hannibalcrackers:
Eat your fucking heart out Emmy’s.
This bit
Broke me
Because Mads made Hannibal seem suddenly so HUMAN again after how Hannibal had acted like even more of a monster than usual these past few episodes
And I was literally the opposite of ready for that
I’d started to pretty much give up hope for him and then WHAM, this scene happened
Hannibal looks so vulnerable
He pauses for breath, he purses his lips, he swallows and looks down
I would be tempted to assume that he is just pretending but
This is his psychiatrist
He could have chosen to never talk about Will as much as he does
But instead he chooses to act like this as he reflects on him, slowly, carefully, as if trying not to scare away his own thoughts
And that makes my heart shatter because it makes it seem like he genuinely thinks what he’s doing is going to help Will to become his friend, help him grow more into Hannibals’ persona (he did say he sees himself in Will)
That isolating him from his colleagues and turning him into a murderer in other people’s eyes will bring him closer to Hannibal himself
Because if Will had to, say, be on the run, the only person he will be able to trust and be around without fear is Hannibal
Not just because Hannibal himself is a psychopathic serial killer (as Will doesn’t know that yet) but also because Hannibal is his psychiatrist and he has told Will repeatedly that he is his friend, so Will will believe that if anyone is likely to listen to him and believe him when he says he’s not a murderer, it’s Hannibal
And Hannibal, well, he thinks he’s making a friend
He’s doing it in a destructive, horrible, manipulative way and he has to be stopped, for Will’s sake
But I still feel sorry for Hannibal because, perhaps for the first time, he wants someone to belong only to him, wants them to cut ties with the rest of their world and their life and be only HIS friend, to know all his secrets and climb over all his walls, to know exactly who he is
And he’s found a person who can do that; Will, who has perfect empathy (which Hannibal considers beautiful) and can understand him to the point of clinical precision and see the world from his point of view (which is important for Hannibal; he sees Will’s cocktail of disorders as a guarantee of being understood, he’s almost allowed himself to dare to hope that there is someone definitely, finally capable of understanding all he is)
And he’s trying so desperately, dangerously hard to get what he wants that instead he’s destroying the person he’s going after and he doesn’t know if he even cares because he’s fascinated even by that aspect of Will, his brilliant criminal mind is snagged on this one man’s madness, on his descent and deterioration
Like he said, he’s not more interested in the madness than in the man
But it’s still interesting to him, maybe almost equally so, he can’t help being interested in it
And he’s a person of control, he’s always in control of everything, even his murders, his disease
But just this one boy is giving him trouble, refusing to be controlled, leaking, flowing like water, then solidifying and breaking in his hands and then burning so hot he burns Hannibal himself
And Hannibal loves it, it’s new and different and exhilarating and it’s all slowly working anyway, more slowly than he ever could have estimated, but it’s progressing and growing, Will’s being moulded and changed; Will begs him not to lie to him but as soon as Hannibal tells him there is no one there, Will stops actually seeing anyone because he trusts him subconsciously, unwillingly, instinctively, completely
And that gives Hannibal so much drive, he practically shows off in front of Gideon when Will starts having his seizure and Hannibal inspects him; Look what I can do, look how in power I am, look at how good of a friend I am, how I look after him
His touching of Will is possessive as well as medical, a mark of territory, an implication at the fact that ‘If you touch this boy, you will deal with me.’
But Will is still independent, still struggling to be, still holding slivers of his old self, so as soon as he wakes up he rushes to Alana’s rescue upon Hannibal’s suggestion
And Hannibal sent him there, of course, by suggesting that if Will’s killed Hobbs once, he could do it again
Sending him after Gideon was basically Hannibal’s little compensation for manipulating Will; he let him have the feverish satisfaction of ending the life of his hallucinogenic Hobbs and he allowed Will to look like a hero in Alana’s eyes
Of course, if Hannibal had not wanted any of that, or if he had thought Will would not be able to cope with Gideon, he never would have allowed him to leave the house, he never would have planted his car keys and the gun on the table and left the room to Will for even a second
He cares for him in this awful way of his, only allowing him to be broken as far as the final splinter, pulling him back from the last stretch in the nick of time, catching him before a final fall
It’s like a dark dance; he’s hurting him only as far as he knows he can cope, and then he steps back and watches him fade back in and then fade out again
It’s sort of a test of how much Will would be able to cope with living as Hannibal’s, the real, cannibal-Hannibal’s, friend too; would he be able to take the killing? The corpses? The crushing burden of it?
As Mads said, it’s clear Hannibal has a genuine love for Will; at least, whatever ‘genuine love’ is in Hannibal’s mind
And their relationship and the downwards spiral of it all is grotesque and nightmarish but mesmerising and beautiful and this show and these characters are slowly driving me insane.
If anyone actually read this far, you deserve a medal.
pistoletdefleurs 