i always thought will looked distraught in this scene bc it brought up memories of his mother’s absence, but it’s that & SO much more. to start, there is an octopus plush in the photo. octopuses are referred to as the “Mother Teresa of the sea. Octopuses symbolize generosity, selflessness, and self-sacrifice.”
the idea of motherhood/self-sacrifice is further explored when jack asks why all of the victims have defensive wounds except for mrs. turner. will answers, “there’s forgiveness.” again, he’s confronted by the selflessness of motherhood - how mothers perform the ultimate sacrifice by giving birth. will himself yearns for the warmth of a mother’s love and can’t understand the children who abandoned it. in the eyes of a child, mother is god, and these kids are defying/rejecting god.
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” - William Makepeace Thackeray
in the next scene, will gets hostile; baring his teeth like a cornered animal when hannibal asks about his mother. “never knew her.”
towards the third act, will reaches his boiling point and finally explodes, unable to fathom how anyone could give up a loving family (never having been part of one). as the “proverbial orphan” hannibal relates to will deeply, while simultaneously using this vulnerable moment to imprint his own found family onto him with abigail.
1.04 has will’s lost boys and the infamous “feeling paternal, will?” while hannibal stares blatantly at his ass.
but no. no he’s not.
this whole episode is framed to be about family, but more specifically it’s about mothers and this particular killer having a warped sense of motherhood.
hannibal brings up will’s mother and it’s instantly met with contempt as he reveals his mother was cold.
then then later— after mason butchers margot- after mizumono— will and margot have matching scars. their children taken from them, leaving them with nothing.
I don’t know why I’m always worried I’m gonna be traumatized by that “found family” episode in season one of Hannibal. Like I don’t know man, it kinda fucks with me. I’m fine when I actually watch it, but oof.
don't get ahead of yourself, because this doesn't necessarily mean you're intelligent. you may be, but your role as the thinker only has to do with the way your brain manages to produce the right ideas at exactly the right time. you can't handle being wrong; it's like you're constantly trying to live up to yourself. give yourself a break for once in a while, because being perfect means nothing in the damaged world you live in.
man i don't know why i'm so scared about sharing my original work with people. i love writinf my ocs and (abruptly remembers the person who jumped on to every toplevel i had with a character absolutely fiending to play out domestic abuse against them)
Aaaa the line I love the MOST from Hannibal's script – the line which I think philosophises the intimacy with which Hannibal loves people, and just, capsulates the eroticity between Will and Hannibal – is from s1e4, "Ouef". Hannibal is in Will's house to feed the dogs and he messes with Will's fishing lures. At first he admires them, before tying off an incomplete fly expertly. THEN the script reads:
"Having completed his work . . . He presses his thumb gently against the pointed barb, and keeps the pressure on until he draws a drop of blood. Without lingering on his act, Hannibal sucks the lone drop from his thumb-tip. The sound is not unlike a quick kiss."
There is the aspect of violence – blood is drawn – but it's not aggressive, it's gentle, it's coerced. And the weapon – is the sharp hook on Will's fishing lure. Unafraid of Will, shameless, when Hannibal sucks away the remnant of this brutality, lips where the hook pierced him open, it sounds like a kiss. How utterly romantic.
And in the actual scene!!! It SOUNDS like a kiss!!!! And oml, they really have me fainting here like a distressed maiden in a Shakespearean play.
“Aperitivo,” Hannibal | “Digestivo,” Hannibal | Phoebe Bridgers, “Killer” | Sylvia Plath, “Poem for a Birthday: Who” | Erica Jong, “Where it Begins” | Mitski, “Abbey” | Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror | Li-Young Lee, “The Cleaving,” from The City In Which I Love You | deleted lines from “Ouef,” Hannibal | Ada Limón, “Lies About Sea Creatures,” from Bright Dead Things | Simone Weil, Waiting for God | Louise Glück, “Timor Mortis,” from Vita Nova | Catherynne M Valente, The Bread We Eat in Dreams | “The Wrath of the Lamb,” Hannibal | Anne Carson, “To Compostela,” Plainwater
NBC Hannibal is so unserious, in 1.04 “Ouef” Jack is having dinner at Hannibal’s and they make a little joke about how the “rabbit” they were gonna eat should’ve hopped faster- then cut to a clip of Hannibal chasing some guy through the woods and cooking him up. Ridiculous
i really love dancy's acting choice to make will such a twitchy person... like, not even so much in his bodily movements, but in the way he says things, the way he contorts his face, the very words that come out of his mouth... will moves his jaw so much and i feel like once you notice how often he does it, it's sooo difficult to unsee it and also be a little unnerved at how each word seems to bite out of him, like it's another person forcing their way through his vocal cords to say just that one particular thing. it's very captivating and one of the most perfect examples of it is the opening scene for Ouef and gosh, sooo much about it is already so telling about will's character and the way dancy delivered each line really just continually adds more and more to the way will dismisses himself and accomplishments ("my little house") and the small but significant things he notices ("flat fields") AND THE WAY HE SAYS ITS LIKE LOOKING AT A BOAT ON THE SEA AND IS THE ONLY TIME HE EVER FEELS SAFE.... expanding my ever growing appreciation for a young will graham who grew up on the water, perhaps a bayou...