thinking about lottie desperately saying to nat “just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it evil” when she’s been struggling to understand herself and her illness/abilities with and without her medication her entire life and being told by her parents for years that it’s shameful and a bad thing and… anyway I’m gonna go cry about lottie matthews again
i can excuse the cannibalism but i draw the LINE at francis eating that fucking painting like it was a quesadilla
will + fishing
fishing is a personal thing to will. he wants to teach abigail to fish. he imagines fishing in a stream to calm himself. so then, why does will not take walter and molly fishing with him? it is important to him, so surely he would share it with them? it’s because the act of hunting and eating is part of his identity and they don’t really know him. they don’t know that he’s the predator, not the prey. you know who he imagines fishing with? abigail. you know who he provides fish for, as a meal? hannibal. they are his family, not molly and walter. - from this meta
LOVE IS HUNGER
hannibal is associated with food in nbc hannibal, obviously. he makes food, he savours food, he enjoys food. and some of the most important scenes in the show revolve around this idea of eating - not only of sating hunger, but savouring food itself. and this is intrinsically tied to the act of making food, displaying it, and then consuming it.
in comparison, will is also linked heavily to food, but not in the sense of preparing it. he is the one who catches it. will is a fisherman, first and foremost - it is a motif mentioned constantly in the show. if hannibal prepares the meat, then will catches it. he uses bait. he throws a line. and that act is calming to him.
…which is funny, because the first case that we see will connect with is about a hunter. a hunter who kills animals and humans. and he continuously connects with abigail and garret jacob hobbs because he, like them, is instinctively a hunter. we never see hannibal “hunt”. rather, he displays his victims artistically, the way he displays his food. but will uses a gun, will fishes, will views hannibal as the stag and hunts him.
thus we have the core idea that runs through the show: will is the hunter. hannibal is the cook. you provide the meat. the kitchen is an important place to hannibal but will is allowed to not only join him at the table but go behind the scenes, provide the meat, slice the ginger. the act of preparing and then consuming food becomes a mutual act, an act that is associated in the show with intimacy, romance and sex.
so we’ve established the link between hannibal/will and food. but there’s more.
fishing is a personal thing to will. he wants to teach abigail to fish. he imagines fishing in a stream to calm himself. so then, why does will not take walter and molly fishing with him? it is important to him, so surely he would share it with them? it’s because the act of hunting and eating is part of his identity and they don’t really know him. they don’t know that he’s the predator, not the prey. you know who he imagines fishing with? abigail. you know who he provides fish for, as a meal? hannibal. they are his family, not molly and walter.
the kitchen is a personal place to hannibal, too. “office hours are for patients. my kitchen is always open to friends.” eating and serving food is how hannibal expresses himself, and how he connects with other people. this is why in mizumono will is gutted in the kitchen. because it is here that will betrayed him. in the dining room will says “this would be our last supper” and hannibal is on the verge of tears. but it’s in the kitchen that he takes his revenge. it’s in the kitchen where abigail is waiting for will
so food becomes a metaphor for intimacy, then… but there’s even more.
there’s this quote from hannibal in season 2. “we eat what we love.” in season 3 hannibal tells bedelia he has to eat will - this is because he loves him. love is hunger. he tries and fails to eat will because he believes it’s the only way he can deal with his love.
then later bedelia asks will “could he daily feel a pang of hunger for you?”, linking hannibal’s love to food. then she asks “do you ache for him?” similarly referring to an ache of hunger. love is hunger. will’s face is framed in the starvation cage, because he is hungry. hungry for hannibal. their love for each other is hunger.
and how is this hunger sated?
hannibal “finds nourishment” at the very sight of will. he only has to look at him.
oh, but remember hannibal’s taunting of will in prison?
“you came here just to look at me.”
will’s years of starvation with his new family are immediately nourished upon just seeing hannibal. their love is the same. they need only look at each other to be nourished
suddenly the show begins to unravel when you think through the lens of food = intimacy. in season 1 we see hannibal eating alone, or in a large group of people. lonely. but then he meets will and cares for him by feeding him. they eat together. but not in hannibal’s dining room. when hannibal asks, will you not join me at the table? will rejects him. even still, hannibal touches will’s fish hooks and feeds his dogs and grows closer to him. food is both a barrier and a means of access to their relationship
in season 2 will’s honeytrap is related to fishing. “I’m a good fisherman, jack.” - I will bait hannibal, I will trap him. their courtship is eating meals together and then preparing meals together. problem solving is hunting. through “fishing” for hannibal, will sates a hunger he never even knew he had. hey eat so much together in the second half of season 2. and like hannibal he savours it. eating people. “makes us tastier.” he jokes at the table with hannibal.
and season 3. they’re starving in each other’s absence. “I have to eat him” (because I love him.) will rejects hannibal by stating “I don’t have your appetite” (I am not hungry for you). later he admits this is a lie. both of them try and fail to nourish a hunger that is only sated by… looking at each other.
and hey, remember bedelia’s lines in twotl? something like, hannibal only intends to see me dead by his own hand, and only then if he can eat me. she clearly specifies hannibal not will. but this is where she’s mistaken. will wants to eat her too. “meat’s back on the menu”. he threatens her with the idea that they are coming to eat her. and they do.
the real joy comes from hunting together (like hunting francis) or preparing the meat together (like eating bedelia.) love is hunger. and the last scene is them preparing a meal together. they are no longer hungry.
