someone: i really don't understand why some masc lesbians use T.......but they aren't men?? that defeats the whole point of being a lesbian. its just stupid i really dont support tbh
me who heard "masc lesbians" and "T" and got so hard i almost threw up: what
I don’t think we as a fandom talk about Hannibal’s suicidal ideation enough. For someone who purports to enjoy living and says that suicide is never the answer, he engages in a hell of a lot of self-destructive behavior and nearly ends up committing suicide-by-cop (or one of the many other people who want him dead) on multiple occasions.
He’s someone who glorifies death, who thinks that life is at its most beautiful when it’s on the edge of death, and he certainly seems to apply this attitude to himself just as much as he applies it to others. Really, considering everything that he does, it’s a miracle that he stays alive long enough to meet Will at all.
I really think that he believes that he should have died with Mischa in the Lithuanian winter, and that all his life after that is a drawn-out epilogue to a story that should have ended already.
But even with this perspective, he is incapable of fighting to stay alive with anything less than everything he has. Every risky situation he puts himself in he manages to squeeze himself out of in an ever-escalating game of survival. He ups the stakes again and again, but as the stakes increase so does his experience and competence, so he survives.
I just think we’re missing out on a lot of angst/whump potential here, is what I’m trying to say.
Trigger warning: I'm going to talk about suicide below the cut.
TW: I've gotten the impression from others that my attitude about suicide is not... correct. Not socially acceptable? I don't express it well. I think the people who are strongly triggered by this stuff are the people who have lost someone to suicide, especially those that have never felt suicidal themselves that lost someone to it. People who have been suicidal themselves have a very different, maybe unhealthy perspective on the topic, and I am in that latter category, so apologies in advance if I'm blasé. I like being able to explore the topic and find it grounding.
There are two distinct paths that suicidal people generally take. I've read articles that attribute one more to women and the other more to men, but I'm not convinced of the correlation. Folks who take the second path generally don't get "suicide" written as the cause of death on record, which messes with data collection.
The first path is the one you think of: someone directly choosing to kill themselves. Slit wrists, a noose, a gun, an overdose, a jump from a high place. This is the one that generally gets attributed more to women and it tends to also include the cry-for-help attempts that aren't actually intended to be successful. You confront someone like this about their actions and they tend to break down and tell you they've been thinking about ending it. Because they acknowledge it, it's easier to address it and get the person help.
The second path is the one that gets looked over: someone who engages in reckless or self destructive behavior, uncaring for their own life or welcoming of death as a possible outcome. Rather than a planned attempt, this tends to be a pattern of impulsive behavior. Someone not committed to remaining amongst the living, but rather than end it, would rather roll a dice and let a higher power make a call. Suicide by cop, provoking fights, reckless driving, alcoholism, wasting (i.e. someone who just stops eating). This is the one that generally gets attributed to men. You confront someone like this about their actions and they will tell you that they aren't suicidal. I think the reason this one gets associated with men is due to the attitude of 'boys will be boys' that allows the people in men's lives to shrug off fighting and driving too fast as testosterone induced risk taking rather than a sign of depression, so the person does not get help.
Hannibal falls on that second path.
I really think that he believes that he should have died with Mischa in the Lithuanian winter, and that all his life after that is a drawn-out epilogue to a story that should have ended already.
This right here would explain how he can be so carefree with death; His own death and the deaths of others. The game already ended. He's just messing around with bonus content after the ending. None of it matters because he never expected to get this far.
It makes me want to go back and review all of his conversations about god and consider how they may fit into this theory.
And you're right, just because he made it further than he expected doesn't mean he's just going to lay down die. The man who goes speeding at night, taking turns too fast, is still holding tight to the wheel and steering the car. It's a very indirect sort of suicide to put yourself in danger and then fight your way through it.
There's massive whump potential here.
Consider how impulsive he is in Florence, after Mizumono:
There's a lot of stuff happening in Florence that reads of depression, but we don't talk about how these impulsive actions are part of that. These scenes are fun. They present a luxurious lifestyle. A viewer's first thought is not going to be about how an impulsive kill and increased risk of being caught shows how little Hannibal values his own life at that point.
Some extra angst for thought:
Will would be the one to figure it out first that what we're seeing is suicidal behavior.
romaincrisis
