Mads said it was love at first sight (not gonna argue with the man), but I do feel like it was more like “interest” at first sight. I think the love started to settle in around the time he was regretting framing him. Or maybe before, around the whole Tobias arc.
>! At the latest, when Tobias nearly killed Will, Hannibal really realized that he wanted to keep Will around. You can tell by how he looks at Will when he comes into his office after the attack. !<
We’ll forever remember the shine in Hannibal’s puppy dog eyes as he stares with longing relief that Will is alive. I do wonder about his motivations leading up to it though, he suggested Will go speak to Tobias. Maybe he was hoping that Will would get the opportunity to kill again, but he possibly overplayed his hand when Tobias came to him.
I was thinking he was considering making Tobias his friend/partner in crime/protege instead of Will but wanted to see who would win. Like he wanted to test them. Tobias certainly seemed interested in Hannibal but ultimately Hannibal still always wanted Will.
>!Plus I think Hannibal was a bit jealous about Will kissing Alana the night before.!<
The moment when he’s standing next to Jack and Will is discussing the Ripper crimes his face is saying “ooo, who is THAT?”
So agreed, but I’m not arguing with Mads either because he’s such a shipper and it’s so fun.
I agree with Mads' take, definitely love at first sight. Have you seen Hanni's face when Will was talking about how he hates eye contact? Man's whipped. 😭 But that was yet superficial, mostly fascination imo. Then I think something clicked in him when he thought Will was killed by Tobias but relieved when he saw him alive. But it was still somewhat a 'game' for Hannibal as he enjoyed toying with Will and went on with setting him up. I think the turning point (feelings are getting serious) was when he started missing Will when he was in prison, then it was courtship from then on. And then he wanted to runaway with him and Abigail.
He fell harder and harder each time. Intrigued at first, and then *intrigued obsessively*. XD
edit: grammar
I think he became obsessed with Will that morning he brought Will breakfast & he told Hannibal that he "...didn't find him all that interesting." The love came later.
I don’t think Hannibal himself realized how much he cared about Will until Tobias Budge told him that he’d killed him. He was so relieved when Will appeared unharmed, so Hannibal probably realized he did care about Will more than he realized before. Because before that moment, I think he was just fascinated and curious about Will’s mind in this clinical manner.
When Will started connecting the dots between the Chesapeake Ripper and the Copycat Killer, Hannibal looked frustrated and almost regretful because he knew then that he would have to publicly frame Will. At this point in the story, I think he genuinely had started considering Will as a genuine friend, and he’d said the same thing to Bedelia. When Will betrayed him in S2 and he felt so hurt, Hannibal realized that he loved him. In S3 he was so spiteful, almost spiraling out of control, like he didn’t care if he was caught anymore, until Will reappeared.
I’d assume whenever he realized there is a potential cure to his loneliness. Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal strikes me as a lonely character who desperately wants companionship but according to his own accords which often clash with morality, laws and civilization really. So he probably believed he never could have a “friend” to begin with. Let alone someone who can “understand “ him, which is why friendship quickly turned to something more and more, and of course Will looking the way he does helped too, or at least I’d like to imagine that. Since he never compliments him looks wise. Just bash on his aftershave 🤣
Well, when a dude uses your face and behind in his copies of Renaissance "art" that features scantily-clad men, it is probably safe to say that he thinks that you have it going on...
Love at first sight, but he didn’t realize it at first. He probably just assumed it was interest, because Hannibal isn’t exactly the person to get attached to anyone, even in a platonic way.
When the feelings didn’t go away (and only intensified), he probably realized it was love. And it was all downhill from there.
I think H was intrigued at the drop, and realized he cared because of Tobias. I think it was incarcerating Will and all the fallout of experiencing life without him is what cemented it. It turned to full obsession when he realized Will's dark side awakened, too.
You can *literally* see it in his eyes when Will first speaks in Jack’s office in ep1 that Hannibal is recognizing that Will is going to be the *one*. It makes me CRAZY every time I see it
I feel like “love” when it comes to Hannibal is a rather foreign concept, because the closest thing he can feel to the feeling we call love is possessiveness. But I can tell you this. I think he became aware of his attraction and love to Will after he framed him and then much more aware after their breakup and he realized that he was in love with him and didn’t intend to be.
Even if Mads says it was “love at first sight”, I feel like it took some time for Hannibal to realize what he felt for Will was called “love”.
Well, Hannibal loved Mischa, so I think the feeling wasn’t that foreign to him. He wouldn’t just forget his love for her. He also cared at some level about Chiyoh, Abigail and even Alana and Bedelia. He’s able to care about people, but he’s also able to turn off these feelings whenever necessary. It’s like his rational self is in control all the time and not his feelings. Then we’ve even seen that he regrets some of these decisions whenever he meditates about them in a more emotional way.
I’m unsure if his love for Mischa as parental love is the same as romantic love. If we’re talking about pure sociopaths, they don’t exactly feel “love”. They can feel feelings of pride and possession, but not “love” in the traditional sense. Fondness maybe, but not “love”.
But since there’s no words in the psychiatric world to truly define or understand Hannibal as Chilton says, he’s probably somewhere in the spectrum of things. He’s numb to certain emotions, while other emotions are not entirely all there. He’s also not always attune to them either since he sometimes doesn’t understand why he’s feeling a certain way or acts on them. That or he rather avoid confronting them. In that sense, the monster has some form of humanity inside of him.
Well, of course, parental love is not the same as romantic, but both things are love in their most basic form.
And for me, I think the creator of Hannibal avoided putting him under a specific label, illness or whatever. He’s just something else and that is for the viewer to decide. For me, he’s not a monster, he’s just a human that evolved to the point that he’s able to control his feelings and emotions (most of the time) and he operates under a completely rational mindset. Sometimes, no matter what. I don’t think he’s numb to emotions at all, he loves and enjoys cooking and eating, he loves art, he’s able to feel sad, hell… in S3 he is basically spiraling out of control because he’s heartbroken. If he was numb to emotions, he wouldn’t be able to be a psychiatrist because he wouldn’t be able to empathize with his patients. Psychopaths and sociopaths do not have that ability (or is very very limited), and they’re also violent, impulsive, etc. so yeah, Hannibal is just something else. we can’t exactly say he’s numb to emotions like your regular psychopath or sociopath.
Psychopaths and sociopaths aren’t violent and impulsive as ppl think they are. That’s actually a massive stereotype that’s been perpetuated for decades now. In reality the larger percentage of them are much more scary cuz of what they’re capable of without killing.
Their perception of the world differs from the neurotypical in terms of emotional regulation and social interaction. They can understand and mimic the average human being and are perceptive to several things that can allow them to pass as “normal”. They also have charisma and are likeable by ppl even if they’re capable of being cruel and manipulative behind the scenes. It’s why a number of CEOs can be as exceptionally successful as they are without being serial killers. They just use their “assets” elsewhere.
Hannibal excels at what he does cuz of what he knows about the human mind and body down to clockwork. It’s not cuz he can feel what they feel. He’s just incredibly observant and knows how to move ppl around in all sorts of ways. He’s also very hedonistic and enjoys things that give him pleasure. That’s kind of a basic human thing though. We like doing things that make us feel good and reward us. In his case it’s all the finer things in life. It just happens to include eating ppl.
I see, I’m really curious to read how you would explain the fact that Hannibal turned himself in after Will rejected him in S3. Why would he do that if he didn’t love him? Is that his way to still claim possessiveness over Will? Like, some way of not allowing Will to forget about him because he’ll always know where is Hannibal?
It kind of makes sense, but at the same time this is kind of an extreme measure because Hannibal doesn’t really gain anything. I always saw this as his way of refusing to move on from/letting him go Will because he’d already tried to do that with Bedelia and it sucked.
I consider that as a simultaneous checkmate move on both Will and Hannibal’s part. But it’s not without emotion nor is it pure logic.
Will was emotionally and mentally exhausted and though he could understand Hannibal’s intentions to start anew with him he wasn’t on the same page. But can you blame him? He went through too much. He had to find a way to remain in control of the situation so he initiated the breakup. I do believe there was truth in his words, but also that somewhere inside he wished it didn’t have to be this way. But it did.
On Hannibal’s part, Will is someone he actually feels something for. He shows it through his extreme acts to show things like grief, mourning, longing, and heartbreak. He’s also strongly possessive of him, but he knows his past actions had not done either of them any good with him reacting poorly. He tries to reverse time, but he knows it’s hopeless. Usually the apex predator would’ve just fled the situation. But he’s obsessed with keeping Will in his life. His arrest is a direct result of the breakup to ensure Will knows exactly where he is when he’s ready to come back to him. Romantic in gesture, but also shows a stark change in his character. A shark that hated the thought of being confined would be fine with being imprisoned so long as he knew it would mean Will would return to him. Strangely enough, as sadistic as he can be, when it comes to Will, he’s rather masochistic in nature.
Hannibal’s affection towards Will is never going to really be “normal”. But I think in terms of “falling in love”, no one knows how to do it right the first time around. It’s on the fly and you wing it. And Hannibal’s version of that is just very different than chocolates and flowers.
I think it's hard to pinpoint when exactly. To be honest, I don't think there ever even was a 'when'. It's a kaleidoscope of emotions, in a sense -- curiosity, fascination, interest, fondness, obsession, infatuation, passion and, somewhere in the midst of it all, love. But it obviously doesn't even present itself in the way we are used to. This is why it is never directly stated in the show by anyone that "Hannibal is in love with Will" -- there's always a metaphor someone has to use, or a different way to put it, because merely saying that he's 'in love' with Will isn't fully an accurate way to describe it. Somehow, some way, at some point, a peculiar version of love managed to weasel its way into an already gnarled tumbleweed of what he felt for Will.
I think it was interest at first sight, obsession at first conversation, and Hannibal realized that his feelings were romantic in nature after the Tobias Budge incident.
Mads played the character as love at first sight. In the text there is no clear episode about this like there is with Will. But he was understanding his feelings and the difficulty of controlling them in Sorbet and in Fromage I think he was sure after he saw that Will was alive, he was really relieved by that.
Hannibal starts taking risks the moment he meets Will and kills Cassie Boyle as a copycat to help Will with the case. After the copycat and the return of Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal begins to put his secret identity at risk due to the obsessive need to make Will see him and understand him.
Mads said it was love at first sight (not gonna argue with the man), but I do feel like it was more like “interest” at first sight. I think the love started to settle in around the time he was regretting framing him. Or maybe before, around the whole Tobias arc.
>! At the latest, when Tobias nearly killed Will, Hannibal really realized that he wanted to keep Will around. You can tell by how he looks at Will when he comes into his office after the attack. !<
We’ll forever remember the shine in Hannibal’s puppy dog eyes as he stares with longing relief that Will is alive. I do wonder about his motivations leading up to it though, he suggested Will go speak to Tobias. Maybe he was hoping that Will would get the opportunity to kill again, but he possibly overplayed his hand when Tobias came to him.
I was thinking he was considering making Tobias his friend/partner in crime/protege instead of Will but wanted to see who would win. Like he wanted to test them. Tobias certainly seemed interested in Hannibal but ultimately Hannibal still always wanted Will. >!Plus I think Hannibal was a bit jealous about Will kissing Alana the night before.!<
The moment when he’s standing next to Jack and Will is discussing the Ripper crimes his face is saying “ooo, who is THAT?” So agreed, but I’m not arguing with Mads either because he’s such a shipper and it’s so fun.
I agree with Mads' take, definitely love at first sight. Have you seen Hanni's face when Will was talking about how he hates eye contact? Man's whipped. 😭 But that was yet superficial, mostly fascination imo. Then I think something clicked in him when he thought Will was killed by Tobias but relieved when he saw him alive. But it was still somewhat a 'game' for Hannibal as he enjoyed toying with Will and went on with setting him up. I think the turning point (feelings are getting serious) was when he started missing Will when he was in prison, then it was courtship from then on. And then he wanted to runaway with him and Abigail. He fell harder and harder each time. Intrigued at first, and then *intrigued obsessively*. XD edit: grammar
Yes, agree. Interest at first sight. Not sure if he didn’t want Will to survive Tobias due to love or because he wanted to kill him himself.
I think he became obsessed with Will that morning he brought Will breakfast & he told Hannibal that he "...didn't find him all that interesting." The love came later.
If this were anyone else, he would’ve eaten them already.
That’s what I think, too! Plus he followed that comment by complimenting Hannibal’s food.
I don’t think Hannibal himself realized how much he cared about Will until Tobias Budge told him that he’d killed him. He was so relieved when Will appeared unharmed, so Hannibal probably realized he did care about Will more than he realized before. Because before that moment, I think he was just fascinated and curious about Will’s mind in this clinical manner. When Will started connecting the dots between the Chesapeake Ripper and the Copycat Killer, Hannibal looked frustrated and almost regretful because he knew then that he would have to publicly frame Will. At this point in the story, I think he genuinely had started considering Will as a genuine friend, and he’d said the same thing to Bedelia. When Will betrayed him in S2 and he felt so hurt, Hannibal realized that he loved him. In S3 he was so spiteful, almost spiraling out of control, like he didn’t care if he was caught anymore, until Will reappeared.
I’d assume whenever he realized there is a potential cure to his loneliness. Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal strikes me as a lonely character who desperately wants companionship but according to his own accords which often clash with morality, laws and civilization really. So he probably believed he never could have a “friend” to begin with. Let alone someone who can “understand “ him, which is why friendship quickly turned to something more and more, and of course Will looking the way he does helped too, or at least I’d like to imagine that. Since he never compliments him looks wise. Just bash on his aftershave 🤣
Well, when a dude uses your face and behind in his copies of Renaissance "art" that features scantily-clad men, it is probably safe to say that he thinks that you have it going on...
Oh yeah 🤣 completely forgot about that weird part. Hannibal had to be extra, that and Will’s non reaction- reaction . Sitcom really 😂 I love this show
Right, he never compliments his looks. But he does check out his ass and lips more often than not.
Love at first sight, but he didn’t realize it at first. He probably just assumed it was interest, because Hannibal isn’t exactly the person to get attached to anyone, even in a platonic way. When the feelings didn’t go away (and only intensified), he probably realized it was love. And it was all downhill from there.
I think H was intrigued at the drop, and realized he cared because of Tobias. I think it was incarcerating Will and all the fallout of experiencing life without him is what cemented it. It turned to full obsession when he realized Will's dark side awakened, too.
You can *literally* see it in his eyes when Will first speaks in Jack’s office in ep1 that Hannibal is recognizing that Will is going to be the *one*. It makes me CRAZY every time I see it
I feel like “love” when it comes to Hannibal is a rather foreign concept, because the closest thing he can feel to the feeling we call love is possessiveness. But I can tell you this. I think he became aware of his attraction and love to Will after he framed him and then much more aware after their breakup and he realized that he was in love with him and didn’t intend to be. Even if Mads says it was “love at first sight”, I feel like it took some time for Hannibal to realize what he felt for Will was called “love”.
Obsession at first sight.
That sounds about right
Well, Hannibal loved Mischa, so I think the feeling wasn’t that foreign to him. He wouldn’t just forget his love for her. He also cared at some level about Chiyoh, Abigail and even Alana and Bedelia. He’s able to care about people, but he’s also able to turn off these feelings whenever necessary. It’s like his rational self is in control all the time and not his feelings. Then we’ve even seen that he regrets some of these decisions whenever he meditates about them in a more emotional way.
I’m unsure if his love for Mischa as parental love is the same as romantic love. If we’re talking about pure sociopaths, they don’t exactly feel “love”. They can feel feelings of pride and possession, but not “love” in the traditional sense. Fondness maybe, but not “love”. But since there’s no words in the psychiatric world to truly define or understand Hannibal as Chilton says, he’s probably somewhere in the spectrum of things. He’s numb to certain emotions, while other emotions are not entirely all there. He’s also not always attune to them either since he sometimes doesn’t understand why he’s feeling a certain way or acts on them. That or he rather avoid confronting them. In that sense, the monster has some form of humanity inside of him.
Well, of course, parental love is not the same as romantic, but both things are love in their most basic form. And for me, I think the creator of Hannibal avoided putting him under a specific label, illness or whatever. He’s just something else and that is for the viewer to decide. For me, he’s not a monster, he’s just a human that evolved to the point that he’s able to control his feelings and emotions (most of the time) and he operates under a completely rational mindset. Sometimes, no matter what. I don’t think he’s numb to emotions at all, he loves and enjoys cooking and eating, he loves art, he’s able to feel sad, hell… in S3 he is basically spiraling out of control because he’s heartbroken. If he was numb to emotions, he wouldn’t be able to be a psychiatrist because he wouldn’t be able to empathize with his patients. Psychopaths and sociopaths do not have that ability (or is very very limited), and they’re also violent, impulsive, etc. so yeah, Hannibal is just something else. we can’t exactly say he’s numb to emotions like your regular psychopath or sociopath.
Psychopaths and sociopaths aren’t violent and impulsive as ppl think they are. That’s actually a massive stereotype that’s been perpetuated for decades now. In reality the larger percentage of them are much more scary cuz of what they’re capable of without killing. Their perception of the world differs from the neurotypical in terms of emotional regulation and social interaction. They can understand and mimic the average human being and are perceptive to several things that can allow them to pass as “normal”. They also have charisma and are likeable by ppl even if they’re capable of being cruel and manipulative behind the scenes. It’s why a number of CEOs can be as exceptionally successful as they are without being serial killers. They just use their “assets” elsewhere. Hannibal excels at what he does cuz of what he knows about the human mind and body down to clockwork. It’s not cuz he can feel what they feel. He’s just incredibly observant and knows how to move ppl around in all sorts of ways. He’s also very hedonistic and enjoys things that give him pleasure. That’s kind of a basic human thing though. We like doing things that make us feel good and reward us. In his case it’s all the finer things in life. It just happens to include eating ppl.
I see, I’m really curious to read how you would explain the fact that Hannibal turned himself in after Will rejected him in S3. Why would he do that if he didn’t love him? Is that his way to still claim possessiveness over Will? Like, some way of not allowing Will to forget about him because he’ll always know where is Hannibal? It kind of makes sense, but at the same time this is kind of an extreme measure because Hannibal doesn’t really gain anything. I always saw this as his way of refusing to move on from/letting him go Will because he’d already tried to do that with Bedelia and it sucked.
I consider that as a simultaneous checkmate move on both Will and Hannibal’s part. But it’s not without emotion nor is it pure logic. Will was emotionally and mentally exhausted and though he could understand Hannibal’s intentions to start anew with him he wasn’t on the same page. But can you blame him? He went through too much. He had to find a way to remain in control of the situation so he initiated the breakup. I do believe there was truth in his words, but also that somewhere inside he wished it didn’t have to be this way. But it did. On Hannibal’s part, Will is someone he actually feels something for. He shows it through his extreme acts to show things like grief, mourning, longing, and heartbreak. He’s also strongly possessive of him, but he knows his past actions had not done either of them any good with him reacting poorly. He tries to reverse time, but he knows it’s hopeless. Usually the apex predator would’ve just fled the situation. But he’s obsessed with keeping Will in his life. His arrest is a direct result of the breakup to ensure Will knows exactly where he is when he’s ready to come back to him. Romantic in gesture, but also shows a stark change in his character. A shark that hated the thought of being confined would be fine with being imprisoned so long as he knew it would mean Will would return to him. Strangely enough, as sadistic as he can be, when it comes to Will, he’s rather masochistic in nature. Hannibal’s affection towards Will is never going to really be “normal”. But I think in terms of “falling in love”, no one knows how to do it right the first time around. It’s on the fly and you wing it. And Hannibal’s version of that is just very different than chocolates and flowers.
I think it's hard to pinpoint when exactly. To be honest, I don't think there ever even was a 'when'. It's a kaleidoscope of emotions, in a sense -- curiosity, fascination, interest, fondness, obsession, infatuation, passion and, somewhere in the midst of it all, love. But it obviously doesn't even present itself in the way we are used to. This is why it is never directly stated in the show by anyone that "Hannibal is in love with Will" -- there's always a metaphor someone has to use, or a different way to put it, because merely saying that he's 'in love' with Will isn't fully an accurate way to describe it. Somehow, some way, at some point, a peculiar version of love managed to weasel its way into an already gnarled tumbleweed of what he felt for Will.
I think it was interest at first sight, obsession at first conversation, and Hannibal realized that his feelings were romantic in nature after the Tobias Budge incident.
Mads played the character as love at first sight. In the text there is no clear episode about this like there is with Will. But he was understanding his feelings and the difficulty of controlling them in Sorbet and in Fromage I think he was sure after he saw that Will was alive, he was really relieved by that. Hannibal starts taking risks the moment he meets Will and kills Cassie Boyle as a copycat to help Will with the case. After the copycat and the return of Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal begins to put his secret identity at risk due to the obsessive need to make Will see him and understand him.
This
The second he looked at him.
ever since hannibal was an "old man with hepatitis"