Hannibal Lecter and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

by Joseph Westfall

  Why is it so hard for him to make friends in the first place? It’s not, I think, just the fact that he has murdered people and eats their corpses. I think that there is something about Hannibal that lies behind the murders, and this is what separates Hannibal from the rest of the human world. It’s all very Nietzschean, but to see how, exactly, we have to look at his relationship to animals.

  Will often says that the Chesapeake Ripper looks on his victims as pigs, to be slaughtered. There’s some truth to this, but he’s not quite right, as it turns out. Hannibal causes the slaughter of lots of actual pigs (as most of us do), but as he tells his dinner guests, he uses an ethical butcher. For actual pigs, Hannibal is perfectly willing to kill them and use them for his dinner, but he is not willing to cause them unnecessary suffering. But this is not how he treats his Chesapeake Ripper victims. He causes them tremendous unnecessary suffering—removing their organs while they are still alive. Why? Because he thinks that they are, in fact, less than pigs. They don’t deserve even the respect owed to pigs. (It’s worth noting that this is a major departure from the original description of Hannibal Lecter in the novels, as someone who tortured animals before moving on to killing people. This is how actual psychopaths often progress, but it was changed, even in the later novels, presumably in part to make Hannibal more relatable. We can tolerate our characters killing people, but they cannot kill animals—except for food on a daily basis.)

  Hannibal treats the animals that he cooks and eats as instruments for his ultimate pleasure, but he also recognizes that they have feelings, and that they don’t deserve to suffer more than necessary. Hannibal seems to treat most of the people in his life the same way. He has some fondness for them, like pets, but will kill them in an instant if it is a matter of his own interests. We can imagine that if he had found Dr. Du Maurier in her home at the end of Season 1, he would have killed her in a relatively pain-free way. She had to die, but she had never been rude, and so she didn’t deserve to suffer. Dr. Du Maurier, Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom: Hannibal sees them all like pigs. His Chesapeake Ripper victims are less.

  It’s extremely interesting that the show does not let us see Hannibal performing one of his Chesapeake Ripper killings. We see him kill many times, but in his guise as the Chesapeake Ripper, we see only the results. Why? I suspect because the show-runners know that this would be too much for us to maintain anything like sympathy for the character. Probably rightly—we can live with our main character as a murderer, but watching him torturing his victims would be harder for audiences to swallow.

  One can imagine a similar hesitancy in the character of Hannibal. He can share with others that he has taken lives (he has several public killings in the show, and admits to killing someone as an ER doctor). But he cannot share that he has hurt people, on purpose. One gets the sense that Hannibal wants to share this part of this life, but not with just anyone. Obviously he can’t share it with anyone who would turn him in, but he also can’t share it with the other killers on the show. For example, Matthew Brown, the orderly from the mental hospital from Season 2: that killer didn’t savor the moment, didn’t remove trophies while the victim was still alive, didn’t understand why his victims cling to life. Hannibal also didn’t try to befriend Tobias Budge, the killer cellist from Season 1. The reason for this is a little less clear, but I like to think that it’s because he was rude to Franklyn, who did not deserve it. Hannibal was fine with killing Franklyn, but didn’t want to leave him in the hands of someone who would hurt him.

  Think of how the world is ordered for Hannibal. There seem to be the following categories:

  •Rude people, whom he will happily kill in the most painful of ways;

  •Animals, and the vast majority of people, whom he will kill for the slightest need, but not with unnecessary pain;

  •People he finds interesting, like the rest of us relate to pets—whom he may have to hurt, but whom he would prefer to have in the world rather than not (including Alana Bloom);

  •Will Graham, who goes beyond this last category into something else; and

  •Himself.

  Hannibal wants a friend, and he sees in Will Graham the potential to become the kind of person that could be his friend. Hannibal sees himself as helping Will to take the next step. Obviously he lies, manipulates, and vicariously tries to kill Will, but I don’t think he sees any of this as acting contrary to a friendship with Will. Nietzsche would probably agree.

  So we can see what Hannibal sees in Will—the possibility of a real friend. Why does Hannibal want to become friends? Probably to do something new. He has never had an equal in his life, and it might open new doors. Thus Hannibal’s manipulation of Will into becoming more serves Will, but also serves Hannibal. According to Nietzsche, at least, Hannibal is acting like Will’s friend.

  Will’s View of Hannibal

  What does Will think of Hannibal? To answer this, we really have to look at the various time points in the series. When they first meet, Hannibal tells Will that he hopes that they can become friendly. Will sees it differently at first, but quickly comes to think that Hannibal is someone who is at least not taxing in the way that other people are.

  Their relationship becomes something more than psychiatrist and patient after Will kills Garret Jacob Hobbs. From Hannibal’s perspective, I think that this marks the beginning of his idea that Will can possibly become more like him. Will was entirely justified in shooting Hobbs—in fact, he regrets not shooting him more accurately—but he still suffers tremendously from the killing. Why? Encephalitis was a factor, but not the only one. Part of what the show does so well is take seriously the immensity of taking another life, where other TV shows would sweep such killings under the rug. This, I think, is a part of what Hannibal sees in Will: the valuing of all life, even those lives that deserve to be taken. And for Will, Hannibal as a therapist is just about perfect, since Hannibal does not treat Will’s discomfort as psychosis.

  Hannibal is a good therapist, but he’s also more.2 We can see how by looking at what Hannibal says to his other patient, Franklyn, who makes overtures of friendship—Hannibal tells him that his therapy is a “source of stability and clarity,” but not friendship (Hannibal, Season 1, “Sorbet”). Hannibal is all this to Will, but more too, and Will knows it.

  The next part of the story starts when Will is hospitalized. Will now knows the truth about Hannibal. At first, his reactions are to turn to the law. Then, he tries to have Hannibal killed. When Hannibal visits him in the mental hospital, Will says, “You’re not my friend. The light from friendship won’t reach us for a million years. That’s how far away from friendship we are” (Hannibal, Season 2, “Kaiseki”). From Will’s perspective, it’s all over, and in a sense, Hannibal would agree. Whatever they had earlier is gone. The difference is that while Hannibal wants to develop something new and truer with Will, Will fixes his attention on punishing Hannibal for his crimes.

  The third part of their relationship is Will pretending to be Hannibal’s friend, trying to get him to expose his true, murderous self. Did Will ever actually consider joining Hannibal? The show tries hard to make us wonder, but in the end, I don’t think he did. He was setting Hannibal up from the beginning. As soon as Hannibal kills Beverly Katz, and as soon as (for all Will knows at the time) he kills Abigail Hobbs, there’s no question of Will joining him. If Hannibal had admitted that he had not killed Abigail, Will might have been more inclined to commit to his lifestyle, but even so, I don’t think he would have committed all the way.

  The only real question for Will is what kind of person he wants to be. He is, for a time at least, willing to become a killer—for all moral purposes, he is one by the end of Season 2, killing one man whom he didn’t have to kill (Randall Tier), and attempting to kill—and regretting not killing—another (Clark Ingram). I think that Will might have been happy to become the kind of killer that television has given us before, the best example being Dexter Morgan (of the series, Dexter): the serial killer wh
o only kills those who deserve it. Hannibal is more: he doesn’t kill for justice or morality, he kills because he can. His purpose in killing is often just to make artistic points. This is a kind of person that Will Graham just cannot become, and as such, he can only see Hannibal as evil.

  In the novel Hannibal, Thomas Harris makes Hannibal Lecter into this kind of “moral” killer, only going after the kind of person whom the reader would think deserves it. Hannibal in that novel is not the kind of person who would kill an innocent girl to goad the FBI. Hannibal in the television series sometimes kills people who deserve it (even a few times killing a fellow serial killer, à la Dexter), but more often he kills people who are rude, or who get in his way.

  Will never really could have been the kind of killer Hannibal is. Will wants to catch Hannibal, not help him, and although he understands him, he does not want the best for him. Will was looking for a soulmate—a friend in the classical Aristotelian sense—and Hannibal was not it.

  The Tragedy of Hannibal

  Bryan Fuller has said in an interview that the show is really about heterosexual male friendship, in a way that few other television shows are (A.V. Club, “The Walkthrough: Suzakana”).3 He has also said that the tragedy of Season 2 is the ultimate betrayal of this friendship (A.V. Club, “The Walkthrough: Mizumono”). But I think that ultimately it wasn’t, since Hannibal and Will were never mutually friends. When each one thought the other was closest was when they were being lied to the most, and neither conception of friendship—neither Will’s Aristotelian view, nor Hannibal’s Nietzschean one—can withstand such lies.

  It should be clear that Aristotle leaves little room for lying between friends. For him, friends are true soulmates, who share everything about each other, and share everything with each other. Such a friendship could withstand what we might call “white lies” (“your new haircut looks nice,” “you didn’t embarrass yourself too much at the party,” etc.), but not lies about things of central importance. There would be no question, from Aristotle’s perspective, that a big lie, even if it were intended ultimately to help, can have no place in true friendship.

  For Nietzsche, big lies might actually be required in friendships, since for him, friends are about growth, not comfort. Hannibal lies to Will about his encephalitis to help him grow, and he sees no problem thinking of himself as Will’s friend while doing so. But from Hannibal’s perspective, even as he lies to Will systematically, Will’s lies to him are far worse. Will is lying not to help Hannibal or to challenge him, but to capture him and take his freedom. Will’s lies are not about growth or striving, as Hannibal thinks his are.

  So, in neither Aristotle’s sense nor Nietzsche’s are Hannibal and Will friends—there are times when each thinks they are, but they are mistaken, and for each, the exposure of that mistake is tragic. But even more tragic, and part of what makes the show so great, is that there is just the smallest hint of something like true friendship, right before the bloodbath that ends Season 2. We actually get a glimpse of this from both sides: first, when Hannibal, at dinner before the climactic murders, asks Will to leave right there, and abandon their plans to trap Jack. Hannibal has smelled Freddie Lounds’s perfume on Will, and knows that Will has been lying to him, but is willing to let it all go. Of course, Will cannot. Later, amidst the bloodshed, Will tells Hannibal that he could have just left town, implying that had he done so, Will would not have chased him. Both of these are moments where one of the characters shows real concern for the other, and while neither really makes sense in light of their respective ideas of friendship, they show something of the deep connection between the two. In these moments where Will and Hannibal are closest to truly being friends, any friendship between them is already impossible. As much as they may want to, they cannot escape the knowledge of their betrayals of each other, already in progress.

  1 For more on the role of Aristotle’s notion of friendship in discussing Hannibal Lecter’s relationships with others, see Chapter 6 of this volume.—Ed.

  2 For a more elaborate consideration of Hannibal Lecter as therapist, see Chapter 5 of this volume.—Ed.

  3 For more on the idea of Hannibal as a series devoted to exploring heterosexual male bonds (sometimes called “homosociality”), see Chapter 11 of this volume.—Ed.

  11

  A Rare Gift

  SELENA K.L. BREIKSS

  Time did reverse. The teacup that I shattered did come together. The place was made for Abigail and your world. Do you understand? The place was made for all of us, together. I wanted to surprise you. And you . . . You wanted to surprise me. I have let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.

  —HANNIBAL LECTER (Hannibal, Season 2, “Mizumono”)

  Bryan Fuller’s television series Hannibal is a macabre crime thriller based on the characters in Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon—the novel which precedes The Silence of the Lambs. The complex relationship between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Special Agent Will Graham is a dynamic bond of masculine emotional intimacy, competition and exclusion, and an unspoken fraternal order. Lecter and Graham navigate the multiple boundaries of their relationship as colleagues and friends, doctor and patient, victim and assailant, sexual rivals and emotional allies. Hannibal and Will’s relationship is further complicated by their interactions with the series’ secondary characters—namely, with Alana Bloom, a romantic interest of both men; Abigail Hobbs, the daughter of a serial killer for whom both men briefly share a parenting role; and Jack Crawford, the director of the Behavioral Science Unit within the FBI and their direct contact for the Bureau.

  Hannibal and Will have a ridiculously complicated relationship. As mentioned above, they are not only colleagues, but their bond maintains an intricate balance of doctor-patient, friend-enemy, and victim-assailant affinities—only to be complicated further as surrogate fathers and sexual rivals. The men are consistently in a state of competition and collusion, in a nearly simultaneous fashion, in their personal and professional lives. This relationship is at times positive for both men, as they are able to deeply understand each other and offer reciprocal emotional feedback and understanding (regardless of their revolving position as friends and enemies). “Homosociality” is a specific term for this type of bonding, coined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in her book, Between Men. The use of “homosocial” refers to the non-sexual, platonic bond between two men and encompasses the intimacy of their relationship (what we might sometimes call a “bromance”), and is especially visible when examining Hannibal and Will’s friendship, mentorship, and rivalry. Their bond is only between them, leaving those around them—namely Jack, Alana, and Abigail—as mere bystanders, and later victims, of their entanglement. This homosocial bond with Will is Hannibal’s “rare gift”: the opportunity and promise of a friendship, which will be expressed through the production and consumption of haute cuisine made from their collective gathering of meat, and will result in a bond that extends deeper than mere curiosity. Hannibal manipulates and molds Will, excited about the potential friendship. As we learn in the final scenes of the second season, as Will lies gasping in a pool of his own blood, this was Hannibal’s design.

  We’re Both Alone without Each Other

  Throughout the series, Hannibal and Will exist in a continuum of lopsided give and take. In his book, The Accursed Share, French philosopher Georges Bataille offers a glimpse into this sort of relationship. He conceives of it as not limited specifically to literal gifts and economic gains and losses, but rather more symbolic shifts in reciprocal bonds. Every moment of pleasure—for example, shopping sprees, sexual contact, and indulgent feasts—can also be included with the idea of “the Share” being tied directly to the display of economic and social surplus. We can see this in Hannibal with the grand meals prepared by Hannibal and the social elements tied to these events. Hannibal is demonstrating his power within his relationships with Will, Alana, and Jack as he is not offering strictly food, but an elegant, multi-course meal which conveys his
superior position. This position is not only his wealth and social status, but his constant ability to maintain dominance and control as they all seek to capture the Chesapeake Ripper. These actions are what Bataille calls the shifting of bonds in relationships; as Hannibal becomes more confident in his ability to mask his killings, the more meals he shares with his colleagues. He is so self-assured in his ability to hide his crimes that he not only invites his potential captors into his home, he serves them the evidence that they hope to find as an epicurean, cannibalistic feast.

  Bataille’s “accursed share” is a unique take on Marcel Mauss’s book, The Gift, insofar as Bataille’s description of the competitive relationship between the giver and the receiver is a response to Mauss. Mauss, yet another prominent French philosopher, explains that gifting is not specifically done for economic purposes, adding that it also includes an element of social bonding, but to an even greater extent can contribute to rivalry. Giving a gift, according to Mauss, can be as much about establishing social dominance as it is about anything else. Mauss’s theories are especially useful in coming to understand the homosocial relationship between Hannibal and Will: they are first positioned as colleagues—which adds an immediate professional rivalry—then, as doctor and patient, giving Hannibal the edge as Will’s support as he sinks into delirium. Will, dealing with the swelling in his brain, cannot fully reciprocate the emotional generosity, lending Hannibal the upper hand in the relationship. Hannibal has overcome Will to the extent that Will’s internal monologue is replaced with Hannibal’s voice. Will makes this quite apparent at the beginning of Season Two, when he tells Alana, “I hear Hannibal‘s voice in the well of my mind. I hear him saying words that he‘s never said to me. It isn’t my imagination. It’s something else” (Hannibal, Season 2, “Kaiseki”). Hannibal’s influence has become excessive to Will, despite the doctor’s (superficially) good intentions. Hannibal’s idea of the gift of friendship, companionship, and mentorship had become a burden on Will’s self-identity, and is a perfect example of Mauss’s idea of gifting to overpower or overwhelm the rival. The idea of their platonic relationship being a “gift” to Will is deeply ironic, given the toxicity and mayhem that Hannibal has introduced into Will’s life.