inevitably fail.

Hannibal's behavior in S1 can indeed be described as abuse, though the situation is far more layered than that. For one thing, his end-goal is Will's happiness - it's not his delusion, it's what he knows Will is going to have once he stops hating himself and accepts himself as he is. For another, Hannibal is a killer who cannot allow Will to see him until he's sure Will won't turn on him. It's not a typical relationship.

How is what Will Becomes a result of trauma bonding? Will is extremely far from being fragile. He saw who Hannibal is at the end of S1, felt furious and betrayed, and for the half of S2, he was planning revenge. He was cold, manipulative, and deadly - and fully in his right mind. He started opening up to Hannibal again only after he realized that Hannibal does love him and wants to help him - and that he's right about who Will is. Even then, Will hasn't been fully on his side until S2 finale - he couldn't forgive Hannibal for Abigail. What they share starting from the middle of S2 is mutual understanding. Will has been lonely all his life. He knows normal people can't understand him, can't accept his darker impulses, but Hannibal can. Hannibal encourages him and supports him wholeheartedly, and Will is drawn to that. Like he says later, "I've never known myself as well as I know myself when I'm with him."

As for demonizing Will - Will is a bad person. The show, the showrunners, the actors all present him as Hannibal's soulmate, so obviously, he cannot be someone good and innocent (you can check some of the interviews here). The degree of his badness can be interpreted differently, but there are some indisputable canon facts: Will loves killing, enjoys making artful displays out of corpses, willingly engages in cannibalism, chooses a serial killer above everyone else repeatedly, toys with people like Chiyoh and her prisoner (who Will assumed might not even be guilty) by making one kill another, sets up a man like Chilton for horrific torture and says he deserved it for being vain, sets up police officers to die with no regret or confusion to break Hannibal free. If you want more specific canon reminders, I suggest checking this post.

Being seen is a huge theme in this show, and Hannibal isn't the only person who wants it - Will wants it, too. Every time Will does something morally bad, like kill someone or cover for Hannibal, he makes his own conscious decision. He consciously decided to throw away a gun and attack Randall with his hands; he consciously decided to cut some meat from him and eat it with Hannibal, even though Hannibal already trusted him completely; he consciously saved Hannibal from Mason and decided against arresting him in that same episode, etc. Will has agency. He's responsible for his own actions - Hannibal, in turn, admires him for his unpredictability.

This bonding is good in terms of the world of the show and Will and Hannibal as individuals. They stop being lonely and find a partner. Obviously, it's not good for other people or in the real life.

Also: the show presents their relationship as romantic and them as soulmates. It's very important to remember this. Bryan Fuller has been calling 'Hannibal' a love story for many years. The words about it being love sound several times in the show itself. Music, setting, lines, events - everything invites you to root for Will and Hannibal. Of course, you can do the opposite, but this is how the show is structured. Darkness is alluring here; killing someone together is a consummation of a relationship; being true to yourself, even if you're a murderer, is encouraged and celebrated. If you cannot buy the show's surreal, blood-soaked logic, then you're unlikely to enjoy it - and that's okay. But fans merely react to what they are shown.  

In the end, Hannibal sacrificed everything for Will, from his reputation to freedom and life. Will chose Hannibal above everyone and everything. They fell from the cliff together under the “Love Crime” song. It’s as romantic as it gets) Darkly romantic, yes - but that’s the point. 

[bellamygateoldblog]

how do we feel about bellamy abandoning a suicidal octavia in a toxic forest in the name of monty, 'monty gave his life for us so we could have another change, and im not going to let you destroy it' who repeatedly made it clear in his final season that he wished he did more to save jasper

…we don’t feel great about it. Lol.

Got a little carried away. Apparently I had a stronger opinion on this on this than I thought I did.

There’s an LT;DR at the bottom if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing :)

The Blake relationship is a really complicated one. And I think how you see this event in particular depends on how you interpret this dynamic during the rest of the show, and how sympathetic you are towards Octavia as a character.

I want to start with this: the second chance was Monty’s to give, and only Monty’s. Bellamy doesn’t get to dictate who that message does and does not apply to, because Monty made it perfectly clear he holds no grudges, and wants the best for what’s left of the human race regardless of who they’ve been in the past or what they’ve done. That’s the whole point of ‘doing better’. He just wants everyone to do better than they did, whichever way that is. Monty didn’t specifically say ‘oh but not Octavia she can choke’ so therefore Bellamy had no right to be cowering behind Monty’s words.

He’s telling them to try a bit harder to be more understanding, compassionate, and rational. He wants them to choose to be farmers rather than warriors- to rebuild rather than destroy, to grow rather than deforest, to choose peace over war no matter what. It means a lot more than just ‘hey! maybe don’t go on another genocidal rampage?’

And by abandoning/banishing Octavia, Bellamy did the opposite of what Monty wanted. It almost felt, as i was watching, like he’d sentenced her to death. Like Clarke was banishing Murphy all over again. Or like he was Clarke abandoning him to die in the fighting pits. And I don’t know…repeating old mistakes doesn’t exactly scream ‘doing better’ to me.

Maybe this was Bellamy’s way of ridding the toxicity from the group?

But deciding she’s a lost cause and leaving her there, a clearly mentally unstable woman (and not only just some ‘woman’, but the baby sister he’s shared his life with), on an alien planet that none of them even know is safe at this point, or if it’s inhabited with hostile entities, from some moral high horse/manpainTM point of view is so low. It’s unearned at this point in the series.

Our attention was drawn to how hard it was for him. How upset he was after he did it. Rather than to Octavia and how she felt about it. It brought me back to that moment in season five, to how the camera focused in on Clarke’s pained teary-eyed expression while the child she was electrocuting was a blurry spot the background. Just what the fuck? Is all i have to say about that. He was very much Clarke in this moment; pulling a lever, leaving someone he loves on the outside *for the people* and feeling a bit ashamed but justified about it regardless.

She was trying to do the S1 Bellamy thing and stowaway to an alien planet to protect the one she loved. But the emotional fallout of season five was immense and both of them were way too amped up for any of it to go as planned. Which makes me wonder why the writers even attempted it in the first place?

But let’s just take a minute to think about how reckless and borderline insane this whole decision is from Bellamy- this is the girl who started out an illegal child, unwanted by the people she was born into, who assimilated with the indigenous people, earned their respect, found belonging with them until ultimately she became their leader. Like, if you really thought she was this much of a hazard, throwing her adaptive ass into the wilderness ready to meet another set of warrior people maybe isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had?

HOWEVER

I’m not actually opposed to a detail like this. Because of the unhealthy and sometimes poisonous nature of the Blake sibling relationship. And because they both absolutely needed time apart if Octavia were ever to grow out of Blodreina.

No matter what Monty never gave up on Jasper. But Jasper was usually self-destructive and didn’t act out emotionally using violence like how Octavia does so naturally. He could be a pain in Monty’s ass from time-to-time, but Jasper was never a threat to anyone but himself.

Bellamy cast Octavia out because she killed those guards unnecessarily. She hadn’t yet reflected on what became of her, nor had she processed any of the trauma from the bunker and following battle for Eden, in which some of the heaviest casualties were her most important relationships, with Indra, and with Bellamy. As convinient as it was to utilise violence as a tool for maintaining power, law, and order within the bunker…they aren’t in the bunker anymore, and she is no longer someone with a crushing responsibility.

Was any of that Bellamy’s fault? No.

Was it Bellamy’s job to ‘fix’ her? No.

(Do I think Monty would encourage him to mend their relationship anyway after losing his best friend and brother? Yes.)

But as her big brother and psudo-father, someone that spent his entire life protecting and taking care of her, the bare minimum i’d expect from him in a situation like this is for him to show some empathy, listen to the whole story from her point of view rather than basing his entire livelyhood on the biased accounts of a couple of Wonkru defectors, and make an attempt to understand why she is no longer the baby sister he remembers her being. If anyone was in the position to understand her- her behaviour, her mindset, the weight of leadership and how it shapes a person, and the pressure of making potentially morally corrupt decisions to ensure the people’s safety putting your humanity on the line for it- it’s him.

This was just cheap drama in place of where they could’ve written a meaningful conflict between them.

It was an oppurtunity to address Octavia’s past treatment of him, their co-dependence, their mother, Bellamy deeply believing his life was stolen from him and Octavia feeling she never had a chance to begin with, Bellamy’s inclination to make himself smaller so Octavia can take up as much space as she possibly can, both of their perverse insecurities that manifest in equally debilitating ways, Bellamy’s skewed sense of self pushing him to orbit around her, Octavia’s identity issues and lack of socialisation and resulting narrow black-or-white mindset, I could go on and on. There’s so so much content here to explore. There’s so much stress and pain in this relationship. It’s a shame that despite all that they decided to go omg cannibalism!!!!!!!!

Octavia took forever to forgive Bellamy for what happened to Lincoln, she demonised him, she attacked him over it in one of the most grotesque and unhinged displays of violence i’ve ever seen, and that wasn’t even his fault. I think we can afford Bellamy the same amount of room.

If this ‘banishment’ was the long-time-coming storm of past trauma of their intertwined existences that has long since been buried, if the time of physical peace spent on the ring building a family of his own pushed Bellamy to make a realisation or two about love and family, and the stressful draining qualities of his relationship with Octavia began to morph into resentment of her, and all this abandonment is, is just a beautifully crafted, carefully maintained facade collapsing between them, I WOULD LOVE IT. It’s understandable. But I need to see them have it out with each other first. If nothing is addressed, if they still go on carrying those things around and never find closure, not only is that hindering Octavia’s growth, but Bellamy’s, too.

But none of that happened in season six. Instead i got to see yet another female with her autonomy ripped from her and i got to see manpain.

Over time she supressed any parts of herself that would make her appear weak. It was always going to take time to pull herself out of that dark place and find a way to shape an identity that isn’t based in something that can easily be ripped away from her. So removing her from the group to find ‘the self’ is a good choice. But it had to be her choice.

I think if everything had blown up and Octavia had chosen to leave on her own volition because she recognises her own tragedy and calamity and wants to do what’s right, it would’ve been the perfect place to begin a redemption/reflection arc for her. With self-awareness. What do they say? The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one in the first place?

In an answer to another ask I said it would make some sense for Bellamy (and Clarke & Spacekru) to be unintentionally hypocritcal and judgemental considering the time distance between their last violent experience and how long they’ve had to make peace with the past. While Octavia was in the most stressful position she’s ever been in, and right in the thick of things for the six years that everyone else spent healing and maturing in.

So we have Bellamy as his most reassurred, most contented self- and he comes to Earth, he comes face-to-face with an unhinged Octavia, and is overwhelmed immediately with biased and incomplete information recapping the last six years during an erratic situation with enemies. I’d be confused and paranoid, too tf?

Bellamy loves Octavia more than life. But she’s morphed into a woman he no longer recognises and it could even come as a personal betrayal to him. He’s been disconnected from her for six years. He’s no longer intoxicated by his love and devotion to her. And he’s having a hard time accepting that the baby sister he thinks the world of is capable of such cruelty. So he’s having trouble forgiving her for it. I think it makes a lot of sense. Except, again, they never addressed anything like this.

Season five Bellamy I get. I’m sympathetic to him just as I am Octavia.

But in season six he appeared, not like he was acting on years of supressed emotional turmoil, but like he was on some moral high horse looking down on her from it.

The end of season five left things open, and there was a lot of potential there for things between them to improve, but season six took it and threw it out the nearest window. And we saw Octavia crawling on her hands and knees begging for forgiveness from a man that 1) doesn’t want her, 2) doesn’t respect her, 3) refused to listen to her, and 4) only accepted her once she was the woman he wanted her to be, who was now no longer traumatised.

TL;DR: I’m not opposed to the whole idea of them seperating in season six, with Octavia being the castaway, but it should’ve been Octavia’s choice, not Bellamy’s. And I think Monty might be disappointed that this was what (season six) Bellamy took away from his video on ‘doing better’. To ‘do better’ he decided to choose just one person that can represent all the evil that exists within both his people and himself and throw her out the dropship door. Problem solved! But there are many ways in which I think the writers could’ve done a lot more with this idea, and a lot better, too.