#will graham analysis

[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.

[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 🙂.

[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.

[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.

[kuroshika]

actually, tbh, i think ive been getting wills characterization wrong. he doesn't have a person suit.

hannibal does, very obviously. he can zip and unzip it at ease, and you can't make it slip. he's got a firm grasp on the zipper and what lays beneath it.

i guess that would mean will's projection would be more like curtains. he has a grip on them, and can open and close them at will, but there are also winds that flutter them open every now and again. you can see the shadow of what lays beneath through them and he tries his hardest to block that — one of the ways being things like how he dresses. his extra layers, his glasses. like how in coquilles, as he's getting into that fight, his glasses come off? as those curtains begin to become harder to keep together, those protections disappear. he wears less layers, his glasses disappear. his protection is thin, and he wants people to see that shadow in the fabric and want it.

and hannibal did that! that's why the "i let you know me. see me." - "you wanted to be seen." - "by you." line makes sense — hannibal wanted to be seen by will, because he saw what was behind those curtains, and he unzipped that suit for him. i think that's also why will sounded so... awestruck. because he was in shock that hannibal had unzipped this cautiously created person suit for him.

"i won't miss you. i don't want think about you anymore." this is where will is closing his curtains to hide himself off from hannibal, taking back that rare gift he allowed him. but he still wants him to need him, to crave him, so that shadow is still there. even in trying to close himself off, he's giving just enough for hannibal not to lose interest.

@lesbian-hannibal @shatteredlesbian

[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 👍

[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.

[pendragonsclotpole]

say what you will about will and his freakiness, but the fact that he could get a dog he randomly picked up from the street to stay calm during bath time is the biggest green flag i’ve ever seen.

you know what my dog does when we try to bathe him? fight me with his boxer paws or use his mouth to grab my arm. we have to leave his leash on in case he tries to make a run for it, and even with that stopping him from running off, it takes at least 30 minutes to get him to calm down!

after that i just feel bad because he hangs his head all pathetically and acts like he’s in prison while we scrub him down. then out of revenge, he waits until he’s inside to do a good shake EVEN AFTER TOWELING HIM DRY OUTSIDE AND LEAVING HIM ON THE PORCH FOR A FEW MINUTES TO AIR DRY. we don’t use the blow dryer. he tried to eat it the one time we did. it wasn’t worth him putting up his paws.

although one time, we just wanted to help him release some of his shedding fur during his annual great spring shed and we just let him run around the backyard while we aimed the hose at him.

hannibal could never.

Some more xP

[osbcrne]

nobody touch me

[sapphire-weapon]

So here's an interesting thing.

This is Saddler's POV when Ashley picks up Leon's gun:

Leon isn't looking at Ashley.

He's looking right at Saddler. And that's the look of a man who's ready to kill.

It's only after the first shot is fired that Leon actually looks at Ashley, and his expression is completely different when he does.

From Ashley's POV:

This might sound weird, but this is probably the best showcase of how fundamentally changed Leon is in RE4make from RE2make. In RE2make, his focus would've been Ashley first. He would've been worried about her and scared for himself. Saddler would be an afterthought; Leon can worry about Saddler after both he and Ashley are safe.

That was probably what Krauser was referring to during training when he told Leon that he was too soft to do what's necessary. You know, before Krauser himself went nuts, and the meaning of that statement became something else entirely.

But in RE4make, Leon's first response is rage. It's violence. It's murder. His instinct isn't to save Ashley or protect himself -- it's to kill Saddler.

It's only after it hits him just how stuck he is -- after that first shot is fired -- that the worry starts -- that the regret and heartache kick in.

What Krauser taught Leon -- what he really taught Leon -- was that protecting someone is more than shielding them from harm or pulling them to safety. It's eliminating the threat around them so that they can be safe. Shields can break, and running protects no one.

So, sure, the "being held against my will" thing is the main reason why Leon turns down Ashley's offer at the end of the game -- but it's not the only reason. It's because Leon came to accept, over the course of this mission, that he's not that guy anymore. He can't stand by and be Ashley's guard. The only way he knows how to protect her is by eliminating the threat around her -- and that's not what security detail does.

But that's who Leon's become now. The ship of "serve and protect" has sailed, for him. In his own words: "You've gotta keep moving forward."

[suchawrathfullamb]

we're always yapping about Will's motivation for the cliff but we don't talk about Hannibal's motivation for allowing that to happen. He knew. From the moment they got there, he saw it in Will's eyes, how he was looking at the water. "Suicide is the enemy" to Francis WHILE looking at Will. He knew. He let Will pull him. We talk about it but not nearly as much as we meta and theorize and essay about Will. But Hannibal's thought process in this episode? Man slice my throat and eat me whole already

[nodyourbeautifulhead]

Wondering what was that little smirk about ?

[mooredanxieties]

I think Post-Fall Will would stop Hannibal from killing Alana, NOT because of any lingering compassion or moral standing but out of jealousy.

I mean, just think of how intimate him killing her would be, how intimate Hannibal would make it, how he would allow nothing else. Killing Alana wouldn't be like killing just any other "pig", its personal for him.

He liked her, found her interesting. He enjoyed observing how much her morals differed from his own and how steadfast she was in adhering to them. He liked how confident she was in her decisions and how unhesitating she was to call out others for stepping out of line. All of these are traits that elude Will, all things he's insecure about, all things he himself was attracted to her for because he was probably envious of the ease to which she did it. And Hannibal liked those things about her.

When he told her he would kill her, it wasn't just a threat, it was a warning. He gave her a chance to leave unscathed, and she was the only person besides Will to get that chance ("we could leave tonight"). She was the only person besides Will to get that much care from him.

So he would hunt her down and, when he finally did kill her, it would be intimate. He would engage her til her very last breath. He'd fulfill the promise made between them.

And I have no doubt that he would eat her. He'd take her apart piece by piece. He would taste her body on his tongue, and once his stomach broke her down, she would flow in his bloodstream through every part of his body. Through his very heart.

And Will may be the only person Hannibal is unable to kill, but that also means that Will is the only person that will never experience the intimacy of having his life coaxed from his body by Hannibal's hand. And as long as Will is living, he will never be so intrinsically joined with Hannibal that they cannot be physically distinguished from one another.

And I think Will would fucking hate the idea of Alana ever getting to experience Hannibal in a way that he himself could not experience.

[tayasui-mono]

Ok but Will doesn't even wear plaid that often. He wears a lot of Chambray-ish shirts, henleys, sleeveless vests, blazers, pullover sweaters, and a variety of jackets. He wears a lot solids and mix & matches his wardrobe constantly. What REALLY stands out is that everything he wears aside from his button ups and sweaters are stained. Fresh stains as well as permanent stains that can't be washed away, which makes me deduce (twisting my fake moustache here) that he classifies his clothes into 3 categories;

1. Professional clothes (plaid & solid shirts, ties, blazers -- unstained)

2. Bedtime clothes (old, too-worn, holey t-shirts and boxers)

3. Hobby attire / Casual clothing (literally everything else in his wardrobe that he doesn't go to work in -- henleys, vests, fisherman tops -- all stained with grease or something else. ++ Lots of sweaters/fuzzy tops which are kept with relative care)

And!! He visits Hannibal a couple times in his hobby clothes outside of work. Which makes me think this is his favoured state of dress.

In fact!! He vamps up his wardrobe in s2 to hide away his personality, offering Hannibal a battle-ready armour instead. He has stored away all vulnerabilities that Hannibal can take advantage of.

[pesky--dust]

the "diagnosis" Chilton gave Will during his trial was the one closest to the truth ("Will Graham has never been diagnosed. He won't allow anyone to test him. He has carefully constructed a persona to hide his real nature from the world. He wears it so well, even Jack Crawford couldn't see past it. (...) There is not yet a name for whatever Will Graham is.")

unlike Alana Bloom or Jack Crawford, he saw what a manipulator Will was and that in front of them he played a poor, confused, wounded bird ("(...) A particularly-manipulative one at that. Poor, confused, wounded bird for Agent Crawford and Doctors Lecter and Bloom. And for me, well, I get the psychopath's triumvirate: charm, focus and ruthlessness. The charm, of course, being debateable.")

he believed Will that Hannibal may be the Chesapeake Ripper and said Jack Crawford: "Hannibal once served me tongue and made a joke about eating mine. It's hard not to at least consider it.". Jack ignored him. (I think Jack was already planning some large-scale action against Hannibal, but that's a topic for another post)

he called Dr Lecter "Hannibal the Cannibal"

he understood that Will Graham was alive because Hannibal Lecter liked him that way

criticized Jack for letting Will and Hannibal get closer to each other and then leaving Will alone ("You dangle Will Graham and now you cut bait. You are letting Hannibal have him hook, line and sinker.")

when Jack expressed hope that the relationship between Hannibal and Will was one of those friendships that ends after the disemboweling, Chilton told him: "I would argue, with these two, that's tantamount to flirtation. Will is going to lead you right to him." and let's be real, he was right.

[kuroshika]

time for more kalypso babbles. @lesbian-hannibal as requested.

to understand this scene, we gotta get deep into will's character.

will graham is a university teacher and special agent for the fbi. he has a heightened empathic response, which hannibal refers to as pure empathy. he can draw off of the emotions of a killer at a crime scene and piece together how the victim was killed and what the motive was behind it. but he also wears a sort of second skin. he's putting forth a persona so that he'll fit in and not be seen as odd for what he actually is. he wears a person suit. so the persona of will we see (teacher, profiler, fisherman) is a cover of the man will believes he should be rather than who he actually is. he's split himself into two, and repressed part of himself in fear of being rejected. underneath this projection of will is what will really wants, what he craves and attracts. that's why he's so drawn to killing, i.e. "i liked killing hobbs. it felt just." he's convinced himself that what he felt in killing hobbs and adopting abigail into his life is a sense of just, what will's suit strives for. now that he's fed this side of himself, and now that hannibal is pushing him, he finds it harder to hide behind his person suit.

that brings you to hannibal. hannibal also wears a person suit. will cannot pull off of any emotions in hannibal, because his person suit conceals them. beneath hannibal's person suit is the chesapeake ripper. he's a murderer, he likes playing god. but in all actuality, the ripper is merely a worshipper, and now that hannibal has tasted it, the man beneath will's mask is the god he follows. there are times, as hannibal is showing will to cast off his person suit, that his own strains - will can pick up on the ripper's emotions, and the man underneath his projection reacts to them, going so far as to unconsciously mirror him and bare his weaknesses to the man.

little by little, as the show goes on, hannibal tears through will's persona and allows him to embrace the darkest parts of himself, the man beneath the mask, the killer behind the persona. will can be seen, throughout the show, to more easily and readily accept the parts of himself that he hid away. He hid it for alana, for jack and beverly, for the people his persona was supposed to care for - as is customary for any rational person to do. he's afraid of not being accepted, for having himself seen and being too much for the people that he believes he ought to surround himself with. but hannibal is slowly showing him that the darkest parts of himself are accepted by the people that matter most (i.e. him and their surrogate pseudodaughter) because they see that part of him, acknowledge it, and meet it in time with the darkest parts of themselves. will is fighting his own becoming because he's hid behind his mask too long to allow himself to fully shed the person he created to make a place for himself in the world. hannibal bared himself to will because he saw what will was trying to stifle, that was in turn killing him.

"i let you see me." - "you wanted to be seen." - "by you." this is where will begins to accept that he cannot hide anymore, as hannibal forcibly brings his persona to his attention. this is hannibal's rare gift.

and this is will giving that rare gift back.

will connects with others by stepping into their head, wearing their mindsets and emotions to understand them. he knows them from the inside out, he steps into them. by telling hannibal that he doesn't want to think about him, that he doesn't want to worry about him, he is taking his empathy away from him and therefore shutting hannibal out of his life. he is telling hannibal that you are no longer interesting. you are not someone that i find interesting. you are not welcome in my life anymore.

he's telling hannibal that he sees him. knows him. and wants nothing to do with him.