#he’s like Margot because they expected him to be Bedelia or something

[fandumb-thoughts]

You know who would have had an absolute blast at Hawthorn, witnessing Chef Julian Slowik’s mental breakdown and subsequent murder-suicide dinner? Hannibal fucking Lecter.

It works pretty well, even, if you replace Tyler with Hannibal. I think it’d be funny if the chef thought Hannibal was a fan and new money type flamboyant with his money, buying expensive ingredients and not using them properly just because he heard about it from a place like his own TV show or recipe book. And everyone who went to his dinner parties praised the food, just feeding his horrible worthless ego.

And then he takes Hannibal up to the kitchen to cook and Hannibal waffles for a minute before asking for a bit of human meat, from that dear sous-chef who shot himself to precede the fourth course, it hasn’t been too long since he died for the meat to have past its freshest and best point. Even the chef would’ve been horrified, I think. Or at least incredibly surprised and off-footed.

I think Hannibal would offer to make enough for everyone, even the lovely cooking staff, if everyone was game. He would only end up making three plates—one for the chef, one for himself, and one for Will of course.

(Will would be treated somewhat similar to Margot/Erin, depending on a few things, but he is mostly just going with it, drinking, and making fuck-me eyes at Hannibal. I think it works best somewhere during season 2.)

Will is the first to take a bite, eating immediately when Hannibal tells him to and praising “as good as always” and the chef takes prompting to take a bite and he must concede that it is delicious, as he sets down his fork and bows his head. And Hannibal just smiles as he takes his first bite, and second and third until it’s gone.

And on the center counter of the kitchen is the corpse of the sous-chef, face covered respectfully by the sheet, partially butchered.

(Just imagine the PHILOSOPHICAL BANTER those three would’ve had.)

[k-s-morgan]

Hii I am new to the Hannibal fandom and I think u understand the show and the actors and Bryan alot . But there are some things that are worrying me . I read about Ur speculation of Hannibal s4 and I agree with it even tho it's almost impossible now to get a season but my mind can't find peace if I don't get some answers so I hope u won't mind me asking you about your thoughts and what the plot will be for S5 as Bryan wanted to include sotl and what he means by Will being "happy" only in s5.

Will he Leave Hannibal or something??

Hello! Welcome to the fandom!)) Now, what I think makes sense and what Bryan could have planned might be different things, but if to combine them... first, here are my predictions for the potential S4 in case someone is interested and hasn't seen them.

According to Bryan’s words ever since the show ended, this is what had to be present:

1) Will being behind the veil with Hannibal, firmly turning away from the ‘light’ side once and for all.

2) Will and Hannibal being in Cuba and having “adventures” as well as going after Margot and Alana together.

3) Mind Palace, hallucinations, and search for self.

4) Will being out of his mind.

5) Hannibal manipulating Will.

As a theory: Will is going to feel drunk on his newfound darkness and freedom. He was repressed for so long that now that he Became, he’ll be losing his focus and drowning in his own preferences, forgetting what they were and turning into a much more vicious monster any of us expected. He’ll be chasing the high he felt from killing Francis and failing to find it. He’ll be surrounded by blood, his past victims (hence the return of everyone dead, like Bryan mentioned), and more madness. A part of him will want to impress Hannibal, to prove that he’s a worthy partner (which is supported by Will seeking Hannibal’s approval throughout the show - the way he glances at him after biting Cordell is a good example; the way he has low self-esteem and knows Bedelia failed Hannibal’s expectations). So he’ll be acting more and more violently.

Hannibal will see that Will is losing himself in a new way. He won’t want to start a physical relationship with him (which Bryan mentioned) because he’ll be afraid that it isn't for the right reasons, that Will is too far gone to made decisions. So, he’ll feel like the best therapy would be to push Will even more and make him realize that he’s approaching their new life from the wrong angle, to make him figure out that this isn't the kind of killer he wants to be. To do this, Hannibal’s manipulation will entail them going after Alana and Margot.

Will won’t be fond of the idea but Hannibal will manipulate him into accepting it, intending it as a test that will finally make Will snap out of his state. So Will will initially help hunt them down but then he’ll realize this isn’t what he wants to do. Hence finally getting his mind back, which creates the ground for his happiness.

Him being happy in S5 is another thing Bryan mentioned. We also know he wanted to do SOTL.

Personally, I don't think this show needs Silence of the Lambs with Clarice and Buffalo Bill at this point because it has already incorporated major elements from it. Clarice has been divided between different characters; we had a plot with Randall, who didn't feel comfortable in his body, didn't find acceptance from society, and evolved in his own murder-y way. I feel like this echoed the events of SOTL in a way that paid homage to it but remained unique and non-repetitive.

But Bryan does want to film his version of SOTL, so it is what it is. Why I don't think he would break Will and Hannibal up, even though it's purely subjective:

1) He said Hannibal wouldn't want to initiate sexual contact with Will as long as Will is out of his mind in S4. This implies to me that the idea is potentially in the cards for S5.

2) Bryan loves the books and pays respect to them in the most relevant ways. I think he wouldn't want to go against the ending where Hannibal finds the love of his life and enjoys his beautiful freedom. The specifics might differ, but Hannibal would still get his happy ending.

3) The ending of every season supports this notion further. Each one ends with Hannibal's victory, it's a narrative pattern, and breaking it would feel jarring (looking at 'Merlin' here).

4) Bryan is always promoting Hannigram in very positive, life-affirming ways. Here's one quick example of him confirming a fan's question if they can believe that Will and Hannibal are happy somewhere out there. There is a million more examples, and I am skeptical that he'd be doing things quite like this if he planned some ultimate tragedy between them.

About S5 plot: Mads said that Clarice wouldn't be Hannibal's love interest while Bryan said she wouldn't be Abigail #2 for Will and Hannibal. So I assume her role would entail either becoming a reluctant ally or a clever nemesis. Perhaps she decides to seek Murder Husbands out because she feels like they would be the best bet at solving some crime, and they feel amused enough to enter a chase with her; maybe Will and/or Hannibal are imprisoned again, so she comes to consult with them. Maybe Hannibal is imprisoned while Will creates the persona of Buffalo Bill to make people like Clarice talk to Hannibal in their desperation for insights while staging his escape.

I like the first and the third options most. Though since Bryan mentioned that he might push SOTL into flashbacks, like it occurred during the 3-year gap in S3, I really don't see the point of this story-line. Introducing major characters so late in the game is a very bad idea.

In short, I believe that the ending for Will and Hannibal is planned as happy, and I'll keep thinking this until proven otherwise (hopefully never)).

[pesky--dust]

Everyone knows the scene in pigpen from the ending of Tome-wan, right? 

At the beginning it was surprising and incomprehensible to me how Will himself told Manson Verger that Hannibal is the one Manson wants to be feeding to his pigs and yet, when the chance arose, Will — though he said a lot times he want to do it — didn’t kill Hannibal but freed him. However after all I created a theory.

It never was about actually killing Hannibal but about power dynamic.

So here we go:

I perceive this scene as Will’s desire to prove Hannibal that he could trust him; he orchestrated a dangerous scenerio for Hannibal, but at the same time, he showed him he had everything under control. That means their dynamic switched: when Will was in Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Hannibal controlled the situation, now Hannibal’s life was in Will’s hands. In my mind this was something like, ”See? See? I may make you go through some risky situations, but you do the same when it comes to me and yet you rescue me, so I rescue you. Do you trust me now the same as I trust you? You see? We are just alike.”

Hugh Dancy himself said that Will had occasion in Yakimono to kill Hannibal, but he didn't it, because Will didn't really hate Hannibal. After everything he had been through because of Hannibal, he should rather hate him, but he didn't. That's the point.

And remember what Hannibal said to Margot? According to him she couldn't kill her brother because she still somehow loved him, and in order to kill Manson, she had to allow herself to truly hate him. The same was case was with Will and his “hate” towards Hannibal.

I also believe the very important thing about this “act” is what happened after Will was released from Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

At the end of Yakimono, Will tells Hannibal that he has to deal with him and his feelings about him. I think that was true. Will was convinced that Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper, but at the same time he knew that Hannibal saved him from the death penalty and felt that Hannibal wanted to be his friend, so he started their game with goal to catch Hannibal. However soon after being realised from facality his confusion about his own feelings grew and he realised he is attached to Hannibal (for time being — attached emotionally, since I guess that he didn’t want to acknowledge that it may be love), so hating Hannibal and catching him became much harder to achive than he expected, since he himself truly didn’t want it and the proof for that we painfully get in Mizumono by lines like:

1) You were supposed to leave.

2) Hannibal: You wanted deny my life.

Will: Not your life.

3) Hannibal: I let you know me... see me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn't want it.

Will: Didn't I?

For me that scene in pigpen means Will couldn’t kill Hannibal, since his feelings for Hannibal were much more complicated than the desire to revenge and to kill him. He wanted to prove Hannibal that he is trustworthy (and from the conversation between Hannibal and Bedelia, we know trust isn’t easy for him).

Killing Hannibal became just his fantasy that wouldn't satisfy his expectations.

[questionablygourmet]

Would love your own thoughts on this. I've often seen it said that Will enjoys hurting Hannibal but I honestly don't really agree? The only time I can think of him hurting Hannibal with intent is his mic drop speech, and that was after Hannibal put a hit out on his family and had been passive agressive during their meetings (while Will was mostly tongue tied). Putting other motives aside (revenge, to save himself, to put a wall between them so he doesn't give in to his feelings for Hannibal)

(cont) I can't really think of any other time. I can't see Will abusing Hannibal and revelling in it, which I sometimes see in fics. I agree with Bedelia that he wants to save the wounded bird not harm it, and every situation where Hannibal is vulnerable Will saves him in the end, he even tells Margot he doesn't know if Hannibal deserved Matthew Brown and when Alana says that maybe he doesn't think Hannibal deserves torture Will can't answer, which is usually a sign of agreement. Wdyt?

I think Will enjoys being able to hurt Hannibal, which is not at all the same thing as actually doing it.  He may also actually enjoy doing it, at some points, although taking the TWOTL mic drop as an example, I don’t think he really enjoys that.  I think he feels it’s necessary and maybe gets some kind of vindictive satisfaction from it, but that’s where the emphasis is.  

You’re completely right to point out that every time Hannibal canonically shows his belly to Will, Will backs off.  That’s something I’ve referenced before in the times when Will could have (but didn’t) even really try to kill Hannibal.  

And we see, finally and really very unequivocally in TWOTL, Will doesn’t want to lose Hannibal, even in a situation that’s engineered to appeal to both their senses of aesthetics.  (He’s probably okay with them both going out at the same time, with a bang, or a fall into the sea.)

I get actively distressed by fics where Will abuses Hannibal, because to me that says more about the author’s interpretation of Will, himself, than it does anything else.  And that interpretation doesn’t agree with my own.  Will is capable of being incredibly petty and vindictive.  But when Hannibal’s just resigned to taking it?  Fuck, forget ethics, it’s no fun.  There’s no game in hurting a Hannibal who’s just resigned to the fact that Will can hurt him with impunity forever.  

Will is not a sadist.  When he hurts Hannibal intentionally, it’s either directly vindictive or there are other motives in play.  

Post-fall I can see Will hurting Hannibal on purpose when he’s feeling vulnerable and also doesn’t know what else to say, and ALSO detects Hannibal being a bit undersensitive about their history?  That works, in my head.  And I think if it’s obviously part of some kind of acceptance trajectory, it works.  

But dear god, I’ve said it before and probably will again: I hate it when people write Will being abusive in ways the narrative never explores.  Like YES!!!  SURE!  LET HIM BE AWFUL, TOO.  (That’s not my preference, but I’m not mad at it.)  But I need how Will acts to be consistent with his expectations and goals with his relationship with Hannibal, or else called out as explicitly self-destructive (which sometimes does happen).

[jareauxprentiss]

Thoughts on NBC’s ‘Hannibal’:

Full disclosure here, dark shows are my jam and this show literally killed me. But in the best ways possible. One of my friends actually told me to watch the show (it had been on my radar for a long time but I didn’t have a push until then) and I am so glad she did. Here’s the thing, I’ve watched a lot of TV. But this show is different than everything I’ve ever watched. Not only because it dives head on into morally ambiguous main characters that are never flat or uninteresting, the show bleeds life, change, and love through beautiful acting, directing, cinematography, music, and everything else.

It’s interesting because while watching it, it feels like a movie. The music resembles a score from a movie and every scene feels purposeful and heavy. The use of color and texture for the scenes were always beautiful and reminded me of movie quality. It’s eloquent and gruesome and really trippy. The sex scenes always get me, but they aren’t overly graphic or insincere, they’re just trippy. And as someone that enjoys art in tv, it’s masterful.

Let me just say, I’m not a big fan of murderers. Yes, I can get behind main characters as murderers (ei Dexter and Villanelle) but this show was different. Hannibal Lecter left me on the edge of my seat and I truly can say I could never expect what he was going to do next. And that’s high praise for me (since I find most shows predictable). I’m not saying I was always on Hannibal’s side (killing Beverly was a big no-no for me), but I found him complicated enough to follow him. He also didn’t turn at one point and was like “yeah, i’ll be good all of a sudden for you Will” which worried me. He was unapologetically sinister and chaotic and I loved it.

The killers and their victims were also really interesting and different. The bodies were like aesthetically pleasing... it was truly beautiful how they handled death. Every killer was interesting and hard to swallow. Just so hardcore and fun.

Every character has faults. Like real faults. Jack’s manipulative as fuck, for a while Alana was easy to manipulate and her caring/trust got in the way, Bedelia was a mess tbh stuck in her fascination (along with Chilton), Hannibal had a soft spot for Will, and Will didn’t trust himself or the monsters in his head. They used each other; abused each other. They broke trust and stupidly tried to gain it back. They lied and lied and let people lie to them. And I love this about them. They’re not perfect. They’re not stable. They have something to live and die for.

I could go on and on about Will’s character and how fucking amazing his transformation is throughout the series. I mean, I’m speechless. I don’t have the words to talk about Hugh Dancy’s acting and how he interacted with Mads (Hannibal). Just spot on. One of the best characters and character developments I have seen in a while.

Alana Goddamn Bloom’s transformation with that bi power we all knew was in her. God bless. When they paired her up with Margot, I jumped on board. Not just because I’m gay and a sucker for gay ships, but because it was just so fabulous. I love my murder wives. Enough said.

Hannibal and Will. Jesus christ. Their relationship is crazy and beautiful and dark and everything I could have wanted and more. I was so worried that I would be stuck watching this show shipping Will and Hannibal and having it not come to be. Their subtext was so strong in the first two seasons and I was so surprised but glad to find their relationship to grow in the third season. It wasn’t just subtext. And with the last scene the growing subtext evolved to a final answer; they couldn’t live without each other. I’m stunned. Just stunned.

[kiss-my-freckle]

3x6 Rewatch: Dolce Sweet, Dessert.

Creative choices from the very open. Scenes of Hannibal staggering to safety cut between scenes of Bedelia bathing him. Blood and water stain and clean beautifully, then they cut to her stitching his wounds. 

Jack and Will connect as the police remove Pazzi’s body from the crime scene. They head inside for conversation, where Jack asks if he'll slip away with him should Hannibal slip away. "Part of me will always want to." Again, not a smart move to use Will as bait with Hannibal in order to catch The Dragon. I don't know how many times it needs to be said. "You have to cut that part out." Handing Will similar advice Bella handed him. "You can do something that I can't: you can cut out what's killing you." He hands him this advice as Hannibal spoke of her death during their fight. These two lines play into the episode, in such a way, it makes me love it all the more. "You had him, Jack. He was beaten. Why didn't you kill him?" It's not just about killing Hannibal. Jack's own self-interest is to see him suffer. Their fight scene was just that - Jack trying to break him, to cause him a certain degree of pain. All the while they were fighting, Hannibal talked about Bella’s death. He wanted Jack to know he wasn't getting the better of him. This ties in Jack's response. He wants what he knows would hurt Hannibal. To have the man he loves killing him as he just spoke of Jack overdosing Bella. "Maybe I need you to." That's what Jack wants. 

Bedelia is about to get high to sell the story she constructed, shown later in the season. This is her way of wiggling out of the situation she put herself in. Chiyoh walks in for a small chat with her. "You're like his bird. I'm his bird too. He puts us in cages to see what we'll do." This is how she feels after her conversation with Will. She tells Bedelia that she wants to cage Hannibal. After Chiyoh leaves, Will and Jack stop in to have their own chat with her. “You expect us to believe that you somehow lost yourself in the hot darkness of Hannibal Lecter's mind? That Lydia Fell is some construct?” There’s a lot of sifting required for her character.  “Will you slip away with him?" It’s funny to see Bedelia watch Will slip out of the room while Jack has no idea. 

Reciprocity. In Bedelia’s conversation with Hannibal, and in their own words. Will admitted that if he doesn't kill Hannibal, he's afraid he'll become him. A history repeating itself, Hannibal feels the need to eat Will. One of my favorite scenes of the series, Hannibal sitting in front of the Primavera, drawing as Pazzi described to Will in the second episode. Heartbreaking, but beautiful. Will is so connected to him, in a way that he finds himself unable to separate. "You have to cut that part out." Hannibal asks Will the difference between the past and the future. His reply is his intent. “Mine? Before you and after you.” When they ready to leave, “After you.” This is exactly what Jack wants, Will killing Hannibal. Chiyoh shoots him in the shoulder to stop him. 

Hannibal prepares Will for dinner. As Bedelia said, "The nature of the meeting required privacy. They will be somewhere no one is supposed to be." He injects him with something that causes another creative scene, like puffs of smoke and ink across my screen. The Alana-Margot kaleidoscope sex scene is delicious, but I think this butter scene is tastier. He’s got Will sipping on soup seasoned with thyme, like Gideon’s flashback in the first episode. Will is so high, he has no idea he’s the one they’re having for dinner. Jack walks in, not realizing Hannibal is under the table. Hannibal cuts into him. Jack joining them at the table makes this scene all the better. "You have to cut that part out." Hannibal gets out the saw, starts cutting into Will’s forehead. “Now, we both have the opportunity to chew quite literally what we've only chewed figuratively.” This want to slip away with Hannibal didn’t just happen. He’s had the desire since season two. Cordell has Mason taste-testing for his Hannibal dinner. He catches sight of Pazzi's death on the news. This puts fear in Alana, shown clenching her cane. She makes mention to Mason buying the police department to increase the chance of capture that won't result in a death like Pazzi's. She has plans to inform the FBI when they have Hannibal because she wants him in Chilton’s hospital. Her self-interest aligns with his. Not only to keep herself safe from the promise of Hannibal killing her, but to feed her professional curiosity. Mason’s bounty saves Will from becoming dinner. And I do believe Hannibal would’ve followed through with it. 

[queerhannibal]

I recently finished watching Hannibal for the first time. And I'm a little bit confused. The fandom seems to agree that Hannibal loves Will. But why did he do all these terrible things to Will when he is supposed to be in love with him? I mean, he tried to kill Will multiple times. What was Hannibals intention?

I mean it’s not like we all just came to some random consensus and say “yeah this guy who keeps stabbin Will is in love with him”,  it’s stated multiple times in the canon of the show that Hannibal loves Will

But the thing is that Hannibal is not a person who is very competent at managing his own strong emotions, largely bc he doesn’t feel strong emotions involuntarily very often and so doesn’t have much practice and also bc he’s mentally ill as hell and he’s never really had a moral compass to begin with. 

So his reactions to feelings aren’t really what most of us would have, you know? And he doesn’t even feel all the emotions most people feel, or at least doesn’t feel them in response to the same sorts of things. Basically, his brain works in a very different way than the typical brain. Specifically he doesn’t have the same sorts of inhibitions when it comes to causing others harm that most people do, which is why he’s out there murderin assholes instead of just tolerating them like the rest of us do

like the thing you have to understand about Hannibal is that when he gets upset by something instead of thinking about a bunch of solutions to that and then maybe eventually getting to “I wish I could just kill them”, his absolute first thought any time something bothers him is “time to stab”

Anyway I’d say that his intentions vary a bit depending on which horrible thing he’s done to Will we’re talking about? 

Basically all the terrible things he did to Will in season one were motivated by his desire not to be arrested. Hannibal knew that Will was more than clever enough to realize that he was the copycat killer and the chesapeake ripper, and he didn’t want that to happen in a way that would give Will a chance to turn him in, you know? He also, at that stage, absolutely has not realized the depth of his attachment to Will; he thinks this is a game, and it’s a game he’s got all the cards to so he’s very confident he’s going to win it, even if sometimes a Feeling works its way through that isn’t super fun (think, that scene where he’s super upset about Will missing his appointment in Sorbet)

Season two has a lot of indirect shit... I guess you could say sleeping with Alana was to hurt Will but I think the motivations for that were clear and mundane. And Randall Tier, I guess, but he fully expected Will to survive that and merely intended to push Will into more killing, as far as I can tell. The stuff with Margot was less about hurting Will and more about just stirring shit up; also some normal jealousy that Margot was going to take some of Will’s attention if she had his baby. He wants Will to have no one but him.

And then we come to Mizumono. Hannibal in that scene is incredibly hurt. He’s let someone in in a way he’s literally never let anyone in before and it turns out that person (Will) was playing him the entire time. Hannibal fell in love with someone he believes didn’t really exist, and he wants to punish Will for doing that to him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d killed Will altogether there lmao; the fact that he didn’t is evidence that he cares more about Will than he does about other people by far

When he tries to saw Will’s head open, that’s really... largely because of Bedelia. He’s sitting there like “god I have all these feelings and they SUCK” and she’s like “eat him” and Hannibal is like “seems like as good a plan as any” and tries to do so, after Will pulls out a knife and makes it clear peaceful coexistence isn’t an option. His goal there is to rid himself of the pain of not being able to be with the man he loves

And then when he sends Dolarhyde after Molly and Walter I feel like, again, the motive is relatively obvious? He’s in love with Will. Will has married someone else and left Hannibal to rot in prison. What do you expect a serial killer to do?? He knows as long as going home to Molly is a viable option Will isn’t ever gonna choose him, and he’s a fundamentally horrible and selfish person. Of course he does every awful thing he can to fuck that up.

So really his primary motivation (post season one) for hurting Will is that he wants to be with Will but can’t be and lashes out? Which, while shitty, strikes me as being more evidence that he’s got a big attachment to Will and not less

[larksinging]

AND....how about everyone in a hannibal OR a ghost hunter au??

you know i was gonna do ghost hunters because hannibal au is basically “the normal world, but with a lot of pretentious serial killers” but i find that kind of funny, so. normal au for everyone! 

winter is part of some real old money family. idk what business, maybe they made their money in like... fur trading? and now they make their money in faux fur or something. theyre trying to position his sister to take over the company from their aunt, though him and his brother were still expected to be good at Business. but winter is not really inclined for it. he wants to study... uh... monkeys? anyway. i forgot theres actually a murder mystery in moon rising that involves his sister? so thats also happening here. under different circumstances, maybe. he gets dragged in to help somehow. 

maive, uhhh, are the legends FBI in this, or at they like... private investigators? maybe the latter. she had a near-death experience with a prolific killer, handsome jack, that was briefly a big deal in the media. since then, shes kind of been trying to get revenge against him. for this its probably best if shes like, college-aged. maybe she’s studying criminal science. shes a touch too young to be in the FBI academy though, i think 

but you know who could be? ivypool! she had some sort of traumatic experience with some criminals when she was younger which kick started a passion for catching those sorts of things. she joined the FBI academy because of that. maybe shes a recent graduate. anyway shes trying to help catch a prolific killer... uh.... whatever tigerclaw’s codename is. maybe tigerclanplot is one of these plots. its risky and involves people having to bend some rules, buut

mothwhisper is one of the lab guys, you know, csi. shes in the lab analyzing samples and doing the autopsy and everything. she went to medical school, all that stuff! wait do csi go to med school? the ones who do the autopsies probably do, right? id say shes a psychiatrist but shes a bit too hands on. maybe she knows all the psychiatrists, she just went a different path. she’s great at what she does though

maria, god, i never know what to do with her. i guess she can just look.... weirdly similar to mary. i guess you could spin james as a killer, sort of, he would lend himself to... hannibal’s dark, oppressive symbolism. one of those really complicated ones. yeah. maria is one of those things where youre not quite sure if its a weird coincidence with a lot of symbolism or not. shes only involved for an episode or two. 

god, nyssa. okay. nyssa’s dad is the one getting investigated for Lots of Crimes, some of which nyssa was complicit in, but she’s helping, so it’s this careful back and forth of... nyssa wanting her dad to get wrecked, but also not exposing herself and getting caught. and maybe it can continue that then she wants to get MALCOLM caught too, because he takes over ra’s... business. no one’s quite sure what to make of her

laurel, wait you know laurel actually works with a serial killer in her canon? yeah some of zoom’s 2edgy backstory is that he’s a serial killer. soo maybe her dad was FBI, and she was... an academy dropout or something, and fell in with a serial killer and that. ended poorly. she was kind of a bedelia or abigail situation where nobody really knew how complicit she was, and she kept getting involved one way or another... maybe eventually she worms her way out of trouble and ends up as this sort of. occasional helps to investigators. she’ll never be real FBI because of that criminal record, but she works off some of the charges by helping on investigations. 

margot just suffers. 

none of my characters are journalists or psychiatrists, too bad. 

[hannibalcreative]

Fannibals have reached across time and space, spanning culture and myth, to create art and stories of the remembered and the forgotten. Here is a collection of the mythologies of the world, Hannibal style! Thank you so much to all of our contributors, and to the betas and the encouragers, the readers and the admirers that make this fandom the best in the verse. Please give the creators your love!

FANFIC

Sowed with Pomegranate Seeds (edit) by Cinnamaldeide

Summary: In an inconspicious corner of hell, hidden in the darkness, an impressive pomegranate tree languishes and rots. It reminds of a well-nurtured love and laments its own solitude, to which a wandering soul could put an abrupt end.

Teen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Alana Bloom, Margot Verger

Hannigram, Marlana

Exile (edit) by AchillesLament, DestinyAwakened and identically-different

Summary: When he died, he was reborn with the aid of witches, into another life, to another family, all so seemingly innocent, until the day he met Doctor Hannibal Lecter again, which sent his life spiraling back into the darkness Will Graham was originally born into.

Explicit

Graphic Depictions of Violence

Fairytale

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Anthony Dimmond, Original Characters

Hannigram

then moon, then stars by damnslippyplanet

Summary: Louise Hobbs had been a deer in a family of hunters and she’d never really known who her daughter was. Abigail supposed it had been a matter of survival, and if she’d blamed her mother for it once, she didn’t anymore. So there was no mother to search for Abigail in the place she had gone, which may as well have been under the earth.

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs

Gen (no pairings)

Tiger on a Gold Leash (edit) by shiphitsthefan

Summary: Nigel has spent his life fighting for both respect and power, neither of which are easily granted to an omega, no matter how fierce he may be. It was only a matter of time before one of his alpha rivals sent an assassin to kill Nigel during his annual heat. Precautions have been set in place for such an event since he conquered the kingdom. The man sitting on Nigel's throne defies all expectations. He might not even be a man.

Explicit

No Archive Warnings Apply

A/B/O, Fairytale

Lee Fallon, Nigel

BearDogs

ART

Will as Dornröschen by esdesesrt

Summary:

Unrated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Fairytale

Will Graham

Mermads by le-wendigogo

Summary:

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Fairytale

Hannibal Lecter

M is for Manticore by thequeerestdad

Summary:

Unrated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Monster AU

Hannibal Lecter

C is for Cernunnos by thequeerestdad

Summary:

Unrated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Deities

Will Graham

Bacchus & Ariadne by matildaparacosm

Summary:

Unrated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

Mason riding a Pegasus by hannibalartblog

Summary: Mason Verger as Bellerophon riding the pegasus that he captured and tamed. To the Mount Olymypus!

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Mason Verger

Gen (no pairings)

Will as the mythical yokai, inugami (犬神) by quillpunch

Summary:

Unrated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Monster AU

Will Graham

Gen (no pairings)

Untitled by herbivorousviolin

Summary: Maybe this has been done before but… Hannibal as Hades. Will as Persephone. Jack as Zeus. Alana as Demeter.

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

Hannibal Fan Art (#MythsOfBlood) by BayoBayo

Summary: With Will as Hades and Hannibal as Persephone.

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

Pinčiukas by flamecrownedstag

Summary: Hannibal as a pinčiukas (lithuanian demonic trickster and dweller of bogs) for @hannibalcreative #MythsOfBlood

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Deities

Hannibal Lecter

Gen (no pairings)

Galatea by Ash-and-starlight

Summary: He lifts up both his hands to feel the work, and wonders if it can be ivory because it seems to him more truly flesh ...

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham

Hannigram

Hades!Hannibal and Persephone!Will by herbivorousviolin

Summary: This time, Will has already come to terms with Hannibal’s feelings for him. Will has embraced his role as the Bride of Hannibal. Alana (Demeter) and Jack (Zeus) knew that Will already succumbed to Hannibal. They just have the comfort of knowing that every three months, Will returns to them, bringing life instead of death.

Unrated

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

The Great Red Dragon by hannibalartblog

Summary: And so it begins. Or, better, it continues: this is part of the Red Dragon mini series into Werewolf&Cannibal, that started with the introduction of The Undertaker. Did not you expect events to take this turn, uh? ;) We told you that something big was about to happen! And it starts right in time for @hannibalcreative ’s #MythsOfBlood.

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Monster AU

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

EDITS

Le Chiffre as Loki by YouAndIHaveBegunToBlur

Summary:

Gen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Le Chiffre

Forbidden Fruit by cinnamaldeide

Summary:

Teen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

Wrap your arms around my dark heart, it’s yours to own. Lighten it with yours. by the-girl-who-didnt-make-anysense

Summary: Hannibal and Bedelia as Hades and Persephone

Unrated

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Bedelia Du Maurier

Bedannibal (Bedelia/Hannibal)

Choice by lightofonesoul

Summary: Hel (Hannibal) and Pan (Will) meeting, and Hel so impressed by Pan so seducing him with also this words: “Choice If you chose life, you know what to fear is like if you chose me this is would become even your kingdom” and they become one

Unrated

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Deities

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham

Hannigram

[he-s-dead-jim]

Timing

I pray for a small amount of mistakes.

  I said many times that I wanted to talk about Dolce and Digestivo.

Maybe I was waiting just because every time I watch Hannibal there’s something new to add. Or maybe it’s just that omnipresent difficulty of doing it in the best way possible.

I know I will forget something, I always do.

I’ve already said a bit about my vision of Will after Mizumono, so it’s from those considerations that comes all the rest.

In my mind Will goes to Italy by boat to have the possibility to take Hannibal and deal with him in a neutral territory, possibly in the middle of the sea, possibly with the idea of going away with him. Maybe, why not?

While reading my thoughts, you always have to take into consideration my point of view. It’s mine and it’s just a point of view.

I’m not a Hannibal apologist, no. If anything I’m more prone to make Will as much guilty as Hannibal.

So to me Will can do literally everything and however absurd or in contrast with his ideas, it still can find an explanation in Will’s nature very similar to Hannibal’s.

Will is in Florence and the first thing he sees is a crime scene. He probably takes a glimpse of Pazzi, he is again in front of someone Hannibal gutted, he still feels his scar burning, he says Hello to Jack and then he talks to him.

The dialogue is so strange, so different from the last one they had.

You don’t hear pain in Will’s voice, you hear… I don’t know how to describe the feeling… You hear a bit of scorn, contempt…? Like he is saying “Pazzi was trying to catch Hannibal, idiot, I’m the only one who knows him well enough to do to that.”

Will suggests once again (in a very subtle way) to let Hannibal go and when Jack asks him if he still wants to go with him Will answers that part of him will always do.

An applause to Jack for asking the stupidest question of his life. Because Will already admitted that to you and you still trust him. To prove yourself that you’re not the worst people judger of history you have to ask HIM again the same question, as if his answer is something you can rely on. As if his answer is different from the one he already gave to you. Why should it be?

Well, Will at least is not a liar in this case. He says to Jack right there the truth, again.

It’s Jack the one who chooses to read “Part of me will always want to” as “No, Jack, are you kidding? I’m completely your man, now.”

I hear Will so far away from Jack than he will ever be. His tone is almost arrogant when he continues his reading of Hannibal’s actions. And when he says to Jack “Why didn’t you kill him?” is like hearing him say “Why don’t you kill him yourself?” “Why do you expect me to do it?” “That will never happen, you know?”

Will is there with Jack because it’s simpler to find Hannibal if he follows him. In fact, he leaves Jack with Bedelia as soon as he can and he disappears.

He doesn’t say to Jack where he’s going, he doesn’t warn him. He goes.

That’s not the behaviour of someone who intends to end things. In a way or another. He surely doesn’t want to have Hannibal arrested, he surely doesn’t want to attack Hannibal with Jack.

He wants to be alone with Hannibal. And not to kill him.

It’s not practical, he doesn’t make any sense and it’s not how Will thinks.

The scene at the Uffizi is genuine. Will is himself again. He’s not talking to Jack, he can say what he really feels and what is that? “I want to understand you” “Before you and after you” “You and I” “We’re conjoined”.

Will is not trying to seduce him, he doesn’t need to, Hannibal is caught. What Will says is what Will really thinks and those are words that come out of deep feelings.

Out of the Uffizi Will is trying to do something we will never know anything about.

That’s the reality.

Chiyoh stops something that could be anything. We don’t know.

Always my thought: Will was setting in motion his plan, his idea of dealing with Hannibal alone. In what way… We don’t know.

One thing for sure: he could have just asked. Hannibal would have been happy to follow him.

From now on we have a still pissed off Hannibal and a very worn out Will.

But.

Hannibal didn’t know about Will. He didn’t know Will was there. Instead he knows very well that Jack is there somewhere.

And he is still more pissed by what Jack did than by what Will tried to do.

The next scene, always from my point of view, is something set up for Jack, not for Will.

Hannibal knows that Jack is going to search for Will, he sets the table for three and waits.

When Jack arrives we’re again put in front of something we will never know anything about.

Mason’s men stop Hannibal while he is just scratching Will’s head, let’s say that.

I love symbolism and absurde scenes in Hannibal, but that one makes me think. If Hannibal had wanted to open that head, he would have exerted way more pressure to it. I mean… Ok, Will has a hard head but not that much. He barely bleeds considering how much every head’s injury messes you up in terms of blood.

That’s what I believe.

We don’t know what Will would have done as much as we don’t know what Hannibal would have done. Even-steven.

But to open Will's head up to eat him? No, I'm sorry, I don't think so. The game is too interesting to end it this way.

They would have killed Jack together. That would have been Hannibal's game. To have what he couldn't have in Mizumono.

And we arrive at Muskrat Farm.

Will’s expression says it all.

He had enough.

Not only he is wounded and in physical pain, but also his plan is ruined. He is not alone with Hannibal and he is in no position to make the rules. He is again threatened to death and that’s obviously Hannibal’s fault.

I’d say the fault is both of theirs, Will knew very well what he was going to do, whom he was going to search for. His decision.

I mean, Hannibal manipulated him up to a certain point, but after that… It’s always Will’s decision.

Anyway Will feels deprived of his right.

His right to deal with Hannibal. Hannibal is his problem.

I think that at this point Will is no more the FBI consultant who is saving lives, he’s far away from that person, so he doesn’t care about other people who want to get even with Hannibal, especially if those people are Mason, Alana and Margot.

So, he can be pissed off at Hannibal, but he surely doesn’t team up with the others.

When he can, he does something blatant to show whose side he is on. He bites Cordell’s face because he can’t use his hands and he doesn’t have weapons, ok, but the impact that that action has on Hannibal is huge.

Will knows that and he turns towards Hannibal to see how much his gesture is appreciated.

They’re still the team at that table. Despite everything, in that house Hannibal is the one that Will chooses to have at his side.

And when Alana shows up, if you notice, Will is not relieved. Not a bit.

He should be, I mean… Alana is not a criminal like Mason and she’s not a killer. At least Will thinks she’s not. He should be glad to see her, it probably means he’s saved.

Instead he is annoyed, disgusted and he is still in Team Hannibal.

He asks if Alana helped Mason find THEM.

THEM, not Hannibal.

Alana’s answer is stupid, “I wanted Hannibal, it’s not my fault if you were with him.”

What?

She was the one saying that Will knew what he was doing, she knew Will was going to find Hannibal… This is a stupid justification for her actions and Will understands that.

Will is always reminded of how people around him are pretty much all shit.

So he suggests. As Hannibal always does.

He suggests to Alana what she should do. He doesn’t have to say much, Alana’s sense of guilt does the rest. She helped to set in motion a mechanism but now she doesn’t want to see how it ends, she doesn’t want that kind of responsability on her shoulders.

So she tries to fix things up.

I repeat it’s just my way of analyzing things. I’m not a fan of Alana’s behaviour throughout the seasons. The only thing for which I like her is the decision of taking care of Will’s dogs. That’s the only thing.

And after all this, there’s that final scene of Digestivo.

Again, in my opinion, nothing decided before, nothing prepared.

Will improvises.

Will’s rejection is intended to hurt Hannibal the only way he has in that moment. Everything else is lost and Jack is probably on his way, the Muskrat Farm’s massacre is going to be discovered soon. He must act quickly.

Will has only his words and he uses the worst that he can find to upset Hannibal.

Maybe he even wants to force Hannibal to go away, so Jack won’t find him.

“I miss my dogs, I’m not going to miss you.”

That’s cruel.

“I don’t want to think about you.”

That’s even worse.

But Will doesn’t want and doesn’t expect what Hannibal does after that.

To me, Will just wants to hurt him -he wasn’t able to do it with the knife, he does it with words- and then start it all over again: going to find him, trying to kill each other, spill blood…

Hannibal ends it all with his actions.

Will is stunned by his appearance in front of Jack, and he is not pleased AT ALL.

Hannibal wins that match.

I see that surrender as a victory. Hannibal wants to annoy Will and he is able to do it. But at the same time he manages to do wrong to himself too. He should have waited, as always.

When it comes to Will, Hannibal is a hasty puppy. He can stalk a victim for months, but he wants Will here and now.

How could you blame him, though? After all those years, you finally find your soul mate… I understand the hurry.

Hannibal and Will really are just a matter of timing and lack of explanations.

[margotverger]

bloom’s duality

[Sequel to Guillotine’s Glint! | Read on Ao3]

I can't lose this. I can't lose you.

Margot's words remain imprinted on the fleshy fabric of her brain; when she closes her eyes to sleep, fitfully, they are illuminated on the red screen of her eyelids. Bright, stark white; white as stars. Navigation through the grim and murky waters of their hiding. In her dreams, she sees her family, becalmed on a red sea, a black mass surging from the depth. It has no face, but she knows it is him. The kraken has awoken, and has come for his pay. All the while, Alana is marooned on an island of her own creation, frozen as she watches those foul appendages pull her family deep into its toothed maw. Entirely helpless.

She wakes up with a scream in her throat, and Margot hovering over above her, haloed by the overhead light. Her eyes are wide, terrified, wet with fear. Morgan is stirring, his dreamscape disturbed. “Bad dream?” Margot's hands are so soft, fingers brushing along the dip and curve of her cheekbone.

“Bad dream,” she echoes, voice weakened, raw, as if she really had been screaming. She seeks comfort in a kiss, chaste and brief. “I think I'll take watch now.”

Something has to be done about this.

*

She invests in a trainer, taming her paranoia about interacting with others. While it is incredibly unlikely Hannibal intends to enact his plans through a mere idol, one can never be too certain. To allow someone into her sanctuary is to create a leak in the boat. But it must be done. If she is doomed to be a sitting duck, she might as well be one that can fight back.

*

Aleksandra is her name. A bulky Russian woman, she towers above them, so much so that her blonde hair, cropped short, almost touches the ceiling. Despite the toughness that emanates from every curve of muscle, Morgan takes an instant liking to her. Alana sees it as a good omen.

(A good omen is still an omen, says some small part of her.)

*

Aleksandra stays with them. She instills a nutrition plan for she and Margot; things that will imbue them with strength, stamina, enough protein to carry them through the absolutely ruthless training plan she has in mind. At night, when Margot is sleeping, Alana trains in the living room. First, building tolerance, stamina; warm ups, muscle building, elasticity. Reflex training. Basic combat. Then, into styles: krav maga, kung fu, taekwondo, boxing; the list is endless, and Aleksandra skips nothing. She knits each style together seamlessly, so that Alana may find what best suits her. She trains until the sun rises and then some, and only rests when the night comes round to. Her exhaustion kills any dream, and she is glad for it.

*

She finds time for tenderness regardless. Devoting her life to protection can be as double-edged as devoting her life to paranoia. Instead, she employs Aleksandra's extra time to look after Morgan. They play games in the living room or what could be—tentatively—called the garden, while she has alone time with her wife. There, she allows herself to kiss every place that has gone unkissed for so long (too long), to worship Margot's soft skin, scarred belly, the curves of her thighs. She kisses and licks and paints patterns with her fingertips along the canvas of her wife, and allows herself to be lost in the world of her body, in the world of pleasure that has been alien to them for so long. Other times, they merely sit in silence, enjoying the sound of their slow heartbeats, appreciating each rise brought on by their breath. The reminder that they are here and alive, and for the moment, at peace.

When Margot's eyelids become heavy with sleep, Alana finds herself staring, reverant. I'd do anything for you, her heart sings a hymn. God, I'd do anything for you.

*

Margot and Aleksandra are in the bedroom, which doubles as a playroom for Morgan nowadays, when the door knocks. Alana freezes, her knife stagnating, only half-way through the cucumber. Nobody is supposed to knock on the door. Nobody is supposed to know where they are. A small voice, that same voice, is tearing her apart for her foolishness, but she retains a calm visage despite herself. She inhales through her teeth, recalling everything Aleksandra taught her, and goes to the door, bracing herself for the worst.

But she does not come face to face with the monster who has haunted her dreams. She comes face to face with its' psychiatrist.

She shuts the door in Bedelia du Maurier's face.

*

Minutes pass, maybe few, maybe many. All Alana knows is that the quiet rumble of life in the bedroom is the most beautiful thing she's ever heard, that her heart is beating louder and faster than it has even post-nightmare, and that Hannibal Lecter's psychiatrist is, somehow, on her doorstep. Part of her wants to believe it was merely some sort of illusion; an invention of stress. Some diluted madness taking form in the most bizarre shape imaginable. After all, why—and how? – is Bedelia du Maurier on her doorstep?

She takes a steadying breath. Only one way to find out. She opens the door, and finds that Bedelia is still standing there, her glacial expression betrayed by the rise of her eyebrow. She's miffed. “That was rude, Doctor Bloom,” she says, voice stiff and velveteen all at once. Her skin crawls at the very word. It must be deliberate. Instead of confronting that particular turn of phrase, she affixes a sharply polite smile to her face. Out of Bedelia's line of sight, Alana's knuckles are blanching against the doorframe. She half-expects it to splinter and snap beneath the pressure of her.

“My apologies, Doctor du Maurier. You took me quite off guard.”

“I imagine so.” Without moving, Bedelia's eyes explore what they can of Alana's home. “May I come in?”

Hidden beneath the pale pink of Alana's lips, her teeth are grinding. Then: “I don't see why not.”

*

“You have a quaint little home.”

“I was in the mood for something smaller.” Safer. Less shadowy corners for Hannibal to lurk in.

“I can imagine,” Bedelia purrs, eyes ceasing their roaming of the living room and settling on Alana's gaze. She has striking eyes. The colour of ice. Just as cold, too.

There is a silence.

“Do you have any wine?”

She chooses to ignore that. “Why are you here?” Alana asks, and her voice is quiet. Still, but with the threat of a tremble. A storm brewing in the column of her throat. “How did you find us?”

Bedelia opens her mouth to speak, but finds herself interrupted.

“Alana, are you done with those snacks—“ her words find themselves decapitated mid-sentence. “Alana,” she repeats, her voice carrying the threat of fear.

“Margot,” comes her quiet response, her gaze unmoving from Bedelia. She trusts her wife. She does not trust Bedelia du Maurier. “Make sure Morgan and Aleksandra stay in the room.”

Margot lingers, uncertain, but her doubt is ephemeral; she leaves, silent as a ghost.

“You seem to be wary of me,” Bedelia notes, “despite the fact we are both victims of the same man.”

A mirthless hm, one that jerks her lips in a way that could almost pass for a smirk. “You don't strike me as the victim type, Doctor du Maurier.”

“If I did, would you enjoy my company more?” the graceful tilt of her head; hair pools over her blouse like liquid gold. “As I recall, that appears to be your type.”

She narrows her eyes, contrasting the almost feline dip of Bedelia's nude-dusted lids. “How did you find us?”

“My apologies, I seem to have struck a nerve.” Alana can see, so very clearly, why Hannibal decided to bring her along with him on his Florence escapades. Whatever hope she had that the stories were true is distinguished; her doubts have flared into a great and angry beast. There is something in her eyes, something bright and cruel and cold, that suggests they have never once been blind to Hannibal's nature. “You're a bright woman, Doctor Bloom. I'm certain you can piece together a suitable answer.”

“Aleksandra? She's been off the grid since she got here.”

Her simpering smile patronizes her, and Alana's voicebox bobs in her throat. “Not off the grid enough.” Bedelia moves then, as slow as a cat on the prowl. Alana half-expects her pupils to narrow to slits, black knives ready to pierce and carve. She leans forward, and even the slide of her hair manages to look predatory and controlled. Her fingers lace together, French tips digging into the vanille crème of her own skin. “Do you want to know why I came here? Why I looked for you?” She waits for no answer. “I wanted to know if I could. Because if I can find you, so can they.”

Her breath stutters, her eyes blowing wider than they ought to – a shot of fear, adrenaline pumping through her blood, then followed by a relief. They, meaning not only Hannibal; they, meaning Will is alive. Despite the years, there remains something tender for Will Graham yet. She hopes he can say the same for her. “They survived.”

“Unfortunately so.” It is Bedelia's turn to narrow her eyes, blonde lashes almost ghosting along the curve of her cheekbone. “I do hope that little response is fear, and nothing else. Like I said, you're a bright woman.”

Her confidence is blooming, piece by piece, as things fall into place: her own strength, her wife's, Will's survival. She says nothing, but her thoughts must show on her face, for Bedelia's glacial demeanour fractures for only a moment, eyebrows furrowing.

“Your faith, while … admirable,” she barely restrains a sneer, “is misplaced, Doctor Bloom. The Will Graham that rose out of that water is not the one you knew. He is something new and sharp. One has to wonder what lurks in the mind of the one who walks willingly by Hannibal Lecter's side.”

“Yes,” Alana stares deep into those near phosphorescent eyes, as pointed as a blade, “one does.”

Spider-web fractures crack along the porcelain of Bedelia du Maurier's facade, exposing veins of frustration. Her eyes are alight, almost. Jaw hard-set, she says, with a voice brittle as winter: “You understand nothing of the man who holds your fate in one hand and scissors in the other.”

“He doesn't hold my fate. I do.”

Is that admiration, there, glimmering alongside the slow-burning anger? Perhaps. “And here I had assumed your naivete had shattered along your pelvis.” Bedelia lets out a sigh that falls somewhere between suffering and irritated, gaze breaking from Alana's only to rise to the heavens before falling to where her legs sit, primly crossed. “I see that I will have to force you to see what he really is.” She unfolds herself, only to set about fiddling with, presumably, her stocking. Alana watches on, expression morphing into a deeper state of vexation with each passing second. Then, in a moment of stark shock, Bedelia separates her leg and sets it to the side. Her gaze is unflinching, but there is a vulnerability there. Raw as a mineral, jagged and sharp.

“This is what they are capable of. What Will Graham is capable of.”

“He did that to you?” Alana's voice catches in her throat, only escaping in the shape of a whisper.

“I presume the cooking of it was all Hannibal, but he certainly helped in eating it.”

A sharp stab of nausea: acid pools in her stomach as her skin cools.

“Did he tell you of his visits to me? How he took Hannibal's role as my singular patient?”

“No.” She swallows. “He didn't.”

Bedelia tilts her head, hair shifting with it. Something violent flashes in her eyes. It almost appears to be something like satisfaction. “An interesting thing, that, isn't it? I must admit, I don't blame him. Not after the things we discussed. Do you know what he said to me, on the eve of Hannibal's escape?”

Alana is quiet.

“He looked me in the eyes, Doctor Bloom, and said: meat's back on the menu.”

*

“I'm sorry.”

“What for?”

“For this. For everything. If it weren't for me...”

“If it weren't for you, I'd have been torn apart and eaten alive by pigs. Alana, you brought light into my world when there was only darkness. You redefined what family meant for me. You showed me what love is. Don't ever apologize for this. For us. For Morgan. I'd follow you around the world.”

Alana offers a weak smile, though the tears on her face aren't wholly from fear anymore. “You might have to.”

“So be it.”

*

The world has shifted. Their world has shifted.

Bedelia du Maurier's words lie side by side Margot's on the canvas of her lids. In her dreams, she is still marooned. Will Graham appears as if from air, all light and divinity. Will, she says, voice thrumming with relief, Will, thank God you're here. You have to help me. The water is lapping at the white sand, staining it red, then black; it grows thicker and thicker. Margot's screams grow loud and desperate as Will's gaze remains indecipherable, the entirety of his eyes blown out by light. Please, and she reaches out for him, her friend, her conspirator, and begs.

Oh, Alana, he hums in that voice, yet it doesn't sound like him. It sounds new and terrifying. He takes her hand, and his skin is burning. There are no Gods here. Not anymore.

He pushes her into the black sea.

[bonearenaofmyskull]

What does the “interesting next chapter” for Hannibal involve? Fuller provided no concrete details at Split Screens Festival, but he did tease a very enticing elevator pitch: “It was going to be ‘Inception’ meets ‘Angel Heart.'” Combining Christopher Nolan’s mind-bender with Alan Parker’s supernatural horror movie sounds unsung, but it’s a very Bryan Fuller thing to do and he’s definitely not joking. As a huge fan of your S4 speculations, i got to ask your thoughts on Bryan's latest teases!??!

The short answer is that I have no idea. XD  And the truth is that it’s been so long since the end of the last season, and I’ve had so many discussions over time and read so much fic and planned so much fic and written enough fic that while I know what I think is most likely, any sense of objectivity I have about the subject has pretty much eroded away (as if I ever had any in the first place). And my bluff is still eroding. ;)

WRT the specific article you referenced, I do want to talk about Bryan’s elevator pitches and what we should (and should not) take out of them.

The thing about Bryan is that he’s a positive encyclopedia of film knowledge, and he uses example films to reference any of the scores of ideas he may be having at any given moment, and his mind runs about a million miles per hour nonlinearly (which is why he ends up with verbal diarrhea in interviews sometimes). He’s used a lot of film comparisons for various different Hannibal seasons and episodes, and if you looked at them without watching the show, they might often lead you astray. For example, he’s described the first season as The Shining before, and if you were to take this thought at face value, you’d think Will really would have been the copycat killer and would have ended up killing Abigail (Jack would have been right, zomg!): The Shining is about how a man descends into madness because of a sinister influence and then kills his family. But all Bryan meant was that both stories had the madness component, and in Will’s case it wasn’t even technically madness but a physical condition. Also lots of heartbeats, gaudy bathrooms and clanging noises.

Another time, Bryan caused all kinds of fandom drama when he described “Antipasto” as a “new pilot for the series starring Mads Mikkelsen and Gillian Anderson.” People were taking that to mean that Will was no longer going to be either the love of Hannibal’s life or the star of the show. And Bryan repeated that a bazillion times, either oblivious to or regardless of the panic he was causing, probably because it has a tantalizing vagueness to it so it’s a good advertisement. But it was hardly a straightforward statement about what to expect from the show, although it described that single episode well enough.

So let’s have a look at other comparisons he’s made to various films/shows/stuff:

The Talented Mr. Ripley = “Antipasto”

What you’d expect: Guy in Italy kills the guy he’s in love with and takes his identity, then has to balance it against his own identity as he tries to get away with it, costing him his next lover.

What we got: Italy, murdering the man you’re in love with, and identity shenanigans, so this one was fairly close. Hannibal gets away with it and doesn’t fall in love with anyone else, so that’s different. Also, Bedelia. And Abel Gideon flashbacks in nonlinear narration. It’s…circumstantially similar.

The Hunger = Hannibal & Bedelia in Italy

What you’d expect: A beautiful yet dangerous vampire seeks to replace her old lover, whose life has run out after he kills her protege, by seducing a woman who then destroys her and takes her powers. Supposed to be a metaphor for drug addiction.

What we got: Couple of sexy, ice-cold blondes, I guess. Upper crust musicianing and fancy clothes? A waterphone being hurled down the stairs in the background? IDK, man. IDK.

Don’t Look Now = “Primavera”

What you’d expect: A guy with ESP loses his daughter, but then has glimpses of her as he and his wife go to Italy to deal with their grief. Wife falls in with some old psychic ladies, and it turns out his visions are actually prophetic visions leading to his own death by serial killer.

What we got: Well, we were in Italy to deal with the grief our gifted protagonist suffered at losing his “daughter,” and he continues to have visions of her, and there is a serial killer on the loose and a somewhat grumpy Italian detective hanging around. But like Ripley, it’s circumstantially the same, but the story is totally different.

Frankenstein‘s monster = Will’s Italy arc

What you’d expect: (There are so many film versions of Frankenstein out there, as well as the original novel, that it’s hard to anticipate what Bryan thinks about when he thinks of Frankenstein’s monster. So I’m just kind of throwing together the most commonly remembered stuff.)  An overly ambitious doctor creates a living “monster” out of dead human body parts, then promptly regrets it. The monster escapes, kills a bunch of people including the doc’s fiancee, tries to coerce the doctor into making a mate for him because it’s sad to be alone, and then either the doctor pursues the monster or the monster pursues the doctor and they both end up dead. 

What we got: A doctor made a guy into a monster, and the guy is kind of back from the dead. The doctor was the one who escaped, and the monster is the one who is pursuing. The doctor kills people instead of the monster. They’re each other’s mate, and they don’t kill anyone’s fiancees. XD  They don’t die either. It is, however, sad to be alone. This is a deejay mashup of Frankenstein if ever there was one. 

Death and the Maiden = “Secondo”

What you’d expect: Traumatized woman who had survived torture recognizes the voice of her torturer and kidnaps him on a stormy night, trying to make him confess his crimes to her before she kills him while her husband looks on, not knowing if he believes her or not and if he should help her or her captive.

What we got: There’s a woman in an isolated house with a man captive. Aaaaand…that’s about it. Plot-wise, this movie goes mostly the opposite direction from where the film does, and Will is at best an amalgamation of both the husband and the torturer, and way more active than either in the outcome. Again, circumstantially similar but a different story.

Kill Bill = “Aperitivo”

What you’d expect: After her wedding was crashed in the most violent way possible, a woman awakens in a hospital and goes out seeking vengeance against her former lover by killing all his cronies one by one until she gets to him.

What we got: Not Frederick Chilton in a bright yellow tracksuit, unfortunately. After some violence, people wake up in hospitals and then…talk to each other? 

Hannibal, the film = “Contorno”

What you’d expect: the obvious.

What we got: Pazzi’s story and death, and a fun little turnabout with Alana taking Clarice Starling’s place on the phone. But most of other plot stuff from Hannibal exists elsewhere, and instead we got some snail-y conversations and a barefoot beatdown on Hannibal by Jack Crawford.

Bound = Margot and Alana’s storyline

What you’d expect: A woman and her lesbian lover plot to steal the money her mafiaso boyfriend owes to his boss in order to escape the boyfriend’s tyrannical hold, but the plot goes wrong and they get caught, making it so they have to improvise their way out.

What we got: Again, circumstantially something very similar, but only in the loosest of terms–that two women lovers are seeking to escape the tyrannical hold of one of the men in their life, getting his money and ending up killing him. For some reason, there’s no pig-baby in Bound. Unless you count Christopher Meloni.

Leopold and Loeb = “Tome-wan”

What you’d expect: Two men, convinced they’re above everybody else, try to create the perfect murder by hatching a plot and killing a kid. They get caught.

What we got: Two men–at least one of whom is convinced he’s above everyone else–hatch a rather haphazard plot without really telling each other what they’re doing, then hunt down a guy and don’t actually kill him, and then they don’t get caught.

…

So is there a pattern in any of this? What can we take from it to apply to the Inception meets Angel Heart (with maybe a dash of Ripley, since that’s what Bryan told Matt Zoller Seitz in the past) pitch for the fourth season? What would we expect from these films?

I think the answer seems to be nothing more than circumstantial similarities, turnabouts on the expectations that these films might have set up, and some tonal similarities. That’s the pattern, and that’s the only pattern as far as I’m concerned. 

That said though, we might as well have some fun speculating with them.

Angel Heart

What you’d expect: A private detective is hired by a mysterious stranger in a manbun to track down a missing person who was last known to be in a coma. When every person the detective interviews about the case ends up meeting a grisly end, he comes to discover that he is the very man he is looking for, and the devil made him kill all those people in a fugue state because he had attempted to cheat the devil from coming to collect his soul.

…Wait, wait wait…. Isn’t this already Hannibal season one? An investigator falls in with the devil, who helps in with his investigations, all the while encouraging a fugue state to get him to kill people, so that at one point he thinks he’s the very killer that he’s looking for??? 

Didn’t Bryan already tell us that the fourth season would be an inversion or subversion of S1?

Cleverrrrrrrrr, Bryan Fuller! You made us think you were telling us something new by just saying the same thing you said before in another way. But there really isn’t anything new here at all, is there???

I guess, circumstantially, there could be a detective searching for them, or they could be searching for killers, or Will could be metaphorically searching for himself. The deal with the devil has obviously already been made, and maybe Will is trying to find a way out of that, as the guy in Angel Heart was. 

People have made a big deal about the coma and fugue state business, and I’m not ruling that stuff out, but I don’t think they’ll retread ground that they tread in S1 with Will, and I don’t think that they’ll put Hannibal in any sustained position of weakness. They never do either of these thing, and that limits where they can go with the coma and fugue state things.

Inception

What you’d expect: A wanted corporate espionage dream-hacker tries to get his name cleared in order to return to his children after being blamed for the death of his wife, so he agrees to attempt to create an idea in the mind of an unknowing victim by generating a dream within a dream within a dream, where there is a danger of not knowing what is real and what is not.

Well…not quite knowing what is real and what is not is Hannibal all the way, and Will is a dream-hacker if ever there was one. And he will probably be wanted by the law. Kinda doubt he’ll be looking to return to his wife and child, though maybe he is interested in clearing his name. And Hannibal and Will do share mental space, just as Cobb and Mal do…and there could be some comparison to be made between Mal and Hannibal here, in how they haunt their husbands…and how Mal frames Cobb for murder. XD 

People get very hyper-focused on the dream-within-a-dream business from Inception, but I found that to be kind of beside the point, tbh. “Inception” refers to the process of planting an idea in another person’s head in such a subconscious way that they believe that idea is their own and they make it a part of themselves and their reality. I guess because I find this to be the more interesting part of Inception, I’d personally like this to be what Bryan Fuller is talking about here, rather than the dreaming stuff. It’s very psychological, and if Will is looking to understand who he is on the other side of the veil, I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity here for both or either man, within that alchemy of truths and lies. 

If we were looking for a more plot-driven similar circumstance, a situation in which some rich person paves the way for Will to clear his name in America. We do have some powerful rich people on this show. 

To be quite honest, the first thing that came to mind when Bryan said Inception was him talking about how Richard Armitage and Gillian Anderson never had a chance to be in a scene together, so maybe they could be in a scene together in the future in Will’s mind--like he’s hosting all the people he’s killed, or whose deaths he blames himself for (sorry, this thought isn’t very optimistic about Bedelia’s chances). And that reminded me a lot of Cobb with Mal. 

I’m less clear on any of this with regard to Hannibal: it’s as he says himself in “Digestivo,” it’s dangerous to get everything you ever wanted, and that’s where Hannibal finds himself at the end of TWOTL. I’m not sure where that will take him after, though Hugh being convinced that Hannibal would always have to fight for Will is somewhat heartening. I’ve spoken elsewhere on my preferences for where Hannibal goes in S4, but I don’t have a particular sense of anything for him that comes from either Inception or Angel Heart. He’s more likely to be the devil than Will is, and he’s more likely to be compared to Mal. I could see scenarios that would cast him as Cobb, I suppose, but nothing concrete. 

I wrote a lot here to say that I don’t have much to say, but the truth is that I think we should be skeptical about taking anything Bryan says that sounds like an elevator pitch too literally.   

[k-s-morgan]

People are too stuck on S1 Will and the whole 'Hannibal manipulated him' thing to really give anything in the show after that much thought; that's why you get such shallow interpretations of such a deep show. I hate to be rude but it doesn't seem like most people are 'smart-enough' for Hannibal which is kind of sad. Also people are lazy, they don't want to have to think too hard. Will especially requires thinking because he doesn't always say what he means.

I agree, the perception of many (mostly new) viewers is clouded by Will's portrayal in S1. And it's not necessarily because they aren't intelligent, it's just these days, few people actually sit down and watch something episode by episode with serious, unrelenting focus. Many just turn it on as the background; others treat it like pure entertainment and want to take a break from incessant critical thinking. Then there is advertising. 'Hannibal' has been critically acclaimed and it's loved by both critics and fans. It has excellent writing, acting, and concept, but the way it was marketed...

Misleading trailers and summaries played a role. Wherever I check how the show is presented on different sites, it's all about Will catching Hannibal. Very rarely, I see the mention of Will fighting his own demons, but it never goes beyond that. It means that a big part of people who choose to watch it already approach it from the wrong perceptive. They are also not the right audience in most cases - they want to see a good guys vs. bad guys show and get this instead. Look at the articles about the show - I don't recall any of them being 100% correct. At best, their writers understand Will and Hannibal are in love. But Will's darkness, the ending of the show, the main conflict - all of it goes over their heads.

Other people start it after the books or movies, and they expect to see the same characters and plots. Most are bound to be disappointed. This show is extremely complex, it's difficult to understand everything about it until you re-watch it; you can't miss one episode and understand the next one properly; if you miss or misunderstand even one conversation, you might end up confused and lost in character motivation. The language is flowery, the art is heavily symbolic, the metaphors are everywhere. So a typical viewer wouldn't enjoy this show since they come in expecting a crime drama, not a blood-soaked gothic dark romance.

For comparison, watch one of the official trailers for S1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UAo81kI94g. Boring and doesn't disclose the crucial aspects of the story. Then watch this fan-trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDTzn8y-5kM&t=4s. Much more powerful: reflects dark art, beautiful symbolism, Will's darkness, Hannibal's attempts to draw it out, etc. The audience drawn by the second trailer wouldn't be interested in the first one and vice versa.

The most common misconceptions I see are about Hannibal treating Will like a toy in S1, Will having no inherent darkness and no agency. In reality, when Hannibal meets Will, he senses darkness in him right away. He devises a test by provoking Hobbs into violence, observing what Will is about to do. Will kills him and then admits he loved doing it - this proves he had darkness before that. It scares him, but when Hannibal shows acceptance, Will keeps coming back to him. He then sees himself as inherently evil in E5 of S1, saying that he has so much darkness that it can't be fully extracted from him. Hannibal doesn't manipulate Will's responses - at best, he creates situations. Will is the one who chooses to try and shoot Ingram, who beats Randall up until he's incapacitated, snaps his neck, mutilates and eats him, and confesses he loved it, who chooses Hannibal's side and over again, who toys with innocent lives in S3 and gets innocent people harmed and killed without showing any regret, who admits murder is beautiful. Will is a monster who Hannibal helped Become.

Hannibal did it with Margot, Bedelia, and Randall before. He senses darkness in people and encourages them to accept it. He never tries making them into something they aren't - he encourages Margot to kill Mason because she's capable of it, but he doesn't push her to kill others because that's not what she is. He helped Randall come to terms with his animal self. He sent a vulnerable person to Bedelia since this is her MO. He always sent killers to Will as victims because he knows Will prefers bad people.

Will even says, "I've never known myself as well as I know myself when I'm with him." This says it all. The reason why he's drawn to Hannibal is because Hannibal is the only person to understand him.

[neitherfleshnorfleshless]

More Detail on Changes to the NBC Canon: Because some changes have long-ranging effects and complications that need to be addressed. First and foremost, Hannibal does not kill Cassie Boyle nor does he call Garrett Jacob Hobbs to warn him that the police know.  This does not change Will finding the family, as the evidence needed was found by Bev on the girl GJH returned and Will, by book canon, would have found GJH anyway - with the same result.  Hannibal does not need to be involved in this.  He is still there when Will goes to the Hobbs’s residence; this continues as normal.  Cassie does still die, just not as a result of Hannibal’s manipulations. Whether or not Marissa dies is up to the other writer - I suspect she still does because that isolates Abigail, however, if this is the case, Hannibal did not kill her.  That said, if she’s dead, I have no idea who would, seeing as Hannibal is the most likely killer in the NBC series.  -shrugs- Hannibal is Will’s therapist and uses Will’s connection to Abigail to understand him better.  It is Will’s reaction to GJH’s murder and his immediate desire to protect Abigail that makes Hannibal think he might be another fallen guardian angel like himself.  This is not the case, but this does lead to Hannibal’s intrigue into Will’s psyche.  This mistaken belief that Will might be like him persists throughout the following events until stated. Because Cassie still dies, Nicholas Boyle still confronts Abigail and still dies.  Hannibal still intercedes to hide his body (and still knocks Alana out to do so).  No one called GJH, so there is no secret to be kept on Hannibal’s behalf.  He hides the body to protect Abigail, not out of a sense of manipulation.  Boyle’s death would make Jack more suspect and prevent any healing for Abigail, and Hannibal is against that.  He knows from previous experience that if Abigail was involved, then it likely was not her choice. Hannibal murdered the killer in Coquilles.  He did not commit suicide.  Hannibal was appalled that someone was attempting to create guardian angels in this way.  This is an affront to who he was and who he is.  Hannibal’s attempt to drive a wedge between Jack and Will has more to do with the effects that Will’s work is having on him and less to do with trying to manipulate or isolate Will. Hannibal has been murdering people since Gideon was incarcerated.  However, he has been killing in less blatant ways.  No showcasing bodies.  Keeping the bodies as long as possible to consume all of the flesh as needed. There is no Miriam Lass.  Hannibal does not kill women or children.  He certainly does not keep one in captivity drugged for two years.  Jack can have other reasons for doubting Gideon’s claim that he is the Ripper. Hannibal does pose the body on the bus so that whomever is harvesting organs does not receive the full weight of his crimes.  He does NOT murder a bunch of people for a dinner party because he does NOT feed people to normal people.  That’s a waste of nutrients that actually benefit him and harm other humans.  The only time he feeds people to people is if he thinks they are another fallen guardian angel like himself.  So, yeah, he probably feeds Will people. However, this episode does prove that Hannibal can kill people and take organs without all of them being found, which proves my previous “Hannibal totally could have killed people while Gideon was incarcerated” point. Tobias kills Franklyn.  Hannibal kills Tobias in self-defense.  Tobias is likely another fallen guardian angel like Hannibal is. Hannibal believes that Will’s missing time is a result of recovering his past memories.  The examination by Dr. Sutcliffe reveals two things: 1) the encephalitis and 2) Will is not a fallen guardian angel - as there would be subtle differences in his brain chemistry that simply are not there.  It is at this point that Hannibal recognizes Will as a source of danger (primarily towards Abigail) and begins to set him up to take the fall for his crimes as The Chesapeake Ripper.  It is in this stead that Sutcliffe dies. I do not believe that Hannibal killed Georgia Madchen because Hannibal does not kill women and children, except in the protection of someone higher in priority (re: Bev died because he was trying to protect Abigail). Hannibal sets Gideon towards Alana under the knowledge that Will would intercept him.  Alana was in no danger.  Gideon was.  That was the point. The rest of s1 proceeds as normal.  Hannibal takes Abigail under his protection and Will is incarcerated.  This is the proper end.  Because Hannibal did not kill the three women used to implicate Will, it is even more essential that Will is implicated in Abigail’s apparent death.  He may also use evidence from the man posed on the bus. Regardless, Will is framed and safely in jail.  However, Hannibal probably doesn’t use Abigail’s ear.  Probably something smaller and less essential.  Like a toe. THERE ARE MORE CHANGES TO SEASON TWO THAT HAVE LESS EPISODE-BY-EPISODE ANALYSIS. Will is exonerated by Bev’s death, not by the murders set up to free him.  Hannibal would not have wanted Will freed.  This was a side-effect he did not like. Hannibal did kill the mural killer and stitch him into his work of art.  He did still take his kidneys.  He did not replace them with Bev’s - and, in fact, ate nothing of Bev because he did not want to kill her and only did so to protect Abigail. Will still sends Matthew Brown (who still killed Sykes) after Hannibal.  This proceeds as normal. If Hannibal sleeps with Alana, it is not for the need of an alibi.  He does not go after Gideon unless Gideon escapes again.  It has already been proven in previous episodes that Gideon’s memory is faulty at best and that he is easily susceptible to having his beliefs - even about himself - formed by others’ suggestions.  Further, he does not feed Gideon to himself because, if he was going to kill Gideon, he would not go with extended torture.  That is not his style. Hannibal asks Randall to kill Will because Will is dangerous...and Hannibal doesn’t want to eat Will.  When Will kills Randall, Hannibal hopes to use this to get him captured.  Because Will is working with Jack to catch Hannibal, there is no hope of this working.  On realizing this, Hannibal enters the bait with Will - not to be seduced by him but to turn it against him.  Which, oddly enough, would work, re: Kade and they only have evidence that Will killed someone.  This is further defended by Jack attacking Hannibal first and Hannibal proceeding to act in self-defense throughout Mizumono. Hannibal does not warn Mason that Margot is pregnant.  He does not kill women and children.  He would not let someone like Mason know something like that.  Honestly, remove the Mason/Margot subplot here.  Mason can be mutilated somewhere before s1.  Margot can still be in therapy.  Move all of the people-eating pigs to the Hannibal plot where they belong.  Take out the pig baby.  Just.  No. Because Hannibal acted in self-defense throughout Mizumono, he likely would not be held accountable for any actions therein.  Abigail does not die.  Will should be in jail again but probably isn’t because Jack probably got him out.  Hannibal still flees because they attacked him in his home, which means his home is now a crime scene, which means lots of evidence against him.  He did get shot by Alana when she was shooting on the second floor before Abigail pushed her out the window; Will did try to shoot Hannibal but also did not have bullets (which is why Hannibal gutted him); and if Abigail chooses to stay (which Hannibal will allow her to do with Alana because Will should be in jail), Hannibal does slit her throat in a non-fatal way to prevent her from being a suspect.

At this point, we can either go book route and have him get caught due to whimsy or go show route and have him get caught re: Hannibal plot-- but if we go show route, expect that there have been years in-between when he flees and when he gets caught, as per Hannibal plot.  He does not go to Florence first; he goes to Brazil.  And who he takes with him is dependent on other writers and plotting.  He has the primary potential of taking either Abigail or Bedelia or both, but others can be plotted as needed. My default is to assume he gets caught due to whimsy and go book-route.  Red Dragon plot, regardless, follows book-route.  No murder husbands here because Hannibal is not a fan of Will.  In fact, there’re probably more connections re: fallen guardian angel in relation to Dolarhyde, but that’s...up to plotting.

[questionablygourmet]

I Like This Show A Normal Amount: Will Graham As Autistic Representation

In a previous meta post about Will, I briefly alluded to my appreciation for Will as good autistic representation, and for Free-For-All Friday, @tin-can-paladin prompted me to do as I’d said I might and write a Thing about that.  (Hopefully today is the day I actually get this post finished and up!)  So here we go.

First of all, this post will be starting from the premise that Will is an autistic character.  I don’t particularly care if Hugh’s said he’s not; whether or not he meant to, he and Bryan gave us an autistic-coded character and I reserve the right to be delighted about it!  (Actually, that’s not quite true - I do care, in the sense that I wish he hadn’t said that, because acknowledging portrayals of characters on the spectrum that aren’t a walking fucking stereotype played for lulz *cough BBT COUGH* or as a tragedy inflicted upon their neurotypical family members as being on the spectrum is Important.  But whatever.)

This post will address aspects of Will as a character, but also to an extent how he’s handled in the wider context of the show, and why that matters.

Agency

This was my primary focus on that previous Will meta post, but in context of autistic representation, I think it’s an important thing to highlight in this post as well: Will Graham is a whole-ass adult in control of his actions even when other characters don’t think so (see: Alana, Jack, et al in late season 1) or are actively trying to subvert that (see: Hannibal, You Asshole).

Autistic characters in various media are all-too-frequently infantilized and handled as though their environment/circumstances completely dictate their behavior.  Will both implicitly and explicitly (“You can’t reduce me to a set of influences” - ironically for a later part of this post, the next thing he says mentions behaviorism), resoundingly rejects this, and I love that as part of his narrative in general but also as an autistic character in particular.  

Empathy

This one’s gonna be a doozy.  There’s a lot to talk about here that all generally falls under the heading of “autism and empathy,” so I’ll do my best to stay organized.

First, the simplest: He cares!  So!  Deeply!  And complexly!  And we know that throughout the show!

Frankly, this in particular massively exacerbates my irritated wish that the creators would explicitly acknowledge him as autistic because holy shit the stereotypes he combats with this.  Autistic people in the real world have widely varied, diverse relationships with empathy and compassion (which are different things, and I have some beefs with the way the show uses the word “empathy,” but that’s a digression and this is already going to be a long post), but media largely erases this, conflating difficulties with normative, neurotypical-passing social behavior with inability to empathize, and/or display compassion, and/or even feel emotions (FFS).  

There’s a related point about “normative-passing social behavior” that I want to expand on a bit, here: we see a lot of profound differences in demeanor for Will over the course of the show, and that’s something I’ve seen interpreted as manipulation sometimes when it really isn’t.  (Not to say Will is not manipulative/capable of being manipulative, because he is, very!  But not everything calculated is necessarily manipulative, and I see the two conflated a lot and that annoys me.)  Will has, to my eyes, four basic social “modes.”  

I’m Dealing With Most People With Whom I Have No Particular Antipathy Or Affection - Aloof, and either standoffish or polite depending on how his boundaries are being treated.  He’s not particularly interested in making people comfortable when they’re making him uncomfortable (and being a white dude generally enables him to take this attitude without big repercussions), and people frequently make him uncomfortable.

I’m Dealing With Someone I Perceive As Vulnerable - Exaggeratedly calm, kind, careful.  He’s trying to connect and provide comfort and support.  He’s minding his every move and word because he doesn’t want to cause harm incidentally.  (Abigail, Peter, Walter, etc. and to some extent, Margot, though with her it’s mixed with other attitudes.)

I’m Dealing With An Enemy - This is where the manipulativeness (and even, particularly in the cases of Bedelia and Hannibal, cruelty) comes in.  He’s minding his every move and word because he wants to elicit a specific response from the person he’s interacting with.  (This comes into play with Jack and Alana at various points even though they are rarely full enemies.)

I’m Dealing With A Trusted Friend - Has neither the deliberation of 2-3 nor quite the standoffishness of 1.  He’s neither projecting an image appropriate to a specific kind of fraught social situation, nor actively trying to deflect attention and interaction.  In my opinion we really only see this with Hannibal (in season 1 and then with flashes of it in 2 and 3) and Molly, though he gets close in a handful of moments with Alana, Beverly, and Jack.  

All these modes deal with a) to what extent he is acting, and b) why he’s acting.  And I love that we get to see this breadth of social interaction modes from him, because that is an accurate and sensitive portrayal of an autistic adult, reflecting the often-dramatic differences in “difficulty setting” of an interaction - how and to what extent are we expected to (or otherwise have a need to) mimic neurotypical mannerisms?  What are the stakes of the situation?  These are explicit considerations for a lot of autistic people, and Will demonstrates that vividly throughout the series.

Another way in which empathy and social interaction come into play in terms of autistic representation is that Will can and does form strong social bonds - not very often, because the way most other adults treat him isn’t conducive to it, but with people who display acceptance/a lack of judgment for his non-neurotypical reactions and behaviors, and importantly, who don’t treat him as Other for the way he can reconstruct crime scenes, we see that can form very strong bonds.  Hannibal is obviously the prime example of this, but also Molly, and to a much lesser extent, Alana and Margot.  (Though Jack refers to him as a friend and they have some friendly interactions, their bond is not a strong one and not at all marked by the kind of humanizing acceptance it takes to get truly close to Will.)  People who accept who he is, and who are neither threatened by his skills nor dependent on them.

Finally, in this section, let’s look at the crime scene reconstructions and “getting inside killers’ heads” bit.  

I have complex feelings about this aspect of the show, or more precisely, how other characters talk about his reconstructions and serial killer profiling - they (even Hannibal, to an extent) talk about it in mystifying terms, and I thoroughly dislike the term “empathy disorder” that gets thrown around so much in seasons 1-2 to explain what he does.  Will is apt to testily correct people that he just interprets the evidence, and that is exactly what he is doing.  His vivid imagination coupled with years of active study of criminal psychology allow him to take that interpretation a lot farther than anyone else would, and sometimes make intuitive leaps that the other characters can’t follow.  But it’s clear that this intuition is founded in concrete evidence, as we frequently see him stymied when he doesn’t quite have enough of it, much to the frustration of Jack, who is particularly shitty about treating him like an oracle.  

I like that Will gets to stick up for himself and correct people on several occasions, but I wish the ableism and the Othering was less pervasive amongst the other characters because it makes me want to slap them.  I find that I really appreciate how most of the fic I’ve read since entering the fandom thoroughly and often explicitly rejects the pseudo-magical divination and/or Crazy Person With Magic Brain angle.

Perspective

There was something I was reaching at that was eluding me in my first attempt at this draft, and then I ran into an excellent article about writing autistic characters that suddenly and thoroughly solidified it for me.  It’s really brilliant; it discusses and illustrates the strong difference between a behavioristic (see previous reference) approach to characterization and a humanizing one.  Behavioristic analyses divorce themselves from the actual mindset and experience of the subject, whereas humanizing portrayals display the subjective experience of the person who is perhaps behaving in a way other people may find confusing.  

Since Will is the main point of view character in the show, we get front-row seats to his subjective experience and can therefore more properly empathize with him.  An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.  The behavior that Jack and various other characters are exasperated, impatient, and/or unnerved over all looks pretty reasonable when we know how Will is experiencing the crime scene, or are seeing his nightmares and hallucinations along with him!  And while the nightmares and hallucinations in season 1 are a matter of encephalitis and trauma rather than neurotype, it still matters that we’re led to understand something of what he goes through, from his own perspective rather than an outside one.  

It’s incredibly necessary emotional context moving forward in the show, giving us an autistic character who is flawed but deeply human and whose darkness we can understand.

[k-s-morgan]

Hey Katrin, I am on tumblr after a long time and one of the first things I do is checking your blog ! I don't know if this has been recently answered, how strong do you think 's4 dark Will' prediction is ? Initially I was very convinced of Will being sure shot dark at core, and being in an internal turmoil and predicted him going totally evil in s4. But after listening to different opinions and interviews, and some other blogs (which I don't actively follow) I have doubt now, there are open ends if Will has goodness inside him like otherwise why will he go for the murder-suicide at the end. If he was ok with being dark why suicide ?

While it is true he threatened Bedelia which felt like he wants to come back and not die/not kill Hannibal. I see the creators leaving behind very confusing trail of thoughts. Is that just Will being confused or deliberately leaving clue of Will's goodness.

So thoughts like this are bugging me right now ! In a good way because I love thinking. I have a second part but I want you to keep that private please ..

Hello! Ah, thank you so much, it's really great to hear :D And welcome back!

So, there are three possible answers: what I think, what I think Bryan Fuller thinks, and what Bryan Fuller actually thinks.

That Will has some goodness in him is undeniable. Hannibal does, too - apart from Mason, I don't believe anyone in this show is 100% good or 100% evil. Will cares about his dogs and people he can relate to; he shows warmth to those who care about him. Sometimes he feels sympathy to the victims overall and he's primarily interested in killing those who did something bad.

But I don't think this goodness would play any big role in S4 and S5. Will's struggles for all three seasons were with who he was and who he wanted to be. He retreated into his self-constructed shell again and again, and at this point, I think it's enough. He said he Became in TWOTL - it means he embraced who he is. Him and Hannibal living after the Fall means he's ready to start a new life, and to me, it would feel cheap and repetitive if his self-struggles suddenly resumed.

In S3, Will got innocent people killed without blinking just for his own selfishness. He set Chilton up in a horrific way and joked about it later with Bedelia. He conspired with a serial killer who murdered families with children just to stage the escape of another serial killer despite not knowing what he wants to happen next. This decision cost officers their lives, endangered Alana and Margot, endangered Molly and Walter, and many other people. For a character who did all this to suddenly feel like he wants to be good and start fighting his darkness again? I would find it horrible and so extremely hypocritical that I'm not sure I would keep watching. Because it's one thing to be a terrible person and be honest about it, but being bad and trying to pose as good again after everything? I'd explode from frustration :D

As for Will's murder-suicide attempt, I like what Bryan said once: "I think one of the reasons it seemed so organic for Will to go over the cliff with Hannibal at the end was that, in his mind, as he understood the universe in his world, he had peaked. It’s also stopping a monster and stopping himself from becoming a monster, but I think part of him was thinking, “That was beautiful. I don’t think I can do that again and feel as high as I do now.” Everything overwhelmed him and he went over that cliff because there was an apex to his experience, in a way that was poetic and dramatic. ... The kind of suicide where somebody jumps off a bridge, part of them hopes they survive and part of them wants to be over."

Will gave the fate the last chance to stop himself and Hannibal, knowing that if they live, they would be monsters together. He knows there is no way back for him now, that normal life will never work for him, so he's willing to either die or live with Hannibal by his side. He chose pushing them off because it gave them both a good chance to survive (Hannibal told him before that there are no rocks there). If he wanted to protect the world and kill them, he could always shoot Hannibal and then himself. He chose something more poetic and ambiguous.

Bryan called this action of Will his last heroic deed. I wouldn't say it's actually heroic, but I like the overall message. This was the last ambiguously good thing Will did before fully Becoming and accepting his new, free life.

In S4, I expect to see him and Hannibal as a team. I expect some conflicts, but not about Will's darkness because this arc has reached its climax. But what would actually happen? No idea. Bryan's attitude worries me often because he gives different explanations and creates different pictures. There are so many thing he said about dark Will, Hannibal's soulmate, but then he also often tried to justify him and make him look more vulnerable and much better than he is.

So, I believe Will would never struggle with his darkness again; I think, since Bryan is usually consistent in his writing, that he wouldn't make Will suddenly agonize over the same resolved conflict. But what he would do in reality? I don't know, and it's one of the reasons why I'm wary of the potential S4. If I hate something, it's character regression.