Hello. I've had the pleasure to read your explanation of Will Graham's hallucinations and dreams about the stag. I was really dumbfounded and couldn't stop thinking about it. Like.. wow. I watched the first two episodes recently (i was initiating my friends into the show. Mission succeeded btw :3 ) and noticed that Will saw the stag before he's met Hannibal and saw his office. Doesn't that kinda ruin the explanation? Maybe I don't understand it properly and if that's the case, I apologize.
Apologies for the late response :) Thank you and yes it’s incredibly fantastic how they use symbolism and imagery to fuck with Will’s mind (poor Will though). Yay, glad to hear more and more are getting into the show- *sends hug for accomplishment* :D
I’ve been questioned this before and although I haven’t rewatched the episode in a while, I thought he saw the stag after he met Hannibal for the first time- roughly 31 minutes, 30 seconds in. I could be wrong so I’ll take your word for it seeing as you recently watched it, but I don’t think the stag is just his subconscious mind warning him about Hannibal. I think it’s also the manifestation of Garret Jacob Hobbs and all the other things that are slowly pushing him over the edge. I mean he even dreamt about the totem pole along with the ice cracking which, in my opinion, symbolises him cracking under all the pressure and the water indicating how he’s figuratively drowning amongst everything he’s dealing with. He know’s mentally (although it’s physical what with the encephalitis) there’s something wrong with him and the constant nagging of the Chesapeake ripper, along with what the crime scenes are doing to his sanity, is slowly breaking him.
The explanation’s quite broad but I like to focus on Hannibal being the main aspect to the symbolism of the Stag :)