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hollywood-rose · 3 years

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Hannigram rant because I love them

One of the weirdest things I see anti's say is shit like "if this was a man and a woman-- or if this was in real life-- or if this ship was in a different show we'd all use it as an example of a toxic ship!!"

It's a piss poor argument. Of COURSE it would be awful if it was any of those things-- because then it wouldn't make sense. There is context to Hannibal and Will's relationship in the show that wouldn’t be there in any other scenario.

Hannibal has been fucked up since childhood. He’s literally a cannibalistic serial killer. He’s the ‘villain’ in the show, to put it plainly. He isn't meant to be sweet and wholesome. We all know that in any other context the way Hannibal treats Will would NEVER fly. So using random hypotheticals as reasons to hate it is.. strange? To me, at least.

Hannibal can essentially see the ‘monster’ Will is deep inside. In turn, he uses his own unconventional means to try and bring it out. So yes, he manipulates the hell out of him. It’s from a mostly selfish point of view. He ultimately wants to help Will become like himself-- because he fully believes that he is (and he isn’t entirely wrong).

No Hannigram shipper will deny that Hannibal treats Will terribly most of the time (ex: lying about his mental illness, framing him for murder, and all that fun stuff) but we also know that, on top of it ALL-- Hannibal loves Will. He loves Will in his own morally skewed way. Hannibal is not normal, will never BE normal, and isn’t meant to be normal. It shouldn’t be shocking as to some of the methods he uses when it comes to Will Graham. But he does feel some type of remorse— like when he was trying to figure out the equation for time travel, presumably to undo everything he caused (this was after he rescued Will at the muskrat farm).

Hannigram isn’t some sweet white picket fence relationship. It's dark and complicated and confusing. But that's why we love it! They’re two morally grey characters that are fucked up and intense.

I also want to mention that even before Hannibal intervened that Will empathized TOO well with killers, and I honestly believe he would have turned out like Hannibal on his own accord. Would it have taken a lot longer? Probably. Would it have been as severe? Probably not. Who knows. But that desire was always buried deep inside of him-- Hannibal just helped bring it to the surface (in the worst way possible, of course).

You can't really be the moral police on a ship and calling it problematic when... the show itself is meant to be problematic lol. Hannigram is there to show the darkest sides of two people that, overall, love each other in the most fucked up way imaginable.

Will struggles with his feelings about Hannibal throughout the show because he desires to be a normal person, but he KNOWS deep down he isn't. There are multiple references to this that I don’t feel like adding to this rant (it’s already long enough lmao). A couple examples I will add, though— In Primavera, while speaking to Not!Abigail he is actually talking to himself and admits that, ultimately, he wants to be with Hannibal. He loves Hannibal. He wished he could have run away with him like he had suggested. (there is a great post explaining this here). Additionally, in Dolce when Will admits that they’ve begun to blur-- and he’s unsure if either of them could survive separation. He knows they’re alike, even if the ‘pure’ side of him doesn’t want them to be.

He has multiple chances to get away from Hannibal. He is smart enough to know that. I don’t think he was under some weird manipulation spell from Hannibal. He admits that he wanted to run away with him when speaking to Jack-- and he made the choice to warn him in season 2. Will isn’t stupid! He’s incredibly smart! He isn’t some child who can’t think for himself. He’s shown that so many times in the show.

At the end of the day-- (I'll say it again) Hannibal loves Will. It isn’t a conventional type of love, and he will never be able to express it in a healthy way. That’s just how he is, and how he always will be. Will is well aware of this, and knows that in many ways he is just like him. That’s why they work so well. That’s why Will loves him, too.

I feel like I kept repeating myself but I had to blow off some steam.

Look, you don't have to ship it. Ship whatever you want. Just try to understand that there is so much more to their relationship than "uwu Hannibal abusive and evil, Will sweet and does no wrong uwu". Not to sound obnoxious but.. it’s deeper than that. So much deeper. I don’t want to sound like a Hannibal apologist, either. It’s just not all his fault the reason things turned out the way they did.

I will conclude this by saying I'm not trying to imply Will is as bad as Hannibal. He obviously isn't. He didn't really deserve everything that happened to him-- but they happened. That's all I'm trying to explain here. I’m sure Will’s life would have gone a lot smoother without Hannibal being involved. But I fully believe, again, that at some point his dark side would have come out one way or another.

Hannigram is canon. The actors support it, the (ew) producer (even though he literally took credit when it was convenient when he denied them being canon for most of the time the show was running-- I hate bryan fuller) supports it. So.

This was super long and I’m so sorry. I have most anti’s blocked but if any of you guys happen to stumble upon this-- move along, thanks. You can hate the ship all you want. I won’t change my views, and I’m sure you won’t change yours so don’t waste my time. I’ve heard it all. Keep it to yourself. Thank you. I understand the moral reasons to dislike the ship, I just don’t think they fully apply in context of the show!

#hannigram #will graham #hannibal #hannibal lecter #mads mikkelsen #hugh dancy #fanfic #rants n rambles

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