It really wasn’t just Hannibal admiring Will’s intellect, from Will’s perspective, Hannibal is also the only person who can keep up with him. Each time Will goes to Hannibal to discuss cases, bouncing ideas off of him instead of anyone else from the BAU who are literally trained and paid to dissect crime scenes. I love it when Will is able to figure out Hannibal put the killer in the middle of the eye mural from looking at the picture and creating the scene within his mind with such brilliant clarity; and so it feels like he is uniquely intelligent, which makes him seem both incredible and one of a kind. But Will himself must feel alone in his ability. The icing on the cake for me is when Will and Hannibal work on the Dolarhyde case, and in this instance they’re BOTH doing what Will did in prison. And Hannibal is perfectly able to keep up with him. They’re, in this circumstance, terrifically equal and no one else can follow them into this mind space. They are unique alone and they’re unique together. It’s so!!

!!!