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EXTENDED CUT OF HANNIBAL WHEN

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I was just reading about Silkie chickens (the black-boned bird Hannibal makes into soup and presents to Will in hospital). Apparently they are not only known for their unusual bone colour but also polydactyly?!

Kind of disappointed that Count Six-Fingers Lecter VIII didn't mention it. Though I have been comforted by how fluffy the chickens are.

This image is just from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie

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Hannibal (2013-2015)

3x13 - “The Wrath of the Lamb”

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Hannibal (2013-2015)

2x12 || 3x13

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Was there any particular reason Hannibal always sat so properly with his legs crossed and hands folded in his lap during therapy sessions?

…..Yeah. Yeah, I think there was.

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Once again long live Freddie Lounds for giving us "murder husbands"

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let’s hide the body with mama

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Everyone: Hannibal, no!

Hannibal: Hannibal, yes!

Will: Hannibal, no.

Hannibal: *hesitates*

Will: Do you want to sleep on the couch?

Hannibal: *sighs* Hannibal, no.

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"you are the only exception"

Hope it's at least partially as beautiful as your writings :3 <3 @honeygrahambitch

(SOMEONE GIVE THIS POOR CANNIBAL A HUG)

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This, 1000x this. Hannibal is so many things at once that it’s nearly impossible to understand the decisions he makes throughout the show until you sort through the layers of masks, person suits, and to an extent personalities he wears.

I think some of the layers are shallow enough to be considered masks, while others are closer to whole personalities, and all of them are Hannibal but only one is the original—the last layer, the smallest doll, the one which has nothing left to hide behind it.

Dissecting a surgeon: The anatomy of Hannibal Lecter

Hannibal Lecter isn’t just one man. I like to think of him exactly the way he displayed Beverly Katz: He’s layered, more vulnerable and personal with each part. The trick to understanding Hannibal is getting to know all those layers separately, then knowing which one is appearing on the screen. In the show Will states how Hannibal follows different trains of thought at once, but I believe he also wears different skins that somehow all belong to him. Like a Matryoshka doll. He has countless different faces that he switches around daily, even hourly. Some are stored in dusty attics in his mind, others are next to his door to pick up before he leaves the house first thing in the morning. I probably don’t even get near knowing all of them, let alone fully understand all of them. But the trick is to know how to distinguish them and which are important. Here’s my attempt at a dissection of his psyche.

At first there is, obviously, his Person suit.

The person suit is Hannibal’s social persona. His public image and the almost God-like reputation he’s carefully built around himself over the years. It’s the personality meant to impress and express. For friends and acquaintances and maybe even strangers. The Person suit was an unbreakable shield before his identity as killer was made public. The Person suit exists in three shapes: The Host, The Professor and The Artist. Here’s what they represent.

The Host is somewhat of a Narcissus-like figure. Self possessed, but in a way that makes people adore him because it appears rather as self awareness when it comes to his talents and qualities than arrogance. The host is charming, confident, entertaining and gifted. He’s an amazing cook and an amazing character to have attending your party. He’s the kind of man you compare yourself to when you realise you’re failing at life. The same goes for the Professor. Intelligent, well-spoken, a respected and admired name in his field. The Artist is a bit more personal, and a little more reserved for friends. The Artist is emotional and very sensitive. To the arts, obviously. The artist is enthusiastic despite his calm and sophisticated nature. He picks up a pencil and creates a masterpiece, the Artist attends the opera and is the one to start a standing ovation. The Artist cries when he reads a poem and composes his own music on obscure instruments he happens to own. He’s in love with beauty, always reaching for it. And he believes, or knows, that he himself is beautiful. The entirety of Hannibal’s person suit is deeply satisfied with himself, because he represents an image of perfection. An ideal. Almost like a god. Powerful, multidimensional, but alone.

Second, Dr Lecter.

Dr Lecter is astute, cold, impersonal and mysterious. He’s well known for excelling in his profession, but he’s also a mystery and breaks borders others in his field shy away from. He’s admired, but he will always remain distant. Out of reach. He crawls into your head like a parasyte, but you’ll never get into his. He makes most feel like they are far beneath him and matching his level seems like the highest order there is. He likes to stand above his patients. To give them advice while at the same time managing to have a certain control over them and the unstable balance that will always favour him. Dr Lecter has an incredibly large ego, but he manages to hide it well. There’s no saying he’s morally corrupt or not. He doesn’t balance on the line of morality. He floats above it. 

Then there’s the Chesapeake Ripper.

Playful, clever, incredibly dangerous. Hannibal isn’t a psychopath, but the Ripper is. He has no feelings for remorse, guilt or pity. He’s a beast of a man with a set of very skilled hands and a brain. He believes in no one but himself and finds his way out of every situation. He’s also annoyingly flirtatious. A flatterer, almost. A shadow in an open field, that’s what he is. Standing out yet still invisible. Something ungraspable. Its own master. There’s no controlling the Ripper. You never really catch him. He’s witty and slippery. A snake in the tall grass.

For Will, and only for Will, there’s an alter ego connected to the Ripper. The wendigo. The monster. Which is soulless. A manifestation of corruption turned into something black and rotten. The Wendigo is the darkest side of Hannibal, because the Wendigo has no emotions. He’s a puppet. The shadow of a man from the deepest pits of Hell. For everyone except Will, however, The Wendigo is the enemy. The darkness that quite literally beams out of the killer and takes shape because he can’t hold it all in. An omen of misfortune, for Will a warning for approaching darkness in the worst parts of himself like poisonous vines. It’s what’s formed inside of him after so many years of doing unspeakable things and it’s something only Will (as far as we know) can visually see.

When we go deeper, there’s Count Lecter, who we don’t really get to know at all. Count Lecter’s whole personality is hidden behind the letters of his name. Proud, but extinguished. Once very powerful, but now just a glorious piece of history. A textbook reputation. Count Lecter belongs to the castles that are his property in Lithuania. Count Lecter is a name that belongs in the books. Hannibal probably feels a connection to him, but he’s like the promise made to him in his childhood that turned out to be a lot less fun than he expected. A title given to him by birth that now holds barely any meaning anymore except for his wealth and social status. Count Lecter is not a breathing part of him, but rather a thing he could have been.

Now there’s an interesting one. We know Mads often speaks of Hannibal as a fallen angel. A Lucifer inspired figure. This part of Hannibal is something more Devil-like. It’s the darker and more personal companion of his Person Suit charms. It’s less pretending, more savage. A deeply religious individual. He believes in God and absolutely despises him. He has dealt with betrayal. With pain and burden and it made him cruel. This part of him is a manifestation of his lust, his greed and his gluttony all together. That fallen angel is bitter in his core, but sly and challenging, too. He doesn’t try to hide his darkest desires, he just knows how to warp his words just so that only those who truly understand him know what he means. The fallen angel is also desperate for someone to understand his wrath and hold him company. He saw that person in Will. 

At last, obviously, there’s Hannibal.

Hannibal, who is vulnerable and devoted and naked under Will's eyes. Who is, I believe, the only part of him capable of love and it’s the part that wrecks him and the perfect shield of costumes he made for himself. Hannibal is the tears that come from true emotion instead of art. His ugly tears. Hannibal bears his wounds, his scars. Hannibal holds his child self hostage inside of him. Hannibal is the only one of them that has a heart, and it’s very teary and fragile and sensitive and it’s hurt so easily. Hannibal is the quivering hands with which he held the knife the night he stabbed Will and killed Abigail. Hannibal is his ritual of shattering teacups hoping they will restore themselves to prove that his own mistakes and wrongdoings can be fixed. Hannibal is the man who surrendered himself to the police, who carried Will home for miles and miles in the snow. Hannibal is who Will keeps chasing. Hannibal is the humanity he still carries within himself. The flesh and blood. The fool.

I think that understanding all these parts separately makes it easier to figure him out as a person. Either way, let me know if there’s anything I missed. Thank you for reading

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Imagine post-fall Hannibal being tipsy for the first time after not having a drop of alcohol in three years. He's cleaning the kitchen and notices something in the corner of the room. He almost pukes because what the fuck is that on the wall? He calls out for Will, accent slurring. He almost screams when the bug starts flying towards him. Will sprints into the kitchen and almost laughs because Hannibal is curled up on the floor (something so out of character). He's trying to hide from the huge palmetto bug fluttering around him. He's having a flashback and regressing because it reminds him of being in the cabin with the mean men would throw bugs on him and Mischa to watch them cry and be unable to get away. He's moving slower since he's drunk, but Will realizes there is nothing funny about the way Hannibal calls for him, the sound of his name coming out far too childlike. Will kills the bug and tosses the body out the kitchen window, bending down to check on Hannibal who is still shaking, still holding both hands over his head, still making these helpless little sounds. This is the first time Hannibal's regressed and Will is out of the loop. But he knows what to do. Tells Hannibal: "It's gone now, sugar, I promise” and pulls Hannibal close, kissing his temple.

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save me Vulnerable Hannibal Lecter

Vulnerable Hannibal Lecter save me

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Kacey Rohl as Abigail Hobbs

“Potage” | Hannibal

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Hannibal S3E02 Primavera

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Pay me a million dollars and I will not be convinced that he didn't feel anything for Will, that he was only playing with him.

Every single time I watch this scene I feel like sobbing at how broken he looks and how his face literally shines up with the relief of Will entering the room.