A collection of Hannibal analysis/meta. I don't agree with some of these, especially the last one, I would still like to archive these writing pieces.

A nice little collection on articles which are good interpretations, I don't agree with some that was written in the articles but they are interesting.

Well written and I agree with most of what was said (because I'm the MOST important person)

Very very interesting and made me uncomfortable because I relate to Hannibal so much (I'm not a cannibal guys), in the compulsion/weird relationship with food sense.

He's not a pyscopath, if I hear one more person say this I will delete all social media and just go to school.

What the hell is worng with them?

Also this... Will's Touch Issues - Physicality in Hannibal

He's starved for touch but hates touch.

The comments on this post are also good.

I don't know if the show is really this deep but it's a cool writing piece.

In many ways Will is so much more complicated than Hannibal in that even he doesn't understand himself.

Reblogs of various meta and commentary.

A meta on if Hannigram is abusive, purged from Tumblr lol

HANNIBAL AND WILL: PAS DE MORT


Think of the ballet Swan Lake. Enchanted princess, young prince, lots of pas de deux - the ardent lover and his object of desire, spelling out the particulars of their universals in a flowing duet. That’s what comes to mind with Swan Lake, right, the princess and the prince and how they dance together.

That ballet has plenty of another kind of duet, though - a fundamentally different kind of courtship, where the evil sorcerer and the princess dance together, even though what the princess wants is a non-avian lifestyle as far away from him as possible. It’s the dance where he terrorizes her, holds her prisoner, inflicts pain and disfigurement - oh but swans are pretty! - oh but would you like to be turned into one? against your will?
And now seque to Will. The dance at the center of the Hannibal series is this latter pas de deux, where Hannibal Lecter, serial murderer and vicious psychopath, does his utmost to tango with his moral opposite – the compassionate, fenceless, guileless, hyper-empathic and just plain decent FBI investigator Will Graham. Hannibal the character works overtime to seduce his mark, and Hannibal the series works overtime to seduce the audience into approving of the process. The audience appears only too happy to oblige.
This would never happen with Swan Lake. We wouldn’t watch those sorcerer pas de deux, with the princess thrashing in the center of a vortex of hate, and go, “Such a charming rascal! Look at those bespoke wings!” or “You little shit! Always with the spellcasting, arencha?” We see the sorcerer for who he is. But with Lecter, the audience can’t justify him fast enough. He loves Will so much! - even though he hurts, terrorizes, endangers, sabotages, isolates and lies to Will, even though we see Will’s suffering grow with every turn of the screw, to the point of martyrdom - still, Hannibal loves Will, obviously, and obviously, his love somehow matters.
There are several other species of defense.
“But Hannibal is trying to help Will.”
“But Hannibal is trying to create a better Will.”
“But Hannibal is lonely.”
“But Hannibal can’t help it.”
“But Hannibal just wants them to be friends.”
These ideas are so sweet in their optimism, in their unwavering belief that psychopathic abusers are like the rest of us, in the basic software and hardware design, just rougher around the edges.
Here is how it actually works. Hannibal’s true food comes in three forms:
Control. Being in the position of power over another person is his most basic requirement.
2. Torture. Inflicting and observing pain is his requirement when being in control is no longer satisfying.
3. Death. Destroying the other person completely is his requirement when inflicting and observing pain is no longer satisfying.
“Oh, but Hannibal just really wants to get close to Will!” Yes. He does, but not for the reasons you think. First, Hannibal is drawn to Will, because anyone with half a brain would be. Will is exceptionally talented, and he is a good, kind person. This combination is rare. Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, Will’s students, the forensic science team are all drawn to Will. They all want some contact with him - some his friendship, some his love, some just to understand what goes on in his fascinating head.
But also, Hannibal is drawn to the best human qualities in Will - qualities that Hannibal himself will never possess. Will can’t help but show Hannibal to himself, expose the enormity of Hannibal’s lack and disfigurement. And Hannibal loves him for it? A vain control freak who believes himself better than the rest of humanity, and whose entire identity is built on this perceived superiority? That is even less likely than a serial killer who upcycles college girls, a serial killer who builds totems out of corpses, a serial killer who makes violin strings out of human intestines and a serial killer who turns people into gourmet meals, all active in the same country at the same time.
This is what Hannibal feels towards Will:
Envy. Will has something that Hannibal the Great, the Wealthy, the Artistic will never have. Hannibal envies Will the way we envy movie and television stars, only his envy is deeper and more existentially pressing.
Contempt. You can’t lie to a person about everything that matters, and somehow combine it with feelings of respect for that person. In order to treat people like prey, you have to see them as lesser than yourself. Everyone is lesser than Hannibal the Great, etc., and Will is still one of the unwashed, because no matter how extraordinary, Will simply isn’t Hannibal.
Hunger. What Hannibal wants is to consume Will. There is so much to Will as a person that he is not just a meal, he is an actual feast. Hannibal wants Will the way we want movie and television stars. They don’t exist for us as people. They are just pretty lights and colors, they are there to fulfill our needs, and then we turn them off when we are done.
This is the truth of Hannibal, what all his glamour, his small-batch, artisanal counterfeit humanity is generated to disguise: he derives sustenance from the destruction of fellow human beings, and he doesn’t actually see them as such. What we, the audience, mistake for Hannibal’s dull ache of loneliness is just sharp pangs of hunger.
What feeds Hannibal is control, torture and death. This is what he is visiting - or trying to visit - upon Will Graham. Gay little sex picnics among frolicking dogs, or even the simple and profound warmth of friendship are not and never were on Hannibal’s agenda. He can’t even conceive of closeness that does not entail him in full control of the other person, that doesn’t hold the infliction of any and all measures of violence on that person, in order to maintain this control, as totally necessary and permissible.
But even if he could? When Hannibal talks of wanting friendship to Bedelia Du Maurier, he is simply lying, to her and possibly to himself. Will Graham - nerdy teacher who rescues dogs, and buys his clothes at Walmart, and hates staff meetings and any kind of parties, who is highly intelligent and can see humanity even in a feral killer with a zombie skin condition, who can fix boat engines if called upon to do so, and will probably do it for free and then flee home where he won’t feel overwhelmed by your gratitude - Will Graham is none of those things to Hannibal. The truth is crass and ugly. No amount of artful garnish will make it different. To Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham is a thing. Will Graham is food.
Why can’t we see it? Why does the glamour work so well? Maybe the only reason we see the Swan Lake sorcerer so clearly is that he is well past needing to bother with a disguise. Maybe when the princess first met him, he was charming and witty, and kept his dark wings folded under something stylish in pastel colors. Maybe he brought her breakfast, and did her favours, and promised to keep her from harm. Maybe he sat in his lair, shivering with hunger and rage, and she saw it through a window and mistook it for sadness. Maybe the Not-Yet-Swan Princess danced with someone she trusted. Maybe he was her therapist.