bonearenaofmyskull - Tumblr blog

bonearenaofmyskull · 7 days ago

Text

hugh dancy on hannigram: it’s a meet cute. they are platonic. its not romantic but it is a romcom. i mean, they are in love. or they love each other. but it’s not sexual. they are having sex though.

#more or less

844 notes · View notes

bonearenaofmyskull · 10 days ago

Note

Coming out of retirement for a minute, god help me.

I feel like this question that is at the heart of most fandom discourse in the past multiple years is sort of painfully missing that the answer is meant to be ambiguous. People seem to sort of line up on "Will is good and in the end could never be what Hannibal wants him to be" or "murder husbands forever." It wasn't like this wasn't going on while the show was airing--I definitely remember commenting that it felt like I was spending half my time arguing for Will's goodness and half my time arguing for his iniquity, and perhaps it's indicative of my own insanity that I should pop out of the woodwork to take up this issue again, but alas, here I am.

The problem with claiming that Will has always and forever will reject Hannibal is that it stops his character development at Digestivo and can't quite grasp the full complexity and paradoxical nature of the decision he makes at the end of TWOTL: his choice to kill them both is a rejection of Hannibal's lifestyle, yes, but it's also a last-ditch effort to accomplish that rejection before it's Too Late. If Hannibal wasn't right about Will in some profound way, then there's no need for Will to kill himself too. The Frederick Chilton escapade specifically casts Will in this light, and this is key to his motivation to take that step. Will's capacity for darkness is further supported by the post-credits scene which heavily suggests that not only did Will and Hannibal survive, but they went on afterward to visit Hannibal-style justice on Bedelia. And there the show ends, with Will acting in both his capacity for goodness and in his capacity for evil.

It's obligatory to mention that had the show continued, there needs to continue to be some sort of internal conflict within Will, and predicting that the story-that-would-have-been could not produce a satisfactory ending with Will just merrily accepting Hannibal's way of thinking is a fair enough point. And in fact I'd say that at least some portion of the shipper folks that think that TWOTL had a perfect ending and don't want the show to get a revival probably believe deep down that this is the case for Will.

BUT! Having faith in the writers' abilities to bring Will full circle back to his goodness, so to speak, is not the same as actual interpretation of the character. Moreover, I personally would not actually predict bringing him full circle to be the writers' intent for the story-that-would-have-been, and this is evidenced by the second half of Season 3. What we got to see there was that, after rejecting Hannibal and returning full circle, the life Will made for himself wasn't enough without Hannibal and Hannibal's influence in it. It's the mirror reverse of the first half of S3, when Hannibal found out the same was true for himself.

So they can't live with each other, they can't live without each other, and--apparently--they suck at killing each other. First world problems, poor boys.

Will's problem--and, I would argue, Hannibal's too, though in a different way--has always been that he has only ever lived as half of himself. So I would posit that the real goal of the ending of the story-that-would-have-been is for Will to learn how be his whole self. And that whole self is both good!Will and dark!Will.

One point I always want to make is that the show is thematically about transformation, and this is true for both Hannibal and Will. And the show is existentialist in message as well, wherein it is the choices of each character that define their existence, not some immutable essence that persists in each man despite their actions and the influences of each other and that of fate and circumstance. Will and Hannibal change each other, and it is this power to create change and to be changed in turn that is what makes the plot of the story so compelling. Will is good when he does good things, and dark when he does dark things. To ignore either capacity or to weigh one significantly heavier than the other is to make the same mistake OP accuses Hannibal of making: of trying to recreate Will in an image that perceives only part of what he is capable of.

This goes for Hannibal as well. I do believe that Hannibal has a flaw in his understanding of Will that makes him understand Will less than Bedelia does (the sheepdog wanting to savage the sheep vs. being capable of righteous violence because he is compassionate), and it's at the heart of why Hannibal's successes with Will have only gone so far. But Hannibal is no more static a character than Will is: he is not just the guy who tries to change Will into his own reflection. They are identically different: as Hannibal changes Will, so also does Will change Hannibal. The question that the show poses that I don't see get enough traction in the fandom is not "Will Will finally reject Hannibal?" but "Will Hannibal finally stop rejecting Will?"

Hannibal's own paradox that matches Will's is that by trying to control Will's transformation and turn Will into some reflection of himself, Hannibal loses control of himself and allows Will to change him. Hannibal's choices are always goal-oriented, but he's never happier than when Will evades his expectations and turns the world on its head. So if the ultimate ending for the story-that-would-have-been is about whether Will can resolve both halves of his being, then Hannibal's side of that would have to be whether he can accept that wholeness of Will's character. And I would argue that, for there to be character growth for our other protagonist, this has to happen as well.

Hannibal is not a static character. Change is at the heart of his journey as well, as evidenced by his passive acceptance of Will's choice to send them both off the cliff.

And so if Will can grow into becoming his whole self and if Hannibal can grow by learning to appreciate all parts of Will's self equally, then there would be no rejection--and no need for rejection--for either man.

Why do you think Will rejected or will reject Hannibal?

Because Will Graham, at his core, is someone who wants to be good. Not perform goodness

Let’s be clear: Will’s relationship with Hannibal is intoxicating. It’s intimate, it’s profound, and it’s built on a devastating emotional tether. But none of that makes it sustainable. None of that makes it safe.

Will doesn’t reject Hannibal because he doesn’t feel something.

He rejects him because he finally sees the cost.

Abigail’s death.

Beverly’s death.

His own mental deterioration.

The loss of identity, autonomy, and moral compass.

Will realizes that loving Hannibal is a zero-sum game: the deeper he goes, the more of himself he has to lose. And unlike Hannibal, who sees that as transformation, Will sees it for what it really is—annihilation.

Hannibal doesn’t want to love Will—he wants to recreate him.

There is no version of Will being with Hannibal where Will remains himself.

Hannibal “understands” Will, yes. But that understanding is invasive.

He dismantles Will’s boundaries, moral convictions, and emotional landscape not to support them—but to reshape them in his image.

Hannibal’s love is not unconditional. It demands a version of Will who is complicit, malleable, and dangerous.

To accept Hannibal fully, Will would have to abandon the very thing that makes him Will: his empathy.

Will walks away (or falls away, or pushes Hannibal away) because he has to. Because choosing Hannibal means choosing the end of his own moral trajectory.

It’s not just rejection of Hannibal—it’s rejection of the world Hannibal offers: beautiful, operatic, blood-stained, and utterly devoid of redemption.