What made you initially watch Hannibal? Because off-hand, the premise does not make me think of you.
This is very true. Normally I don't touch serial killer fiction with a ten foot pole. I thought it would be more like Dexter at first, which is the kind of thing that makes me really, deeply uncomfortable. SO when I was seeing Hannibal gifs on Tumblr, my understanding of the show was that it was about Hannibal (I had a cursory knowledge of the premise because I watched the movies as a kid) making some guy into his protege. I also thought it was an HBO show, and there would be the prescribed heavily sexualized violence against women. Basically - I thought it would be torture porn and another male power wank fest. That's the kind of thing I can't do.
Then a couple of my friends told me a little more. One of them said she usually has the same kind of problem with serial killer fiction, said she wasn't bothered by Hannibal, so that was a plus right away. Then they told me about Will being the agent who eventually catches Hannibal, and how he's struggling with his own demons, and that kind of set-up increased the interesting factor for me by 10000%. They also told me about how there were a lot of named female characters that don't die as soon as they're introduced, including Abigail's backstory, and that the creator has said he'll never do a rape plotline, which I thought was classy as fuck. It was kinda one of those things where I was like "Well...okay, you guys, I guess I'll watch it" and ended up walking away really impressed with how little it bothered me given the subject matter.
Basically, it's not a "crime" show. There's a commitment to that hyper-reality, to keeping the violence from being too real, that makes the difference for me between shows I tolerate and shows I enjoy. It's not a "sympathetic white guys committing crimes" show like Dexter or Breaking Bad. Hannibal is interesting, but he's a Satan figure and the show is CLEAR about that from the beginning. He's not a random killer; his motivations are usually pretty decipherable, which takes a huge element of anxiety out of it for me, and is ultimately way more interesting. Will being a TOTAL FUCKING SWEETHEART but still struggling with his own mental health was not expected one bit, but I was super happy to see it. Abigail is amazing and I'm so interested to see where her role in the story goes. Yeah, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did but it subverted my expectations.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
This is very true. Normally I don't touch serial killer fiction with a ten foot pole. I thought it would be more like Dexter at first, which is the kind of thing that makes me really, deeply uncomfortable. SO when I was seeing Hannibal gifs on Tumblr, my understanding of the show was that it was about Hannibal (I had a cursory knowledge of the premise because I watched the movies as a kid) making some guy into his protege. I also thought it was an HBO show, and there would be the prescribed heavily sexualized violence against women. Basically - I thought it would be torture porn and another male power wank fest. That's the kind of thing I can't do.
Then a couple of my friends told me a little more. One of them said she usually has the same kind of problem with serial killer fiction, said she wasn't bothered by Hannibal, so that was a plus right away. Then they told me about Will being the agent who eventually catches Hannibal, and how he's struggling with his own demons, and that kind of set-up increased the interesting factor for me by 10000%. They also told me about how there were a lot of named female characters that don't die as soon as they're introduced, including Abigail's backstory, and that the creator has said he'll never do a rape plotline, which I thought was classy as fuck. It was kinda one of those things where I was like "Well...okay, you guys, I guess I'll watch it" and ended up walking away really impressed with how little it bothered me given the subject matter.
Basically, it's not a "crime" show. There's a commitment to that hyper-reality, to keeping the violence from being too real, that makes the difference for me between shows I tolerate and shows I enjoy. It's not a "sympathetic white guys committing crimes" show like Dexter or Breaking Bad. Hannibal is interesting, but he's a Satan figure and the show is CLEAR about that from the beginning. He's not a random killer; his motivations are usually pretty decipherable, which takes a huge element of anxiety out of it for me, and is ultimately way more interesting. Will being a TOTAL FUCKING SWEETHEART but still struggling with his own mental health was not expected one bit, but I was super happy to see it. Abigail is amazing and I'm so interested to see where her role in the story goes. Yeah, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did but it subverted my expectations.