Never see anyone talking about the Bluebeard wife line, which literally prompted Will to ask the iconic “is Hannibal in love with me?” so…Here’s my rant:

I think they might be going off the Charles Dickens’ short story “Captain Murderer”, in which the title character is described as “an offshoot of the Bluebeard family”. In this version of the story he cannibalises each wife shortly after marriage, baking her flesh in a huge meat pie. Then meets his demise after his sister-in-law, in revenge for the death of her sister, marries him and consumes a deadly poison just before he kills and eats her.

Interestingly enough I read a fic once where Bedelia did just that (consumed poison to poison Hannibal).

Hannibal is obviously the Bluebeard figure. He seduces through elegance, intellect, refinement, but there’s a hidden room full of corpses. He invites people close, but if they truly know him, they risk destruction.

Bedelia, in saying she’d prefer to be the last wife, implies she knows Hannibal’s truth but wishes to be the one who survives him, or even transforms the tale by making herself the final chapter.

Bedelia’s line about Bluebeard is not mockery, but a deep, fatalistic admission. She knows her role in Hannibal’s opera. She sees Will stepping into the final act and she challenges him with that. Her line pushes Will into the unbearable question: If I’m the one Hannibal loves, then what does that make me?

In hearing Bedelia position herself as the “last,” Will subconsciously wonders: Am I the one who came before the end? Or am I the end itself?

And the only way to answer that… is to ask:

“Is he in love with me?”

Because if Hannibal is truly in love with Will and not just fascinated, not just manipulating, then Will is no longer a piece on the chessboard. He’s the axis of Hannibal’s desire.