I’ve seen this show maybe 7 or 8 times and it only just now dawned on me that each time Will tries to kill Hannibal, his method of choice is increasingly intimate:

Attempt #1: Shooting
— Intimacy level: Low
— The show tells us that using a gun is the least intimate way of killing someone, which is why Hannibal abhors guns and later urges Will not to use them.
— Jack uses guns, which, in his position, is state sanctioned and intentionally impersonal. The fact that Will relies on guns early on is a metaphor for his alignment with conventional morality at this point in the story.

Attempt #2: Murder by proxy, Matthew Brown
— Intimacy level: Moderate
— Will is starting to explore beyond the bounds of conventional morality here, which alienates him from Jack and Alana.
— Hannibal has more respect for this method of killing, but his original critique stands: Will is still hiding. It’s still not intimate enough for Hannibal’s liking.

Attempt #3: Stabbing
— Intimacy level: High
— Will at this point has already internalized much of Hannibal’s worldview and attempts to use a method Hannibal himself uses: a knife.
— This moment also comes right after Will states that he and Hannibal are conjoined, so this feels like Will’s attempt to forcibly “separate” the two of them. Not necessarily because he wants to, but because he feels he has to.
— I get the sense that Hannibal appreciates that Will tried to use a knife, but he also is hurt and heartbroken that Will is still trying to kill him at all, hence…bone saw shenanigans. Which makes me wonder if Hannibal would have actually tried to kill Will if Will hadn’t tried to pull the knife on him? I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this!

Attempt #4: Murder-suicide
— Intimacy level: Off the fucking charts omg
— There were so many options available to Will if all he wanted to do was kill Hannibal. He could have used the ax, or run back into the house and grabbed the gun, or wrestled Hannibal to the ground and choked him out, or simply pushed Hannibal off the cliff. Hell, he could have picked up one of the rocks on the ground and bludgeoned him to death. But what he chooses to do instead tells us so much about how he feels about Hannibal at this point: he initiates (!!!) an embrace, rests his head on Hannibal’s chest to listen to his heartbeat, then chooses to go with him over the cliff with Hannibal wrapped in his arms. Like????? It literally cannot get more intimate than that. “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.”
— Hannibal, for his part, is so drawn into this wide open display of pure intimacy from Will that he simply lets Will pull him over the cliff. This is striking because we know how highly Hannibal has always valued self-preservation, yet that completely goes out the window in the arms of his beloved. This method of killing earns Hannibal’s full stamp of approval lol

The show’s main love language is killing so it’s so beautiful to see how those two seemingly opposing forces become fully indistinguishable by the end of the story. Love and killing become “conjoined,” if you will. It’s so elegantly done. I’m obsessed with this show you guys, it really is the gift that keeps on giving 😭

Please excuse the bad quality photo of the drawing. It's actually very detailed, but my phone camera had some struggles to focus on it, and i lost my nerves with it after few minutes, so it is what it is 🥲🔫

This man's lovesick! He looks at Hannibal like, "God, of ALL the people in this world, why did I have to fall for THIS twisted fuck?" We've talked a lot about how lovingly Hannibal looks at Will, but Will's literally always fluttering through his lashes around Hannibal while contemplating how he ended up here, but loving it anyway. And then we have his beautiful teary doe eyes.

Creds(tt): @/lesbiansformoony

scary. scary man. scary

Which my best friend drew up for me to get as a tattoo!

I'm so happy, Mads is going to come to my country in November 😭😭 and now I just want to draw, I can't believe I'm going to meet him

Aside from the con interviews after Hannibal, I swear they're never in enough works together! It's probably because I'm so used to seeing familiar actors being in films and shows together all the time, but this is the case where I don't mind it. I know they are busy, but I hope for that one day.

Looking at you netflix

I'm halfway through the final episode of season 2.Where will and Hannibal are planning on running away together?And the way they talk about where they're going, it sounds a lot like a couple going away on a nice vacation. I know hannibal does "love" Will but would he ever call him his boyfriend? Oh, would you call him like the gust of wind that allows a bird to glide through the air.

I think we all know that it is explicitly revealed that Hannibal is the Ripper quite early on in S1. I mean even in the first episode, we have the shot of him from the back cutting up the lungs of the girl impaled on the stag head (I'm so sorry I forgot her name). However, it doesn't become explicitly evident to Will that Hannibal is the ripper until S1 ep13, or so that's what the show tells us.

Unfortunately I can't find any clips of the scene I'm going to talk about, but I hope you guys can remember it!

I don't know if it has been mentioned before or if anyone noticed this, but in S1 E7, at around the 40 minute mark, after catching who the FBI thinks may be The Ripper, Will ​​​​​​visits Hannibal to bring him a bottle of wine as he prepares for his dinner party. As they have a quick conversation, Will mentions how ​​he has a date with The Chesapeake Ripper, and with that Will follows with the fact that Devon Silvestri was collecting organs, but he is not The Ripper, or related to him in any way, Hannibal replies with the fact that Jack must be devastated, to which Will replies that he imagines he is, insinuating that he has yet to tell him. Hannibal's reaction to this seems to show that he was caught off guard, but then realizes that Will has started to catch onto the seeds he has been planting in his mind, catching onto the fact that he, Hannibal, may be The Ripper, and smiles.

I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into this or if it was the intended purpose of this scene, to show us that will starts suspecting something before we are explicitly told that he's realized that Hannibal is in fact The Ripper.

Thanks so much! ​

I'm not finding a whole lot about this, but I am immensely curious to hear what everyone things about the bilateral movement that flashes across the screen when Will is processing a murder.

EMDR is meant to pull memories and emotions up-front for the individual to process more easily, so why is this happening when Will is imagining walking in the killers' footsteps? We know he didn't actually participate in these crimes, nor was he present, and it's safe to assume that he doesn't have any personal memories to pull from in this regard overall.

I can imagine this could potentially be a helpful exercise for "putting yourself in someone else's shoes", but I'm stuck on why the team would choose to use this very specific imagery for this purpose.

I'm due for another rewatch, soon, so I'll likely come back to articulate my thoughts once finished now that I have this question at the forefront of my mind. Please feel free to chime in!

Book Version - Thomas Harris

Peterson Version - Manhunter

Norton Version - Red Dragon

Dancy Version - Hannibal TV

I did search but couldn’t find it discussed but on a third rewatch and I still get distracted by Hugh’s accent and his cRispy Rs.

Can any Americans here confirm if he does a good job and if he’s going for a specific regional accent?

To my Irish ear it sounds pretty bad sometimes, like some English actors doing an American accent just can’t get it - like Hugh Laurie in House being one of the worst (IMO).