The Mathematician, 1994.

Joel Miller + textposts ♡

“You and I have begun to blur… I’m curious whether either of us can survive separation.”

Hannibal (2013-2015)

Marie Antoinette (2006)

dir. Sofia Coppola

The Lovers,  Akseli Gallen-Kallela

mom said it’s my turn to be ached for, to have someone feel a stab of hunger for me, to feel nourishment at the sight of me. give it now

The Letter

Dear Will,

We have all found a new life, but our old lives hover in the shadows like incipient madness. Soon enough I fear Jack Crawford will come knocking. I would encourage you, as a friend, not to step back through the door he holds open. It’s dark on the other side, and madness is waiting.

                                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                              Hannibal Lecter                     

Well, this must be bad. You know something is truly amiss in the world of the show when Hannibal begins operating as its voice of reason. Hannibal wants to see Will again. He wants to see Will again so badly that he surrendered himself into FBI custody to secure this future for them both. We as an audience also know that through his pursuit of the Tooth Fairy, Will is all but guaranteed to seek out Hannibal again. Will knows this, too. He knows it from the moment he sees Jack on his doorstep – this dreadful but inevitable eventuality hovers over Will’s decision to join the Tooth Fairy investigation, just as surely as the presence of Hannibal’s letter in his bureau hovers over Will. 

It isn’t only madness waiting for Will beyond the door Jack holds open for him. Hannibal is waiting, too. But rather than encourage the inevitable, Hannibal speaks out against it. 

On the one hand, Hannibal’s actions belie his words. He encloses with his concerned missive a lovingly clipped newspaper article documenting the Tooth Fairy’s murders. It’s about as sly a piece of manipulation as Jack waving around photos of the murdered families on Will’s front porch (in other words, not very sly at all – just drop an anvil on Will’s head why dontcha). “Don’t look through the door,” Hannibal warns Will, “but here’s a sneak preview of what you’ll find when you do!” Is Hannibal writing the letter as a way of inciting Will to join the investigation? If so, it’s reverse psychology of the lowest sort. I think that’s too obvious a manipulation for Hannibal. He isn’t one for saying the opposite of what he means. There is always a grain of truth to his pronouncements. I think he’s writing this letter as Will’s friend, just as he claims. His warning is real.

The tenor of Hannibal’s letter is very reminiscent of the tone he took with Will as his therapist, and “as a friend,” in S1. In his office Hannibal often insinuated that the work Will did for Jack was destroying his sanity (when in actual fact encephalitis, and Hannibal himself, were the chief culprits). Hannibal liked positioning himself as a differing opinion to Jack: the angel on Will’s shoulder in opposition to Jack’s devil. It was a way for Hannibal to set himself up as a trusted confidante for Will, and a way of slowly straining the bonds that connected Will to law enforcement. Hannibal is doing the same thing now; in writing the letter he is undermining Will’s relationship with Jack. Jack doesn’t want what’s best for Will, but Hannibal does. Hannibal remains Will’s true friend, not Jack. Sure, Hannibal didn’t respect Will’s stated wishes when he gave himself up to the FBI, but at least he’s not actively pushing Will back into the darkness. For Hannibal, this is caring. This is love. “I want to see you so badly, but I won’t force you to see me. Not until you really want to. Not until it’s the right time, and it’s on your terms.”

The Tooth Fairy investigation isn’t the right time. It isn’t Will or Hannibal’s terms. Dr. Chilton observed that the Tooth Fairy instills within Hannibal a competitive vanity, but that vanity isn’t strictly professional; it’s personal too. Hannibal doesn’t want to share Will with the Tooth Fairy. He doesn’t want Will to get into the mind of another killer, especially not this particular killer, a killer that has surmounted Hannibal in the world’s eyes. Will might not be thinking about Hannibal anymore, but the last thing Hannibal wants is for Will to replace that thinking with thoughts bent into the design of another killer. Hannibal wants Will to return to him because of Will’s interest in Hannibal himself, not because of Will’s interest in the Tooth Fairy. 

And finally, let’s talk about Hannibal’s warning concerning madness. Note that in the written version of the letter, Hannibal references madness not once but twice. Madness is incipient, madness is waiting. This is a return to S1 rhetoric: there Will feared that the ultimate fate awaiting him was not becoming a cold and calculated killer, but losing control completely. Losing his mind. Will has rejected the path of becoming a killer. He doesn’t have the appetite. But the other path remains open to Will, the path of self-destruction, the path of insanity. And this time Hannibal is trying to prevent Will from walking down it.

THE PATH FEATURED IN EDGE MAGAZINE

The idea of an “academia aesthetic” is interesting to me. I get a kick out of humanities majors posting pics of their laptops in charming coffee houses, and gothic architecture, and romantically lit libraries and stuff, when:

having my hannibal-fleabag era, not sure how compatible they are (i fancy a priest and a cannibal)

L + ratio + you reduce the complex nuanced art of female musicians to “sad girl music” and think that being a fan of theirs equates to having mental illness