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fragile-teacup · 7 years

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Hugh Dancy, the P word & love in Hannibal

Okay, so I’ve had a couple of days to mull this over and I’ve come to a few conclusions that I’ll share here if you’ll bear with me.

First of all, we all know that it’s absolutely canon that Hannibal is in love with Will. Bryan has said so, Mads has said so… dogs on the street have howled it loud and long. So I’m not going to go into that here.

But what about Will? Is he canonically in love with Hannibal? YES! Apart from the fact that it’s demonstrably obvious from at least partway through Season 2 that Will is falling HARD for the great conversationalist with the nice suits and hair and the great kitchen (thank you, Hugh), Bryan AND Hugh are both on record as having said it.

But then why does Hugh keep using the P word to describe Will and Hannibal’s love? Well, based on past interviews I would say that Hugh doesn’t mean platonic as in non-romantic. That would make no sense at all, given the many, many comments that have been made to the contrary. I think that what he, Bryan and Mads are trying to say is that Hannibal and Will’s love - up to the end of Season 3 - is so deep, so true, it’s almost BEYOND sexual. That isn’t to say it will never BECOME sexual and certainly the events at the end of TWotL point towards it evolving in that direction. But sex is incidental to the bond these two share. There almost seems to be the sense that categorising their relationship as sexual would trivialise it. Mads has referred to Hannibal feeling that Will is his ‘soulmate’ - a state that transcends sexuality. And Bryan has used similar language when describing the relationship.

Hugh also seemed to cause a bit of consternation by suggesting that Will isn’t the killer that Hannibal thinks he is. Well, I agree with him. Yes, Hannibal KNOWS and SEES Will - his empathy and his POTENTIAL as a killer. But WIll ISN’T the killer Hannibal is. They are ‘identically different’, not ‘identically identical’. Interestingly, both Mads and Hugh have described Will and Hannibal as ‘two sides of the same coin’ - being different in certain ways, they are essentially still one. And I think it’s perfectly possible for Hannibal to SEE Will and still misinterpret certain facets of his character. When it comes to Will Graham, Hannibal is, as Mads has said, ‘blinded by love’. He sees what he wants to see - just as Will does in Season 1.

For those of you asking about his marriage comment, that was made in reference to Will and Molly. Hugh never imagined them having a full-on wedding - he thinks it would have been a registry office do.

The other thing that unsettled people was the revelation that Will only realises late in Season 3 that Hannibal loves him (and that he loves Hannibal), primarily because Will ‘never thought of Hannibal as being capable of love’ and had put love ‘on a kind of pedestal’ as a ‘more perfect thing’. Will’s ‘Is Hannibal in love with me?’ question to Bedelia leads to the revelation not only that yes, Hannibal IS capable of feeling love, but also that what Will feels for Hannibal is also love. This appalls him - he sees it as ‘dirty and awful’ because of the terrible things that Hannibal has done and the terrible person that he is. Well, seriously, we can’t argue with that, can we? Hannibal, by anyone’s standards, IS a terrible person: his response to Bella’s dying wish is to toss a coin; his reaction to his boy’s betrayal is to cut the throat of their murder daughter. But he’s also terribly charming and he’s played by Mads Mikkelsen, so we love him anyway. Surely Will, though, can be forgiven for not jumping up and down in glee at the realisation that all these complicated feelings he’s had stewing inside him for years boil down to him being TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY IN LOVE with a cannibalistic serial killer?!

Finally to the question of whether WIll is going to give himself over completely to the Dark Side in Season 4. The answer seems to be not permanently. Or, at least, not completely. Will wouldn’t be WIll, according to Hugh, without his empathy. So ‘Hannibal’s always going to have to fight for him’. Am I the only one who actually finds that really romantic?

Before I end this, I’d just like to say that Hugh came to his Q&A on Saturday after an absolutely exhausting morning of photo shoots and autograph signings. I was stewarding in the room where the photo shoots took place and it was relentless - hour after hour of non-stop standing, posing and smiling. He was PHENOMENAL throughout - cheerful, enthusiastic and generous. And then he had to go and do signing. And THEN he went to do the Q&A and found himself alone with the mic for an hour before Bryan, who was supposed to be doing it with him, finally appeared (because Bryan, bless him, doesn’t know the meaning of the word speed and wanted to give everyone he was signing for equal and significant attention). So, as he himself confessed, he was making a lot of what he said up on the spot. Let’s face it, it’s been years since they finished making the show and I highly doubt he sits rewatching episodes. In fact, I’m fairly certain there are some episodes he’s never even seen! I think, therefore, it’s likely that he filled in some replies with stuff he’s said in the past (eg. the chess metaphor) without thinking ‘oh, hang on, that only really applies to Season 1’, etc. So maybe we shouldn’t be too hung up on the answers he gave at RDC3.

I’ll give the last words to Hugh and Bryan - comments they’ve made over the years which serve to illustrate some of the points I’ve tried to make in this post. Thank you for reading and forgive me for rambling!

Hugh

In a sense, the two of them have been wandering the Earth, totally isolated, because they have such a specific and elevated mentality. Not identical, but it is as if not only are you the greatest chess player on the planet, you’re actually the only person on the planet that can play chess. And then suddenly you walk into a room one day and there’s a guy playing chess. I think that’s how they feel about each other.

If you want to frame it in terms of a kind of romance between the two of them, I guess it was like seeing each other from across a crowded room… it was like two people who have felt entirely isolated, or maybe just unique, and then they bump into each other in the course of their lives, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m not alone. I see some of myself in that other person.’

They’ve been alone in the world until they recognized something in the other that made them feel not alone, which is as good a description of love as you can have, I suppose.

There is kind of the feeling of falling in love, like, 'Oh, my god, I see you. I really see you.’ Of course, the fact is he doesn’t see Hannibal at that point, but, nonetheless, whatever it is between them, is there from the beginning.

They had imagined they were unique until they saw each other. Obviously it took Will longer to appreciate that because he didn’t quite realise what he was dealing with in Hannibal, but Hannibal sees it instantly… It’s two people who have been - I mean, Will probably wears it heavier - but still, essentially alone in the world and then see some kind of, maybe not mirror image, but the other side of their coin. So… that for me explains the love, really, that they have for each other… It’s a genuine, deep feeling that they have for each other… I think it’s platonic, um, but, but I think it’s a - it’s not like two guys who are friends, you know? It’s a rich, deep love.

It’s a true love.

They are in love, or they love each other. That’s unquestionable.

It’s a very rich and profound friendship, and love even. Once Will realises who Hannibal is, it complicates that but it doesn’t just wipe the slate clean. It doesn’t change the fact of their connection.

The show is about romance and it is about love between the two of them: profound and inescapable love.

I realized that the emotional arc of the show, for the second half (of Season 2), was geared towards that cutting. It was not just a horrible, nasty, “Oh, no, my guts are falling out,” but it was a type of consummation that was like an embrace and a connection between the two of them. So, that was what I clung onto. It had to be horrific, also because it was the peak of their romance, in a way.

He’s not looking for a replacement for Hannibal (in Season 3), no. I don’t think there is a replacement for Hannibal.

When Season 3 picks up, we’re both pining for each other.

It is a love story, but obviously not a very functional one.

It’s just like a really compelling but totally destructive relationship… that you keep coming back to.

I think at a certain point it’s bigger than either of them. Hannibal wants to be more in control, but actually he’s willing to burn everything down to have contact with Will. At a certain point, that covers your whole world. I don’t think it’s sexual, but I think it’s bigger than that to be honest.

I think you can always break this down to an analogy between Will and Hannibal of a really bad relationship, or a terrible breakup, or like a mistress. So yeah, in its most basic way, it is that. It’s his past that he has kind of shared with his wife, but he hasn’t fully shared it, and he has probably convinced himself that that’s in order to protect her, but in reality it’s because it’s something he’s guarding for himself.

Will comes back to Hannibal. He’s now got this family, and Will, independently and pretty quickly, starts coming to the conclusion that it’s not sustainable for him to have that family. Like, he’s not the guy. He’s not the right person to be able to look after them, to live with them. It’s not compatible with who he really is. And you could argue that Hannibal is just driving him more quickly to come to that realization. So in that sense, it is kind of brutal, tough love. His love is saying, “Know thyself.”

I think I’ve come back purely to do the job, to try to figure out the Red Dragon… That’s his conscious agenda; the subconscious agenda is probably closer to what Hannibal would say openly, which is that he pretty much couldn’t stay away.

He comes out of it and he’s just exhilarated and he’s finally broken through to that thing Hannibal has been wishing for him and he just says, “It’s beautiful.” He loves it. And that’s the most terrifying thing. Not only do I have to end him, I have to end me as well.

It wasn’t the horror that drove Will to do this. The horror was secondary; it was a horror in reaction to how much he loved what had just happened between him and Hannibal. We’ve seen so many moments of Will covered in blood and shaking and horrified and this is suddenly realizing this is my true self.

The only time in the duration of this entire show that we had the conversation (about Hannigram) before, as we were about to shoot that scene: like, we have to kind of push in that direction; there’s no point pretending otherwise. I guess we obviously both thought that was great.

I always wondered when he would come out gleaming and whole and deadly, but the bubble of his empathy always rose to the surface.

Whether it (Hannigram) came from his (Bryan’s) subconscious, or whether it’s there, sitting in the novels, or whether it’s something we created when we came together to make the first episode, but he ran with it, and we all ran with it. It is now about these two men who are completely alone in a big, bleak world, and then see, coming across the horizon, the other person who reminds them of themselves, somehow. That, to me, is endlessly fascinating.

Bryan

This is a love story.

It was a love story from the very beginning - it was romantic horror.

It’s beyond sexual. It is pure intimacy in a non-physical way.

Will accepts who Hannibal is. It’s also narcissistic, in the way that we fall in love with people who make us feel better about ourselves and who make us feel like we’re a better version of ourselves.

Will is pulled back in to the Red Dragon arc, he’s asking Bedelia, “is Hannibal in love with me?” and Bedelia is saying “is this a ‘can’t live with him, can’t live without him?'” And essentially it is, and that’s sort of the conclusion Will comes to at the end, “I can’t live with him, I can’t live without him. This is the scenario where the least amount of people can die,” meaning, “the two of us.”

There is a quality to connections that go above and beyond sexuality. You can have this intimate connection with somebody that then causes you to wonder where the lines of your own sexuality are. And we didn’t quite broach the sexuality. It was certainly suggested, but the love is absolutely on the table. There is love between these two men, and confusion between these two men.

It was Will experiencing pure joy and connection with Hannibal and realizing how terrifying that is… they’re able to acknowledge that it was beautiful. Will realizes how terrifying a thing that is for him to have enjoyed murder so much and perhaps Hannibal was exactly right for him. Bedelia says, “You can’t live with him, you can’t live without him.” That’s exactly what this is about. Will can’t live without Hannibal, and he knows that in that moment, once they’d experienced a murder together. There’s a realization of his mind being able to process that experience as a thing of beauty. With that, he knows there is very little chance of him being able to return to humanity, so off they go.

#my meta #nbc hannibal #rdc3 #hugh dancy #bryan fuller

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