What’s beautiful about Will’s therapy in season 2 is the dichotomy. Hannibal tries to make him connect with himself–his new self who has tried to murder Hannibal–via various thought exercises (re: close your eyes and imagine what you would have done; how does that make you feel?), and each one brings Will clarity, and this clarity is that, each time, he is actually fantasizing about killing Hannibal. There are times Hannibal knows Will imagines killing him; there are times when he doesn’t—but each time, every single time Hannibal wants Will to associate action and catharsis, he is imagining killing Hannibal Lecter inside his head. Hannibal wants Will to be violent, he wants Will to kill someone, he wants a partner. Ironically, the only person Will wants to kill is Hannibal, and that is hilariously beautiful. Ultimately, he’s able to bring out Will’s callousness and sharpest edges to meet the world, and ultimately, Will cannot kill Hannibal and it is his curse, and it’s great how things work out (not great for Will, of course).
When Hannibal is ‘kidnapped’ by Mason and hanged, and Will walks slowly in front of him like “well, well, well” 😭 comedy
I love all the ‘what if’ fics. I see season 2 though, and Will making more and more 'concessions’ for Hannibal, to get closer to him, to gain more of his trust. His recklessness caused Carlo’s death, and Mason’s mutilation. Still, he continues the game, still he steps over the line. What if Hannibal hadn’t smelled Freddie on Will, what if Will slipped down the slope even more, what if he went with him, and not as a complete person–he’s still indecisive, he’s curious, he is still extremely reckless. He thinks to himself, I can get out if I want to. I can catch him. I can, I will, definitely, but it never happens. He cannot do it. He grows even more miserable even as he finds euphoria. It isn’t sustainable, but it’s wild and romantic and unimaginable.
My headcanon is that Hannibal smells the dogs on Will during their first meeting and hence knows more about Will than he should know at first glance. It’s like a subtle power move; he has a silent one-up he never reveals to anybody and not does he need to, because he’s already subjugating Will through more nefarious means (provoking him in first conversation and making him commit murder during their second meeting<3)
The high school-ification of Beverly Katz in fics is really something; wdym her and Will talk like girls at the locker room about that guy Will’s flirting with but not committing to
Will never hiding the scar on his forehead, like this man never gave a fuck. Also crazy that the scar itself might not mean much to him compared to the ACT of Hannibal drugging him and trying to eat his brain, but to Hannibal, it means something entirely. He failed to eat him, and his mark is on Will. Him marking Will in any way is just another treasure for his hoard.
blushingcheeks:
a small but meaningful detail is that the priest can see a mind-made version of Abigail
which connects to the idea of ghosts or spirits being projections of our thoughts and feelings
Also a huge fan of Will’s mental impressions being tangible to a priest of all people. Will is either divine or devil adjacent, and the detail that Hannibal the devil is obsessed with him is perfect.
Thinking about petty Will telling Hannibal he doesn’t find him very interesting because he feels vulnerable against Hannibal’s provocations vs. Will telling Hannibal he finally finds him interesting because he’s feeling sarcastic and also as a manipulation to get on Hannibal’s better side. Hook, line, and sinker, but they’re both stupid and fell for each other’s charm.
Present age Will meeting Il Mostro era Hannibal and immediately clocking that the kid’s a little fucked in the head. Younger Hannibal who hasn’t had the time yet to discover his full potential and is even more susceptible to becoming obsessed over Will. Will who feels compassion for this devil incarnate. Hannibal who takes advantage of his kindness to try and bewitch him.
Feel like a lot of people misunderstand Will’s killer-catching skills–it’s not magic! He pieces together evidence, and for evidence to exist, an event needs to happen. He’s not looking at people’s eyes and magically knowing everything about them–he’s ACTIVELY looking for people based on the debris they’ve left behind. He can connect dots in ways no one else can, and add to it he’s very intuitive, so he’s always thinking as background noise to the point he dreams about them, and when the time comes, he can see a pattern everyone else is blind to. The reason he doesn’t realise Hannibal’s the ripper is because Hannibal’s not leaving anything behind, and Will has no reason/evidence to connect Hannibal with the Ripper. There’s also the fact that Will’s enamoured with Hannibal and Hannibal’s deliberately clouding his vision. Re: eye contact thing, I always interpreted it as him getting distracted and metabolising excessive information. There are of course numerous other interpretations, but one explanation that doesn’t make sense is magic! There’s method to his madness; he’s not houdini guys please
I love how resilient Will’s mind is. It’s truly his greatest asset—even when Hannibal was hammering away at it relentlessly, he didn’t disappear. He still pointed his finger at Hannibal. Imprisoned and left without any tools, he used his mind and managed to almost KILL Hannibal. Will’s constantly being put into vulnerable, hopeless circumstances, but he is never powerless because he’s him. I don’t think Hannibal underestimated him once even when he had him in the palm of his hand.
1960s (no homophobia) and Will has married into money (to Hannibal<3) and their luxurious Manhattan apartment in the Upper East Side (I’m not American) and everyone’s a LITTLE judgemental about him. Oh Will is so unusually handsome but he isn’t polite. He tries but it’s simply not good. How did Dr. Lecter, with his high standards, fall for him? It appears not even Dr. Lecter is immune to aesthetics. What does Will do for a living? He’s a private investigator, okay, perhaps he has interesting stories to tell. Nope. Sometimes he’s brazenly charming, you start to like him, but then the charm dials down and you wonder if you misinterpreted something. For some reason everyone’s eyes keep being drawn to him. Something about him, he’s like the eye of the storm, his energy is strangely magnetic. He’s like a scab on perfect skin, the sensation of something being there, and you can’t help but want to dig to look underneath.
Will using “Remember when you tried to eat my brain?” As a ‘gotcha!’ but Hannibal just smiles provocatively and now Will has to kill him.
It kills me that Hannibal could have killed Will at any moment in the show but he doesn’t, because that’s not how he wants to hurt him or want him. That’s not how they communicate; their violence is too intimate for the way Hannibal kills.
Not Will serving face while having encephalitis induced hallucinations of creepy stop motion picture Georgia Madchen. That’s just so him.
Out here insisting once again that Dean’s ‘die 4 you’ is THE Hannigram song. It narrates both ways, it’s so Mizumono-coded with the “It’s raining again like the day I held you” lyric and so season 3 coded with “Could you kill me once again?” Their love is like an ouroboros and Dean’s sound matches it so much!!!!!
Hannibal is redeemable because he’s convincing. He transforms his perspective into something palatable. You may not accept it but you can’t reject his genuineness once you’ve taken a bite. Throw it up and it’s still part of you. That’s why he’s dangerous.
The chemistry between Hannibal and Will is so astonishing. If Will was in power and found Hannibal tied up in Mason’s barn that night, he most likely would have tried to kill him again. He might not have succeeded, but he always has that impulse in him to harm Hannibal the way Hannibal harmed him. But the next time they converse, after the fact of Hannibal trying to kill him and eat his brain, is in Will’s home, and in that moment the violence is no longer physical. It was physical last night but it’s not anymore. Now the violence is in the indifference. We go from an intense motivation to kill each other (both for personal reasons btw) to a sudden giving up, and they both adjust to each other’s moods and adopt to the context. Now their medium of communication is quiet conversation and they make it work so effortlessly. They need to exchange thoughts and that is the ultimate goal: it doesn’t matter if it’s done with words or knife. What I find incredible is their flexibility with it. They always choose the level at which to communicate and it’s never one dimensional.
Considering after all this time whether Hobbs’ ‘See? See?’ was something Will imagined up
Thinking about how Hannibal putting Will in mental asylum was his version of pretending to push your friend off a ledge
