I'm curious about the conversation in Ko No Mono when Will and Hannibal are discussing Mischa and Abigail- particularly when Hannibal says that his sister "taught him so much about himself". The first time I watched the ep I remembered feeling like it was a statement that was heavy with meaning (after a rewatch it struck me again). I know it's hard to state anything concretely since we don't know much about Mischa but I was wondering if you had any theories about what that line could/does imply.
You’re right: it’s impossible to say exactly to what he was referring, within his own mind. He could have meant any number of things, many of them innocent enough: that she taught him his own capacity for love, for nurturance of others, for responsibility and teaching–most of which have carried through into the rest of his life as a psychiatrist and a mentor. It’s one of those ways in which Hannibal isn’t a classic psychopath. He’s dedicated his life to helping others, and not just in the more disturbing ways like with Will and Abigail and Bedelia and Randall Tier and God knows who else, but with innocent people like Franklyn Froideveaux, his initial intentions to help Bella accept and approach death, and as a mentor to Alana Bloom.
But to any fan who is familiar with the source material, the implication is clear: Mischa is who taught Hannibal about his capacity for murder. Hannibal was not a murderer until he sought revenge for the killing and cannibalization of his sister.
As anyone who follows interviews knows, Mads is insistent that Hannibal wasn’t made into a murderer (x), while Bryan has been less clear. Sometimes Bryan seems right in line with Mads, and sometimes he says things that imply otherwise. I’ve always figured this was because, in Hannibal’s case, the capacity had to be there. Hannibal’s psychology and makeup is such that nothing could make him into a murderer; however, without what happened with Mischa, he might not have discovered and cultivated those aspects of himself. The show consistently rides that line between nature and nurture and ultimately dismisses both in favor of the power of human choice.
When it comes to nature versus nurture, I choose neither. We are built from a DNA blueprint and born into a world of scenario and circumstance we don’t control.
Will and Chilton are probably good counterpoints to this concept. If we accept Hannibal’s assertion that Hannibal and Will are “just alike,” then that capacity for murder has to be as present in Will as it is in Hannibal. However, without the influence of “scenario and circumstance,” Will himself did not actually become a killer. Hannibal had to engineer sufficient circumstance in order to get Will to first discover and then choose to cultivate those aspects of himself. Chilton, under more or less the same circumstances as Will, made Will almost laugh when he pulled a gun on him, because no matter how ugly the scenario and how desperate his circumstance–“You’re not a killer, Frederick.” Within Hannibal’s world, nature and nurture both need to align properly to cultivate a killer, and then it’s still subject to the choice of the individual, and this remains the final difference between Hannibal and Will.
Thus it follows that Mischa taught Hannibal that as much as he was a father or a caregiver, he was also a killer.
However, speaking personally, I think the most important thing that Mischa taught Hannibal was neither about his capacity for killing, nor about his relationship with love.
I think the lesson Mischa taught Hannibal was helplessness. And the lengths he would go to in order to avoid it.
Hannibal is who he is. He cares, he kills, and the conflation of these things is what makes him make sense, even down to his killing of the rude and making meals for his friends from their remains. But neither caring nor killing could prevent what happened to Mischa, whatever that will turn out to be in this continuity. More importantly…they could not bring her back.
The shattering of the teacup is symbolic to Hannibal because, once shattered, he’s helpless to fix it. Mending it will not make it what it was before–only the impossible turning back of time could do that. Hannibal cannot turn back time, so the only thing he can do is exercise maximum control over his circumstances, have many contingency plans, and work actively and tirelessly to make sure that whatever happens, he has an answer for it. Thus, over time, what happened with Mischa has taught Hannibal to keep every detail of his life in immaculate order.
But I think this, in the end, bored him. Not in any discernible way, perhaps, but enough that he takes risks. When faced with an individual who could, “despite all [Hannibal’s] knowledge and intrusion,” keep Hannibal guessing, Hannibal was hopelessly–and helplessly–seduced. He arranged and manipulated every last detail so that this time, everything would work out: this time, he would be able to protect and nurture those he cared about; this time, the family would stay whole and live happily ever after together; this time, not only would the teacup stay together, but it would make whole that which was broken before.
And in the end, I think this is why Hannibal reacts so violently and viscerally to Will’s betrayal, even after forgiving him. Hannibal can’t bring himself to really kill Will, which is yet another marker of how helpless Hannibal is when it comes to Will. He cannot bear that helplessness, that recurrence of loss at the hands of another…that he should do everything right and still lose. He can’t allow himself to be this vulnerable to another human being, yet again, and lacking the will in himself to destroy the person who caused him this anguish, the only way he can seize control again–the only way he can stop being so helpless–is to destroy the most significant aspect of Will’s own vulnerability to Hannibal. Abigail Hobbs.
To destroy his own helplessness, Hannibal must also destroy his last vestige of hope.
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