Click for Source Image by Cookie n Screen
When I was a fourteen year old, I was that special kind of obnoxious teenager. There were a few things that I just wouldn't waver on in that petulant rage that you only find on 4Chan. Stuff like how Fall Out Boy were the worst, or pop music was terrible and you should only listen to metal and how the ending of Hannibal was all kinds of messed up. (Side note: being this obnoxious about things is silly and being open to differences and perspectives. Heck I know 35 year olds who need to hear that). So now, at a tender age of 25, it's all changed and I am preparing for two Fall Out Boy shows this year, I've got my own dance routine to Shake it Off and I'm obsessed with the intricate ending of Thomas Harris' Hannibal.
Let's flag up a spoiler warning. I must stress that this article will talk heavily about the conclusion to the original book canon by Harris. Regardless of how NBC are taking the series or how that pretty poor Ridley adaptation went, (or how enraged a fourteen year old can get) this is the finale that stands truer and better than the others.
When I was a fourteen year old, I was that special kind of obnoxious teenager. There were a few things that I just wouldn't waver on in that petulant rage that you only find on 4Chan. Stuff like how Fall Out Boy were the worst, or pop music was terrible and you should only listen to metal and how the ending of Hannibal was all kinds of messed up. (Side note: being this obnoxious about things is silly and being open to differences and perspectives. Heck I know 35 year olds who need to hear that). So now, at a tender age of 25, it's all changed and I am preparing for two Fall Out Boy shows this year, I've got my own dance routine to Shake it Off and I'm obsessed with the intricate ending of Thomas Harris' Hannibal.
Let's flag up a spoiler warning. I must stress that this article will talk heavily about the conclusion to the original book canon by Harris. Regardless of how NBC are taking the series or how that pretty poor Ridley adaptation went, (or how enraged a fourteen year old can get) this is the finale that stands truer and better than the others.
Click for Source Image For those who have been in a box for the past 40 years and don't know the story of Hannibal Lecter, here's a quick overview. Inhale; Hannibal is a Russian born psychiatrist who watched his sister be eaten by woodsman before moving to America to exact his murderous lives. Earning several medical degrees, his panache for eating human flesh led to the popular of rude people being gobbled up in complex dishes. His reign of terror ended when Will Graham caught him and received a knife wound as a result. But their relationship doesn't end there when another serial killer trots arround the US, Graham must call on Hannibal to help him catch the brute whose slaying families. The whole fiasco ends badly with Graham butchered again as Lecter uses his intellect to set the killer upon him from behind bars. A few years pass and a murderer who is flaying women leads the FBI back to Lecter for aid. This is where Clarice Starling famously comes in. Through cat and mouse games between the pair, the rookie becomes closest to Lecter as he helps her solve the case. And then he escapes just as she is catching the killer - absconding to Florence. Exhale.
Hannibal picks up several years later where the mysterious Dr. Fell is believed to be the notorious Lecter and a disgraced Clarice Starling is placed back on the case. The pair collide and then this happens;
After an alteration with some pig farmers and his last victim before incarceration, Hannibal kidnaps Clarice holding her hostage and drugging her up. This happens over a few weeks and over a course of Paul Kelners brains - they hook up. No seriously, she reveals her breast and he suckles on it then bam they are a couple.
For a while, this coupling seemed heinously wrong. Part of this may have to do with the fascination with Hannibal and his apparent mental composition. Proclaimed as psychopathic and sociopathic, could he really love Clarice? Of course, Hannibal is never really confirmed as these things and never shows solid symptoms (which makes him normal and thus 575258845 times more frightening). Then there is the drug abuse where Clarice is fed as much as possible during her recovery and this is so problematic as it highlights her consent level. Although it's doubtful that he fed her enough to rewrite her entire brain or mindset, drugs have pickled people to the point of no return. This is all damning against the doctor on their affair.
Reading on StarkAssembled on Tumblr lately (StarkAssembled.tumblr.com), she puts it the best way - that this has been a natural progression and the pairing seems awfully natural. From day one, the pair have had an intense relationship born out of tension, respect and a little bit of fear. She brings her intellect prepared to face off against the Doctor. Truly, he knocks her down remarkably and Lecter never relinquishes dominance over her. But throughout Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, he shows care and consideration up until the point where she decides to bring him back in. Only then does he pursue her too - but it's all level. That's the thing, Hannibal never treats Starling as anything less than a human being unlike her male counterparts at the FBI. There is mutual attraction and the end dinner scene is a powerful example of how he never treats her as anything less than his counterpart and the conversation is intense, engaging and philosophical.
Yes - there is a remarkable vein of distrust with Hannibal and that is never forgotten. After all, you never really know how much of her mind is left or if his manipulating her into this shape. Nor does Harris' play it as such. It's never the great romance of the century but it has merit. See this could be the act of a psychopath wanting one last prize, (and let's not forget that nothing is saying he is forgiven for, you know, all those killings.) But it could also be a natural progression for Starling - a woman disgraced and humiliated in the only life she knows forced to evaluate herself and move on. And with Lecter, she is openly allowed to explore all of her components.
It's a strange sick pairing, but is it right? Let us know in the comments!
Hannibal picks up several years later where the mysterious Dr. Fell is believed to be the notorious Lecter and a disgraced Clarice Starling is placed back on the case. The pair collide and then this happens;
After an alteration with some pig farmers and his last victim before incarceration, Hannibal kidnaps Clarice holding her hostage and drugging her up. This happens over a few weeks and over a course of Paul Kelners brains - they hook up. No seriously, she reveals her breast and he suckles on it then bam they are a couple.
For a while, this coupling seemed heinously wrong. Part of this may have to do with the fascination with Hannibal and his apparent mental composition. Proclaimed as psychopathic and sociopathic, could he really love Clarice? Of course, Hannibal is never really confirmed as these things and never shows solid symptoms (which makes him normal and thus 575258845 times more frightening). Then there is the drug abuse where Clarice is fed as much as possible during her recovery and this is so problematic as it highlights her consent level. Although it's doubtful that he fed her enough to rewrite her entire brain or mindset, drugs have pickled people to the point of no return. This is all damning against the doctor on their affair.
Reading on StarkAssembled on Tumblr lately (StarkAssembled.tumblr.com), she puts it the best way - that this has been a natural progression and the pairing seems awfully natural. From day one, the pair have had an intense relationship born out of tension, respect and a little bit of fear. She brings her intellect prepared to face off against the Doctor. Truly, he knocks her down remarkably and Lecter never relinquishes dominance over her. But throughout Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, he shows care and consideration up until the point where she decides to bring him back in. Only then does he pursue her too - but it's all level. That's the thing, Hannibal never treats Starling as anything less than a human being unlike her male counterparts at the FBI. There is mutual attraction and the end dinner scene is a powerful example of how he never treats her as anything less than his counterpart and the conversation is intense, engaging and philosophical.
Yes - there is a remarkable vein of distrust with Hannibal and that is never forgotten. After all, you never really know how much of her mind is left or if his manipulating her into this shape. Nor does Harris' play it as such. It's never the great romance of the century but it has merit. See this could be the act of a psychopath wanting one last prize, (and let's not forget that nothing is saying he is forgiven for, you know, all those killings.) But it could also be a natural progression for Starling - a woman disgraced and humiliated in the only life she knows forced to evaluate herself and move on. And with Lecter, she is openly allowed to explore all of her components.
It's a strange sick pairing, but is it right? Let us know in the comments!
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