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Dec. 18th, 2018 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfMe watching Hannibal: Wait. It gets gayer?
Friends who have watched Hannibal: 🎵Just you waiiiiiit!🎵
Me continuing to watch Hannibal: It gets gayer than Hannibal in his skivvies hanging in a t-pose while a twink tries to kill him to impress his serial killer otter?!
Friends: Yes! Yes it does!
Me getting to the end of S2E8: Oh. I see.
My husband and I have incredibly different stances on what constitutes a spoiler. It is something we will never ever come to a consensus on but we're going to bicker about it anyways because it's what people in long-term relationships do. He is adamant that the reveal of a thing automatically takes away from experience of viewing, because he's so fucking jaded about narrative that apparently all he has left is novelty and surprise. I am of the opinion that it's not a spoiler until you get the context for the reveal.
Okay, like. Obviously this is dependent on the individual work (I would say the twists in The Sixth Sense and Fight Club are spoiled just by knowing what they are), but there's also a lot of cases where it's not? The two I can think of offhand are Revan's identity in Knights of the Old Republic and how the story unfolds in The Sparrow. In the first case, just knowing The Twist gives you no context for why it's powerful, or at least it wasn't for me. In the second, it's built into the narrative from the very beginning. You know shit went bad, but the how is the substantial part.
Which is a really long-winded way of saying it's definitely the journey and not the destination I find narratively satisfying about Hannibal. I've absorbed little bits and pieces from fandom osmosis: kind of how it ends, the way they adopt a murder princess but not the context in which they pick her up, that sort of thing.
I appreciate the way the show puts stepping stones for both Will and Hannibal to follow, to and away each other, but ultimately they do converge. I want to wallow in the end of the episode a little bit, because it was so unexpected.
Hannibal's delight in this thing that he's... cultivated? helped create? is very #relatable, at least to me. You know how when you're working on a creative endeavor and it zags in a way you completely weren't expecting but ends up being utterly perfect (or at least fits in a way that is greatly satisfying)? That is how I think he sees Will.
And I think Hannibal is enough of an artist (in the traditional and not so traditional senses) that he appreciates that sort of perfect serendipity: it's definitely not all you, but you helped bring it into being, and there is an affection and pride in that. The way he cradles Will's face, with such tenderness and pride! How the camera positions itself so you see one half of each of their faces in the same shot! Ughhhhhh it's so good.
Friends who have watched Hannibal: 🎵Just you waiiiiiit!🎵
Me continuing to watch Hannibal: It gets gayer than Hannibal in his skivvies hanging in a t-pose while a twink tries to kill him to impress his serial killer otter?!
Friends: Yes! Yes it does!
Me getting to the end of S2E8: Oh. I see.
My husband and I have incredibly different stances on what constitutes a spoiler. It is something we will never ever come to a consensus on but we're going to bicker about it anyways because it's what people in long-term relationships do. He is adamant that the reveal of a thing automatically takes away from experience of viewing
Okay, like. Obviously this is dependent on the individual work (I would say the twists in The Sixth Sense and Fight Club are spoiled just by knowing what they are), but there's also a lot of cases where it's not? The two I can think of offhand are Revan's identity in Knights of the Old Republic and how the story unfolds in The Sparrow. In the first case, just knowing The Twist gives you no context for why it's powerful, or at least it wasn't for me. In the second, it's built into the narrative from the very beginning. You know shit went bad, but the how is the substantial part.
Which is a really long-winded way of saying it's definitely the journey and not the destination I find narratively satisfying about Hannibal. I've absorbed little bits and pieces from fandom osmosis: kind of how it ends, the way they adopt a murder princess but not the context in which they pick her up, that sort of thing.
I appreciate the way the show puts stepping stones for both Will and Hannibal to follow, to and away each other, but ultimately they do converge. I want to wallow in the end of the episode a little bit, because it was so unexpected.
Hannibal's delight in this thing that he's... cultivated? helped create? is very #relatable, at least to me. You know how when you're working on a creative endeavor and it zags in a way you completely weren't expecting but ends up being utterly perfect (or at least fits in a way that is greatly satisfying)? That is how I think he sees Will.
And I think Hannibal is enough of an artist (in the traditional and not so traditional senses) that he appreciates that sort of perfect serendipity: it's definitely not all you, but you helped bring it into being, and there is an affection and pride in that. The way he cradles Will's face, with such tenderness and pride! How the camera positions itself so you see one half of each of their faces in the same shot! Ughhhhhh it's so good.
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Date: 2018-12-18 07:33 pm (UTC)//cackles
There was a whole long discussion in
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Date: 2018-12-18 07:59 pm (UTC)This! This exactly! Hannibal would never pretend that he created Will from nothing, because honestly, he'd have gotten bored with a perfect creation before too long. But Will's very recalcitrance, the dance towards and away from Hannibal, the push and the pull - that was very enticing and it really made for fascinating viewing. I need to rewatch.
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Date: 2018-12-18 08:10 pm (UTC)Yes! I noticed how he didn't seem particularly fussed when Will was angry with him and withdrew while he was in the hospital. Or even when Will tried to have him killed. I wonder if he knew all along that Will would come back, or if he expected there was a chance he wouldn't. Like. Hannibal does not strike me as a man who does things without ascertaining all possible outcomes, but he seems genuinely surprised by Will.
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Date: 2018-12-18 11:57 pm (UTC)Yes, that rings true. Season three has this line about Hannibal not having ethical concerns, he has aesthetic ones - and that line really sticks with me because it explains so much about how Hannibal functions and how he reacts to things.
He views people thru an aesthetic lens and punishes rude people for being aesthetically displeasing and failing to behave in ways he expects. But Will bucks his expectations a lot, in ways that are aesthetically interesting, that offer new ways to think about Will without actually being annoying.
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Date: 2018-12-18 10:19 pm (UTC)AND IT STILL GETS GAYER.
I firmly believe the reason it was cancelled after four seasons is someone in programming actually realised what they were showing and then came to the (not unreasonable) conclusion that Fuller was going to make Will and Hannibal actually fuck onscreen if they showed another season.
Er. Are you up for being linked to vids on Hannibal? The one I'm thinking of does contain some images past season 2.
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Date: 2018-12-19 12:13 am (UTC)I am! If you have meta or interesting commentary saved somewhere I'll take that too. I won't look at it until after I'm done with S3 if it has spoilers though.
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Date: 2018-12-19 12:42 am (UTC)It does have images that are spoilery. Nothing, I believe, for the finale, but yeah: don't look at it until you're OK with being spoiled. It's one of the best uses of beat that I've seen in fandom.
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Date: 2018-12-19 05:31 pm (UTC)I've been known to read the end of a book first to see if I want to continue or not! I've got this much time, prove you are worth it.
And in general, I agree, it is about the journey.
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Date: 2018-12-25 02:12 pm (UTC)