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sempercredens · 6 months

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Post about fannicalcascade because I have a lot of throughts and using this situation to ramble a bit, yay. Inserting myself in some fun conversation here, only. Let it be said, I don't wanna be tooooo standoffish and just formulate my own reading of the show and give some counterarguments to the points they make. :D

Just to start off with: different from them, I'll use an ''the author is dead'' approach, so for my own reading and interpretation of the show it doesn't matter what Bryan Fuller or any of the actors said or read into it. I wanna try and go solely by the three seasons of text that we've been given. I just find it way too easy to just appeal to authority, especially, as fannibalcascade admits themself, Bryan Fuller has said contradictory things, so going by his words just seems counterproductive to any discussion.

I've collected some of the points fannibalcascade has repeated on their blog and while discussing them will probably make them blur into one another, I'll try my best to do it orderly.

1. Basically their big point is that Hannigram is one-sided from Hannibal's side. Will doesn't really love Hannibal.

Where I believe, we agree is the subject of Will's internal conflict throughout all three seasons, really. That being that Will is torn between his own darkness and propensity for violence and killing, his enjoyment of it even, - for brevity's sake I'll just call it his ''darkness'' from here on out -, and his compassion for others, a certain sense of justice, and ''normalcy''. I think we'd also agree that Hannibal represents a personification of that darkness. The difference of opinions lies within whether or not that makes his attraction to Hannibal romantic.

My reading of this conflict and how it plays out in the show and the s3 finale is that for the conflict to work at all, it is a necessity even that Will does love Hannibal. What fannibalcascade majorly focuses on is Will's desire for a ''normal'' life like the one he has with Molly for a few years, or just Will's ''good'' qualities if I were to generalise. A huge fear of Will's is to become like Hannibal, after all. What this approach ignores, imo, is exactly the immensity of the other half of the conflict. The half of Will that does love Hannibal, as a symbol of his love for his own dark urges.

From what I read of them and how I understand it they subscribe to the interpretation that, ineloquently put, Hannibal's manipulations are the sole reason Will's morals got fucked up in the first place. Which is a reading I disagree with. We're told in s1e2 already that this darkness has been within Will from the beginning when he confesses to Hannibal that he liked killing Hobbs. This is why Hannibal becomes so infatuated with him in the first place, because he sees the potential in Will and attempts to help him to reconcile with his darkness. Hannibal sees this - uniting Will with his dark aspects - as an act of friendship.

The crux of the matter here is that Will doesn't hate committing violence and murder. He hates that he likes it. And this is an important distinction. Again, I'm of the opinion that for Will's internal conflict to work and play out as it does, it necessitates that Will loves Hannibal in some way. When he attempts to ''honeytrap'' Hannibal throughout s2b there is a real and genuine ambiguity to his actions that makes one question whether he really is still working for the FBI, f.ex. the Randall Tier situation in s2e10 and e11. Finally: that he does call Hannibal to warn him about Jack in s2e13 Mizumono is a strong indicator that Will cares for Hannibal enough to want him to get away. The same ambiguity carries into s3a when Will sets out to find Hannibal in Europe with no decided objective of what to do when he finds him eventually, even telling Jack that ''part of me will always want to run away with him''.

My point here is that while you can of course always call into question whether Will's love for Hannibal is romantic, you cannot argue that there is no love at all.

Which brings us to:

2. Will throwing Hannibal and himself off the cliff is a murder/suicide attempt to free himself and the world of Hannibal. A rejection of Hannibal.

fannibalcascades likes to quote Bedelia's ''Can't live with him, can't live without him'' for this debate, and solely this quote, which I find a little lackluster because this too ignores a lot of other dialogues in the show. In fact, it ignores the context this particular piece of dialogue appears in.

There are many instances in the show where Will acts very much like Hannibal, going with the theme that they've ''begun to blur'', which is even visually demonstrated at many points. F. ex. when he plots to kill Hannibal via Matthew Brown and his embracing of his darkness is visualised by him growing antlers in s2e5. This, being a dialogue from s3e13 is where Will is arguably at his most Hannibal-ish, openly taunting Bedelia by essentially going ''yeah, I'll free Hannibal and then we're coming for you'' - which is what ends up happening if you want to believe the Bedelia post-credit scene.

Going back to the internal conflict Will's character is concerned, fannibalcascades argues that the quote opens a dilemma which can only be solved with Hannibal or both of them dying. Which is certainly one way to interpret. It is interesting to me how fannibalcascades seems to think that the best outcome for Will is to be without Hannibal, wishing that in a hypothetical s4 Will would leave Hannibal, when Bedelia's words would imply that that, too, would not be ideal for Will because he's too attached; he's ''found religion''.

I wouldn't even necessarily disagree that the answer to the dilemma is both their deaths. But I do disagree with the specifics. When Will tells Hannibal ''It's beautiful'', the final words spoken in the series, we are coming full circle from s1e3 where he tells Abigail that ''[killing] is the ugliest thing in the world''. In that very episode you can interpret that as denial since he told Hannibal only one episode earlier that killing Hobbs felt good and just. To reiterate: Will doesn't hate committing violence and murder. He dislikes that he likes it as much as he does because it conflicts with what is expected of him by the FBI and of himself in regards to complying to ''normalcy''. The reason Hannibal is attractive to him is that Hannibal is the only one to offer a complete acceptance of that darkness in him, should Will cultivate it.

So while ''can't live with him'' implies that Hannibal is indeed destructive to Will's life and well-being and those surrounding him which would be a good reason to want to be rid of him, ''can't live without him'' also implies that Will and Hannibal have become to entangled with one another to rid each other. Will even muses in s3e6 whether they could survive separation and Bedelia's words would suggest that no, they couldn't. Being without Hannibal would be equivalent to death, if one'd want to phrase it so drastically.

Repeating my point again that for Will's conflict and how it plays out to function, it necessitates that he does love Hannibal in some way. Just as fannibalcascades points out in this post how:

it has to be equally true that his struggles make no sense if you just say ''oh, he never loved Hannibal''. After all, Will did many Hannibal-ish deeds, especially in s3 when he orchestrates for Chiyoh to kill the prisoner in Lithuania and goes on to string the guy up in a very Ripper-esque, artful display - for no other audience than himself, or when he orchestrates Dolarhyde's mutilation of Chilton. He actually shows very little remorse for his actions in these instances, even going back as early as him killing Hobbs (s1e2)

and he shows even less remorse when he and Bedelia hold their dialogue as shown above.

All in all, my point here is that a reading such as fannibalcascades reads Will as leaning primarily towards normalcy, as opposed to acknowledging the extent of which Will also leans towards Hannibal.

As already mentioned, Will's fear resulting from this conflict is that he fears becoming (like) Hannibal. But the thing is that becoming like Hannibal is not entirely unappealing either. Because if it was there would be no conflict. It's really a testament to how complex a character Will is.

So returning to the cliff scene, Will admitting that ''it's beautiful'' is a self-acceptance of his own darkness, by extension an acceptance of Hannibal. fannibalcascades argued, however, that if it were a confession, Will would not attempt to kill himself. Sure, tipping them over might speak for a motivation of murder/suicide but that is rooted in the very same conflict Will's been dealing with this entire time. It is the culmination of both conflicts being solved, if you wanna see it that way; Will's darkness and his want for normalcy both won in some way. To put in convolutedly: by his acceptance of his darkness and Hannibal, Will triggered his fear of becoming like Hannibal because he just admitted to having become Hannibal, causing him to choose murder/suicide to fight said fear.

Is it tragic? Yeah. Is it romantic? We'll get to that.

3. ''it's a horror show first''

In my reading, I very much identify Hannibal as a Gothic show, which is not that far off from horror and overlaps in significant enough ways to be conflated. I hesitate to call the show horror because horror films aim to make you scared and scream along with the characters, whereas Hannibal doesn't.

There is no exact definition of what the Gothic is. It's not as much as genre as it is a mode that can be applied to different genres, such as Gothic horror, Gothic fantasy or Gothic romance. But what is important to note is that the Gothic has its roots in Romance, the 18/19th century kind with a capital R. So while you've got tales of chivalry and enlightenment and such, you've also got those revolving around the conventionally less savory themes and topics; death, trauma, all those ugly emotions, murder, torture, incest even or generally speaking any kind of perverted or ''forbidden'' love. Within the Gothic mode, these topics are allowed to be explored and discussed without outside conventions impeding upon it. That inherently makes its grasp on clear morality-binaries of good and evil null and void.

We see this in the show when the film language of sweeping camera shots over the displays of the dead bodies seems to emphasise the beauty of them more than their grotesqueness. When Hannibal's cooking is presented to us in extravagance so that we forget that he's serving human meat. Hannibal the character is endeared to us by film language (and also through Hannibal's humour. He's a funny lil man and because we can understand his jokes but the other characters can't, we can feel like we're conspiring with him). By these means, the show is very little concerned with actually condemning him. He even argues himself that he is no more evil than storms or fires (s2e10) and often pulls the ''well, God is worse''-card (ex. s1e2, s2e9).

Point being: we cannot apply a basic morality of ''murder bad'' onto the show and much less the development of its characters. There is no longer a clear separation between ''this is a good thing to happen'' and ''this is a bad thing to happen''. Especially when the characters begin to work against each other and good/bad becomes entirely subjective to whichever character's view point you'd want to take. The closest we probably get to a ''normal'' pov is Jack Crawford. Catching serial killers to make the country safer is obviously a noble goal. We can empathise with that, and how he is stressed enough to let it out on Will by using him as a shortcut to catching said killers. To the detriment of Will's health. And Hannibal does point out in s1 that working for Jack is unhealthy for Will, which is correct.

However, regarding Will we must ask: what is his best outcome? Is there really an objective ''good'' ending for him, or just a subjective one from his own perspective? And what would that look like?

In the light of that, a reading wherein Will finds his good ending in self-acceptance, indulging in how good violence and murder make him feel, and accepting Hannibal after Jack had nothing more than used him to the detriment of his health, after Alana rejected him for the same things Hannibal accepts him for, after he antagonised essentially everyone else, should be equally valid to one wherein Will gets to return to his average American family. And even his relationship with Molly is shaky and not as ideally happy. I'm not denying that Will loves her and she loves him, but the series also shows us that not all is so idyllic as Will still reads Hannibal's letters that he hides from her and she still watches Baseball because she's also not quite over her late ex-husband.

So in summery, I guess:

fannibalcascades' lines of arguing do little to convince me, personally, because I feel like a lot of context is omitted from the argument and lines like ''can't live with him, can't live without him'' are being cherry-picked.

I probably made my point pretty clear about how I think that they neglect half of Will's internal conflict in favour of arguing against any notion of Will loving Hannibal in whatever way. His conflict hinges on how his love for Hannibal is equal to his adherence to common morality, so the idea - as they present - of viewing the show through ''a realistic lense'', aiming for a ''nuanced understanding'' doesn't work for me because denying that Will loves Hannibal is omitting a large part of that very nuance.

Furthermore, reading their blog, I found myself unsatisfied with the lack of specification regarding Will's wants and needs, surrounding the point around what his ideal outcome would be. Most notably, a post they reblogged from bonearenaofmyskull, which contains the lines ''there’s no reason to believe that Will “went completely dark,” that he’s killing with Hannibal, that he’s alive at all, that he’s in his right mind after that fall'' made me wonder what Will's ''right mind'' would be. Because in my reading of the show, the state of Will's mind or what would be the truly right and beneficial thing to do for Will has always been a subject of ambiguity.

fannibalcascades is a self-admitted fan of the ambiguity in the show (x) (x). However, from what I read on their blog the overall tone of their posts nevertheless seems to be vehemently against any other interpretation of the s3 finale than their own, strictly anti-Hannigram one.

In the end I just find it a real shame to hold such a rigid position in media analysis as to omit the whole romantic aspect of the show's central relationship, canon or not, when the joy of media analysis is precisely to analyse a thing you like from every angle possible. So I don't want to dismiss their personal reading and interpretation of the text as invalid - everyone is entitled to have their opinion after all, and this is mine and I hope I explained why I disagree with theirs - and I personally also did try a reading of non-romantic Hannigram because thought experiments are fun.

Lastly, I want to ramble briefly about the Gothic again and how its inherent ambiguity has historically lent itself amazingly for the telling of queer stories, precisely because the ambiguity allows for queercoding. And how as discussed above the feeling of lacking self-acceptance and resultant self-hatred that Will goes through that could all be solved because Hannibal accepts him serves as a metaphor slash wish-fulfillment for the queer experienceTM - which is why we here on tumblr dot gay flock to this pairing lol. It's the romance of the unconditional love, it's the romance of loving even one's most fucked up parts, it's the romance of being seen (and the whole theme of ''being seen'' is not one I'm gonna start now but I have a lot of thoughts about that too) And lastly - really lastly - I want to propose the question whether romantic is synonymous with healthy. Especially in the context of this show in particular, with all the stuff about Gothic mode I went into, is the romanticising of the cliff scene really that terrible? Or just an exploration of unsavory themes and topics? Is perverse love not still love?

Bonus thing where I go a little ad hominem, I'm sorry

I think it comes across as very strange to send multiple anons to an active Hannigram blog essentially baiting them into discourse only hours before starting their own blog about it. From the timing I very much assume it's the same person at least.

I find it very odd how fannibalcascades claims that they're not anti-Hannigram and ''uphold the freedom to ship as you please'' (x) and then tag their posts as #there's no murder husbands and #anti-Hannigram, invading the actual Hannigram tag, and also reblog pro-Hannigram posts to play moral apostle

Just doesn't look very ''ship as you please'' to me. Also the anon thing.

Starting of one of their posts with a big, bold red heading of ''It's tragic that people don't understand what the story really is'' which just gave me the same feeling as glancing at boulevard magazines does. Sorry to be sarcastic here but, yeah, sure, you're the only one who knows the real story, you're the only one who's eaten wisdom with spoons while everyone else picks at the wisdom soup with forks. I'm sorry but just the way that post was presented came across as kinda conceited.

Okay, post over.

Have a list of recommended further readings because I'm totally normal about this show and the Gothic mode, I promise, please believe meeeeee

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen: Monster Theory

Deborah Russell: Gothic Romance in Romantic Gothic

Julia M. Wright: American Gothic Television in American Gothic Culture

Andrew J. Owens: Queer Gothic in Twenty-First Century Gothic

Linda Williams: Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess

Alexandra Carroll: 'We're just alike' - Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, and the Monstrous-Human

Ewa Ziomek: Hannibal Revived: an Aestheticized Portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in NBC’s TV Series Hannibal

Stephanie A. Graves: 'A breach of individual separateness': Multivalent Queerness in Bryan Fuller's Hannibal

#hannigram #nbc hannibal #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal meta #question mark? is this meta?#i'm normal about this show i swear #i didn't just spent over four hours writing and compiling this. it's totally not 4.30am :)#i just........ love media analysissss so muuuuuuuch....................#last time i made an op my post didn't show up in the tag #so maybe this was all for nothing lol. unseen post #oh well will loving hannibal is just as much part of his character and conflict #as him trying to adhere to whatever social construct 'normalcy' is send tweet #can you tell i also watched a certain 4h video essay on plagiarism and am now paranoid about citing sources hahahahaha

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