#there was some group chat discussion awhile back about how hannibal intended to make the murder family happen

[fatalism-and-villainy]

More thoughts about the dynamic I talked about here:

It’s telling that the way Abigail engages with Hannibal re: Nick Boyle’s death is very different from the way she engages with Will about it (and by extension, that the way Hannibal engages with Will about GJH’s death is very different from how he engages with Abigail about Nick Boyle’s death).

That is to say, Hannibal’s initial, outward response to Abigail killing Nick Boyle is primarily disapproval - foregrounding what she’s most trying to conceal about herself, and positioning himself as a moral authority who’s making a considerable sacrifice to protect her:

Hannibal: This isn’t self-defense, Abigail. You butchered him. Abigail: I didn’t. Hannibal: They will see what you did. And they will see you as an accessory to the crimes of your father. Abigail: I wasn’t. Hannibal: I can help you, if you ask me to. At great risk to my career and my life. You have a choice. You can tell them you were defending yourself when you gutted this man. Or we can hide the body. (1.3)

Later, he changes tack and allows that Abigail did do the right thing and that self-defense is an excusable motive:

Abigail: You’re glad I killed him. Hannibal: What would be the alternative? That he kill you? (1.3)

And:

Abigail: In the dream, I wonder how I could live with myself, knowing what I did. Hannibal: And when you’re awake? Abigail: When I’m awake, I know I can live with myself. And I know I’ll just get used to what I did. Does that make me a sociopath? Hannibal: No. It makes you a survivor. (1.4)

This change in approach is partly by design, I think - his more condemnatory initial approach impresses on Abigail the worst possible interpretation of her actions (and hints at the fact that he can see through the front she’s putting up), in order to get her to trust him, and then gradually he starts to show qualified approval and emphasize her agency to move behind her father’s influence. And his emphasis on self-defense in their conversation at the end of Potage serves as a way of deflecting Abigail’s sharp inference that he might be a serial killer. But he consistently only approves of Abigail committing murder in utilitarian terms, rather than emphasizing any satisfaction Abigail might have gotten from it.

And the person who does validate that for her is, of course, Will, when they compare notes on killing her father vs. killing Nick Boyle:

Abigail: I thought there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t feel ugly when I killed Nick Boyle. I felt good. That’s why it was so easy to lie about it. Will: Like you didn’t do anything wrong. Abigail: Feel like you’d done something wrong when you killed my dad? Will: I felt terrified. And then… I felt powerful. Abigail: It felt good. To get to end it, to stop it all. (1.12)

They’re both nodding so vigorously by the end of that exchange, just fully understanding in that moment how the other is feeling. And significantly, Hannibal doesn’t set himself up as someone with whom she can unload those feelings on, or find that kind of understanding with! Obviously he doesn’t want to go mask-off about being a serial killer immediately, but he doesn’t even drop any hints with about the appeal of murder; and meanwhile with Will, where he’s got all his “it’s beautiful, in its own way” and “killing must feel good to God” and “not flesh and blood but light and air and colour” lines. Aside from his initial intimation that she had darker motives, his approach with Abigail is mostly affirming her best qualities, suggesting she’s not like her father and that she had no choice but to kill Nick Boyle. And Will ends up being the one to affirm Abigail’s darker qualities.

And, well - my sense of why Hannibal takes this approach is that he was hoping for exactly that. He wanted Abigail to go to Will with those feelings, to be drawn to Will because he offered a potential source of a specific kind of validation and understanding that she wasn’t getting from Hannibal - and thus, for Abigail to help draw out Will’s murderous impulses in turn. Just as he used the prospect of protecting Abigail to push Will’s sense of ethics a little bit farther out. They were both the bait, for each other.

#hannibal meta #abigail hobbs #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal #my meta #hannibal talk #there was some group chat discussion awhile back about how hannibal intended to make the murder family happen #before his hand was forced in putting will in prison #and while i'm sure he was playing it by ear #in terms of revealing himself and pushing the others into a place where they could accept him #i do think a lot of his plan relied on using abigail to bridge the gap between will's s1 ethics and what hannibal wanted for him