#inversed mobius strip is just. a mobius strip

[worstloki]

WAIT WAIT WAIT SO WHEN TONY WAS MAKING THE MODEL THING FOR TIME TRAVEL HE TOLD JARVIS TO MAKE IT IN THE SHAPE OF A MOBIUS STRIP OR SOMETHING AND NOW A GUY NAMED MOBIUS. M. MOBIUS WORKS FOR THE TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY WHICH IS LITERALLY A BUNCH OF PEOPLE RUNNING AROUND IN UGLY UNIFORM FIXING THE TIMELINE MXÆDÖDÞÆDÖSLDÆDÐSKDMDOÐFÖSMSÐSKDMDÐSÐÆSÞSÖSÐÐÆZÞSÖAÆSÞSÆ

yes that is correct

[fccdfcrthcught]

But when Will’s imprisoned, he’s been treated for encephalitis. He is caged by literal bars in an institution, placed there by another’s hand. He tests his relationships (crying in front of Hannibal, pushing Beverly to investigate, and, to an extent, Alana and the direction of his legal defense) to create a picture of what he should be afraid of. He is no longer afraid of himself: nothing he can do to himself will be worse than what Hannibal has done to him. Instead, we get a radical inverse of S2—convex fear. He spends most of his time trying to influence externalities to develop a sense of self, manipulating Matthew Brown and Frederick Chilton, in particular. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he weaponizes his fear: it’s closer to echolocation, sending fear out into the world to see what clicks back. The main plot elements in S2, I find, have to do with the transformation of appearances. The Eye of God (2.01) is only discernible from afar. Hannibal’s crimes are orchestrated with the built-in recognition of intent: Beverly’s glass-paned corpse (2.05) especially. The other cases involve literal transformations—the social worker and the horse, Randall Tier, the beehive, Mason Verger’s face. Hannibal is always demonstrative, but the loops are looser now, partially because he’s let the reins slack and Will has wriggled his way out. Not to mention the forced sterilization of Margot Verger (2.10?), which deserves a huge amount of thought on its own—but the semblance of stability, family, and belonging, in a skewed parallel between Will/Hannibal/Abigail and Will/Margot/Baby X. Randall Tier is also important in two transformations: one, reminding us of the man/beast, civilized/barbarian, order/chaos dichotomies. He’s always felt like an animal inside, just as Will has sometimes doubted his own humanity. But Will also murders Randall Tier, which is a wholly transformative act—in Hannibal’s eyes, especially. We don’t talk much about that murder, which is kind of weird to me, but anyway. There is so much to unpack here, Hannibal Studies needs to be a real major already so I can graduate.

IN ANY CASE. Hannibal also begins to show his true colors, those being, of course, Hella Hot for Will Graham. He’s taking a seam ripper to his person suit at a rapidly increasing and reckless rate as Will enacts the role of partner. But when does recital become reality? And so Will ultimately discovers the great weakness of convex fear—that convex objects can hide hollowness. And so we end up with him dithering as either man’s man in the room (2.13) and eviscerated. The evisceration to me is particularly delicious for me as a mental morsel for several reasons, but among them is that it’s such a performative and symbolic gesture. The intestines are where food is processed, transformed to nourish the body. Several cultures (Japanese included, see Hannibal’s Creepy-ass Relationship with His Aunt) place emotions in the abdomen: What’s your gut feeling? He’s got guts. Hannibal feels gutted, and wants Will to face the reality of substance. Side note: We start the season as we have never seen Hannibal before: bloodstained, feral, in less than like ten billion articles of clothing. The first scene shows us the transformative Mobius strip we’re going to experience.

I am still thinking about season 3, and what to call the shape of his fear, because I don’t quite have a grasp on it, and vice versa. I know, it’s very Sapir-Whorf. But I should be doing actual homework anyway…but thanks, @wellntruly, for always inspiring and fostering discussion!

Before I move on to 2x07 in my Hannibal rewatch, I want to talk about Will Graham & Fear for a quick sec! I saw a big pile of discussion on this when I was on mobile in the airport whispering “I’ll be back” as I quick-scrolled through my dash, and sure that was well over a week ago now, but HEY.

As a good access point to this topic, there seems to be somewhat of a divide on whether or not Will is scared (openly or otherwise) when he’s negotiating with Matty B in the prison hall of shark cages in 2x05. Although Hugh Dancy is a terrific actor, doing some sort of Expression Analysis is always gonna be a bit shifty and subjective, so it’s probably best not to hinge too much on that. Besides, the important thing is surely that while none of us would ever doubt Will’s moments of wide-eyed trembling terror in S1 to be anything but that, here in S2 it is much murkier! So what we can say for certain is that there is a change in how Will is behaving in high-stress situations.

A long time ago, I made a somewhat offhand comment about how I thought Will’s transformation arc over the series might have most to do with how he learns to channel his fear. In early S1, Alana & Jack characterize Will as someone driven by huge amounts of fear, and soon after Will tells Hannibal about the ONLY TIME he feels safe in his horrorful life. Now, I’ve always been one of those Hannibal viewers who saw nerves in Will all the way through the series, but I also think that he goes through a pretty radical transformation in how he manages them. Fear at its sciencey/psychy core comes from “arousal”, or to put it another way before I surely get back to this pun-flexible version before too long, it starts with being keyed up by something. In S1, when Will gets keyed up by a frightening thing (pick yer fave example), he usual goes into a patented Panting Panic™. There are less & less of those moments of overwhelmed fright in S2 and onward, as everyone has noticed — including the other characters. Dr. Bloom’s lines trace this out very well for us, thank you Alana: in 2x01 she tells Jack “Will’s terrified but that’s not stopping him,” but by 2x06 she’s now telling Jack “he’s not scared, not anymore.”

Although I fully agree with Alana that there’s a shift happening, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Will no longer feels fear at all. Or more specifically, I would say that sensitive high-strung Will Graham still feels something blaze through his nerves when he’s in dangerous circumstances — something that can become fear, or can become something else. “Don’t get scared, get angry” might be the new motto of our incensed dewdrop. I get the idea that Will, pushed to the edge by so many aspects of his life, is learning how to use his fear as a form of energy. Maybe he can’t control how much he’s affected by his surroundings, but maybe he can control what he does with that wild rush in his veins. Maybe it can become something like courage. Something like power.

(Where this gets real fun is when you bring in the misattribution of arousal. If you missed psych 101, there was a gem of a study that managed to convince a whole bunch of undergrad bros that the arousal they felt from walking across a high suspension bridge was in fact that other kind of arousal, directed at the cute girl “distributing surveys.” To put it more generally, it’s possible to alter what we consider to be the source of our keyed up feelings. Actually, I used to take advantage of this when I was an undergrad myself: I’d run up the stairs to the classroom where I had a hard test, so that I could (mis)attribute my accelerated heart-rate to exertion, not nervousness. Anyhow, this is something I’ve definitely laughed/sighed about when considering what Will classifies as scary and what Will classifies as exhilarating, and how & why & in whose company those begin to twine. Especially given the whole “kneaded feelings” situation, my god.)

[worstloki]

so, who’s going to inform marvel that an inverse mobius strip is just a regular mobius strip?