Hannibal - Profile of a Caricature

In my view one of the best iconic depictions of a human forced to live within these Modern circumstances.

There are three versions of Harrison's representations each with its flaws and perspectives.

Manhunter...
...a more realistic representation of a manipulative genius with no great part in the events, other than an insightful interpreter.
The character, in this version, holds no big role in the story being told.
He is subdued, captured, a caged potential, having squandered its promise, and now lashing out from within its containment.  


But, someone out there thought the character held a promise worth releasing from the cage to watch him run free on the screens of our projected discontent.

Hannibal Rising...

...a last moment insertion that demystifies the character for a modern audience.
Here the character is given a motive, reducing his supernatural appeal.
He becomes another "victim" of Naziism, here given an indirect cause.

The young Hannibal falls in love, and is hurt, offering us the typical version used to explain that which goes beyond the "normality" of the "healthy" mind.
A female, is once more, the underlying reason, that pushes the immature mind over the edge, where Naziism had palced him.


But, at least, we get a glimpse into the nature of a mind that bullies bullies, as a burgeoning aesthetic taste, feeling disgust towards the vulgar - what later is to be called the "rude".
The wounds are anesthetized with a thickening scab.
Hannibal's unemotional empathy is rising to confront the cultural anesthesia of culturally produced dullness.  

Silence of the Lambs...

...the first in the trilogy that would revamp the Manhunter themes.
Where Manhunter remained realistic, the Silence of the Lambs version of Hannibal enters the realm of the extraordinary, the fantastic.

Red Dragon...

...completes the trilogy.
Hannibal is a mature bon vivant; both hunter and hunted.
The story reduces the character to something the audience would consider palatable.
Not only is he given a typical justification, along the lines of those used to dismiss racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-semitism, but he is amputated as a message of cost/benefit.

In the Harrison story Hannibal escapes into the masses, having seduced the girl. He lurks amongst us, wearing many faces.
In this variation Hannibal is marked for life.
He wins by losing.

His supernatural condition, marking him with six digits, is finalized with the loss of the entire hand, and of the girl.
Loneliness, amputation, the high price of being extraordinary and unwilling to serve, to direct your gifts towards helping the masses, the herd.
A wolf if it does not become a dog, must be disabled, and castrated.

The loss of the hand is the symbolic disability; and the loss of the female a castration.


The trilogy leaves us with a sense of loss: a story unfinished, an anti-hero marked but out there, somewhere, taunting us, threatening our contentment, our dull appreciation of aesthetics.

This brings us to the most recent reincarnation of the caricature, the personality with a new character.

Hannibal...


...enters into the mythological.
Young Hannibal and old Hannibal are refurbished, into a svelte, handsome, symbol of the ideal Demon.

All retain a continuity of personality with only the character shifting according to the producer/director understanding.
Hannibal, the T.V. series inserts the personality into a world of symbolisms: role reversals, mystical world, extraordinary circumstances.
A world of ideas...memetic landscapes.

Hannibal as the overman.

An exploration of the character, using all three variations, but focusing on the latest, will help us delve into the underlying ideas being symbolized.

Hannibal is the Demon, the Daemon...a Pagan monster, challenging our Judeo-Christian world views.
as a Demon he resides in all men and women: imprisoned, retarded in his development, in hiding.
The greatest trick played by the Devil, as someone said, is convincing the world he does not exist.

Hannibal as a representation of a personality resides within us all, as the untamed, the natural, the private man.
He is not as sophisticated in all his manifestations, but he is always present.



The two parts of man: the ying/yang...the natural and the artificial, the ideal and the real....the private and the public.
In the image above it is the public face that remains in shadows, and can be anyone.
The private, secret part is illuminated, brought into the light with that glaring smirk.

Muzzled, but not silenced.
Teeth give way to words, and feminine tactics.


Mediterranean goat horns giving way to North American elk...tree roots growing upwards, into the space of possibilities: seeking, hungry, cutting into crevices, exploiting fissures.  


The civil, uncivilized.
The domesticated untamable.

Hannibal does not implant ideas into those he "manipulates," he exposes them to possibilities their nature implies but were buried beneath social pretences.
He pulls out of them what he (re)congizes, and does not deny, in himself.
He seduces the need in all of them.


The multifarious gift of unity - We are Legion.
A controlled schizophrenia - the masculine dominating the feminine, holding it together, taming it, with memory(experience, knowledge); order in the chaos, authority an arche, in the anarchy.
The past is never overcome, it is forgotten, denied.  

This bringing together, is this bridging of distances, an increasing internal cohesiveness, harmony in selfness.
The true schizophrenic remains divided, unknown to himself, he indulges in compartmentalization where one part always remains out of tune with the others, out of touch, under no central control (lucidity) - no cohesiveness - or it contradicts the others, as in the case of Nihilism and its demands upon the mind to adhere to its anthropomorphic rejections of the world as it is.
The "civilized" man, in this latter instance, is a man divided in himself - his personality other than his character (the private other than the public), the idea(l) in conflict with the real.  


The experience similar to that of 'lost time' as in lost awareness of self (lost self) - temporal being another word for Becoming.
This "being" in the moment a metaphor for the shrinking of distances between one abstraction and the next, which constitutes the linear experience of reality as a chain of instances.    

When this is intentional, or is known, then no schism is present - only control - but when the schism is actual, then the mind remains confused, unable to harmonize the different standards, the diverging world-views, into one entirety.
It's impulses cannot be focused.
It is duplicitous in itself - convinced by its own ruse - it says one thing and does another, justifying it after-the-fact with imaginative word-games.
It is in a state of internal antagonism - personality versus character.

The detachment of the word from the world, the noumenon from the phenomenon, lends itself to this practice.  
The word referring to the book, the code, which may or may not refer back to a concept the mind is clear on...and it most certainly does not refer to anything sensed in the world if the concept is nihilistic.
Once this detachment is achieved, the instances create voids...fissures into the emptiness, demanding linguistic salves, words of salvation.


The spirit is ripped out of the body, as a thing-in-itself, and the ephemeral finds comfort in the fabricated eternal soul.  

The thinker knows the other because he (re)cognizes him in himself - he is a representation of existence, of life.
The thinker is a hunter of the real - a destroyer of forgetfulness, of lethe. He is the one discovering aletheia.
The other is known more than (s)he can know self, if self is not as self-conscious...if self is not forgotten. He finds the other familiar.

A martyr, as in the Greek μαρτυρας: the witness who experiences an event; the phenomenon being witnessed - it then retains in memory (genetic/memetic code), conjuring it up, at will - remembering, reliving...using/manipulating/exploiting.
Mind as pure observer, detached from what is being witnessed, clarifying the imagery, purifying the memory, the (re)cognition.  

Harrison, Thomas wrote:

Hannibal: I've always found the idea of death comforting. The thought that my life could end at any moment frees me to fully appreciate the beauty and art and horror of everything this world has to offer.

The overman celebrating his victory over his own nature...as temporal becoming.
He no longer resents his nature, his temporal essence, but is comforted by it, because it opens up vistas of perception denied to others.
Existence as an opportunity to see.

The martyr, bears witness to the exposed, the revealed - to revelation.
He is existence witnessing itself in the midst of its existing.

His six digits a sign of his overcoming of the human: higher intellect, higher sensual perception...higher tastes.
The vulgar is rude, in that it disturbs his aesthetics, not his morals, for he is above those as well; the primitive, the base, assaults his tastes, like a bad odour.


He does not pass a moral judgment on it, because morality refers to a common taste.
He passes a personal judgment on it, as it has been determined by his inherited past, as it was shaped by his personal experiences.

Etymology Dictionary wrote:

monster (n.) Look up monster at Dictionary.com
early 14c., "malformed animal or human, creature afflicted with a birth defect," from Old French monstre, mostre "monster, monstrosity" (12c.), and directly from Latin monstrum "divine omen, portent, sign; abnormal shape; monster, monstrosity," figuratively "repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, abomination," from root of monere "warn" (see monitor (n.)). Abnormal or prodigious animals were regarded as signs or omens of impending evil. Extended by late 14c. to imaginary animals composed of parts of creatures (centaur, griffin, etc.). Meaning "animal of vast size" is from 1520s; sense of "person of inhuman cruelty or wickedness" is from 1550s. As an adjective, "of extraordinary size," from 1837. In Old English, the monster Grendel was an aglæca, a word related to aglæc "calamity, terror, distress, oppression."

The monster is an omen, a warning of things to come.
It's abomination in relation to the observer's needs.

This monster is one of man's vanity.
An creature emerging in the urban jungles; a product of pollutants, both material and genetic - pollution of physical and mental, the mind/body inseparable though divided noetically via forgetfulness, denial.
Hannibal is a product of genetic mutations, adapting to human environments - a purely Modern monstrosity.



Masculine, in its internal control, and seductive to the feminized modern, because of it.
A Dionysus hiding in an Apollonian veneer - a duality of style and brutality.
He does not make others do anything.
He convinces them by reasoning with their dominant Dionysian side....hidden but not controlled, because it is denied, and by being denied it is unknown.
He appeals to the part the modern rejects as already overcome.

The distinction of the Hannibal caricature from the real-life manifestation of this same personality, is one of inflated proportions.
He does not fear the consequences, in the way a normal man would, because he exceeds the norm to a degree which makes him immune to them.
Still, the definition of a psychotic is not the thought, the motive, the potential, but the acting out of it, despite the possible price.
He acts out his nature, because despite the socioeconomic price inflations, he is willing to pay it, or is confident that he will avoid payment.

A real psychotic never considers the costs, or overestimates his own talent of evading payment.
He is psychotic in his hyperbole.  


The Hannibal Lecter caricature becomes a venting vehicle for all those repressed intentions.
The masculine having become illegal, is forced to use only feminine methods.
The act is priced out of his range, leaving him with words.
he can only become aggressive using them.
This is also being restricted now.
The words must become evermore artistic, metaphorical...evasive.
He must hide, deeper and deeper, increasing his isolation - he is quarantined with peer pressures and with social condemnation.  

Only the most out-of-control, those who have too little will or too great a masculine drive, unleash this Thymotic energy...and pay the price for it.
The rest content themselves with these artistic expressions of rage.
They are allowed so as to depressurize the increasing pressurization.

The simple use athletics (sports as a vehicle of vicarious playing on a high level), pornography (sports as a vehicle of vicarious fucking on a higher level), to release the masculinity they are not permitted to express.
as repression persists, the level of vicarious depressurization must be raised proportionally.
Time is on the side of the socially eugenics enforcer: slowly feminization will eradicate the elements that made the man what he was, leaving behind a female with a penis, with only a slight difference in behavior.
Along with it all that man creates, innovates, as a byproduct of his libidinal need to dominate, to control, to use.

Will technologies and techniques compensate for this masculine loss, as they have with other aspects of masculine superiority, through the usage of weapons and tools and machines?
We cannot know.

Machines and mechanics have already made the masculine obsolete in the area of procreation...can it do the same for creation, creativity?

Of all the actions that reveal how human, all too human, Hannibal is, is his desire to make of his killings a symbol.
A symbol sophisticated enough to be read by a sophisticated mind.


His "design" is only valuable if an other, on his level, can share in it, and read it.
Dialogue is sought, amongst the dull.
He does not want to converse with the masses, but with that one who sees beyond the blood and the brutality.

Loneliness still pulls upon him.
He is not yet god, but a fallen angel.

And by "human" Hannibal understands something more than the sexual, the procreative, because he shows a distinct indifference towards sexual intercourse, and for using his talents to seduce females into his bed.  
He is beyond Freud, and his Jewish decadence.
Sex, for him, is but another tool, another insight into the prey, to be used to accomplish his goal.
Sex as a means, not an end in itself.

The practice of cannibalism can be evaluated from various perspectives.


The hunter has first pick of the prey's most tender and, therefore, tastiest parts - the natural right of the hunter.
But this was only important when hunting was conducted as a group, a party, activity.
 
It is, also, an old practice where the victor assimilated the vanquished into his own becoming, thusly honoring him, and reaffirming his domination over him.

Finally, and most importantly in my view, Hannibal's cannibalism is not cannibalism at all when considered from outside modern mythologies and popular attitudes.
Being a more evolved version of human, a super-human, as it were, feeding on the lesser would not constitute a feeding on his own kind.
Hannibal is in search of his own, he does not associate with those he is forced to interact with.
He is a hypocrite in the sense that he pretends to belong to them, with them, when he feels so utterly alone, unable to relate to their vulgarity, their rudeness.
He does not feed on them, he indulges in fine dining, selecting the most particular parts of nature to savor.
He is refining himself by sharpening his consuming practices.

As an extension of his contra-bully bullying Hannibal acquires the dress and the practices of the group he will integrate within, becoming inconspicuous.
In an urban environment he dresses and behaves as an urbanite, integrating into the professional, specialized, class, preferring to cull the strongest rather than the weakest members of the herd.

This act alone constitutes an act of nobility.

The choice accomplishes two goals:
It increases the challenge, to him, and it increases the possibility of finding his equal, his kind - increased potential of feeding both mind and body on "higher grade human".

The power of the imagination.
It takes the known and projects it into the unknown, turning it into a possible representation.
A mind must be able to tolerate its aversions, the bad taste, to dig deep into himself, into his identity, and find there was he cannot hold in his conscious mind for long.

And in these distasteful things he sharpens his own preferences, learning to see them in another, and to despise them, no less, than when he first found it in himself.
Imagine such a man, coming across those who, having no taste at all, find pleasure in what he finds repulsive - his understanding will turn to disgust rather than pity.

Such callous words to the one he gives a hand for.
In the book she is swept away by him, and his monstrous tastes.

Such love from a soulless a vampire.
A love for eternity.

A woman must give up her "daddy" if she is to surrender to an other man, if he is but "just a man".
If not, she holds her "daddy" up on a cross, to turn him into a martyr, bearing witness to her fate.
Daddies turn to gods, when mere mortals cannot and will not satisfy her elevated tastes, and before God all is laid waste - a cynical cloud brings the rains.

Hannibal Rising, one of my favourite movies (along with 'the Savior', 'Brotherhood of War', 'Ong Bak 3', 'Sympathy for a Lady Vengeance' etc.).
As a child / teen I never could watch and appreciate the other Hannibal series (too immature), but this movie I watched over and over again.
The part where he eats the cheeks out from the face left a strong impression in me (also his face with no engraved emotions except cheerfulness); my father told me during the scene that the cheeks of an animal always are the most tasty.
From that point I would never look repulsed upon such specific cannibalism anymore as was taught to me through cultural norms - as long it are specific parts of the body and the specific person won't be unhealthy (body / mind / age) to a certain extent.
Sometimes, I would love to threat some thugs / impolite people when they seek to challenge me again that I will eat him after having butchered them up until near death - the look on such an face.

As Anthony Hopkins he came off as needy. Motivations unrelated to neither thrill nor puzzle. It's because those movies lie within the horror genre and must relate to the Satanic. Manhunter however is completly amoral and Brian Cox personifies it perfectly.

As far as movies go I think Red Dragon is much more similar to Basic Instinct than Manhunter. I love both Basic Instinct and Manhunter. Their so called psychopaths are in optimal female and male forms of it. Thrill and puzzle.

I only skim through the show. Really, really slow, overly dramatic, no side comedy, uninteresting circumstances. Mainly hate the Will Graham character in it, he's the complete opposite of the one in Manhunter who ís Stoic. But then in the recent finale Hannibal also seemed really needy. I blame the show Dexter which I really liked, but being interesting is never enough for mass consumption, it has to derive sympathy. So in it he's attracted to being seen and accepted by just minds, but never actively searches it as in Hannibal. But its not really the characters they want it from is it? Its the audience. Then in the finale he also cries? Which I'm almost certain Dexter never did. But I don't know if it was for an intended effect or if he actually felt it, another fault line.

My favorite characters in all of entertainment are Riddley Scott's robots. They personify the complete opposite of neediness. It's like in Prometheus:

David: 'Want'; not a concept I'm familiar with.

We were talking with a friend about these different manifestation of the character Hannibal Lecter.

In the youthful, Hannibal Rising, we find a still romantic, idealistic, Hannibal - a bit naive.
His violence is resentful...he seeks retribution for a wrong done, a divine justice.

In the television version, we find a young man version.
He is coming to grips with his nature, overexerting his Will. We see a cold, calculating exterior, hiding a passionate, turmoil, under the surface.

In the movie version we have an older, more self-knowing Hannibal.
He can drop the masks, a bit, and expose some pleasure in the comedy of otherness.
You can feel his joy in the dinner scenes.

His passions are a mask for a cold, calculating interior...

Satyr wrote:

The practice of cannibalism can be evaluated from various perspectives.

The hunter has first pick of the prey's most tender and, therefore, tastiest parts - the natural right of the hunter.
But this was only important when hunting was conducted as a group, a party, activity.
 
It is, also, an old practice where the victor assimilated the vanquished into his own becoming, thusly honoring him, and reaffirming his domination over him.

Finally, and most importantly in my view, Hannibal's cannibalism is not cannibalism at all when considered from outside modern mythologies and popular attitudes.
Being a more evolved version of human, a super-human, as it were, feeding on the lesser would not constitute a feeding on his own kind.

Quote :

"I have no taste for animal cruelty, which is why I employ an ethical butcher… No need for unnecessary suffering."[Hannibal]

Quote :

"Human emotions are gifts from our animal ancestors. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself." [Hannibal]

Satyr wrote:

The power of the imagination.
It takes the known and projects it into the unknown, turning it into a possible representation.
A mind must be able to tolerate its aversions, the bad taste, to dig deep into himself, into his identity, and find there was he cannot hold in his conscious mind for long.

And in these distasteful things he sharpens his own preferences, learning to see them in another, and to despise them, no less, than when he first found it in himself.
Imagine such a man, coming across those who, having no taste at all, find pleasure in what he finds repulsive - his understanding will turn to disgust rather than pity.    

In Buffet Froid he urges Will to intellectualize the crime scenes...

Quote :

"What you do is you take all of the evidence available at a crime scene. You extrapolate. You reconstruct the thinking of a killer. You don’t think of yourself as the killer!”[Hannibal]

Harrison's Hannibal Lecter caricature represents a surrealistic depiction of a world underlying the "real" everyday one.
The events depicted, and the characters populating its world, are extraordinary extensions of the ordinary; an internalized reality, warped, and moody, reflecting self in a shimmering lake, that distorts everything into monstrosities.

Hannibal, in the movies - the Hopkins version - is the inversion of the Hannibal, in the television series - the Mikkelsen version.

Hopkins/Hannibal is expressive, passionate, over a cold, calculating, controlled internal psychological structure.
Mikkelsen/Hannibal is cold, reserved, calculating, controlled exterior, over a passionate psychological structure.

The evolution of the character, besides being a different interpretation, reflecting the creator's own relationship with the Harrison character, represents a natural growth process: the younger Mikkelsen/Hannibal growing into the the more mature Hopkins/Hannibal.
The growth reflects the natural process of confidence, and indifference, which accompanies maturation.

We witness here a slight reversal between the public and the private man.
The private man, in Mikkelsen/Hannibal, becomes the public man in Hopkins/Hannibal...without there ever being a complete reversal.

Factoring in the unleashed passions of the young/Hannibal, with his reckless abandonment to his passions, we find in Mikkelsen/Hannibal, a young man's willful attempt to gain control over them - resulting in an over-compensating external control, hiding a pressurized internal private man, revealing himself in those acts of brutality.
Hopkins/Hannibal, after years of cooling down the volcanic eruptions of his past, is now able to express his passions, albeit in subtle ways, because he has gained control of them.

Mikkelsen/Hannibal is Narcissus peering into the distorted, by the reflective pool, image of his own private face; his internal world is a product of the real world, witnessed by a pure, noble young heart.
Hopkins/Hannibal has become the reflecting pool, now mirroring the distorted world back to any eyes that might see it - bear witness to it, be the martyrs of its reality; an mature man who remains indifferent to the outcome.

I want to focus on the dynamism of Lecter’s Gaze.

Excerpts from Original Essay:

Quote :

Our fascination with Lecter begins with the gaze. Similar to Dracula, Lecter mesmerizes the viewer through the hypnotic gaze. Yet instead of enchanting the viewer through supernatural ways, his approach is rooted in psychology. In The Silence of the Lambs, the exchanges between Lecter and the protagonist, Starling, are arguably the most climatic moments in the entire film. Lecter’s vampiric gaze, unbounded by his prison cell, bores an incisive view into Starling’s psyche, controlling and threatening her at the same time.  As a result, with each subsequent meeting Starling is increasingly attracted towards Lecter.  On the surface, the dynamics of Starling’s attraction to Lecter seemingly only exists on the silver screen. However we have to be cognizant that we are viewing (and being viewed by) Lecter through Starling’s eyes, as seen from extended close ups of his face during their exchanges. Indeed, Lecter’s gaze is intended to be an extra-diegetic gaze directed at us, the ‘fourth look’ that transgresses the boundary between the cinematic space and the real world.

To achieve this effect, special care had been taken by the production designers to ensure that the bars on Lecter’s cage would not obstruct the camera’s view of his face. The actor playing Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, went so far as to avoid blinking while he was in character, adhering to the fundamental rule that a hypnotist should not blink while performing ‘direct gaze’ hypnotism. This results in his hypnotic gaze resembling the look of the Gorgon, because it transfixes the viewer in a state of willing immobility. What we can abstract from this phenomenon is that those theatrical tricks centre on the viewer being the object of the gaze. This is reverse colonization in full swing, illustrating the psychological state of anxiety within the viewer. In this context, the viewer’s anxiety results from being the object of the gaze. At the beginning of the film, the viewer is safe in knowing that he is the voyeur of Lecter’s diegetic world, ‘colonizing’ it by turning its inhabitants into the subjects of his gaze. Yet throughout the film, Lecter’s ability to return the gaze turns the tables on the viewer, transgressing the theater space in which the viewer inhabits, and ultimately his comfort zone. This phenomenon resembles a well-known trope within vampire literature – the vampire must be invited before it can enter our home. In this case, the home is a metaphor for our subconscious mind. Our inability to deny the vampiric Lecter access to our psyche is attributed to our willingness to be rendered immobile under the effect of his hypnotic gaze, much like how Starling is rendered powerless under the trenchant scrutiny of Lecter.  Through the gaze alone, Lecter is able to exert a pull on us, albeit uncomfortably. We are inextricably drawn to him while at the same time grappling with the anxiety of being the objects of the gaze. It is the hypnotic pull of his gaze and the resultant anxiety that causes us to be so fascinated.

The controlled gaze shields the inner fury of desires lurking within him, an Apollonian façade. It is also a way for him to optimize his receptiveness. If one does not blink, one picks up on more details and processes more sensual data. The stoic rigidness of the gaze, is the need to focus on an objective and to pick up on the nuances that it transmits, thus building it into a more cohesive mental construct. The more one blinks, or averts their eyes or attentions away from the object of interest the less detail they absorb and thus the more untenable the construct is, rather than stable.

His calmness is the foundation of his gaze, in that he must first stabilize it on a physiological banister for it to have maximum effectiveness to be immobile and more focused. The "unblinkingness" of the gaze means that it is more open and catches more hues of external stimuli, and this also makes it more encompassing.
The Hunter Gaze/The Gorgon Gaze. Both based on seduction, with the former being more of a means to direct behavior to the purpose of ones own satiation, the latter being a means of unsettling one into total petrified consternation or anxiety.  

The Gorgons eyes are depicted as large and engaging.





The type of the gaze depends on what goals are being achieved and what desires are being sated. The gaze directs one to peer into the soul of the individual that is gazing, as well as to empathetically direct an introspective gaze to themselves. The gaze captures and absorbs the others essence, and challenges them to cope with being under the pressure of self-control, or reserve. Most importantly, the gaze challenges the other’s exterior ruses and defense mechanisms and whether or not they can be maintained under the pressure of being held captive by intense optical scrutiny.

“The eyes are the windows to the soul”, and the gaze peers into the soul/nature of the other and the other must prove their worth by breaking under its pressure or holding strong.  The gaze is meant to savor the other, in the same way he savors a delicious meal. To let every part of them dance on his palate before he swallows.

Children for example, have a strong tendency to stare. This is because their budding minds are compelled to process as much of something as they can, only they are too intellectually underdeveloped to comprehend what it is they are looking at so persistently. Their weak sense of self makes them bold, as where one who has a higher refined sense of self understands what parts of himself to contrast and thus which parts are worth directing his attention to.

Lecter's calmness when performing acts of savagery, means that he understands exactly, in every way why he is doing it. He is not out of control with uncertainty or confusion that would stem from impulsivity or impetuousness. With Krendler, for example, he takes the time to arrange an elaborate dinner setting, with expensive china, wine, gourmet food with Krendler being the main course. He slices the piece of brain from the skull with a steady hand and a casual demeanor because he understands why he does it, and in this way he understands himself and he has no need to be anxious. Why does he bother making such extensive preparations for one he considers inferior? Because, for him every act has a meaning and a purpose. His savagery is objective and not simply for its own sake. He does not waste himself.

Quote :

The cruelty with which he remorselessly dispatches them is “innocent” insofar as it is a product of contempt(as an indication of power) rather than spite. While each of them is killed in a spectacular
or comic fashion, Hannibal undertakes their executions with a perfunctory attitude:
he wears the same expression disemboweling Pazzi as he does whilst mincing parsley for
Krendler’s last supper.--A Cannibal Sermon, Aaron Taylor

His satirical expressions, his contemptuous mockery against his oppressors is bred from a natural enjoyment of his own self-expression and release of energies. He is in touch with his own humanity, his own Dionysian urges to give him the levity he needs as to not succumb to extremes of nihilism.

When he prepares to push the inspector Pazzi off the balcony, he whistles “rock a bye baby” to himself, or his classic humorous statement he makes to Starling at the end of Silence of the Lambs “I’m having an old friend for dinner”. His moments of enjoyment are not sadistic so much as they are laughs that he has with himself so to speak. He enjoys and loves himself, and needs not to have an audience to validate his humor, only himself.

Self-love in a most intimate sense.

In the animal kingdom, lions and buffalos have a mutual dependence on each others roles of predator and prey. The lionesses will approach a herd of buffalos and circle them. One will move closer attempting to single out one member for the kill, until all unite to drive the lioness away. When the herd migrates, the lions follow, and continue the to and fro hunting game of attrition, accosting the herd and being driven away. This will continue until eventually, the lions will temporarily concede from exhaustion or they will make a kill. Both the buffalos and lions give themselves purpose to their existence, to their basic natures, and therefore depend on one another to maintain a balance of their instincts.

In a human society, this oppositional co-dependence finds its predator/prey system in those that the loin manifests itself in, the Blond Beast that surfaces to fulfill its life. The theory of “devouring” as the beast within devours the life that gives him life. He hunts the herd because it valuates his life, it directs his Will.

The masses are both disgusted and avidly fascinated by him. They need scapegoats to expel their repressed energy upon when the herd is disrupted. What makes him so attractive is simply that he possesses the Will to break through the confines of social conventions. He remains loyal to certain principals despite his extreme behavior; a veritable non-social nobility conveys to the average mind something they lack and they intuit it in persons of such aberrant constitution, but they are incapable of understanding it. They have a love/hate relationship to him.



He is passionately studied and examined under the microscope of psychologists and other professionals that protect the herd. Regardless of any claims of "professional interest", there is a veritable feeling of admiration for his spirit.The truth is, the masses have no strength to test themselves against a system they secretly abhor, and in many ways, they avenge this inadequacy upon those who have the drive to break through man made barriers of morality. A nagging sense of envy is not without merit, and so such "evil" men must be placed on a pedestal to be hated and respected. The very fact that they are both speaks of an insecurity of the social whole. That there is a pedestal at all no matter how tainted, is the sign of hypocrisy in its most polished appearance against this beast of sovereignty.

The herd doesn't wish to kill him, but only keep him at bay, to keep him away from them, but near enough for them to utilize a vampiric parasitism.

Lecter wrote:

We live in a primitive time, don't we, Will? Neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or put me to some use.

A dictator or political despot can be universally loved because he sacrifices parts of his genuine goals for the appreciation of all, this requires deception. Lecter does not deceive himself, and therefore he cannot be loved but he can be respected and even sanctified. His disregard for altruism; the good of the herd, excludes him from other gestures of love. The simple man, longs not only to understand these extreme men, but to learn from them as well. If their intellect is powerful, all the more fascinating they become, while their behavior is scorned to justify the admiration of their ability to memorize and propound ideologies that offer substance to the common man's empty life.

The Dr. Chilton type is a case in point. The envious fickle man, who is both attracted and resentful against him. He considers him a prized asset, a ferocious powerful beast that is ever escaped would tear him to pieces and because of that present threat, he is drawn in a feminine voyeuristic way. He is too confounded by his intellect, and this also adds sensation to his homo-erotic excitability for Lecter.

Lecter wrote:

Ah, yes, Doctor Chilton...gruesome isn't he? He fumbles at your head like a freshman pulling at a panty curdle

His is feared because he has the power to challenge fear. The herd cannot help but have a romantic interest in him, because he represents a power that most do not have: the power to become who he truly is. At a distance, they are looked upon as malevolent oracles, But when they move too closely, the herd must drive them away.

Why does the herd not kill the predator, once it has gained control over its fate?

1- It goes against the shared principles/ideals, that keep the multifarious herd identifying itself as one.
To kill the killer requires a special decree; a significant excuse.

2- It needs to preserve hope, implied by the belief in the uniformity of "goodness" within its numbers.
The predator can be rehabilitated back to being a herbivore. It is a predator because it is ill/traumatize/afraid.
It can be healed, comforted, made to feel safe.

3- Although differences in appearance do not matter, similarities are exaggerated to the point where everything that appears to be the same, on a very superficial basis (more so than when dismissing divergence as superficially biased), must be assumed to be the same.  
The herd oscillates between genetic and memetic criteria - the deciding factor being what it intends to do.
Appearances do not matter only in regards to differences.

The closest to the Lector in actual literature, I think, is The Judge in Blood Meridian.   Obviously better to read him in context of action and the story itself - where he is a giant and a killer and not the slightest bit sentimental about anything, not even rudeness - but here are some quotes I could find online....... (McCarthy being perhaps the best living American author)

Quote :

“And the answer, said the judge. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons.”

Quote :

“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down." -The Judge”

Quote :

“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

Quote :

Books lie, he said.
God dont lie.
No, said the judge. He does not. And these are his words.
He held up a chunk of rock.
He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things.
The squatters in their rags nodded among themselves and were soon reckoning him correct, this man of learning, in all his speculations, and this the judge encouraged until they were right proselytes of the new order whereupon he laughed at them for fools.”

Quote :

“Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen the horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance. - The judge”

Quote :

“The judge watched him. He began to point out various men in the room and to ask if these men were here for a good time or if indeed they knew why they were here at all.
Everybody dont have to have a reason to be someplace.

That’s so, said the judge. They do not have to have a reason. But order is not set aside because of their indifference.”

Quote :

So what is the way of raising a child? At a young age, said the judge, they should be put in a pit with wild dogs. They should be set to puzzle out from their proper clues the one of three doors that does not harbor wild lions. They should be made to run naked in the desert until …”

Or is the Judge more like Satyr, at least in philosophy? The Judge might even like Satyr, not that anyone would be safe near the Judge, but he would not necessarily take a special disliking to Satyr.

As an aside: doesn't anyone read actual literature here? The choice of avatars is teenage for the most part, all from quick media.

The literati fail to appreciate the qualities of the age.
He enters a jungle, looking for an English breakfast, with a bow-tie and a pair of reading spectacles, delicately playing with his pipe - to make it obvious.
He has the audacity of a presumptuous old git, who, refusing to account for the world around him, insists on proper etiquette and the charms of continental Europe as he riles against hypocrisy and colonialism.

The perfect blend of Dionysian and Apollonian has become narcissistic for a moron confusing high-brow for high-minded - his bushy eye-shields taken for the cover on his skull.

What a predator does is adapt to the world it finds itself in.
In this world the symbols, allegories, are adaptations of older forms - as everything has become recyclable and sampled (art imitating art).
Negros think they are saying something deep, and liberating, using their Ebonic street slurs, when all they are doing is following masta's lead, repeating, in primitive form, European genius.
And the whiggers, like shit-Stain (because I prefer revealing with real-time specimens as evidence) rejoice at the re-discovery of their own culture through the African primate.

What a realist does, if he is honest and courageous, is he studies reality first, and then the art, in his immediate vicinity, which attempts to deal with it.
If I were living in a previous age I would be studying Shakespeare, and his allegories; before that Euripides or Homer - but today, if I am going to understand the modern herd, I study its art-forms.
Why?
Because I am interested in the human condition as it manifests today, in this nihilistic environment, and not motivated by the need to appear intellectual, while accusing others of narcissism and duplicity.
 
What is interesting - because I like to find the silver lining in every dark cloud - is that this idiot Kovacs has provided no real insights, but only comments on commentary.
His herd-protecting interventions have offered nothing but his "humble", non-self-serving, attempts at character assassination, with a clear avoidance of the topics at hand.
Some would call this ad hominem, others would call this "trolling", I call this typically modern and nihilistic and cowardly.  

And, this simpleton, is what the Phoneee and the Mooo considered their better, despite their grandiose, overrated, opinions of themselves.
Stupidity infects on so many levels.
Amongst the artsy-farsty academics it becomes a pretentious parroting of the obscure, as a insinuation of depth, when all it is is a hidden shallowness masking as cultured sophistication.

Here's the thing...
When I paint a picture of a jungle I do not paint a picture of my romantic representation of it, with me as Tarzan, King of apes.
I paint it honestly, with those little vermin openly depicted hiding in the shades....little rats, trying to seem bigger and bolder than they truly are.
I do it for my sake.
A reminder that in the urban jungles those that try their hardest to appear as something, are really the opposite of what they want to appear as.

The obsession of the common rat is found in its nightly activities.
Not when it hides but when it dares to venture out, thinking everybody's asleep, to feed on its favorite morsels.
Find those morsels, know them, and you know the rat that will frequent around them.

Trap it, or study it as it feeds.  
Better yet, learn to protect yourself from those sharp, incisors....all neeed.

Above, in Kovacs, we have an example of a willing specimen who comes to us, rather than we to them.
A simpleton, with nothing to say except as a defensive accusation against those who confront its well-being.
Seek out, on your own, something from this buffoon worth noting....it is why he comes here not with opinions on the world but only on opinion about people with opinions on the world.
He is a typical modern sycophant, protecting the shared, common, popular narrative, which they've adopted because it flatters and offers them comfort.

When, such a buffoon, dares to speak out it is nothing more than the usual, the typical, the popular...and he will sue nothing but the typical, the popular, the average to defend it.
Though he defends the mediocre he still holds, in secret, a desire to stand out, to appear as more than average...and you feel this every time he posts here.

But, unable to offer anything personal, he resorts to what is average, typical, popular, yet more obscure.
This is how the average moron tries to imitate superiority, without admitting to it.
It resorts to obscurity, in symbol and reference, to imply a distinction in the averageness.
He might repeat the common man's myths, his ideals and principles, but he does it by referencing less known reference points.
He is mediocre, in less typical ways.

The mediocre buffoon begins with feigned resistance like a girls defending her virginity against a more powerful male - by scratching at the eyes. It wants to imply that it is not like the average, but more spirited - a more resistant bitch.
Then, it's original critique, turns to an indirect admiration, only proposing the idea that it, she, is more appreciative of it - she can see deeper than the average bitch.

This bitch wants you all to know that if she surrenders her giving-in will be more costly - and so her surrender will be more valuable than the average one.

Kovacs wrote:

As an aside: doesn't anyone read actual literature here?

Make suggestions, a list.

Quote :

The choice of avatars is teenage for the most part, all from quick media.

And where is Your Avatar pic.? Why not show your standard first before you make a remark about others...?

The Hannibal Trilogy, as written by Harris, represents a revelatory movement.

An unraveling of modern mythologies.

To unravel what lies twisted and coiled, concealed in its Gordian knot - a knot that refers back to itself, creating a loop that must be severed - an act of violence, of violation - an intrusion.
An undesired perpetration being rape.


Ethical standards prevent such acts, forcing the actor into an assertion of will - the rude, in their concealment, and trickery, considered polite and proper, must be unraveled by an act of rudeness, by one who lives outside their social evaluations of propriety.

Their shamefulness, their feigned humility, a ruse to remain tangled and concealed.
Their are ethical in impolite ways. The act replaced by words of violence.
The knot must be cut by Alexander who has been placed in a predicament - the impropriety of the hypocrite other, offering a ruse of politeness, is unraveled by the blade that cuts through the pretentious complexities - right down to the heart of the matter - revealing, uncovering, exposing, disclosing...remembering.

The violence of the many upon the one, is confronted, in this series with a response.

The individual, retaining "innocence" in his ignorance, participates in the mechanism, in the shared identity which forces repression and pretense, as a survivals strategy, upon the individual.
The individual, through professing to be complex and unique and special, and an individual, remains trapped in the shared idea(l), the abstracted identifier - whether it be God or Humanity or some vague abstraction he cannot fully define or describe.

His "individuality" passes through the communal standards, and is confronted, in Hannibal, with an authentic manifestation of what it never dares to consider - it calls it a monster.

Nieatzsche wrote:

To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both -- a philosopher.

But the individual's ignorance cannot support his presumed innocence, by the common laws it adheres to.
The "victims" of 9/11, participating and enjoying the benefits of living within a system that exploits other nations, cannot claim innocence, when their cars are fueled and their fridges are full and their fees are paid from this exploitation.
Their ignorance cannot save them from the repercussions of their actions - as no benefit is without a cost.
Ignorance only protects the individual from the awareness that might cause it stress, anxiety/fear - modernity is characterized by the worship of childishness; citizens living in perpetual adolescence, oblivious to all except immediate gratification of needs.
Unfortunately, for them nature, the world, reality, call it whatever you like, cares not about human contrivances, such as justice, fairness, innocence, shame, good/bad intentions...

An "individual" participating within a group that depends on exploiting and manipulating resources should not seek refuge in ignorance or some well-intended motive.
Stupidity is not a defense.
And if one identifies with a communal abstraction, giving it a name within which "individuality" is permitted to express itself in superficial symbolism, then along with the power through association one must also accept the costs of such an association.
The violence, bullying, done upon an individual participating in a group, is not excused by his/her declared ignorance or good intentions.

This is what Hannibal forces upon each member of the altruistic society to confront: their denied, forgotten culpability.
Their "purity" is uncovered, their knots of complexity are unraveled, their lies are exposed.

In this scene the predator killer pleads for his life by saying:
"I am the victim here".
He wishes to reaffirm their shared inclusion into the victim brotherhood.

The attempt plays with the Modern presupposition of innocence being innate.
Man born pure, innocent, good, and only then having this purity corrupted by the world.
The essence of man other than the world - he is born clean and is dirtied by his participation in the world.
The actor is other than the action.

The myth is expressed in this insinuation of trauma to explain a behavior contrary to the prescribed norm.
Trauma, a "bad" experience, improper nurturing/training/education, must be found to explain why the innocent goodness of man is soiled.

Hannibal brings Will face to face with his own...will-fulness - an allusion to self-fullness.
"If you are going to do this, you are going to have to do it for yourself."
No righteous, well-meaning, intent, clouded in altruistic morality - an act of selfish will he must take full responsibility for.

The predator is an affront to Will's tastes...he kills animals and children, or the child-like.

How does one un-see when eyes have seen?
How does one forget, when a reality has been revealed to it?

One can deny, reject, pretend, remain blind, for so long, but when it is too obvious there is no turning back.
The trickster constructs its tricks using the elements it is given by the one whom is to be fooled.
It convinces it of what it knows it wants to be convinced of.

And if god is dead, then so is the devil, and human nature never existed.
The stage is set.

The farmer plants his seeds; the trapper covers his traps; the hunter casts his bait, and waits.
There is a patience involved....the mind can discover patterns but cannot be precise about their frequency, and how each pattern will manifest within a particular circumstance.

Quote :

"Food for the civil body has to abide by grandeur aesthetics as well. Since he deems his food as culinary arts, they are meticulously plated and aesthetically vivid. This supports Bourdieu’s arguments on the petite bourgeoisie’s preference for well-presented meals and techniques of the body.  Taste (gustatory) is inextricably linked to a sense of style. Thus, the entrée is typically plated with protein at a 6 o'clock position, vegetable at 2 o'clock and starch at 11 o'clock, sauce and garnish[24]. Distantiating meat from its living form reveals Hannibal’s manipulation of the aesthetics of disgust, which requires a separation of civil human from brute[25]. Yet, elaborate dressings of meat stuffed back into their skins also reflect a cultivated taste that turns initial repulsion into pleasure. The convergence of the civilized/savage binary is most explicit in “Sorbet” as socialites dine on a banquet of human flesh. Human offal is converted into delectable French cuisine like fish roe (brain) barquettes and (heart) tartare canapés, which require dainty movements and the accompaniment of red (blood) wine. Hannibal’s presentation of food manipulates Claude Lévi-Strauss’ raw v.s. cooked binary[26]- where the grotesque and vulgar are banished from the dining table.

From Bach to neo-classical architecture; a gothic library room and collected art, Hannibal’s taste is orderly and highly visceral. The aesthetics of his habitus[27] is “pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner”[28]. His kitchen is his performance space that conceals its transgressive activities. For example, the stainless-steel counter could like a cook’s prep or autopsy table.  As the social body constrains how the physical body is perceived in terms orderly outward display of embodiment, Hannibal manipulates this to his advantage.





These heavily veiled spaces function as a classed performance to disguise the corporeal vulnerability of inhabiting that space- the guests from being eaten, Hannibal from the security of his double lives.

The table setting (flatware on the outside, stemware above dinner plate, bread-and-butter plate on top left) is very exact i.e before the first course. Hannibal also occupies the “head” table at the banquet in “Sorbet”, presiding over a hierarchy of guests (his protégé and potential lover, Alana on his right) and proposes a toast. The structured and formalised organization of the dining table reinforces bourgeois notions of self-discipline and self-control during mealtime. It also subverts colonial imagery of cannibal feasts in the Pacific, which entails ‘limb-tearing violence’[31] and vulgar excess.



Playing God

Pgs. 193-199, 200-201

Hannibal Sketch

Setting the table: In-depth Hannibal blog