September, 1983. Will is a miserable graduate student studying forensic psychology. Unable to afford an apartment, he lives with his meddling thesis advisor (Chilton) and does housework instead of paying rent. As his sanity deteriorates, the Ripper, the Tooth Fairy, and his own dark history begin to blur. Meanwhile, Alana’s new suitor, an overly friendly surgical resident, refuses to leave him alone…
(1980s AU. Dark!Will figures out that the Shrike copycat is the Chesapeake Ripper. Surgeon!Hannibal plans to kill him. All the serial killers are obsessed with Will. References to obscure Greek mythology abound.)
Spoilers:
This fic goes out to anyone who wanted Will to kill Freddie Lounds/Mason Verger, and anyone who wanted a dinner scene where a brain gets eaten. mwah <3
Chilton had a fiancee in Hannibal named Inelle. I love the character of Chilton and the thought of him having an ex-wife is funny to me. She definitely left him when she figured out he was gay.
The NYT plum torte recipe was famous in the 80s.
Freddie Lounds is a combination of Philip Seymour Hoffman's 2002 portrayal, the comically evil Mason Verger, and maybe a little Bunny from The Secret History. I love Chorostecki's version as well, but it didn't fit this story.
All articles and books included in the story are real and dated prior to 1983.
Psychology's understanding of empathy was limited in 1983. Mirror neurons were not discovered until the 90s. Hogan's Empathy Scale has been proven ineffective due to self-reporting bias but also includes some dubious questions such as "I prefer a shower to a tub bath," "I think I would like to belong to a singing club," and "I like to talk about sex." Incidentally, Robert Hogan taught at the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychology from 1967-1982. Heimlich's retirement soiree was partly inspired by him, as well as the Harvard criminal psychologist Will mentions in Red Dragon.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performed Brahms's Quartet in G along with Bach's Toccata and Fugue and Beethoven's Piano Con. #5 in September 1983 (Source). As a Bachian, Hannibal would have been more excited for the Toccata and Fugue, but it's only 10 minutes long and I only wanted to mention one composer.
I chose to have Hannibal live in Fell's Point instead of the fictional Chandler Square or the real Mount Vernon Square because I couldn't resist referencing Dr. Fell. I think it's rare for Fell's Point townhouses to have garages, but one was necessary for Hannibal's lifestyle. I took his floor plan from a real townhouse in the neighborhood that was most likely renovated within the last few years. Fell's Point has an interesting canning and shipbuilding history. It was just starting to become gentrified in the early 80s.
To me, De figuris Veneris (publicly available) represents academia's simultaneous fascination with and revulsion toward the erotic, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Will and Hannibal pretend to themselves that they are more rational than the characters in The Metamorphoses (which also used to be considered a naughty book). They are so sexually repressed, I wanted them to act as if they received their entire sexual education from this "manual."
Will reads Gregory Horace's translation of The Metamorphoses. Published in 1958, it was the most recent translation available at the time and is now publicly available on the Internet Archive.
The Walters Art Gallery became the Walters Art Museum in 2000. I've never been, but if I was the art director I would display all their Italian bronze statuettes in the same room, including their Hercules and the Dragon Ladon.
If you can believe it, Maryland didn't fully decriminalize gay sex until October, 2023. The effort to repeal the sodomy law began in 1970. Fifty-three years...dear lord. (x, x, x)
Watches are so important, not just because of the time metaphor, but as an 80s mens' status symbol lol. It's significant that Will doesn't have a watch at the beginning of the story. Back in Chapter 1, Chilton makes Will wear his watch so he won't embarrass him at the party, among other reasons, not understanding that it is worse for Will to wear something so expensive that doesn't match the rest of his clothes. The Omega Seamaster Calypso, released in 1981, falls a little short of its Rolex competitor, but is very flashy, very James Bond--appropriate for Chilton, not for Will. Now, in Chapter 20, Hannibal is sensitive to same problem. Will's clothes are all bespoke, but understated to match his style. The average person wouldn't recognize how expensive they are, but they would notice if Will suddenly started wearing a $1,000 watch, and there would be gossip. Hannibal's Zenith El Primero was just as reliable and expensive back then as it is today. Will's TimeX Expedition didn't come out until 1997, so it was split into two watches. Hannibal would want him to have something dressy for everyday use, hence the humble TimeX Marlin (fun fact: the Marlin was discontinued in the 60s, so Hannibal would have had to buy it second-hand). A separate watch would be needed for outdoor use, hence the military-style Hamilton Khaki Field. (From what I can tell, in the 80s, it was still rare to have a "luxury sports watch," the closest thing being very expensive military watches from WWII or diving watches like the Omega).
Chicken in Chaud-froid sauce from Larousse Gastronomique. Had Will allowed it, Hannibal would have used the three-tiered plating on page four: a presentation fit for an overbearing king who has horrible taste (imo). The meal they actually prepare is much simpler: a combination of ballotine de poularde en chaud-froid (sans chaud-froid) and this recipe. Gallantine (similar to ballotine) was used in the show (since the meat is so processed, it's useful for concealing organs). Opted for a pancetta skin instead of prosciutto because pancetta only takes two months to cure, and the "lamb" died two months before Chilton's dinner (Hannibal has more legs air curing in his meat cellar, but those won't be ready until later haha).
Ancient Greek/Roman depilatories (x, x, x, x). I researched this for so long and I still don't understand if psilothrum was used like a wax or a cream. I don't think it's documented that Hadrian used psilothrum on Antinous, but there's no proof that he didn't... (not me spreading misinformation).
Treatment for Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis. Again, this form of encephalitis was not documented in medical literature until 2007.
Arm port insertion. Peripheral IVs with internal catheters were introduced later in the 80s, so also slightly anachronistic, but PICC insertion is way more invasive than standard cannulation, and we're going for medical horror here, so I went with it.
Chest port insertion apparently became a thing in 1982, so it's not entirely anachronistic (but this is probably isn't the exact procedure that would be used for plasmapheresis... oh well!)
Plasmapheresis
Urinary Catheter Insertion (warning: pictures of a dummy)
Neural mechanisms and circuitry of the pair bond. I don't think there were that many studies on prairie voles back in the 80s, but the thought of Hannibal reading scientific papers in order to figure out how to get Will to like him was too precious. :'( His big evil plan was... to cuddle... oh my heart.
I took a line from Italian Wikipedia's article on Piazzale Michelangelo.
The Lungarni are the streets running parallel to the Arno River in Florence.
Bernini's Saint Lawrence (San Lorenzo) at the Uffizi Gallery. I took more Italian from Wikipedia.
Tests for catatonia/echopraxia
Pigeon with Carrots starter
Coratella con Carciofi
San Lorenzo's final words
Bernini and Michelangelo
Famous Bernini thigh squeeze...
Black Mountain Rag played on piano. Now imagine it on harpsichord. (Black Mountain Rag was Will's song with Molly in Red Dragon)
Judith and Holofernes in the Sala dei Gigli. It was referenced briefly in Chapter 19 of Hannibal.
Hair shaft analysis for drug testing wasn't that advanced in the 80s, but it's cool so I wanted to include it anyway. I think the first sectional analysis was performed in 1989.
Wikipedia has many fantastic articles on Blake's poetry. I took a quote from Harold Bloom on A Poison Tree and the Clytie comparison and a quote from Northrop Frye from Ah! Sun-flower.
Not to be a major literature nerd, but Will's inner monologue ("...and time itself was like a river, flowing on an endless course...") is supposed to be a counterpoint to what Hannibal is always quoting ("everything must change, but nothing perishes"). Both quotes are from The Metamorphoses. Will is letting go of the past, accepting that time always moves forward, while Hannibal is always holding onto the past, trying to reverse his teacup. :(
"Will stood at the edge of a dark ocean, at the mercy of the moon, the breeze that beat upon him, and the waves that invited him. Foam curled around his feet and coiled like serpents around his ankles. Looking out at that black expanse, the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. He walked out into its sensuous embrace." <- entirely taken from the last page of The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
The Shermans were the family Dolarhyde would have killed next if he hadn't been caught in Red Dragon (they lived in Oklahoma instead of Pittsburg, though).
Paregoric was not a controlled substance until 1970 and was still available over the counter without a prescription in some states until the 90s.
Lily of Florence. Hannibal would have seen this flag hanging from the Palazzo Vecchio during his time in Italy.
The Salon of Lilies is where the directors of the Uffizi Museum and the Belle Arti Commission met at a joint session to argue if Hannibal (aka Dr. Fell) or one of their nephews should be the new curator for the Palazzo Capponi (Hannibal, Chapter 19): "The two committees were a contentious and prickly assembly--for years they could not even agree on a venue, neither side willing to meet in the other's offices. They met instead in the magnificent Salon of Lilies in the Palazzo Vecchio, each member believing the beautiful room suitable to his own eminence and distinction. Once established there, they refused to meet anywhere else, even though the Palazzo Vecchio was undergoing one of its thousand restorations, with scaffolding and drop cloths and machinery underfoot."
I couldn't help lifting from the Red Dragon dinner scene.
Mason Verger was a member of the board of the Baltimore Philharmonic. He says in Hannibal that he never attended any BSO events, but that would be a plausible way for them to meet in a world where Hannibal never became a therapist. I thought about adding him to the dinner scene, but he doesn't really have a place in this story.
Benjamin Raspail (the original Franklin Froidevaux) was gay and hooked up with James Gumb in the books. John's line about his playing doesn't hit as hard in the movie because Raspail was still "listed as a missing person." The line is darker here, but follows period-typical attitudes about queer death.
Hannibal's special interest in Florence is because he's half Italian. From Hannibal, Chapter 21: "Dr. Lecter believed, from fragmentary family records, that he was descended from a certain Giuliano Bevisangue, a fearsome twelfth-century figure in Tuscany, and from the Machiavelli as well as the Visconti. This [the Palazzo Vecchio] was the ideal place for research. While he had a certain abstract curiosity about the matter, it was not ego-related. Dr. Lecter does not require conventional reinforcement. His ego, like his intelligence quota, and the degree of his rationality, is not measurable by conventional means." Guiliano Bevisangue is fictional. The name Bevisangue roughly means "blood-drinker" in Italian. Later: "He delighted in the writing style of Neri Capponi, banker and emissary to Venice in the fifteenth century, and read his letters, aloud from time to time, for his own pleasure late into the night."
Autoimmune encephalitis was not discovered until 2007, so Hannibal's knowledge is anachronistic.
The Woolly Bugger fishing fly was invented by Russell Blessing in 1967 and was popularized in 1984 when an article was published about it in a fly fishing magazine. Now it's one of the most popular fishing flies of all time.
For Hannibal's letter, I quoted The Complete Poems of Michelangelo, Sonnet 89, translated by Joseph Tusiani, but Hannibal would have translated it himself. He flips the pronouns in the English version. The homoeroticism of the poem might not have been obvious if Hannibal was reading an older Italian edition without context. For more info see "Michelangelo and Tommaso Cavalieri: The Dual Nature of Love and Desire" by Isaak Loewen (2020).
Identifying typewriter make and model based on a letter was almost impossible after many companies began sourcing their typeface from the same manufacturers in the 60s-70s. The terminology Will uses ("alignment" and "off-foot") comes from the SWGDOC Standard for the Examination of Typewritten Items. Off-foot means the character prints unevenly.
