#its like saying ‘if you watch Hannibal you must be a cannibal or support them’ do you see how crazy that sounds

[questionablygourmet]

Rewatch meta: mirrors, connections, and intrusion in Aperitif & Amuse-Bouche

This is the first of what is intended to be a series of analytical posts based on what sticks out to me as I do a close rewatch of the show, roughly 1-3 episodes at a time.  This first one will mainly focus on the introduction of major motifs and thematic elements in the show; future posts may follow in that vein or just whatever else about the episodes gets me thinking.

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One of the aspects of the show that makes it such a vibrant experience, and lends vibrancy in turn to analysis and transformative works in fandom is its rich use of motif in how it communicates what is important and what is going on with the characters and in the narrative.  The first two episodes are set up: they present to us the main characters along with the essentials of who they are, and they’re the opening sally of (some of) major themes and motifs.

Mirrors 

Okay, the first thing I’m going to talk about here is not actually the aspect that got it included in this section, but I must: right before our very first look at Hannibal Lecter, we pan up his table and see fruit on a platter, mirrored in the polished surface of the wood. The fruit was the first thing that caught my eye, because of course it did, pomegranates being a pervasive motif in the fandom, and it’s an interesting layout: there are strong mythological associations for pomegranate (Hades & Persephone, etc) and figs (Dionysus, etc).  Strawberries, somewhat less so; they are often associated with love, fertility, and/or new life, but in a less obvious-in-modern-pop-culture fashion.

So.  An aesthetically beautiful array of fruit as a perfect symbolic introduction to the character of Hannibal!  ... and then its mirror image in the shine of the table.  Mirrors/the concept of mirroring will become a huge Thing specifically between Hannibal and Will over the course of the series.  We also get “the mirrors in your mind can reflect the best of yourself, rather than the worst of someone else,” which honestly is a line that fascinates me in context of how, in seasons 2-3, the idea of Will and Hannibal blurring together, being mirror images to each other/two sides to a coin gets played with and explored.

The irony here is that Hannibal really does want Will to be his authentic self - yet by the end of the series, whatever it may or may not have been Before (”Before you, and after you”), Will’s authentic self is in many ways a sort of mirror to Hannibal.  An answer to the question of Hannibal, as much as Hannibal is an answer to the question of Will.

Connection

So the really obvious place this comes out in a big way is with the killer du jour for episode 2 - Stammets’s whole schtick is that he’s obsessed with creating gardens of physical connections between people in the form of his creepy (and GROSS, honestly this is the grossest episode in the show for me) mushroom graves.  

But really, this is also ultimately one of the deepest-running themes of the show.  It’s central to our Murder Husbands, both of them profoundly isolated from the rest of humanity until they find each other.  It’s front-and-center with Franklyn and Tobias, both wanting to reach out to Hannibal (and Franklyn also to Tobias), and him having none of it.  And it’s necessarily fundamental to all the other interpersonal relationships, in the explicit variation of how mutual a given connection between characters is (and often, the contrast in how each of them perceives that connection - “Could I ever have understood you?” “No.”).  

And it’s more subtly emphasized in these two episodes as we’re being introduced to and developing an understanding of how Will works as an investigator.  

“You make jumps you can’t explain.”  “The *evidence* explains.”  

“Associations come quickly.” 

I roll my eyes every single time Hannibal says “pure empathy” in the show because while, yes, Will has plenty of empathy, as he protests to Jack in the very first scene, the point is he has an active imagination, and applies it to the evidence.  Will is so good at what he does because he makes connections between general knowledge he has and details of the crime scenes that seem strange or even nonsensical to others.  Antler velvet in the wounds?  Well, what do I know about antler velvet?  And then that knowledge he has about it promoting healing probably later supports his assertion that the killer experiences some form of love for his victims.

(It didn’t seem to fit in well in the earlier section, but the mirror motif also comes into play with the Shrike case in that the first Copycat murder is a distorted reflection of what the Shrike does, for the purposes of making the essential elements of the Shrike murders stand out more starkly to Will.)

In the Stammets case, his mental reconstruction at the crime scene itself is literally just a review of what they’ve already been able to conclude from the physical evidence, plus the inference that it’s not important to the killer that his victims be aware that they were dying, which is a fairly obvious one to make given the lack of restraints.  Then, when they’re discussing it in the lab and cause of death has been determined, he’s able to do more with the information - he’s able to determine the how of the victims’ docile interment and from then it’s a quick series of fairly obvious jumps to who the killer must be.

Finally, the debut of the Ravenstag is the result of the sudden, vivid connection Will’s mind has made from the imagery of the Copycat scene - crows and a stag’s head, a murder and a message.  The Ravenstag will go on to embody the spectre of death, an omen, but also in some ways a guardian.

Intrusion

Hoo boy is this show ever about that, and these episodes certainly do get off to a running start on this theme.

First of all, just about everyone and everything intruding on Will.  There’s Jack in his classroom, there’s Hannibal in Jack’s office and then Will’s motel room, there’s Beverly in Elise Nichols’s room and then again (slightly less unwelcome) at the range, there’s Freddie Being Freddie, and then there’s his hallucinations. 

We explicitly discuss the intrusive nature in which Will experiences his work: 

“Fear is the price of imagination.”

“No forts in the bone arena of your skull for the things you love.”

And then we start to see the basis for Will’s trust in Hannibal start to form has Hannibal backs off in episode 2.  He lets Will roam about the mezzanine of his office (literally circling Hannibal, and part of me wanted to talk about lions because of that and the line with Franklyn, but that felt like stretching a bit too much) while he stays below, gives answers to the questions Will lobs back at him, becomes someone who will push just enough to show concern and interest, but will gracefully retreat into safer waters at the right moment rather than press for ever more.

It’s beautiful and infuriating to me that this is both the truth and the smokescreen for actions that make it also a farce - Will and Hannibal’s relationship is characterized both by a strong, genuine interpersonal courtesy and a staggering degree of intrusion (mostly by Hannibal, though Will has his moments), and these things can and do frequently exist fully side by side.  

The other notable single target of intrusion in these episodes is, of course, Hannibal.

Something I didn’t really consciously grok on my first couple of watchings of Jack and Hannibal’s first scene together is that while Jack is trying to flatter Hannibal rather than intimidate/command (as he was doing with Will), Jack is still being very nearly as pushy and invasive as he was in his first scene with Will: shows up unannounced, assumes Hannibal will make time for him without stating his purpose in being there (I love how visibly taken-aback he is when Hannibal tells him to wait in the damn waiting room), then wanders around Hannibal’s office and messes with his drawings while casually talking about Hannibal’s personal history before he ever gets around to The Point.  Yes, Hannibal’s eventually pleased as punch with the results of that visit, but Jack’s behavior is what it is. 

Then there’s Freddie (oh, Freddie), who will continue to be a wildly intrusive presence in his life over the next few years in various ways.  And then there’s Will, himself, pushing back when Hannibal asks questions in their office sessions - and who will ultimately be The One True Intrusion, the destabilizing element that will cause Hannibal to tear his life as he knows it to the ground.  

There are other ways this theme can be discussed in the context of these two episodes, but I’ve hit the main points I meant to and this has gotten lengthy enough already!

(Below the cut, for your potential amusement, a smattering of my notes from rewatching that didn’t necessarily make it into this.)

JACK DON'T TOUCH PEOPLE'S GLASSES

I will never get over the irony of "You have to convince yourself that the lion is not in the room.  When it is I assure you, you will know."

pURe EMpatHY

ahh yes, the Teleporting Cannibal Episode

"I'd rather not take it from you" - have to wonder how much Freddie remembered that statement later, as she was starting to wonder if Hannibal might be killing with Will

And here's our first mention of God enjoying killing.

#hannibal #aperitif #amuse bouche #season 1 #meta #my meta #rewatch meta series #hannibal lecter #will graham #jack crawford

[very-merry-sioux]

What amuses and saddens me about newer fandoms’ intense policing in content is that if you applied it to real life, it would be an obvious dictatorship. They don’t seem to realize that there are plenty of published works out there that have similar content to what they’re raging about. Pedophilia, incest, violence, gore, BDSM, and any kind of gritty, kinky thing you can think of.

Newer fictional works I can think of that has these “problematic content that makes people pedophilic incestous violent sexual devils”: Fifty Shades of Gray, Hannibal, and Game of Thrones. Even Twilight can be pedophilic with how Jacob imprints on a child.

Older fictional works I can think of: Star Wars (or did you guys conveniently forget the canon incest scene that happened in one of the movies?), Cardcaptor Sakura (had an elementary schoolgirl being proposed by a teacher, and she accepted, Sakura’s parents are a little better but not much - mom was in highschool and dad was in college when they dated, I CAN GO ON - CLAMP GENERALLY HAS WEIRDASS RELATIONSHIPS), and Harry Potter (beyond the violence, there’s also the part that you’ll symphasize with Merope, the one who drugged a man and raped him constantly until they had a child).

Let’s go older: Lolita, Silence of The Lambs, every horror film and game ever.

Let’s go even older: Oedipus Rex.

Can we get older? Yes we can: Literally any story about the adventures of Zeus’ cock, and the whole family tree of the Ancient Egyptian gods. And also their royal family.

You wanna know the reason why people would rather police works instead of actual pedophiles and sexual harrassers? Actual rapists? You wanna know why they’d rather go for an artist or writer who created something “evil”? Because it’s easier to burn a book rather than completely uproot a rapist and sexually abusive culture. They want to vent, they want to control. They’re ignorant and angry.

So fictional works that have content that is not child friendly and not safe for work? That can be gross and triggerry? That can be depraved and inhumane? They’ve always been there. Yes, it’s problematic that a lot of people online are perverts and harass others. Yes, it’s sad that filtering content is not 100% perfect in archiveofourown (ao3) and other sites most deemed evil. But newsflash: neither is Tumblr.

I’ve read posts about people saying how they encountered horrific content even though they used tags and filtering when they venture ao3, and is therefore bad. I’ve read posts about how they’re part of the Old Fandom and support this extreme policing of content because they were harassed.

If that’s the case, ignore that site and leave. You don’t burn a library to take care of a problem, you don’t shoot a writer to defend justice, and you don’t scream at a book to get what you want. The worst thing to happen to a show is when nobody watches it anymore. The worst fate of a book is when nobody touches it. It’s the same with fanfiction, especially since it’s free content. Don’t like it? Don’t read it.

I remember there was an issue about the Deadpool movie, how it was too violent and crude for children. Parents complained about it. There were two points Reynolds said about that. One, the movie is not for kids. Two, why are you bringing your kids to watch it?

It’s the same logic. If the content is not for you, stop watching/looking/reading it. Internet is more flexible than published works, true. But it was WORSE before. No safe search, no tags, little warnings, literal surpise buttsex in fanfiction, and porn galore. It’s young, much younger than the movie and book industry, so of course its warning system isn’t as perfect as the real word. The older fandoms tried and did a good job considering the messy lawsuits that appeared, what happens now is mostly on newer fandoms. And you guys have a better start since the stigma of fanfiction has lessened.

You don’t burn Fifty Shades of Gray to keep bdsm content from you, and you don’t accuse the writers of Deadpool for being evil because they wrote a Marvel script that isn’t child-friendly. You compromise, you create a system, and you try to understand why these fictional works exist.

Let me try this policing and anti logic newer fandoms have, to see if it has sense.

I’ve seen more porn blogs and bullies in this site than the amount of alpha-beta smut in ao3. I’ve had porn blogs reblog my art of a child with his guardians (for my followers, it’s my [tiny and terrifyingly cute au]). I’ve had porn blogs reblog my posts about the accounts of victims of torture from my country’s martial law. I’ve never had ao3 writers plagiarize my work for porn. I’ve seen more people attacking someone who draws fanart rather than someone who creates those disgusting blogs. From that logic, anyone who uses Tumblr must be evil.

Of course, you’d defend that not all of you are like that. You’d defend that you’re fixing it. You’d defend it’s not that simple.

And what? You don’t think people from older fandoms aren’t trying? We’re all disgusting pedophiles? You think that our problems are simple? That most of us aren’t trying to give warnings and tags? That filtering content is easy? Tumblr failed so badly in doing that!

So instead of being angry that somebody posted their works, maybe consider you’re a problem yourself. There’s a difference between reality and fiction. I don’t expect the writer of Silence of the Lambs to do cannibalism, I don’t expect Ryan Reynolds to be a red ninja assasin who’s crude. I don’t expect Anne Rice, writer of vampiric sexy times, to be evil by sexually harassing her fans. She’s already an asshole without being erotic. H.P Lovecraft was also an asshole, just so you know. He didn’t have to write gratuitous smut to do it.

I know it’s easier to judge someone based on their fics and art, but either take the time to actually know them or ignore them altogether. Never judge a book by its warnings, and never judge an author by their books.

#fandom #merry muses #I am gonna sleep #discourse #fandom culture