Why Hannibal and Will aren’t truly in love (just yet), but why Hannigram is canon

When it comes to being a clinician who also likes series like Hannibal, things twirl around in the mind in unique in conflicting ways. I’m completely capable of separating reality and fiction, but it’s because of that fact that sometimes my train of thoughts go in quite interesting directions. It’s also what drives a lot of my posts to be written.

When it comes to Hannigram, I’m completely aware that in reality, this relationship is highly toxic and one that shouldn’t exist. Serial killing and cannibalism aside, I recognize all the signs in the relationship that is unhealthy since that’s what I’ve been trained to do in real life. Several of the classic signs are there. It’s why at times I feel a pit in my stomach and a squeezing in my chest when watching Hannibal. It’s my natural instincts and my professional training telling me to recognize all the warning signs in a very realistic way. However, since this is a work of fiction, I also see several discrepancies of why this is not at all a normal nor truly easily decipherable relationship between two men in an intimate relationship. And I find many parts of it quite interesting all the same.

I won’t go into details about Hannibal’s side of the relationship since I already went over that one in my “Hannibal’s Mentality” post. His perception of his “love” and relationship with Will is one of an ever growing understanding of what it means to “be in love” and trying to visualize and conceptualize what that’s supposed to look like in his mind and ideals. It started as something fairy tale-esque in nature then grew to slowly include a bittersweet reality that’s still always building. He is very much in love with Will even if his love language is akin to an animal courting its mate with bloody corpses of other creatures and at times its rivals. It’s very feral in nature. I don’t think he really knows what he’s doing in terms of the core relationship itself, but he tries nonetheless.

Will’s understanding of his relationship is somewhat more complex and one that I’m honestly not always able to truly grasp or decipher without the perspective of others. Since Will started out as the “victim” in this relationship, many of his behaviors of distrust towards Hannibal are completely justified and reasonable. He doesn’t wish to be “caged” and seen as an object of affection just because his mind has potential that Hannibal holds interest in. He also has his own brand of righteousness that makes him hold animosity towards Hannibal while also having a codependent relationship with him in that he can’t live freely as himself without his guidance and influences. As Bedelia says, “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him”. But all this would just be scratching the surface.

One thing I’ve had to recognize over time is that Will is an unbelievably unreliable narrator and that has given me a very hard time understanding some of his actions and motives. There’s contradictions as much as there is denial in his character when it comes to Hannibal. What he says isn’t always how he acts. He accuses Hannibal of being possessive of him and condemns his actions to ensure he remains by his side while doing the same if not worse things to his rivals who earns Hannibal’s attention and affection. He often cheats himself instead of seeing what’s directly in front of him, but then goes to do exactly what he says is wrong. I believe these different train of thoughts as well as his experiences with Hannibal is partially why he wasn’t able to see the seemingly obvious truth that Hannibal was in love with him.

Will has a very loose idea of love to begin with due to his upbringing and background, so understanding someone is in love with him is likely just not if more foreign to him. In addition, according to Hugh Dancy, one big reason Will couldn’t see that Hannibal was in love with him was he couldn’t even conceptualize that Hannibal was capable of loving anyone period. We see this belief throughout the series most prominently in the Europe arc starting with Chiyoh. Will knows Mischa’s death doesn’t quantify or explain Hannibal which leads to his own beliefs that Chiyoh’s purpose in caging her supposed killer to be a tale of manipulation and just another Hannibal experiment. He then manipulates her situation to make her reconsider her loyalty to Hannibal and scoffs at the idea of Chiyoh being genuinely protective of Hannibal as his family. Everyone is just a bird in a cage he looks at to enjoy torturing and nothing more. It’s just the simplicity of his nature. He doesn’t need to convince himself of otherwise that Hannibal is incapable of loving anyone and vice versa. Or does he? Because it doesn’t take until Bedelia literally spells it out to him does he verbalize the truth. That Hannibal is in love with him. But verbalizing and believing are two very different things. And just because you have a deep connection with someone, it doesn’t equate to knowing anything and everything about them to influence your thoughts and feelings about them. It’s why I say these two are not truly in love. Just not quite yet.

Although Hannibal has long since reached a conscious place of understanding that he’s in love with Will, by the time of the Red Dragon case, Will was still in a place of subconscious awareness and deep conflicted denial. He made decisive decisions to confront the ghosts of his past (and that’s a massive understatement) while playing the part of a doting husband, yet still wanted someone like Bedelia to confirm or deny what he should already know about Hannibal. And once he became consciously aware of things, he used Hannibal’s love for him (or what he believes it to be) to his tactical advantage to take down Dolarhyde. Even up until the very end, we aren’t all that sure what Will solidly believes about Hannibal except that killing Dolarhyde with him felt “beautiful”. I consider this iconic moment to mark Hannigram as officially canon, yet I find myself with a gut feeling that this relationship hasn’t hit a place of mutual love by a long shot.

Will has a tendency to flip flop in his decisions even if he said and did things at the peak of his genuine true nature. He “drops” forgiveness and takes back decisions made in moments of intimacy if he feels it’s undeserved and/or will hurt him further. Not to mention that his level of manipulation and seduction of Hannibal is now terrifyingly noteworthy and diabolical. And now that Hannibal is currently in a state where he’s unwilling to hurt or kill Will, I see the toxicity of this relationship reaching new heights that is ironically now more in Will’s territory than ever.

That being said, I can see now why Bryan wishes for most of S4 to be within Will’s mind and see the construction of his mind palace resume. We need to see more of the deep underbelly of the Hannigram relationship from a new angle where it’s just the two of them in their emotions and thoughts and feelings. If Will is to truly be “in love” with Hannibal then there’s many hard pills to swallow and new realities to face within their mind palaces. No more lies. No more contradictions. No more running away. Just to the truth and all of its consequences.

But this might all be my inner clinician conflicting with my overall thoughts on this relationship. And in this fictional world of Hannibal, “love” as well as eroticism is a broad concept where reality seldom belongs or holds any true weight in logic. It’s why it’s always going to be weird and freaky as it is.