this is a sideblog & im tempted to move this acct to a new main blog bc its hard to have mutuals and interact w ppl & do stuff w a sideblog... hmmmmmmm
I saw another post mentioning this, but I think Hannibal would have eventually killed Abigail regardless of the events of Mizumono. That's not to say I think Hannibal didn't love Abigail, but his possessiveness over Will would not allow another person being so close to Will's heart. It's possible even Hannibal wasn’t aware of this, as he always seems a little taken aback by how unhinged he is over Will, (subtly thank you Mads for your performance).
We've seen Hannibal, normally so calm and collected, unaffected and borderline omniscient, sabotage his own plans, make sloppy and rash decisions that make him look extremely suspicious, and drop his carefully crafted person suit all because Will makes him crazy. There's no way he'd be content sharing Will's love with someone else, even their own daughter.
Hannibal would murder Abigail, and it could've been even more heartbreaking than what canonically went down.
the sexiest line delivery in hannibal was actually hugh dancy maniacally saying «wind him up, and watch him go» as the realization of who hannibal truly is comes crushing down and absolutely destroys what little sanity he has left
another thing about hannibal i adore is that there's only 3 seasons, 39 episodes, yet there are ENDLESS things to talk about. and analyze. and realize. its incredible.
in other shows i watch that have over 3 seasons, over 7 seasons, over 10 seasons, even! theres not NEARLY as much to see. and thats not a dig at other shows because thats fine and normal, but the thing that makes hannibal so good is that every. single. second. counts. they make the absolute most of every second of every clip of every minute of every 45 minute episode of every 13 episodes of every 3 seasons. i just love it. i am so in love with this show
I always had a hard time understanding why Jake shows any measure of trust in Will after him tells to his face that he wishes he had ran away with Hannibal (twice), but I think that at, long last, during this rewatch it dawned on me the reason why.
Because you see, Jack understands the appeal of this relationship for Hannibal. I think he's very insightful when he talks with Pazzi about it, about how Will is able to understand and accept Hannibal.
But I don't think that Jack believes that Will's desire to be with Hannibal is genuine. I think he believes that this is a byproduct of Will's empathy being off the charts, and that he is confusing Hannibal's desires with his own.
He tells him as much, during Tome-Wan:
And when he's talking with Pazzi, he also tells him that he "broke" Will's imagination.
And in Dolce, when Will tells him part of him will always wants to be with Hannibal, he just tells him to cut it out.
I think this is why during the Red Dragon arc Jack still looks for Will's help. While I think by that time neither one of them is interested in their friendship anymore and their relationship is purely professional (even a hostile professional relationship at times), I think Jack still believes he can trust Will and use Will's imagination with moderation, since Hannibal is behind bars now, and because Will has a family now - therefore a more stable, grounded life.
Maybe he thinks Will finally shook off Hannibal's influence enough to move on with his life, and when Hannibal tries to have Will's family killed I think he believes he can trust that Will will finally be willing to permanently remove Hannibal from his life by killing him.
It is, of course, a very risky gamble. A gamble he loses, and one he pays for, dearly.
As a member of the audience, it may look for us like Jack is being too trusting and too naive, but I think it's fair to remember that Will has kept a LOT from him. There's so much Jack doesn't know about his relationship with Hannibal.
Jack likely doesn't know that Will willingly (even gleefully) partook in cannibalism with Randall Tier's organs in order to fool Hannibal that he had killed Freddie Lounds. He never heard Will telling Hannibal how much he enjoyed killing Hobbs and Tier, never saw their conversations by the fire. He never saw the way Will speaks with Chiyoh and what he does to her and the prisioner, and he never saw the way he threatens Bedelia.
He never saw the look on Will's face when Hannibal snapped Mason Verger's neck.
He doesn't know that Will was worried if Hannibal could ever be happy while in prison. He didn't see the torn expression in his face when Hannibal didn't give him a fully positive answer.
Most of all, he doesn't know that, after the events of Mizumono, when Will fantasizes about a better world, he thinks about a world where he had chosen Hannibal sooner and had chose to go along and murder Jack with him.
Jack's perception of Will and Hannibal's relationship is distorted by how little he knows about how things really are beetween these two.
And I think Jack doesn't want to believe in Will has such a darker side on his own, because Jack is not the kind of guy who likes to be this wrong. During Will's trial, he struggles with the idea of having been that wrong about him, that his instincts where so wrong. And since the first season Jack has a habit of choosing to believe in the version of events that will better suit him, not matter how likely or unlikely they are.
The idea that after how much he stood by him, that how much he bled and suffered by plotting with Will at the end of season two, that Will has the capacity for so much violence and darkness is something he doesn't want to accept. Easier to see Will as someone who was broken and damaged, maybe beyond repair during the epic struggles Jack has with Hannibal in the course of the seasons than to believe this.
Alana tried to warn him as early as the end of season two that he didn't know any of those men, and if he forced the issue, he was bound to lose.
I think that, during a potential season four, Jack would only realize the colossal weight of his mistake in trusting Will to handle the plan with Hannibal's "fake" escape only when they had proof that Hannibal was still alive and Will had joined then, or when Bedelia showed up sans one leg.
But still, even with the ending that we got in the third season, Jack's decision to close his eyes to Will's darkness and genuine feelings for Hannibal ends up making Jack lose very, very badly.
when will released the prisoner and put chiyoh in a position where she either had to defend herself with violence or die, he literally just did the same thing to her that hannibal did to him with gjh, but on the train in the beginning of contorno, he frames his manipulation as relieving her from her “distress” — her distress being, when it’s broken down, spending her days in silent, non violent judgment of the man who killed mischa. he frames his actions as positive just like hannibal does. hannibal wished to relieve will of his own distress of never fulfilling his darker urges to pass judgment on the killers that he caught. at the root of it, will’s distress came not from hannibal’s action but from the moral cognitive dissonance between justice and violence. chiyoh forces him to realize this later when she remains firmly grounded in her morals about violence. she is not like him, “malleable” like him, even though he did to her what hannibal did to him. will can’t blame hannibal for his own faulty moral grounding that existed before he even knew him. the fear of “becoming” hannibal isn’t just about a lust for violence, but about the entire framework of how they both view violence, how they judge people by their own moral codes, and how they both feel compelled to manipulate those around them into feeling the same way — and into participation.
would anyone care if i posted a really long analysis of how hannibal's sheldon isley tableau in futamono relates to hanahaki disease which really just spirals into an analysis of how i think hannibal feels about will's attempted murder by proxy and why he chose to make it known that will was not the chesapeake ripper & basically free him from prison in that same episode..... and related things that happen in season 2b concerning hannibal guiding will to his becoming
Okay, so I thought of this the moment I laid eyes on Hannibal's Sheldon Isley flower tree tableau for the first time, and I honestly thought the connection to Hanahaki disease was so obvious that I expected it to be mentioned in the episode, but it never was. I've tried to find if other people have posted about this to no avail (though I severely doubt I am the only one who thought this), so I thought I would make a post about it myself!
Warning: my media literacy & analysis skills are severely underdeveloped, so forgive me if I say anything dumb, wrong, obvious, or if this is just completely incoherent, lol.
WHAT IS HANAHAKI DISEASE?
If you don't know what Hanahaki disease is, it is a fictional disease popularized by a 2009 Japanese manga "Hanahaki Otome" in which a character who is suffering unrequited love coughs up flowers growing from their lungs until it progresses far enough and they die, or their unrequited love turns requited and they are cured.
THE TIMING:
The Sheldon Isley flower tree tableau comes at the beginning of Futamono, almost directly after Hannibal is nearly killed by Matthew Brown (and Will, by proxy) at the end of Mukozuke.
Now, it is made clear in Futamono that Hannibal had been working on Isley's tableau for a while. He was growing specific flowers, it took time to sew him into the tree, he was placed in water with the tree 48 to 72 hours before he died, probably to feed the tree. This made me doubt the Hanahaki connection, as Hannibal had been working on this for probable weeks before Will tried to kill him.
However, at the beginning of the episode, Hannibal is shown in his kitchen talking to Alana while chopping up & skewering a heart (and says "My heart certainly feels skewered"). During this, he states: "Stravinsky said a true composer thinks about his unfinished work the whole time. He's not always conscious of this, but he's aware of it when he suddenly knows what to do."
Will's betrayal (I am hesitant to use this word, but I'll come back to it later) inspired Hannibal to finish and display his unfinished work: Sheldon Isley.
WHY HANAHAKI? PHYSICAL ASPECTS:
Sheldon Isley's body was not only hung on a cherry blossom tree, but the roots and branches were sewn throughout his entire body. Through his heels and out his fingertips. He is bound to his fate, much like Hannibal and Will have become so intertwined in each others' lives and minds, their fates are bound together as well. The fact that the tree is a cherry blossom tree is also significant, as this is a tree that flourishes in Japan, is heavily associated with Japan, and also because many depictions of Hanahaki disease use cherry blossoms as the flowers the victim coughs up.
Sheldon Isley was also drowned, which is another connection to Hanahaki disease. Although he didn't actually die from choking on flowers that were growing in his lungs, he did die from choking on the water that was likely growing the same tree he would be bound to, and the flowers that would replace his organs in Hannibal's tableau.
Additionally, Hannibal took every one of Isley's organs except for his lungs, yet another connection to Hanahaki disease's respiratory nature. Also, kind of ironic, since Isley died from drowning, and his lungs that betrayed him were the only organ he got to keep.
So, from the cherry blossom tree, the flowers replacing all of his organs but his lungs, the fact that he was drowned, and because Hannibal displayed him directly after Will tried to kill him, I feel the possibility that Sheldon Isley's tableau was a reference to Hanahaki disease is quite clear.
But why? The whole foundation of Hanahaki disease is unrequited love. Does Hannibal feel that Will's attempted murder of him is so heartbreaking? Or is there more? I definitely think so. Hannibal follows many different trains of thought at once, after all. I don't think it's plausible that Hannibal was only feeling rejection from Will because of his attempted murder of Hannibal. It's more than that.
WHY HANAHAKI? EMOTIONAL ASPECTS:
I have heavy doubts about how much Hannibal considers Will's "betrayal" (attempting to have Hannibal killed) a betrayal. We know how Hannibal acts when he has been betrayed. He killed Abigail in Mizumono after Will lied to him about his motivations in season 2b. He tried to cut Will's skull open and eat his brain in Dolce after Will pulled a knife on him in the Uffizi gallery (and also because Bedelia convinced him he had to eat Will, but I digress), for gods sake. This.. isn't that. The worst he does in retaliation to Will's attempted murder by proxy is send Randall Tier to kill him in Shiizakana, and I feel like that was barely malicious by Hannibal's standards; it was just another situation to put Will in to drag him even closer to his Becoming. For this reason, I don't think Hannibal was truly feeling heartbreak or rejection just because Will tried to have him killed.
I also have doubts about what he says in regard to Will's actions. I'm still not entirely sure, though, because it's still hard to tell when he's spouting half-truths or just outright lies, lol. He outwardly maintains an air of heartbreak and.. almost grief? afterwards. He tells Jack "I can't help Will. I can't trust him." And after Jack says "He's in a dark place where the shadows move and it's not safe to stand with him anymore," Hannibal replies, "I feel the same way." Hannibal's tone while saying this was sad, probably to manipulate Jack, but on the inside, I think Hannibal could be proud that he can't trust or help will anymore, at least not the same way as before. He's advanced to the next stage of his Becoming. He is happy that Will is in the dark place with the shadows. Will has finally become his equal.. or something close to it, as Hannibal says later, when he visits Will in the BSHCI, "I think you're more in control than you have ever been." He also tells him that "If I was Beverly's murderer, I'd applaud your effort." So, does Hannibal see Will trying to kill him as a betrayal, or a triumph because Will is one step closer to his Becoming? Again, I suspect he is likely following both of those trains of thought at once.
Again, I mention this because the entire foundation of Hanahaki disease is unrequited love. If Hannibal fully considers Will's attempted murder a betrayal, that would lead to Hannibal realizing that Will does not love him, and therefore Sheldon Isley's tableau being a reference to Hanahaki disease fits perfectly. However, as we know, Hannibal is much more complicated than that, and on whatever level he is hurt by what Will did, he is probably equally, if not more, proud of Will for cultivating his urges that he suppressed for so long as the inspirations they are and acting on them.
This leads me to my.. tentative belief that Hannibal's Isley tableau is, in fact, in reference to Hanahaki disease, but not simply because Will tried to kill him. He realizes his love is unrequited because Will is truly angry with him, and Will does not realize that Hannibal is the one that has led him to his Becoming. Will does not even realize that he is Becoming. Throughout the entirety of Hannibal, Hannibal's one goal is to lead Will to his Becoming, to get Will to see the beauty in Becoming. Will's attempted murder of Hannibal, although Hannibal applauds his effort, although Will is finally succumbing to his urges, is not his true Becoming yet because Will still doesn't see the beauty in it. And he was hiding behind the gun, as Hannibal says later. And that is why Hannibal feels his love is unrequited. That is why his heart feels skewered.
Not because Will tried to kill him, but because he didn't see the beauty of it, of his imminent Becoming. It was uninspired. It lacked the intimacy that it deserved.
And so, Sheldon Isley's tableau is a display of Hannibal's realization of Will's resistance to see the beauty of his becoming. Hannibal's love, which he shows through manipulating Will to his Becoming, is not returned by Will, or at least not in the same way. Because of this, I believe, Hannibal decides to change his tactics. Or, maybe, he planned this out, and this is the point where he planned to change his tactics.
THE FOLLOWING EPISODES:
Either way, at the end of Futamono, Hannibal takes Gideon from his hospital bed, kills the guard, and strings them up with flies with human remains of Will's alleged victims in them, effectively proving that Will Graham is not the Chesapeake Ripper and absolving him of his crimes and freeing him from the BSHCI. As I mentioned, I believe Hannibal decided to do this at this specific point because he realized Will had taken a step closer to Becoming... by being more in control than he had ever been. He adapted, evolved, became. Now, Hannibal believes is time to bring Will to his final, true Becoming.
In the following episodes, we see Hannibal lead Will to what Hannibal believes is Will's imminent Becoming. Despite the fact that Will was playing both sides, I do agree that he was Becoming, to a point, nonetheless (but his lies were a true betrayal, no matter how caught up he did or did not get in the killing, and Hannibal made sure he knew that in Mizumono). In the episode directly following Futamono, Yakimono, Will nearly kills Hannibal in his kitchen with a gun, but Hannibal talks his way out of it. In the next episode, Suzukana, Hannibal stops will from killing the social worker with a gun, but praises him for his attempt anyway. In this episode, Will and Hannibal have the "hiding behind the gun" talk where Will realizes that he has not been intimate with his instincts.
They are also depicted having this conversation both sitting on the same level, on Hannibal's desk, aligning with the two windows in Hannibal's office, which I feel gave the impression of Will and Hannibal finally being equals.
In the next episodes, Shiizakana/Naka-Choko, Will finally kills Randall Tier. He throws his shotgun to the side after Tier bursts through his window and snaps Tier's neck with his bare hands. Then, he displays his body in a tableau at the Natural History museum. The symmetry of Hannibal's payback for Will's attempted murder-by-proxy that was his almost-not-really-Becoming being to attempt to murder Will by proxy through Tier, whom was the catalyst for wills Actual Becoming is very poetic to me! Not to mention the line that Will's imagined Randall Tier says in the episode: "This is my becoming... and it is yours." Chills!!
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