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I have Hannibal feels, yo. Big surprise.
The Hannibal finale left my head spinning so hard when I watched it. I watched it three times on Thursday, and had to flail so hard about it that I attacked the first person I saw who would understand, which unfortunately was a co-worker in an entirely different fandom. She was very polite, listening to my disjointed non-spoilery flailing, and I have nothing but gratitude for her. That, and maybe a little embarrassment. ^^;;
BUT. I STILL NEED TO TALK ABOUT HANNIBAL SOME MORE.
There is absolutely nothing about this show that I didn’t love, hands down. I think it’s the best show I’ve ever seen, honestly, even with the art film pretension. As a matter of personal taste, this entire show has been a beautiful, artistic fairy tale, and I have an incredible weakness for fairy tales. I love everything about them, and Hannibal hit every single step for me almost perfectly, even during the slow and dreamy (and sometimes confusing) first half of season three.
When I was talking to her last night, I failed at being coherent, so here’s another try. First things first:
Hannigram is and will always be an abusive relationship, imo. They manipulate and twist everyone around them, and each other, and it’s painful and awful. That being said, I love dark ships. The more fucked up they are, the better, and part of the darkness in the Hannigram ship is what appeals to me.
If this were real life, I would want Will Graham to get as far away from Hannibal as he possibly can. It’s fucked up, they’re fucked up, and they’re terrible for each other.
In fiction, this is something I eat up and can never get enough of. This show gets me in ways, yo. Ugh.
Here’s the important thing, though. In a world of queerbaiting, Hannigram is canon. Period.
It’s not sexual, textually (although I wish it were, just to silence any naysayers.) I personally wish they’d had sex in a pool of blood, but you know, personal tastes and all that. *cough*
Whether season four would have turned it into a physical relationship, Hannibal and Will are in love. It reminds me a lot of the notion of romantic friendships. Just because they didn’t kiss doesn’t mean they weren’t in love.
My romantic world view has been formulated by two specific things in my teenage years: books with the concept of soulmates (Mercedes Lackey and the Valdemar series and their concept of Lifebonds; LJ Smith and her concept of Soulmate bonds.) I grew up day dreaming about finding The One, you know, the One who would be mine forever, with no room in the relationship for doubt. The second thing, as a woman, we’re always inundated by the idea that we should have sex until we’re married, that there’s nothing more loving or special than sharing your body with the one you love, that it’s the most intimate gift you can ever give someone.
Because of these two things, there’s still a part of me that says “If they’re Soulmates, then sex will happen because it’s the most INTIMATE THING THEY CAN DO.”
I know it’s not. I know life doesn’t work that way and people don’t work that way, but in fiction, yeah. It works for me. My father once asked why I think all the men with friendships should sleep together (which, you know, is not the case, but my father is one of those guys who just really wants to get it but doesn’t really get it) and it’s because of these two things I’ve internalized. Men in media can’t be shown as intimate with each other, and so if I believe they love each other in subtext, then sex must follow.
(Let me tell you, as someone who’s asexual, my lack of sexual desire for people and my intense need to have fictional romantic couples be physically involved is really interesting to me.)
BUT. Back to Hannibal, the important thing is that Hannibal and Will’s relationship has flowered beautifully over 36 hours of television. I don’t have to work with subtext. It’s clear to me that even though Will and Hannibal both have other relationships, they orbit around one another, because there’s no one in the world who can understand them like they can understand each other.
For once, it doesn’t matter to me whether they kiss or have sex or whatever, because their personal intimacy is allowed to exist. We can see it in the way they kill Dollarhyde together, in the way they embrace at the end. In this fucked up universe, it isn’t the sex that proves the intimacy, it’s the murder.
If it had only been that, I would have been satisfied.
But then the episode tag. Oh, the episode tag, with Bedelia being served her own leg. There were three chairs and four place settings (setting number four perhaps in memory of Abigail) and after the course of the season, it’s proof to me that Hannibal and Will survived.
And if we *do* look at Hannibal as a fairy tale, then that’s it right there. Hannibal got his happy ever after.
There’s a lot of other stuff rattling around in my head, about how toxic masculinity in our culture makes people uncomfortable with gay men, how we can have lesbians with a canon sex scene, but the true romance of the series doesn’t get a kiss, so on and so on, but for right now, for this moment, I’m happy.
And I’m totally going to write porny fic in which Hannibal and Will have sex in a pool of blood. You know. For reasons.
BUT. I STILL NEED TO TALK ABOUT HANNIBAL SOME MORE.
There is absolutely nothing about this show that I didn’t love, hands down. I think it’s the best show I’ve ever seen, honestly, even with the art film pretension. As a matter of personal taste, this entire show has been a beautiful, artistic fairy tale, and I have an incredible weakness for fairy tales. I love everything about them, and Hannibal hit every single step for me almost perfectly, even during the slow and dreamy (and sometimes confusing) first half of season three.
When I was talking to her last night, I failed at being coherent, so here’s another try. First things first:
Hannigram is and will always be an abusive relationship, imo. They manipulate and twist everyone around them, and each other, and it’s painful and awful. That being said, I love dark ships. The more fucked up they are, the better, and part of the darkness in the Hannigram ship is what appeals to me.
If this were real life, I would want Will Graham to get as far away from Hannibal as he possibly can. It’s fucked up, they’re fucked up, and they’re terrible for each other.
In fiction, this is something I eat up and can never get enough of. This show gets me in ways, yo. Ugh.
Here’s the important thing, though. In a world of queerbaiting, Hannigram is canon. Period.
It’s not sexual, textually (although I wish it were, just to silence any naysayers.) I personally wish they’d had sex in a pool of blood, but you know, personal tastes and all that. *cough*
Whether season four would have turned it into a physical relationship, Hannibal and Will are in love. It reminds me a lot of the notion of romantic friendships. Just because they didn’t kiss doesn’t mean they weren’t in love.
My romantic world view has been formulated by two specific things in my teenage years: books with the concept of soulmates (Mercedes Lackey and the Valdemar series and their concept of Lifebonds; LJ Smith and her concept of Soulmate bonds.) I grew up day dreaming about finding The One, you know, the One who would be mine forever, with no room in the relationship for doubt. The second thing, as a woman, we’re always inundated by the idea that we should have sex until we’re married, that there’s nothing more loving or special than sharing your body with the one you love, that it’s the most intimate gift you can ever give someone.
Because of these two things, there’s still a part of me that says “If they’re Soulmates, then sex will happen because it’s the most INTIMATE THING THEY CAN DO.”
I know it’s not. I know life doesn’t work that way and people don’t work that way, but in fiction, yeah. It works for me. My father once asked why I think all the men with friendships should sleep together (which, you know, is not the case, but my father is one of those guys who just really wants to get it but doesn’t really get it) and it’s because of these two things I’ve internalized. Men in media can’t be shown as intimate with each other, and so if I believe they love each other in subtext, then sex must follow.
(Let me tell you, as someone who’s asexual, my lack of sexual desire for people and my intense need to have fictional romantic couples be physically involved is really interesting to me.)
BUT. Back to Hannibal, the important thing is that Hannibal and Will’s relationship has flowered beautifully over 36 hours of television. I don’t have to work with subtext. It’s clear to me that even though Will and Hannibal both have other relationships, they orbit around one another, because there’s no one in the world who can understand them like they can understand each other.
For once, it doesn’t matter to me whether they kiss or have sex or whatever, because their personal intimacy is allowed to exist. We can see it in the way they kill Dollarhyde together, in the way they embrace at the end. In this fucked up universe, it isn’t the sex that proves the intimacy, it’s the murder.
If it had only been that, I would have been satisfied.
But then the episode tag. Oh, the episode tag, with Bedelia being served her own leg. There were three chairs and four place settings (setting number four perhaps in memory of Abigail) and after the course of the season, it’s proof to me that Hannibal and Will survived.
And if we *do* look at Hannibal as a fairy tale, then that’s it right there. Hannibal got his happy ever after.
There’s a lot of other stuff rattling around in my head, about how toxic masculinity in our culture makes people uncomfortable with gay men, how we can have lesbians with a canon sex scene, but the true romance of the series doesn’t get a kiss, so on and so on, but for right now, for this moment, I’m happy.
And I’m totally going to write porny fic in which Hannibal and Will have sex in a pool of blood. You know. For reasons.
no subject
I wish it had been. Sex in a pool of blood, maybe, but with that show, it would have been way weirder, I'm sure.
But maybe the sexuality did make it into the text. That last embrace, to me, looked and felt like it expressed not only Will and Hannibal's fucked up emotional connection, but also an element of sexual/sensual/desire.
Yeah. I think that's why there was no Will/Hannibal on the screen. Except for that last bit, which, hey, it's the last episode; might as well. What would the network do? Cancel the show? They should have put in more.
no subject
But then again, if they *are* still trying to find a home for season four or do a feature film or something, Fuller probably doesn't want to burn all his bridges.
no subject
no subject
Looking forward to the re-watch. But first -- DRAGON CON. I wonder if I'll see Hannibal cosplay? That'd be cool.