Before the new season starts, DO YOU THINK ABIGAIL IS ALIVE?
I WANT TO BELIEVEEEEEEEEEEEE SO BADLY but honestly I have no idea. I have a feeling Hannibal really killed her because otherwise we’d either have a weird and equally tragic picasso-esque thing going on, or he’d have had to kill someone else and take their ear or use a prosthetic piece and I think he’d consider himself (and Will) above such rudeness?
But Abigail, oh gosh I just love her so so much - not to mention that Kacey Rohl is gorg - I desperately want to cling to her character because I find her so so interesting as a writer…but also thinking about the framework of the show (not having any background knowledge from the books), it makes sense for her to be dead, at least in a physical sense, since her death represents a turning point in the narrative holistically speaking, with Hannibal (who clearly cared for her at least to some extent in so far as her usefulness was concerned? …though I do think Mads once mentioned that he felt Hannibal’s feelings were genuine) unable to turn back from it. Her death parallels the death of his manipulation of Will, as it also became a turning point for Will himself in that it sort of shook him out of his paranoia and fear and back into lucidity long enough to realize the truth - which, ultimately is likely what Hannibal wanted at that point since he is so meticulous and deliberate with his personal choices, considering the easy elegance but also gravitas with which he conducts himself.
I think he was incredibly conscious of what Abigail’s death would mean for him and for Will (and even Alana and Jack), that it would rip the veil from his face into shreds, that it would bring him closer to the edge, to being found out, and thereby potentially his end. And he revels in the risk, the thrill. But at the same time I do think he regrets having to kill her a) because he sincerely apologizes to her beforehand, and b) because he saw unique potential in her as a friend/surrogate daughter, as a case study in a cognitive behavioral sense, as a killer, as someone who understands him without fearing him, even perhaps as someone who could, with the proper “nurturing” become his equal, and he had to knowingly sacrifice all of that. Plus knowing what it would do to/for Will.
Part of me thinks that he knew all along that he would kill her someday, that he was manipulating her right along with the rest of everyone, audience included, but on the other hand I think maybe he saw Abigail a bit similarly to how he sees Freddie Lounds, as a young woman full of her own hand-churned brand of ferocity that reaches down through gaping, sharp-toothed maws to churn the stomach with gut-clutching, spasmodic, imperial ascendancy, a woman who dominates every part of her being, who has an appetite whet with a retribution unknown to all except she who shall forge it, carved out of her oppression and her desire to conquer her own malaise towards it, a woman who sees the world through claret-colored glasses because roses and romance are sickening, a woman with a sharp gaze and mind and even sharper tongue that she never deigns to use for apologies, and all of it expertly concealed inside a personal masquerade she puts on for the unsuspecting masses while she cultivates her private mythologies, intricate and unfathomable. That’s how I see her anyway. Obviously, I’m really into the whole Persephone/Queen of the Underworld take on her character. (Also hooray for unintentional run-ons /sweatdrop)
So yeah, I’d really like to see more of Abigail, but if not, there’s no doubt that she’ll remain very much alive in the hearts of this incredible, wonderfully insane fandom.