#i miss who he was before his brain started cannibalising itself

[qvietspvce]

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[youweresoafraid]

The many flavours of Hannibal’s kills

Hannibal Classic

Hannibal’s classic MO is to mutilate his victim while still alive, to kill them, eat part of them, then display their body in an artistic tableau.  Examples of this are Jeremy Olmstead (the wound man), and presumably the couple posed as Botticelli’s Primavera.  The precise manner of the mutilation, the killing or the tableau may serve an additional purpose.  For example, Hannibal killed Dr. Nahn in the same way that Abel Gideon was killing his former psychiatrists – with the additional cannibalistic twist – as a way of reclaiming his identity as the Chesapeake Ripper from Gideon.

The victim’s death may serve the purpose of sending a message, and that may even be what prompts a particular murder.  But, at the same time, it doesn’t affect Hannibal’s basic MO.  He enjoys the power he feels mutilating and killing his victims.  He enjoys dining on their flesh.  And then he uses their body to create a work of art or to send a message.  Using their death for a more practical purpose (usually to send a message to Will, or to the FBI in general) adds a garnish to his enjoyment of committing the murder.

But there’s more to Hannibal’s violence than that Chesapeake Ripper persona.

Variations on a theme

Sometimes Hannibal has to omit one or more parts of his preferred MO, due to practical constraints.  In the case of Judge Davies, Hannibal mutilated the body after the man was dead.  This seems to be linked to the fact that he killed the judge in the courthouse, a dangerous place for him, with its greater than usual levels of security.  Hannibal had limited time, and was at considerable risk, so he killed Judge Davies and displayed his body as quickly as possible.  He does not even seem to have lingered to take a cut of meat from the corpse.

When he killed Beverly Katz, Hannibal seems to have carried out his mutilations after Beverly was dead, rather than before.  So why didn’t he just choke her into unconsciousness, or otherwise subdue her, then mutilate her while she was still alive?  Could it be that he respected her in some way, like he might have done with Miriam Lass?  It seems unlikely, given that he went on to humiliate Beverly by displaying her body in one of his murder tableaux.  It’s more likely that Hannibal simply wished to kill Beverly quickly, and get her out of his house, because he had no idea if she had backup, and if the FBI might come calling in the immediate future.

When it came to Abel Gideon, the man who had usurped the mantle of the Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal certainly treated him to a very extended version of his murder process.  It’s not clear how long he kept Gideon a prisoner, but he certainly took his time with him.  He kept Gideon alive through repeated amputations, even coercing Gideon into cannibalising himself, to derive the maximum pleasure from his power over the man.  But when the time came to kill Gideon, Hannibal chose not to display Gideon’s body (or the parts of it that hadn’t disappeared into Hannibal’s gullet).  Instead, he decided that Gideon would be better off used to frame Chilton for the Ripper murders.

Then there’s poor old Rinaldo Pazzi.  Hannibal got to cut Pazzi open while he was still (briefly) alive, before finishing him off with a very theatrical public hanging and disembowelling – all very much to Hannibal’s taste, but he never actually got to consume any of Pazzi’s body.  Now, Hannibal was interrupted by Jack Crawford, but if he had intended to take any of Pazzi’s body parts, then he would surely have done so before he shoved the man out of the window.  Perhaps Hannibal was keeping his promise to Pazzi: he offered to leave without his meal if Pazzi told him what he wanted to know.  Or perhaps Hannibal was simply conscious that Mason Verger knew his location, and that he did not have time to do anything particularly elaborate with Pazzi, or his internal organs.

Hannibal’s killing of Cordell may well fit into this same category.  We don’t see the details, but I can imagine that Hannibal would find it fitting to do to Cordell what Cordell had planned to do to Will, that is, to immobilise him, cut his face off while he was still alive, and then kill him.  He didn’t bother to take away any other parts of Cordell’s body for later consumption, but that’s because he has other, more important, things to carry away from the Verger estate.

To go back to series 1, It’s likely that Hannibal didn’t take any meat from Marissa Schuur’s body, either.  Given that he was in the middle of a crime scene at the time, surrounded by law enforcement agents, and – perhaps more importantly – a long way from a refrigerator – it seems that Hannibal had to pass on that one for practical reasons.  He did, however, manage to mutilate Marissa before her death.  (Given the amount of blood on the floor, she must, surely, have still been alive when Hannibal impaled her on those antlers.)  And even though he was copying Garret Jacob Hobbs’s use of the antlers, he did manage to leave an impressive, disturbing spectacle for Will and the FBI.  (I’ve never been entirely sure whether Hannibal definitely intended to frame Will for the murders of Cassie Boyle and Marissa Schuur right from the start, but he was certainly considering it, which is why he took samples of both their DNA.)

All of this tells us that while Hannibal may enjoy all the different parts of the murder process he doesn’t need to carry them all out every time he kills someone.  They are not a vital part of an entire murder ritual.  Hannibal chooses to forego the mutilation, the cannibalism, and displaying the corpse if there is a good enough reason to do so.  That said, he does enjoy all the parts of the murder process, and will indulge in as many of them as he is able.

Self-defence

When circumstances are out of his control, and his life is in danger, Hannibal will opt for simply killing his opponent as quickly as possible, without any of the usual trimmings.  This is how he deals with Tobias Budge, and with the various kidnappers and guards that Mason Verger uses against him.  Hannibal is on the back foot, in immediate danger, and he makes no attempt to go for a slow kill.  In the case of Tobias Budge, Hannibal must have already decided that he would leave the body there for the FBI to examine, and therefore he does not cut any meat from the corpse.

Hannibal also saw Tobias’s death as an opportunity to rid himself of Franklyn Froideveaux.  He was clearly bored with Franklyn, irritated by the man’s attempts at friendship, and revolted by his poor manners.  I’m sure that Hannibal would have liked to indulge himself by giving Franklyn the full Ripper treatment – no doubt accompanied by a cheese course – and only the fact that he was a patient gave Hannibal pause.  There was also a possibility that Franklyn might talk to the FBI, that he would tell them things about Hannibal that might make them suspicious.  So as soon as Hannibal realised that he would have to kill Tobias he took the opportunity to rid himself of Franklyn too.

Georgia Madchen was not a direct physical danger to Hannibal, but she was a potential witness who could identify him as the murderer of Dr. Sutcliffe.  So Hannibal killed her, and he did so in a way that got around some of the challenges of committing murder in a building full of people working around the clock.  He didn’t mutilate Georgia, or eat her, but he did kill her in a quite spectacular way that left its own kind of grisly tableau.  And, at the same time, it presented him with a murder that could be pinned on Will.

Italy

When Hannibal was in Italy, his killings seem much less rooted in his old established MO.  The first killing that we hear about is the removal of the previous curator of the Palazzo Capponi.  We don’t learn much about that murder, and it’s entirely possible that Hannibal was up to his old tricks of mutilation and cannibalism.  But there was certainly no grand display of the body afterwards.  Dumping the body in the river, set in cement, sounds more like the work of the mafia than the artistry of the Chesapeake Ripper.

In some ways, it’s a question of practicality, as Hannibal sacrifices some of his bloodier amusements in order to continue his life in Florence.  But there’s more to it than that.  Hannibal’s murders in Italy are not just a change in MO, they’re downright erratic, even impulsive.  Unless caught absolutely unprepared, Hannibal has always been methodical in his killings.  It’s how he’s managed to escape detection for so long.  But his murders of Antony Dimmond and Professor Sogliato seem like spur-of-the-moment decisions.

With Dimmond, Hannibal must have known for a little while that he would have to kill the man who could unmask him as an imposter.  But Hannibal seems to have been in no immediate danger.  He knew that Dimmond was trying to blackmail him, and would therefore not rush to the police.  Also, Dimmond showed little fear of Hannibal, and it would, surely, have been possible to arrange a more elaborate way of getting rid of him.  Instead, Hannibal simply bludgeoned Dimmond with an ornament, and then broke his neck.  Hannibal no doubt ate some of the parts that he trimmed from Dimmond’s corpse, and he certainly made a very impressive – and communicative – tableau out of the rest of him.  But the killing itself lacked Hannibal’s usual calm control.

If Hannibal’s killing of Dimmond bordered on the impulsive, then his murder of Sogliato definitely crossed that line.  (I know, technically Sogliato’s death was Bedelia’s fault.  But let’s not forget that it was Hannibal who jammed an ice pick into the man’s brain.)  Because Hannibal acted so impulsively, he missed the opportunity to mutilate Sogliato before killing him.  And because even Hannibal knew that he couldn’t get away with another obvious murder so close to home he chose not to turn the body into a tableau.  But Hannibal did still manage to get his pound of flesh – all five quarters of it – from Sogliato’s carcass.

So what was going on with these atypical Italian murders?  There’s probably a one-word answer to that: Will.  Hannibal was emotionally shaken after Will’s betrayal, and was not acting entirely like his old self.  More than that, Hannibal was being deliberately careless about the murders he was committing in an attempt to make himself visible.  He wasn’t quite ready to throw all caution to the winds, but he wanted Will to find him and he was prepared to risk the Questura finding him first.

It’s all about Will

If Hannibal’s murder of Georgia Madchen was motivated primarily by self-defence, with the side benefit of framing Will, then the opposite is true when it comes to his killing Dr. Sutcliffe.  Dr. Sutcliffe may have posed something of a threat to Hannibal.  If he had talked to the FBI he might have revealed Will’s illness, and the fact that Hannibal had been aware of it, something that would have thrown suspicion on Hannibal.  But Hannibal’s main reason for killing Sutcliffe seems to have been to frame Will.  To achieve that end, he had to forego his usual Chesapeake Ripper MO.  So, while he murdered Sutcliffe he doesn’t seem to have mutilated him beforehand, and he didn’t take away any of his flesh for later consumption.  The body needed to be left in Sutcliffe’s office, in order to incriminate Will, so there could be no murder tableau, either.

But what was Hannibal thinking when he murdered Abigail?  He was genuinely saddened by Abigail’s death, but he went ahead and killed her anyway.  Did he think that he couldn’t get both Abigail and himself to safety?  Even so, he could have let her live, even if she was taken if for questioning by the FBI.  Did Hannibal see her as a threat to him?  Perhaps, but even if she told the FBI everything, what harm could that do?  (The fact that she was still alive actually removed one death from his – admittedly still huge – body count.)  Abigail might have been able to give away the location of his house on the cliff, but surely that wouldn’t have been catastrophic.  It’s not like he tried to flee there, anyway. Besides, Hannibal isn't concerned about Abigail's forgiveness, only Will's. And he’s looking at Will, not at Abigail, when he cuts her throat.

Hannibal had no practical reason to kill Abigail, and he had no emotional reason, either.  Abigail never betrayed him – but Will did, and Abigail was the one who ended up paying the price for that betrayal.  Hannibal chose to kill her, and to do so by copying what her father had done to her.  He didn’t enjoy her suffering, and even if he had had the opportunity to take a trophy, or to display her body, I don’t imagine he would have done so.  Abigail’s death did hurt Hannibal.  It’s just unfortunate that his desire to punish Will was stronger than his attachment to their surrogate daughter.