It's A New Dawn, A New Day, And I'm Feeling Good

[redbrunja]

I'm working for a little longer than normal today, so a coworker can have the day off, so I'm going to need something to entertain me.

Fandom Tennis Match Meme!

Okay, here's how this is going to work. You comment with a fandom question. I answer it and then ask you a question that has some thematic relevance to the question you asked me.

I feel this meme is always a good choice.

Comments

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

So which scene was it that really drew you into Hannibal?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Hannibal: it wasn’t a particular scene; it was more the fact that I watched one episode and then was intrigued enough to watch the next, and then I was intrigued enough to watch the next, etc.

What made you initially watch Hannibal? Because off-hand, the premise does not make me think of you.

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

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.