SHILOH Musings (more or less spoiler free)
So here's a Tricky Thing about Lecter* - there exists in some file the FBI has access to a record of his childhood, but it's Definitely Fake.
*[Lecter/Graham = Novelverse characters, Hannibal/Will = NBC HANNIBAL versions of the characters]
In RED DRAGON, Graham says that Lecter's childhood behavior was Normal, with the only exception early sadism towards animals. Graham says this as there's no reason to doubt the validity of the claim, but it doesn't match the novel canon on two fronts:
1.) There's no indication that he's untrustworthy with animals at any other point in the canon. (Well, unless he wants to eat them - Ortolans, all bets are off, you are on your own).
2.) More importantly, if there was a written record of Lecter's childhood available, it would be a LOT more interesting that "aside from one red flag, Totally Normal." Even if whoever was making this record knew nothing more about What Happened to Lecter other than that when he was around ten years old he wandered in from the snow, sporting an unset broken arm and very close to death from starvation, and then remained mute for years after that... all of that is obviously noteworthy.
So - whatever paperwork the US government has on him, in any case, is Fake, and Lecter must have been the one to fake it. And this has implications beyond concealing trauma or whatever else his motives might have been.
(Why would he add the bit about hurting animals as a child, when if anything the canon supports the idea that he's outraged to the point of extreme violence at even the harassment of a pair of swans? Extremely Unclear. Maybe he's trolling, IDK).
But here's the thing
There's really nothing in RED DRAGON to indicate the Lecter ISN'T a native born American. Anything to the contrary doesn't seem to exist in his papers, no one mentions an accent, nor does he ever say anything to suggest that he's from somewhere else. Hell, occasionally he even uses terms that most people who hadn't grown up in the American south probably wouldn't use in conversation, like "doodlebug hole."
So, what does this mean, on a practical level, for a universe swap fic that tries to cleave to most of the elements of the novelverse canon?
It means that I don't think Graham has any effing clue where Lecter is even from. Whatever he's read was, at best, a partial truth.
yousharknotpass
izzy806
titsay
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germansingergirl
