Watching TWOTL!!! and!!! i need to ramble about this ↓
When Hannibal & Will arrive at the house and Hannibal says, "The bluff is eroding. There was more land when I was here with Abigail. More land still when I was here with Miriam Lass."
Bluff here has two meanings, to me. Of course Hannibal can comment on the state of the cliff, but why would he insist so much?Here, bluff can also have the meaning of feigning, pretending.
When he came here with Miriam Lass, Hannibal was still very much wearing his person-suit. After meeting Will, he started revealing himself, piece by piece. Hence why, when he came back with Abigail, there was less land, because the bluff had been eroding.
But back to the present... Will replies, "Now you're here with me."
And Hannibal continues, "And the bluff is still eroding. You and I are suspended over the roiling Atlantic. Soon all of this will be lost to the sea."
Yes, the bluff is still eroding. Land gets lost to the sea, relentlessly. But also... Their pretending, their hiding, their feigning, has come to an end. They are both suspended, at the point of no return.
Their pretending will soon be lost to the sea. The real moment of truth is when the bluff erodes completely, when they both hit the sea and embrace truly, entirely, who they are, to themselves and each other.
Mulling on. I do think people tend to characterize hannibal as low emotion but I’d argue it’s actually the polar opposite, I think he’s an extremely emotionally driven high sensitivity character. It’s just. Not always the emotional responses that are socially acceptable. I think he is also extremely good at repression, compartmentalization, and forms of disassociation that are the learned skills of someone with the emotional skin of a third degree burn victim.
That being said, I think one area of emotion he is almost completely numb that helps him operate the way he does, is he has almost no fear. In his own ways he does have empathy, regret, guilt, etc although not nearly as often as he should, but the part of his brain/emotions that feels fear is often completely non existent.
I think that’s very much an effect of extreme trauma. The worst happens, what is there left to fear? You’ve already seen hell and survived. You’re living on borrowed time and have defied death and god, you might as well do whatever you want. What could you possibly fear after that.
This makes an interesting contrast to will, who is introduced to us as being almost entirely fear. It is his number one driving force. It’s hard to narrow down the things Hannibal saw in him right away, but I do think that it’s interesting that a man who has conquered his fear through suffering and feels he is better for it meets a man who is driven by and in shackles of fear, and wonders if he is put through the worst so there is nothing left to fear, what beautiful thing will be there when the shackles are gone?
Hannibal and Winston enter Will's life basically at the same moment, as he's starting to fall apart.
They both immediately show fierce loyalty and partiality to him - a predilection unmatched by other dogs or people in Will's life - stubbornly refusing to leave his side during his slow descent into the hell of illness.
No one in the entire series loves Will Graham more than these two. In the same episode, they're depicted pining for his absence while Will's in prison, looking for him in familiar places even if they know Will is not there.
Hannibal 2x01, Kaiseki
But what are Will's motivations? Hannibal and Winston are two strays, both wary and lonely, and Will welcomes them in his pack, in the family of strays he desperately craves to form. It makes sense for Winston, but Hannibal? Why has Will been so confident in trusting a complete stranger, if not because he's unconsciously recognised Hannibal as one of his?
Winston could obviously represent Will's desire towards good, while Hannibal reveals himself as the catalyst of his darker side. But in the end, Will chooses Hannibal, even if it means leaving Winston behind, because Hannibal's the one needing him the most.
The feral, rabid dog who tried to bite him every chance he's got. Hannibal, a man able to show love only through violence, deception and manipulation.
In the end, he's the one Will is ready to die with, because even the thought of Hannibal dying alone is unbearable to him.
Hannibal’s love for Will, when not threatened by the loss of control, is something delicate, brutal in its delicacy, yes, but still tender. He holds Will as one holds a thing of rare beauty, a treasure to be admired, adorned, sometimes with the gentle violence of his own scars. Will is not simply a man to Hannibal. He is art, the most beautiful among all beautiful things, something to be looked at, something precious. Will can wound him, shatter him, break him beyond recognition, and still, Hannibal cannot bring himself to hate him. He cannot even be truly angry.
In another life, in another world, one without blood and hunger, Hannibal would watch Will as he sleeps, or as he does something mundane, with quiet reverence. The sight of him would be nourishment, a sweetness that satiates the soul as milk satiates a newborn. Love, to Hannibal, is something to be savored, something to be held still in time and admired forever.
But Will’s love for Hannibal is something else entirely. If Hannibal’s love is milk, Will’s is liquor: inebriating, intoxicating, draining. It pulls at his sanity, leaves him starved, hollow. Hannibal is an endless well of violent delights, and Will drinks deeply, knowing that no matter how much he takes, it will never be enough. His heart is a vast and cavernous thing, like the womb of the universe, an emptiness that only expands the more it is filled. And so, love for Will is an ache, a hunger that cannot be satisfied. In another life, a life untouched by survival, Will would hold Hannibal too tightly, would press himself against him as if to dissolve into his very bones. Are you real? he would ask, over and over again. And if you are, let me live inside your ribcage.
And so, in the end, Hannibal would crave to die looking at Will, surrendering himself into that final, peaceful oblivion with the last sight of his ultimate beauty. And Will would crave to die in Hannibal’s arms, cradled by the only thing he has ever longed to belong to.
We know that many small details matter in Hannibal. Traditionally, seating positions at the table are important: they indicate the degree of closeness between the host and the guest.
Hannibal usually sits at the head of the table as the host. This isn't new knowledge in this fandom, but... have you ever thought about table seating positions in Naka Choko, Ko no mono and Mizumono?
In both Naka choko and Ko no mono, after Hannibal believes that Will has killed both Randall Tier (true) and Freddie Lounds (not true), he is sitting across from Will - as if they are equals.
Screenshots from Naka Choko
Screenshot from Ko no Mono
However, do you remember how Will and Hannibal are sitting in Mizumono, during the last supper, when Hannibal already knows that Will is lying to him, that he didn't kill Freddie Lounds, that they didn't eat her meat?
Screenshot from Mizumono
Hannibal is sitting at the head of the table, alone. Will is sitting to his right - he is important, but he is not an equal.
Furthermore, the lamb served by Hannibal in the script is described in such a way that its ribs resemble hands folded in prayer, as if Hannibal was praying not only for Will to choose him, but also for Will to truly choose to be his equal.
"H" and "W" are the two cursed letters of toxic yaoi:
House and Wilson
Hannibal and Will
Holmes and Watson
The H being the borderline psychopath genius who's down bad, and the W posing as the normal guy or the victim who's actually having the time of his life or is literally worse.
This iconic line originates from Dante’s La Vita Nuova:
"He woke her then, and trembling and obedient, she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping, I saw him then depart from me. Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her? Find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight, and ache for him?"
Bedelia paraphrases this passage in the show, but its origins trace back to the Hannibal novel and film, where Hannibal himself quotes it in reference to Clarice. The show repurposes this to textualize his love for Will, drawing a direct parallel between his relationship with Will and his relationship with Clarice in the books.
Hannibal explicitly recites the original Dante passage in the first episode of season three:
"Allegro mi sembrava Amor tenendo meo core in mano, e ne le braccia avea madonna involta in un drappo dormendo. Poi la svegliava, e d’esto core ardendo lei paventosa umilmente pascea: appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo."
Roughly translated:
"He seemed happy, but carrying my heart in his hand; on his arm I saw my lady wrapped in a veil, sleeping. He woke her, and trembling, she humbly and fearfully ate the burning heart. Then Love departed, weeping."
In the poem, the he is *Amor* (Love) personified, holding Dante’s heart in one hand and Beatrice, veiled and sleeping, in the other. Love wakes Beatrice, and she consumes Dante’s burning heart before Love departs in sorrow.
This perfectly mirrors Hannibal’s situation: he fell in love with Will at first sight, and when he "awoke" Will to his own darkness, Will metaphorically consumed his heart. The episode reinforces this imagery when Hannibal murders a man that looks like Will and transforms his body into a visual representation of his own shattered heart.
The rest of the season hinges on the question in Bedelia’s line: Can Will see through the bars of Hannibal’s plight?
"Plight" refers to a miserable, inescapable condition...an interesting choice of words to remove from the adaptation, especially since Bedelia, who is delivering the line, would never openly admit to Will that Hannibal is suffering.
But why include "ache"? Why not simply ask if Will was in love?
Because in the poem, the heart is consumed, Love weeps, and what remains is hunger. "Ache" here means to feel intense desire for, aligning with the show’s (and the line) recurring themes of hunger and nourishment. Bedelia is not asking if Will loves Hannibal in a traditional sense, she is asking if he craves him.
When Will is sailing toward Hannibal, the script describes his expression as "almost hungry." Later, when he and Jack track Hannibal across Europe, he stands in a way that creates an optical illusion for the camera, and the script refers to this effect as him standing in a “starvation cage.”
So, does Will ache for Hannibal?
Yes. Canon explicitly confirms it. And to ache, to crave, is visceral, carnal. It cannot be downplayed as something else. Will craves Hannibal so intensely that, after three years of "starvation," he barely resists finding an excuse to see him the moment he rejoins Jack’s team. And I think his face says it all:
Do you guys sometimes think about how Abigail’s father taught her that not eating a killed victim is just a murder and that Abigail wasn’t eaten?
And that Hannibal said that the tragedy isn’t to die but to be wasted, and his motto is “eat the rude”, but Abigail wasn’t eaten by him, that he killed her out of emotion, not because she was “rude”?
Do you ever think about how she was “wasted” in the eyes of both of her fathers??? :)
beautiful image that was just revealed to me in a vision: the "remarkable boy. i do admire your courage. i think i'll eat your heart" exchange from the red dragon movie but instead hannibal whispers "my remarkable boy" while hovering over will the first time they find themselves in bed right before pressing a hungry open kiss to will's chest, exactly where his heart is.
I feel like we don’t talk enough about how Bedelia is Hannibal and Will’s first true victim. The Red Dragon was of course them enjoying violence and blood, but they were acting in self defense too. After the events of the Red Dragon/post fall before they leave for Cuba they cut off and eat Bedelia’s leg(presumably the rest of her). Several parts of season three was about sealing her fate, and Hannibal will not be alone to do so. Anyways this seriously needs to be explored in my fanfics.
when. when you have spent your whole life believing youre a monster & you have come to accept it maybe even revel in it & you have never bothered trying to connect with people in any meaningful way because they could never understand so you treat everyone like pawns or marionettes & thats all there is & youre happy & successful & youve built an impressive fort around you so no one can ever reach you & then. then comes this person who is so unlike you but also so similar in many ways & he has the capacity to see you & so you let him & he manages to fill a gap you did not even know existed & he hurts you & you hurt him & you wish you could kill him or you wish he would kill you because nothing has ever made you ache like he does but you know you could not be severed from him now if you tried he is all tangled up in your insides & sometimes when you catch him looking at you you can tell he is just as hungry as you are & you have never knelt before any god before but you think you might start now. well all of this happened to my friend hannibal lecter
freddie lounds is so funny. she antagonises violent criminals for the entire series. the stories she gets scoops on should be on the news but she writes for her gossipy private website. she's a sensationalist tabloid journalist talking about active serial killers. her hair is amazing. she's a girl's girl. she's career-driven. someone faked her death. everyone hates her. she's right about everything from day one. will's mad about it but he is doing murder now, so... 🤷♀️
It’s so funny in retrospect that the absolute Worst and Most Annoying people in Hannibal were the ones who were correct about all the key details. Abel Gideon was a sexist family annihilator who spotted Hannibal’s yearning for Will while drugged and eating his own leg— “If only that company could be Will Graham.” Freddie Lounds was an amoral journalist who wrote gossip tabloids about horrific crimes and scraped money off the people who suffered from them, and recognized that both Will and Hannibal were tentatively in cahoots and had dark urges— “It Takes One To Know One— Another Shrike In The Nest”.
Frederick Chilton, a washed-up doctor who got his kicks blackmailing inmates into medical experiments, was the only one who caught on to Hannibal’s egotistical taunts and listened to Will, despite his wary dislike of him— “He made a joke about eating my tongue once, it’d be remiss to not at least consider it.” And Mason Verger, who’s the absolute worst person in the show for a laundry list of reasons (and that’s saying a LOT), sees in two meetings what their coworkers and friends can’t— he references a news story about a gay cannibal who killed his lover, and then jokes about literally eating Hannibal’s dick after Will’s face is transplanted onto his.
It’s also more than a little interesting in that I think this ironic phenomenon is likely an intentional choice. All of these characters share a penchant for selfish, amoral behavior and enjoy holding cruel sway over others, and Freddie’s meeting with the FBI where she and Will imply that the other has psychopathic traits, especially considering their jobs and how they do them, supports the central theme of the show— you need to be somehow alike to truly understand someone. Takes one to know one, indeed.
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