Chewing in Dante - Hannibal and Dante’s Lucifer

I’ve read Dante’s Inferno recently, which made me wanna look back on the lecture on Dante Hannibal was giving in season 3 episode 1. This whole lecture had the theme of betrayal, talking about Pietro della Vigna and Judas, which is also a theme for this half of the season. At the end of the scene, he started to talk about “chewing in Dante”, but the scene ended when Anthony came in and Hannibal noticed that Bedelia left. This got me thinking about the parallels between Hannibal and Dante’s Lucifer

While Hannibal is giving the lecture in the scene, his face literally merges with the projected face of Lucifer. Of course, Hannibal could be compared with Satan for many reasons, but there are more interesting parallels with Dante’s Satan specifically. Lucifer was banished from Heaven and receives the same punishment in Hell as the rest of the sinners, being in the 9th circle reserved for traitors. He is also in the centre of Hell, being the only one in that section of the circle (apart from the three sinners he’s chewing). Forgive me for quoting Wikipedia, but “[Satan] conveys at its sharpest the ultimate and universal pain of Hell: isolation.” Dante’s Satan is a pretty weak version of Satan, and the same goes for Hannibal in Florence. He is suffering there in isolation (i.e. without Will, who is the only person that truly understood him), and even though he pretends otherwise, he has lost his former power and is a much more unstable and reckless version of himself.

The chewing reference definitely goes further with the Lucifer/Hannibal parallel. Lucifer in Inferno has three faces and each one is chewing on a famous traitor: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. In my opinion, Bedelia and Anthony would be Brutus and Cassius, and Will would be Judas. Hannibal plans to literally eat all three of them, but he also wants to chew on them in the figurative sense of punishing them for their sins - a betrayal from his point of view. The betrayal that Bedelia and Anthony commited from Hannibal’s POV is literally just not being Will. He took Bedelia to Florence as a replacement for Will, but she doesn’t truly understand and see Hannibal, and even tries to run away at one point. Anthony definitely reminds Hannibal of Will, which makes Hannibal interested in him, but ultimately he is not and cannot be Will. Hannibal and Bedelia’s stay in Florence could compare to Lucifer’s chewing on the sinners even better - neither of them really wanted to be there, but Hannibal still had more power over Bedelia.

Then we have Will of course, that directly betrayed Hannibal, like Judas betrayed Jesus (they even had the last supper and all that). Later, when Hannibal talks with Bedelia about Will, he comes to the conclusion that the only way he can forgive Will is to eat him - literally. In season 3 episode 6, Hannibal says “Now, we both have the opportunity to chew quite literally what we’ve only chewed figuratively,”, taking the metaphor of chewing in Dante into real life. It even fits in the way that Judas is in Lucifer’s mouth with the upper body in, and Hannibal planned to eat Will’s brain.

In season 3 episode 2, we interestingly also see Will compare Hannibal to God. Therefore, Hannibal can be a metaphor for both God and Satan. Will betrayed Hannibal, for which Hannibal punished him and left him (acting like God). However, by doing that, Hannibal also banished himself to Hell (Florence) and is left isolated (like Lucifer). There, he wants to “chew on” those that dare to take Will’s place, and then also on Will himself. According to Dante, treachery is the worst sin because it’s taking advantage of love - and that’s exactly what Hannibal saw Will’s actions as.

My key takeaway from NBC Hannibal is that if you're mentally unstable and morally reprehensible enough you will naturally attract people's fascination and their friendship so maybe I should cave to the homicidal urges

i’m so devastated we didn’t get to see jealous Will.

like tell me Will killing Anthony in a fit of jealousy wouldn’t absolutely devour.

why does anthony have to die in every fic? hannigram are cannibalistic murderers but we draw the line at a polyamorous relationship? i’m about to write it myself atp

Sometimes I’ll just be sat at the dinner table with my grandparents, suddenly remember that Will is Hannibal’s god and that Anthony was the false idol he had to sacrifice in his honour, and have to somehow just keep eating the pasta my nan made.

I'm watching this couple's reaction to the third season of Hannibal and husband asked what is Anthony Dimmond's motivation??

Like they just sat and watched how Italian Will give Hannibal thirsty looks and shamelessly flirt with him since they first met, and still wonder hmm what does this guy wants??🤔

Katrin, hi, hope all is well!

Do you think if Anthony Dimmond was alive when Will found Hannibal, Will would be more jealous of him than Bedelia? We know she spent more time with Hannibal, but I’m curious how Will would feel about him, more so because he’d never seen Hannibal have that kind of interaction with a male character before.

Hey! Oh, that's an interesting question. I think this would depend on what kind of relationship Will would witness Hannibal having with Dimmond. I think he'd be jealous for sure - Will seems to be extremely possessive in general, irrespective of gender, but I don't think he would view Dimmond as a bigger threat than Bedelia. Bedelia has something that Will is never going to get: she has history with Hannibal; she was his psychiatrist and he told her things that Will cannot be certain Hannibal will share with him. This emotional closeness is something he can't accept and tolerate.

I think he'd view Dimmond as a lesser but still intolerable rival. He'd decide that Hannibal went and found a simpler version of Will: someone who's always ready to share Hannibal's dark humor, someone sharp and fun and good-looking, interested in murder yet having no self-conflicts over it. Will would find it offensive, and I believe he would take the first opportunity to off Dimmond and turn him into a display proving his own worthiness and uniqueness.

Bedelia is like The Other Woman, Dimmond would be more like a temporary whim of Hannibal that Will would not allow him to have for long.

We need more characters like these two. Finds a guy who killed or nearly-killed the last man he loved. And are like yeah but I like him and surely he won't kill me. And then get killed.

i think the difference between anthony's and will's rudeness, and hannibal's tolerance of it, resides in the fact that anthony's rudeness was unprompted and also uncreative. his first interaction with hannibal is commenting about that professor, immediately assuming that hannibal doesn't like him. anthony also goes as far to repeat that dislike as part of their second meeting, many months after the fact. additionally, anthony's insults were repetitive and surface-level; just very boring. dante's inferno was right there and anthony took it- there was no creativity in his insult, no real passion other than just general disdain. whereas, will's dislike of things is generally shown quietly, a little sassily, but only ever when it really warrants it. will's brand of rudeness is unique in that he tends to add some humor to it, a cleverness that sometimes goes over the head's of the people he's insulting. that's interesting. that adds more to the rudeness or ill comment than just insulting someone for the sake of saying something disdainful, which is what anthony repeatedly did

Imagine this. You meet a man in Paris, right? You commiserate over this cunt you TA’d for, you… hit it off, in an odd kind of way, but he disappears. Drifts off somewhere only for you to run into him in Italy under a different name. You KNOW he killed the real Dr. Fell. He all but confirms it himself. You have dinner with him and ‘Mrs. Fell’ and all but ask for a threesome (he denies you). You confront him and proposition him, you know he’s killed someone, he knows you know, you tell him you won’t go to the police and you GO HOME WITH HIM. He kills you. No one was doing it like Anthony, he’s just like me for real.

anthony dimmond was a real one he was out here living his best life he lived fast and died fast murdered for the crime of not being will graham rip

Recently rewatched Hannibal and had to make this meme lol.

(It's very high quality /s)

The romance of Hannibal having what is essentially a break up with Will at the end of season two, and then going to Italy and meeting someone who looks exactly like Will and having that man flirt with him (and of course, Hannibal is curious) but as soon as Anthony is put in a similar position as Will (close to discovering who hannibal is), Hannibal shuts it down and kills him, and then turns him inside out into a heart to give to Will. Because there is nobody else and never will be anybody else for Hannibal.

I kinda wanted to see the Bedalia, Hannibal, Anthony threesome in S3 E1. Even tho the sex scenes in this show are more fucked up than some of the murders

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