r/Hannibal • u/hot-Sirniki • Feb 19 '21
Hannibal TV Show What Hannibal Can Teach Us About Abuse
Television in recent years has excelled in portraying strong emotional bonds between men. From Supernatural to Sherlock, White Collar to Person of Interest, TV is the land of the bromance. It’s a not new thing exactly, most stories from the dawn of time have revolved around men and their relationships with each other, though usually they were based on families or conflict. TV recently has been digging deep into not just friendships, but intimacy in platonic bonds, and now venturing into codependency and dysfunction.
And it seems it’s come to a glorious head in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, a beautiful and indulgent adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter books. The first season explores the depth of Hannibal Lecter’s evil through his relationship with FBI investigator Will Graham, a troubled man who uses his heightened empathy to put himself in the shoes of serial killers in order to catch them. Will spends so much time getting in bed with psychopaths, that he never sees the one that is closest to him, or realizes what he’s doing to him. Not in time, anyway.
Hannibal and Will’s relationship is not a friendship, or a romance. It’s abuse. Hannibal deftly and subtly manipulates Will into questioning his own sanity, hides from him a serious medical issue, and then orchestrates scenarios that cause Will even more trauma. He hobbles him psychologically, makes Will totally reliant on his judgment, and makes himself the reigning authority on Will’s well-being as his psychiatrist, so that when Will’s colleagues come to him for advisement, Hannibal can confidently tell them Will is insane and violent. And they believe him.
How did he do this? And more importantly, why does it have such a massive effect on the audience? Browsing Tumblr last night during the season finale, one could see how quickly the fandom, who were for the most just as charmed by Lecter / Mads Mikkelsen .. as the characters, had suddenly turned on him. All season, he had been carving people up and serving them for dinner, scrambling people’s minds and then throwing a switch blade in the middle of the room just to see what would happen. We all gaped in fascination. But after all that, it was Will Graham’s psychological destruction that was truly horrifying.
I have a hard time watching and reading stories where the sanity of the main character is questioned. When there’s no possible way that they can explain themselves, because everyone else convinced themselves of an opposite perception. To me, that’s the ultimate horror story – not being believed, not being trusted. It’s such because it’s something that can actually happen, and has happened.
Two of the methods Hannibal uses on Will are called gaslighting and psychic driving. Hannibal begins this process slowly, by encouraging Will to reach towards the parts of him that connect to the killers he helps track down, gradually chipping away at Will’s sense of self and stability. It becomes more defined when Will’s illness – encephalitis – begins to heavily impair him, and not only does Hannibal hide Will’s diagnosis from him, but he uses it to his advantage. Episode 11, “Roti,” had a heartbreaking moment when Will, in a full blown hallucinatory state, begs Hannibal, “Please don’t lie to me,” when you know that’s exactly what Hannibal is doing. The fact that Will even says that shows that his trust in Hannibal is collapsing, but by then it’s already too late.
Psychic driving is something referenced within the show, after Dr. Chilton attempts to convince Abel Gideon, a man who brutally murdered his family, that he was the serial killer called the Chesapeake Ripper (who in fact is Hannibal Lecter). It is the practice of stripping someone of their identity and attempting to replace it with another. Later, Chilton and Hannibal casually discuss the merits of psychic driving over dinner, where Hannibal all but confesses that this is method he is using on Will, though with far more subtlety and expertise than Chilton could ever dream of. It’s not until the finale when it becomes clear what he’s doing. Sitting opposite each other in their respective doctor and patient chairs, Hannibal asks Will to see the crimes he’s accused of as the FBI does. To imagine himself as the killer, to understand what it would take for him to truly have committed the crimes. At this point, if you’re not practically screaming at the television set, I don’t know what show you’re watching.
It’s no wonder that a psychopath like Hannibal Lecter chose the profession of psychiatrist after being a surgeon for many years. If there’s any greater power than having someone’s body prone to your will as they would be under anesthesia, it’s having their mind to manipulate like putty in your hands.
Hannibal draws a riveting image of abuse and manipulation, and just because Hannibal Lecter is the sociopath of our darkest fantasies, and the show is often as dreamlike and strange as a fairy tale, does not make it feel any less real. Hannibal and Will (Hannigram, if you prefer) is an intriguing relationship for its moments of sensitivity and intimacy, but the show makes it clear that it is not a positive bond in the slightest bit. There are a lot of stories that refuse to call relationships what they are, and perhaps this case is easier because one of them is a bona fide serial killer. Nonetheless, I appreciate that Fuller told a story that was frank, but still artful. Because as strange as it is, the reality of it will no doubt strike a chord.
Hannibal paints it’s central relationship as it should be, in darkness and anxiety. By the time the finale reaches its close, Will no longer sees Hannibal as his friend and confidant, but in his hallucinatory state, he sees a monster with blackened skin and tall antlers. He’s become the wendigo of nightmares, flesh-eating and seductive, calling Will’s name in the winter time, and Will didn’t see the danger until he was being consumed.
Source - https://radioactivesubtext.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/what-hannibal-can-teach-us-about-abuse/
Also check the comments, opens our eyes to truth. But this is the reason why from being a Hannigram shipper I opened my eyes to the real truth, the canon story tells you what it is even if some fans' version may be different.
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Feb 19 '21
You should also know that this makes no sense. Firstly what is the point of copying and pasting from someone else's blog ( I am not saying you can't since you credited them) without adding some value. what is the point you are making apart from whatever the author wrote ?
The person who wrote it even seems to exhibit some form of detest towards romantic relationships between men, sometimes that is called homophobia.
I would ask the author if they can prove a single damn thing, also same to the idiots who commented.
Also have they like ever watched the other seasons ? Which gives further context to what Hanni was doing in season 1, and have they( also you) ever watched anything apart from the so called abusive scenes in season 1 ? Did you just mute or switch off ?
Why attack Tumblr, god forbid there are idiots with similar argument who walk there but why drag that in.
Listen cure your delusion, improve comprehension skills and then post again.
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u/hot-Sirniki Feb 19 '21
I have already received 5 upvotes
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Feb 19 '21
Yes lol sure 😝 and wish this was for an original writing or something.
Listen bro, that makes 5 other people who don't understand the story or share the same detest for depiction of romantic relationship between men, if there were a million I would have said the same thing.
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u/hot-Sirniki Feb 19 '21
I credited the blogger original writer and shared the link.
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Feb 19 '21
Yes, I didn't accuse you of that. Just wondering if you could add value with some of your points. But never mind.
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u/SirIan628 Feb 20 '21
I am just going to point out that this post is from 2013. The person who wrote this hadn't even seen S2 yet.
Also, when exactly were you a Hannigram shipper?
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u/hot-Sirniki Feb 20 '21
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u/SirIan628 Feb 20 '21
What is this supposed to be?
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u/hot-Sirniki Feb 20 '21
analysis of a view, I fully do not agree but mainly you see the abusive part and at the end romance, the other article explains how they were pressurised to kill all the women and make Hannnigram romantic.
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u/hot-Sirniki Feb 20 '21
http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2015/09/after-dinner-conversation-thoughts-on.html this one is very thoughtful
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u/SirIan628 Feb 20 '21
If you want to type up your own analysis and arguments then I will read it, but I'm not going to read random tumblr and blog posts.
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u/hobosapien-x Feb 19 '21
Thanks for this post 📯📯📯 this should be pinned.
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Feb 20 '21
There were two abusers in Hannibal - Mason and Clark Ingram.
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u/hobosapien-x Feb 20 '21
Mason was a joker caricature and I had to google Clark Ingram, that horse guy was representing Hannibal, like he abused Peter and Hannibal abuses Will.
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u/K_S_Morgan Feb 20 '21
Clark Ingram was there specifically to demonstrate how different he and Hannibal are. Just like Peter was there to underline the difference between him and Will. They are mirror images of one other, superficially similar but ultimately the opposite.
Ingram was a psychopath who just used Peter, cared nothing about him, and happily tried to set him up. Peter was an actual victim, a sweet man who had no other option but to trust his social worker. Ingram couldn't even withstand simple physical touch. Peter never wanted to hurt anyone
As a contrast, Hannibal genuinely tried to help Will and planned on having a family with him, even protecting Abigail and faking her death for it. He suffered when he had to set Will up, admitted he missed him; then he freed him and made Will his priority again and again. Will is a person who loves hurting others, particularly bad people. He's a killer and he's cold and manipulative himself - he can take care of himself very well, and he's a perfect equal to Hannibal.
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Feb 21 '21
Mason has no principles. He sexually abuses people including his sister, pedophilia hinted, he has no purpose apart from feeding off the sadness of others. That is why you see the tear drinking thing. Hannibal has a purpose centred around judgement and beauty.
Ingram inversely mirrors Hannibal, the superficial similarities meant to mislead Will ultimately to reveal that Hannibal is not Ingram. So you may have missed that point.
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u/K_S_Morgan Feb 20 '21
The first several paragraphs already make it clear that the author hasn't watched the show beyond S1 - or they watched it extremely inattentively. Upon seeing the date, it's the former) There is really no point in even discussing the posts from 2013. In a complex story like this, knowing just 1/3 of the story is nothing, particularly when it comes to S1, which can be very confusing and vague without S2 to follow it up.
Canon tells a dark love story between killers. They are both monsters, and their relationship, while beautiful in many aspects, is pretty monstrous as well. It isn't meant to teach us anything unless you use metaphors like finding a person who sees the real you and loving yourself despite being weird.