#will graham analysis

[asadstatue]

Looking back at his face I was thinking Will really went through a serious change in mind that started with him asking Bedelia if Hannibal was in love with him, and lasted probably till they arrived at the cliffside.

His tired yet full of emotions at first when visiting Hannibal, that "good? No." dialogue, and then his determined face when talking to Bedelia, although I think up until that point, it was still a facade he was keeping up for Bedelia, yet he was also testing the waters, analysing new ideas, taking new sides.

He maybe was the most faltering when the escape happened and upon arriving. How he looks at Hannibal, knowing he has nowhere to run that won't lead him back to Hannibal. Not because he has no other choice, but because he doesn't want to. In the end, it'll always be the love that gave him understanding, an embrace to reside in, a pair of eyes that saw through his layers.

And right before the Dragon's attack: "I don't know if I can save myself. Maybe that's just fine." No saving for Will Graham, from what others assume. Perdition to the others, paradise to him. In the end, he doesn't need to be saved when he's finally at peace.

[peeptheaesthetic]

Will if he didn't leave Louisiana.

[pesky--dust]

Do you believe Will orchestrated the escape? Was he intending to flee with Hannibal or was he genuinely planning to kill him?

First of all, I think that Will is a character whose behavior we cannot predict - just like Hannibal said.

In the first season, Will was vulnerable, but in the second season, he started manipulating people to get what he wanted, and he told Alana and Hannibal that he was an unreliable narrator of his own story. And I believe that this is true throughout the series, to a greater or lesser extent.

In The Wrath of the Lamb Dolarhyde attacked Will in a motel. Will was aware that Dolarhyde wanted to meet Dr. Lecter, Dolarhyde himself told him so! And this scene, according to the script, ends with the following words:

CABAL. The synonym for this word is intrigue.

So I believe that Will decided to use Dolarhyde to free Hannibal, knowing now that since Hannibal loves him and Will plays it right, Hannibal will do whatever Will asks him to do.

So yes... I believe it was orchestrated by Will to some extent.

However, was he intending to flee with Hannibal or was he genuinely planning to kill him?

That's a good question! And I will repeat what I have already written: I think that we cannot predict Will's behaviour. In Mizumono he called Hannibal at the last minute and was not sure what to do until the very end and in The Wrath of the Lamb Will tells Bedelia, "Decisions are made of kneaded feelings. They're more often a lump than a sum". It is what actually drives him.

I think he wasn't sure how this escape would turn out. Would Dolarhyde kill Hannibal? Both of them? Or would Hannibal kill Dolarhyde and him? Maybe just Dolarhyde? Or maybe he'll just leave the FBI's dirty work and not get his hands dirty in the process?

And so, another pillar of this series is curiosity. I believe that apart from his feelings, Will was also guided by his curiosity about what would happen. In my opinion, there was no grand plan. "Everything that can happen happens. Has to end well, and it has to end badly. Has to end every way it can", "If everything that can happen happens, you can't really do the wrong thing. You're just doing what you're supposed to do" (Primavera).

[EDIT, because I forgot to write about something I find important]

In ... and the Beast from the Sea, Will tells Hannibal, "I'm not Fortune's fool, I'm yours". "I'm Fortune's fool" comes from Romeo and Juliet. It's about acceptance of the fact that you have no control over your life, because everything is up to fate; Will tells Hannibal that he is his fate and so he accepts it. And in the very next episode Will finds out that Hannibal in fact loves him.

In The Wrath of the Lamb, when Will comes to Hannibal to ask him to be a bait, in his memory palace, he stands on the skull engraved in the floor, where years ago Hannibal left him his broken heart. Will accepts Hannibal's heart now and chooses him, with all its consequences, not knowing what would happen.

[END OF EDIT]

And in The Wrath of the Lamb, Will tells Reba that Francis couldn't watch her die. When Dolarhyde shot Hannibal, Will reached for his gun. I think that both curiosity and his own feelings made him want to protect Hannibal and kill Dolarhyde in this very moment.

His feelings after killing Dolarhyde caused him to throw himself and Hannibal off the cliff (personally, I think the fall didn't happen at all and is just a metaphor, but that's a topic for another post), knowing that he would never feel better.

This answer turned out to be longer than I thought, so tl;dr:

Yes, Will orchestrated the escape.

Will is driven by his feelings, curiosity and whims (as Chilton said in Hassun), so I think that he didn't have any bigger plan than freeing Hannibal and see what would happen and then ended up being driven by his feelings. So I would say that he neither planned to run away with Hannibal nor to kill him. He was acting on the spur of the moment. If Hannibal killed Dolarhyde? Great, one serial killer down. If Hannibal had killed both Dolarhyde and Will? Okay, they're finally free from each other. If Dolarhyde had killed him and Hannibal? Finally it was all over. But Dolarhyde killing Hannibal? Oh no, Will couldn't bear to look at it.

[thefawnfallacy]

The way that Hannibal and Will are never referred to as being queer is interesting. It’s not like sexuality never comes up, it does, predominantly with Margot who openly admits to being lesbian and talks about it often as a part of her character but I think that the way sexuality is framed is another mask.

Margot openly wants to kill her brother, so her sexuality is on display, she is a character that the viewer can “see”. The audience knows that Hannibal is queer — he doesn’t say it but it is shown through numerous other characters, predominantly through Will. Will is the filter in which the viewer “sees” Hannibal and so we know and acknowledge that he is a queer character.

Will is the blurriest and this is interesting in a variety of ways to me. Why does the viewer never have a clear sense of sexuality from Will? To start, Will is an unreliable narrator, we cannot explicitly trust the truth of what Will tells us about anything because it’s always just slightly shifted. He doesn’t victimise himself but he does elevate himself, just slightly, based on his current concept of morality. He was guilty when he killed Hobbes so we see him as guilty and unsteady, he was righteous when he killed Tier, so we see him through a lens of righteousness. No-one else can see him clearly and therefore, neither can we. He is not hidden in plain sight the same way as Hannibal and in doing so, makes himself very confusing to properly understand while also being exceedingly easy to pick apart.

Will is multifaceted and shifts the way he’s perceived a number of times throughout the series, while always giving the impression that he is completely unaware of it.

(side note: this doesn’t properly fit but I think it’s worth mentioning the “Will Graham is not a lesbian” line because there’s an undertone of stubborn curiosity there — is Will Graham a lesbian? Hannibal doesn’t know and Margot is quite smug about it, but that’s more gender based than anything).

Because of the ability to “chameleon” himself for any situation, he leaves a lot open to interpretation. Will Graham could be queer, he could be straight, he could a lot of things. It’s also worth noting that Will Graham experiences attraction in very different ways when it comes to men vs women based on the characters we see. With Matthew (and I’m using the definition of attraction very loosely here) as well as Hannibal, he is incredibly manipulative, like he can’t imagine being genuine with these men in the biblical sense but with Alana he is more open to being perceived and received a certain way. Molly is a more hollow imitation of Alana — he acts the way he thinks love should be but it’s hollow.

Hannibal, of course, is a curious show of attraction. He expresses a wide range of emotions towards him but never stereotypical feelings, if anything, he seems to take a sharp left when it comes to Hannibal but at the same time, he is very obviously more gentle and honest with him, like he’s trying to “show”the viewer what’s underneath. (meaning he does carry about Hannibal, we know he does, he simply shows a wrestling with these emotions that often come across as more violent or unrefined).

*this is just my interpretation, please don’t take it as gospel 🙂.

[grahamcr4ck3r]

season one - “killing someone is the ugliest thing in the world.”

season three - “it’s beautiful.”

[tayasui-mono]

While Hannibal's 'good samaritan' act in s1e1 is astonishing in its audacity, it's also so lovely that Will Graham's weakness is kindness in people. He saw Hannibal being a good, capable guy and forgave him the insult of trying to sneakily barge into Will's private life. In this way, he is like that naive lamb. He gravitates towards the good in people, he is attracted to it, and unfortunately, this made it easier for the devil to manipulate him.

[dr-reids-fidget-toy]

Oh my god okay. I am currently quite unwell so don’t take this too seriously but will graham analysis.

Will graham is a dog/wolf. Like the alpha of the pack (not abo in this sorry) but only for like dogs and stuff? he’s really bad at humaning. He collects strays and takes care of his pack.he is a predator and that’s his thing with Hannibal . The stag/elk is his prey and something that could easily kill him it is a challenge of life or death in many ways. The stag is also Hannibal. It is something so dangerous and yet so beautiful (to will) and it is so often mistaken as something peaceful and harmless. Also someone made a thing of them nuzzling like wolves on cliff scene. Ta-da will grahaam!!

There’s more but I forgot

if ur mad I linked ur post ill delete it 👍

[midnight-platypus]

I love it so much! yet it's so weird to tell people about. like, yeah nah, trust me bro it's great representation. Yes, they are both serial killers and yeah they half erased will's autism from the canon dialog after season one, but they are so me fr trust me bro!

Also it's kinda representation because, like, neurodivergent people date each-other? and I feel there is sometimes a weird pressure for us to date only NT's to assimilate or whatever? It's one of the reasons "Adam" 2009 makes me wanna scream. like, get the fuck away from him girl.

Will and Hannibal being both on the spectrum will forever be my favorite thing. Like, Hannibal's person suit metaphor is such a comforting metaphor for masking, no wonder he and Will clicked. Will could tell there's something behind that. Which might be because Will doesn't mask. He is just anxious, rude, doesn't try to seem normal, doesn't try to fit in, he lives in a secluded area surrounded by dogs.

[bluemoonscape]

Hunger is obviously a major theme in Hannibal—it’s literally the cannibal show—but the difference in how that’s portrayed with Hannigram is intriguing.

Hannibal was starving for connection before he had Will, and then everything changed for him. As Bedelia tells Will, “Did he daily feel a stab of hunger, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes.” Hannibal’s hunger is sated by so much as the sight of Will. A mere look at him is enough to satisfy him.

But Will is different. Rather than being sated by his connection with Hannibal, it is the very thing that makes him hungry. There’s a frame in the Italy chapter that makes it look like he’s trapped in a starvation cage. In the script for his sailing scene, he’s literally described to look hungry:

Both Hannibal and Will have a possessive, obsessive, all-consuming love for one another, but it affects them quite differently. Hannibal is nourished by the very sight of Will, but for Will, no amount of the profound attention he experiences from Hannibal can fully sate his hunger—it’s a high he can’t help but chase. It fuels his pathological need to return to Hannibal again and again, no matter how self-destructive it is. I think this is why Will is more outwardly possessive of Hannibal than Hannibal is of Will. Hannibal wants Will to be his; Will wants Hannibal to be no one else’s. Both forms of possession, but Will’s is more jealous because of the way he experiences Hannibal’s attention. It’s a high, it’s a hunger—it’s a need, not a want.

[asadstatue]

"Hannibal manipulated Will into becoming a killer" SERIOUSLY?

Look me in the eyes and tell me what is this, then?

I don't know if these were intentional but the shadow play on his face is always a reminder to me that Will always had that dark side in him. Hannibal merely saw and acknowledged it.

[patchouii]

Sometimes I watch the show and try to think of Hannibal’s perspective and it’s a total trip. Like. Imagine you’ve been able to control and pick and choose your emotions and reactions your whole life, due to being somehow psychopath-adjacent. And the only time you couldn’t was when you were little with your baby sister, and it’s probable that as your brain matured, the possibility of feeling and forming connections like that dried up entirely. You read the psychiatric journals, and occasionally there’s something about a man who can connect with others so deeply he can become an echo of them. And then you meet this man, and he mocks your comment about eye contact while holding yours.

An understanding passes between both of you that you have hidden depths. Instead of killing him, you bring him breakfast, and make him dinner, and serve him drinks. Instead of being able to toy with his mind without a care, you think of him and your chest clenches, and your gut swoops, and his face and voice and his rude little barbs invade your mind like glittering parasites that you can’t remove. These feelings are alien, and they’re also yours. You know, deep down, why you’re letting him live, why you stare after him, why you toe the line of risking it all for him. But you don’t want to face it. It’s terrifying, this horizon of who you are and can be that looms before you with no choice of your own.

Framing him presents a convenient opportunity for ridding yourself of this thing he brings on in you, this total lack of control, this fever-dream surrender that breaches the walls of your mind and the tics and tells of your body so effortlessly— but you miss him. You don’t miss anyone, and the one person you do is more of an imago that never was able to grow into her own real person. But the you you’ve helplessly become certainly does. You’ve become an addict. You cannot let him rot when his presence gave your monochrome world color, you can’t quit the drug you’ve always shunned. This is all a devil’s bargain, certainly, but you’ve already damned yourself, and all that’s left to do is plunge further. Oh and by the way. The infuriating man in question looks like this:

Like okay then, good luck not having the crashout of the century 😭

[sad-wet-cat-hannibal]

Excellent tags by @willgrahamstrout who is insightful and should be blessed with happy visits from small woodland animals of their choosing instead of pain

[pesky--dust]

What's your take on Will's fear as a consequence of his heightened empathy? Do the murders he commits dampen that fear or amplify it?

Sorry it took so long, but life got the better of me very hard and I felt I don't have time to write the answer in a way that would be satisfactory enough for me.

First of all, I consider it as a very muddy topic and let me clarify: Will's heightened empathy comes from the book and there it is Doctor Bloom who points out that Will deals with heightened empathy and it is the reason for his fear.

In the show, the last part is left to Alana, but it's Hannibal who "diagnoses" Will with heightened empathy and considering that this is Hannibal who is curious about a lot of things — I'm unsure if we can trust him with that diagnosis completly or not. I have to also admit, even to myself, that at this stage, Hannibal would have had no reason to mess around in this matter, since he had just met Will and he had no way of knowing yet how their lives would intertwine. Messy from the very beginning!

However, what Will does borders on magical realism anyway, so it's possible that this is really the only diagnosis he can get.

And I also believe Chilton is right about most things in the series (because he is Cassandra of the show), so his diagnosis of Will in court?

Let's break this down a little bit. We do know that Will actually hid all his life, fearing that he understood criminals so well because he had such tendencies himself (by the way, this is also taken from the book).

For the purposes of this analysis, I believe these words from Chilton are most important: "Saving lives is just as arousing as ending them. He likes to play God".

But for now, let's focus on Bedelia's words for a second:

And yes, in the series we see Will only killing actually bad people (criminals): G.J. Hobbs, Randall Tier, Francis Dolarhyde, he also constantly fantasizes about killing Hannibal. It is righteous violence, isn't it? Because he is compassionate.

And having covered all this, I feel we can now move on to answering your question.

Will is afraid, but only for a while, as even Alana points out:

I think his empathy actually frightened him because he was afraid of what his fate might be if he let himself get carried away by it. He spent his entire life trying to convince himself that he was a good person… only to end up in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane anyway! For things he didn't even do!!!

When he realized that empathy had become his only weapon, he began to use it skillfully: a scene where he cries in front of Alana and Hannibal that he is scared, lost and needs their help? Allowing Chilton to be the only one to test him? Exclusive rights to his story for Freddie Lounds? He knew that these people wanted it, so he gave it to them.

So in my opinion? Will's fear was never a direct result of his empathy, but rather the fact that he was afraid of the consequences of using it — hence being a cop, a special agent. He was trying to prove to himself that he was good and normal. Moral. Moral person cannot be killer, right? Right??? He wanted to believe so.

And now about dampen that fear or amplify it. The opinions of Chilton and Bedelia, which I inserted earlier, will be useful here.

Will was vulnerable in the first season when he was sick, but Will himself is a huge manipulator; he plays not only with other characters, but also with the audience.

Will tried to live as a good and moral man.

After killing Hobbs, he said that he did not consider him his victim, but dead. He had hallucinations of Hobbs, but this could have been the result of encephalitis combined with work-related stress.

After killing Randall Tier? While at the crime scene, Tier told Will that it was the becoming for him too. Killing Dolarhyde? "It's beautiful".

BUT! Do you remember the body that was set on fire as the body of Freddie Lounds?

Will had a nightmare about this, where the burning body had his face on it. He woke up sweating like at the beginning of the show. There was still a moral dilemma.

He came back to this job after three long years because of the Red Dragon's case. And so, Hannibal was right as they stood in their memory palace over the broken mirror, "Like you, Will, he [Dolarhyde] needs a family to escape what's inside him" — soon after that Will wakes up drenched in sweat from a nightmare. And when he looks in the mirror then, his reflection is falling apart, which I think parallels nicely with what he said in season one ("I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I looked through me, past me. Like I was a stranger"). Is it his person suit falling down right now?

And now... In my opinion Chilton and Bedelia are right. Killing can be enjoyable to Will if he feels it is morally justified. The killings he committed were like that.

He had a nightmare after "killing" Freddie because he was playing a very dangerous game with Hannibal, but he also knew that compared to the other perpetrators, Freddie's crimes were minor.

He is like God. He is the one who administers justice. The murders — or transgressions, like what eventually happened to Chilton because of him — that Will commits don't make him more and more afraid, but rather… he becomes more and more confident.

[a-little-cretur]

these two scenes being just an episode apart kills me everytime

[scarletdreamers]

Can we, for a second, think about the fact that Hannibal dressed Will before he carried him home through the snow?

Will is naked when he's about to get the face surgery from Cordell. We see a scene of him in the operation chair where he's shirtless, lower body covered by a hospital blanket. Hannibal, who cut himself free from the ropes that were holding him captive on Muskrat farm, who then killed a large sum of Mason's staff including trained security and surgeons, saves him before Will's face gets removed. This all happens off-screen. The next scene is Hannibal carrying Will (bridal style) through the snow. In this scene Will is dressed, including a jacket for the cold and all that. Imagine Hannibal, the violent beast we saw when he killed Mason's men, blood probably still on his hands, finding Will there. Unconscious, and then dressing him. Dressing someone is a very intimate thing, especially someone unconscious. It requires care and gentleness. That, and knowing how to handle a body and loving someone enough to dress them while they don't need to be. He buttoned his buttons for him, tied his shoes, put him in a jacket to make sure he wouldn't get cold - I mean, Hannibal himself doesn't even wear a jacket in that scene. There's blood and wounds all over Hannibal's face, he's exhausted and probably the one in the most physical danger, yet he takes care of Will before he takes care of himself.

This hits even harder if you think about why they ended up in Muskrat farm in the first place. In Florence, Hannibal tried to 'eat' Will. He tried to split his head open with a bone saw. That intense violence, the grotesque and desperate nature of those actions makes a perfect and sharp contrast to him saving Will after outside forces try to take their lives, which is a heroically gentle and intimate action. He didn't have to dress him up like that, he didn't have to carry him that way, but he did. Hannibal fails to kill Will in Florence, and with that he fails his last attempt to get rid of his feelings for Will. Or at least, to make his feelings bearable. He thinks that he can control himself better when Will is dead, so he tries to kill him but he fails. Not because he's stopped, but simply because he can't do it. If Hannibal wanted him dead, Will would have been dead. Mason's men only interrupted his theatrics. They gave him a reason to put away the saw and act like it was purely their fault, but then Will is in danger at the farm and Hannibal does everything in his power to save him and get him home safe and well. At home he takes off his jacket, literally lays him in bed and tucks him in. He covers Will with a blanket, he tries to write mathematical formulas to reverse time and cleans his wounds. That's why Will's rejection when he wakes up is so tragic and hard to watch. It breaks Hannibal, unbreakable and inhuman Hannibal Lecter. It simply hurts him enough to break his heart. It breaks him enough to give up everything he ever lived for and surrender to the FBI, which he spent a lifetime running from. He does this because when he decided to save Will, he realised he would never get over the things he felt for him. In Hannibal's mind, the worst thing that can happen is never seeing Will again. He finally realised that, after everything, and that's why he surrenders to the FBI.

Hannibal honey, you don't want to eat his brain. You just wanted him to love you.

It's subtle details like this that always stick to me afterwards. It's just another thought I had and I felt like sharing.

[grahamcr4ck3r]

When Will and Hannibal next have a scene together, Will is so much more comfortable with Hannibal than any other person. He is able to tell Hannibal about the dark thoughts and desires that plague his mind without feeling judged. because hes not judged. Hannibal would never judge him, he finds Will to.. perfect. He admires him so extremely and intensely. Will also laughs, yet again, in this session. Hannibal is still the only person that has made will smile and laugh. Will is free around him, he acts like himself. He’s never been able to unmask like this, and be truly himself around anyone, until Hannibal.