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[–]LyriumFlower 38 points39 points  (5 children)

That's exactly what it means. Hannibal is taking responsibility and ownership of what he is. Starling/Bedelia are cautioned to stop searching for someone else to blame in his past - some awful trauma made him turn out that way. He calls this moral dignity pants because it's a way to cover up the cognitive dissonance between admiring him and being appalled by his actions.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Even though thomas harris regrets writing hannibal rising, we do get a glimpse of hannibal's past and I think it gives some doubt to what he claims (s3 covers it a little bit but dismissed it, fuller probably went with what hannibal says with the quote and stuck with it)

[–]Correct_Run4999 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Why did harris regret writing rising? Never read any of the books

[–]Sad6But6Rad6 8 points9 points  (1 child)

he was forced to write it by his publisher and he hated it because it gave a tragic backstory to hannibal, making it seem like he is just like any other killer, a twisted product of extreme trauma, as opposed to the perfect born psychopath that the other books present him as. it takes away lots of the ineffable and compelling nature of his character

[–]bessamer-conveter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actually I'd love to know what other people think: do we prefer insights into Hannibal's background a la Fuller or the complete unknowingness Harris aimed for?

[–]Jonas_Kahnwalld -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Exactly

[–]LyriumFlower 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I haven't read the books so I can't comment on the content.

However, in the show, Hannibal is not denying his past happened. I think we can safely assume Mischa existed and was cannibalised. We can assume he had a huge trauma in his past but the point of his objection is that he doesn't assign himself a diagnosis. He is assuming agency and free will in his choices. He saying whatever happened to me in the past is not the reason why I'm the way I am, I am what I am because of my own choices and agency. He's never going to give up his power to anything else.

Bedelia attributes her murder to Hannibal's influence for example. He's differentiating himself from that.

[–]Chief_Mourner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ive always loved the thought that Hannibal was born the way he is. Sure his tragic past probably gave him his taste for flesh and his ideology behind that, but i'd like to think he'd still be a killer even if his childhood was perfect.

[–]Viclmol81I let you know me. See me. 3 points4 points  (6 children)

I dont know the intention in the show but when I read the books many years ago, I always thought that Hannibal was the product of the evils that had happened to him but because the effect of such trauma was on him at such a young age that he never knew himself as having any other thoughts and so saw it as innate behaviour. He tried to make sense of it, understand it and control it, becoming a psychiatrist, and in doing so came to the conclusion he is just evil and so paradoxically became 'the devil'.

I guess we will never know how he would have turned out if the events of his childhood had been different.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I still have to read Rising, but I can see what bedelia meant when she said something along the lines of "what happened to you was beyond your ability to comprehend or control".

From all I've gathered through books and series, he was a well-mannered, disciplined and goal-driven person. If we put his god-like powers asides, I don't think he has ever had the DNA of an ill person. He's put a wall with fancy suits and manners where people can't see that he doesn't consider eating (rude or plain evil) people cannibalism as they're not equals.

He's such a complex character, it's a shame it ended. Or maybe it's to us to imagine.

[–]LyriumFlower 3 points4 points  (4 children)

That's exactly what he wants to reject. That line of thought is what Bedelia and Clarice, presumably, are also taking up by thinking about his past and how those circumstances turned him out. That's the moral dignity pants. They like him, he does horrible things they don't like. So to justify their like, they use his past to humanise him. He was abused and so he's fucked up. Those are the dignity pants he rejects. "No you are not allowed to pity my past to explain your cognitive dissonance. I like killing because I can make it into art and you love it."

[–]Viclmol81I let you know me. See me. 0 points1 point  (2 children)

So do you think he is actually inherently evil or that he just wants to beleive that? Maybe he doesnt want to feel weak in any way or be pitied, he wants to be respected for his omnipotence, and this is why he refuses to entertain the idea of his trauma making him what he became

[–]LyriumFlower 17 points18 points  (1 child)

What is evil?

That question is at the heart of Hannibal's philosophy. Is a storm evil? Is a shark? Is God evil when he collapses a church rooftop on top of his most devoted?

Or is simply a question of what is the subject's nature?

Hannibal is, first of all not a real person. He's a character who represents an idea in a story. And in my opinion, he's supposed to represent the entire gamut of humanity as a whole.

Like humans, he carries out unimaginable cruelty for his pleasure. Like us he causes the suffering of lesser creatures to benefit ourselves. We slaughter and kill livestock every day and cook them to perfection and eat them to celebrate life. We love passionately, each other and animals, and are capable of immense compassion. We create beautiful works of art and literature and philosophy, many times out of animal products or by exploiting each other. Why is one type of suffering less valuable than other types of suffering. Why is eating beef roast acceptable but not Gideon roast. Bryan Fuller is vegan and I think that motif is integral to Hannibal's character.

Hannibal displays all those characteristics - cruelty, compassion, love, creativity and self expression. It is his nature. If Hannibal is evil for following his nature, then so are we.

Will in this story is our perspective, in the beginning he struggles with understanding that he empathises so perfectly with serial killers because he is one in hiding. Hannibal makes him confront his own nature and accept it.

This isn't a message about glorifying serial killing, it's a message of digging into the truth of yourself and owning it despite socialisation urging you to repress that part of yourself. Again Bryan Fuller is a gay man and there's a good reason why Hannibal resonates strongly with the gay community.

[–]Viclmol81I let you know me. See me. 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow thank you. This is beautifully explained and I actually do remember having this philosophical debate inside my own head when reading the books all those years ago. You have just reopened my mind to it all.

It really is beautiful and clever isnt it.

[–]Alert-Wishbone9032 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps they do so to make sense of, and feel ok with the cognitive dissonance, but equally Hannibal can’t claim that the events of the past has had no impact on him and how he has developed into what he is now.

He may have always had a foundational mindset and moral fluidity, etc, and so the traumatic events of his past did not affect him as deeply or in the same manner that it would have for someone else, but to claim that they had no affect whatsoever, in any way, and to any extent, is being blind to himself.

We are all affected to some measure by the events that we go through, even if it is only that when we face a similar event in the future that we remember and choose to turn right instead of left this time.

It feels constructively right, however, the way in which he chooses to take full ownership over the active decisions that he makes and their consequences.

There are many who go through unpleasant experiences and choose their future actions to not be the outcome of knee jerk reactions or compensatory actions, as a result of those remembered bad experiences.

I think this is the more ideally healthy way of moving forward from a bad event, though it is difficult for many to disengage their sense of self from the event, and so their future choices and actions are always faded slightly with the remnants of how they brought the past events into their thinking and actions for their future.

[–]Circe_lover 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like to believe Hannibal was always meant to be what he is, just as is referred in that quote, but I also like to think that Mischa's death and how it occurred had an obvious way to guide how he would end up expressing this "monster" in him.

[–]Cockwombles -4 points-3 points  (10 children)

They were using ‘murder’ as a pseudonym for gayness, so it would be wrong to say it was caused by anything. Bryan Fuller has said he doesn’t like the original books idea that Margot was made a butch lesbian by rape so he changed all that.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (8 children)

Heh I don't think being gay is much related to this.. I get where you came from, but I think that being 'murderers' is more of a metaphor of being different, abnormal than just being gay

[–]Cockwombles -3 points-2 points  (7 children)

Feel free to think that, but also listen to Bryan Fuller speak for about 10 seconds about anything.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (6 children)

I understand that the show has heavy homosexual tension and themes, but it's not just that. And it falls under the category of "different\abnormal love". Hannibal's and Will's love are not just gay, they're manipulative, abusive, obsessive... you can't just say "it's just gay"

[–]Cockwombles 0 points1 point  (5 children)

I didn’t say ‘it’s just gay’.

The quote in question was changed, along with Margot from the book, because Hannibal/homosexuality is not made, it’s how people are born. Mads’ idea was also that Hannibal is not a victim of any tragic circumstance. It’s meant to be empowering. He is who he is.

[–]LyriumFlower 7 points8 points  (4 children)

I agree completely. Hannibal and Will's becoming is a metaphor that draws from Bryan Fuller's ideas of what homosexual repression feels like to a person especially one, who's grown up like Bryan did in a very different time where the acceptance most people born in the 21st century in the West encounter was much less prevalent.

It's a metaphor that basically says:

Imagine growing up believing that being gay is as much a 'sin' as murder. The horror and revulsion we feel when confronted by two men murdering for fun is the analogy of what it feels like when you have been socialised into thinking of homosexuality as a sin.

Society has told you, you mustn't do that. It's an evil unnatural act. You're evil just for contemplating it. But when you do it and are still relatable, then people try to find an explanation to bridge the gap between your morally reprehensible actions and your essentially human character: Something must have happened to you that made you this way. You must have a mental diagnosis. It was trauma surely. Why else would you be so fucked up?

And likewise for Will - he was Molly's sweet man, it was his loneliness that made him become susceptible to Hannibal's influence. Jack was an intimidating father figure who bullied and broke him. He had special broken mirror genes that caused him to want that.

Those are all moral dignity pants, basically. Society's way of trying to justify their nature. There has to be some explanation that takes away their agency and individualism. They're otherwise 'normal' productive men, and we recognise that but we also grapple with the fact that what they want is essentially evil. How else can someone we care about be so wrong?

But Hannibal is rejecting all of that with a giant fuck you.

He's all 'no bitch I am because I am and I will eat you.' You can admire me because I'm fabulous. Take off your dignity pants and bare your cognitive dissonance.

[–]Cockwombles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes exactly, profoundly and expertly said.

Hannibal as the character is always encouraging people to be themselves. He doesn’t even make people do anything himself, he just encourages their true nature.

I think it’s quite a personal and beautiful story from Fuller. He had a difficult and traumatic upbringing in a hard place to find yourself gay. All the feelings and images in the story are in some way a reflection of that.

I think the fact he took trauma and turned it into something beautiful like Hannibal the tv show is probably quite deep too. Hannibal would approve.

[–]crashworthcortex 0 points1 point  (2 children)

this is such an aptly worded explanation, i 100% agree with your analysis and love the way you described this. do you by chance write hannibal fanfic at all ? i would love to read your works. i feel like you've got a really great understanding for the chars

[–]LyriumFlower 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thank you! Such a nice feeling to get a shout out even on an old post. I'm afraid I have not written any fanfic but I've read a ton! There's excellent authors on Ao3 and would highly recommend the fandom for it's insanely good writing.

[–]crashworthcortex 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are there any particular fics that you thought had really good characterisation or handled post-fall hannigram/potential S4 well? Would love to hear any recs!

[–]Correct_Run4999 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Did you reply to the right thread, this doesn't seem to address anything OP was talking about Lol