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[adiva_calandia]

But he seemed so nice: Hannibal, Little Red, and the stories we tell.

On fairy tales and why I'm taking a break from Hannibal for a little while. Some of you have heard bits of this already.

Contains spoilers for the season finale, and for a book that's been out since 1981, so consider yourself warned!

Comments

[silveraspen]

So, yeah.

There is a reason I asked ladysingsthe to tell you that you were DEFINITELY getting that fic we talked about. (Several reasons. But you have hit on one of the major ones.)

Just as an FYI, I watched through the end of the season. The finale had me sit up and stare with actual interest. I will give season 2 a chance to see where they're going with what they did, because of the season finale. But YMMV, absolutely.

(But if Fuller screws over the as-developed character of Alana Bloom, I will salt and burn.)

[adiva_calandia]

Which is a prospect that continues to warm the black little cockles of my heart! The fic I mean, not the potential pitfalls of Alana.

I've heard a very little bit else about the season finale, and it sounds like at least one thing I predicted waaaay back is going to come about in some form, and it's a storyline that - as someone with a long-standing creative interest in Will Graham - I am very interested in seeing played out.

Doesn't mean I'm not still gonna be disappointed as hell if Fuller takes a playground that contains Clarice Starling and Reba McClane and Ardelia Mapp and Molly Graham and Catherine Martin and then pulls bullshit like that on his women, especially Abigail. (I mean, what a waste of a talented young actress if nothing else! I expect hauntings, Fuller, you hear me?)

[ashen_key]

Yeah, that would be why I am....really angry and upset by both Abigail's fate, AND fandom's just...acceptance of it. There has been rage about Abigail, but not enough. Not nearly enough. And the "oh, you're so cute with your delusion of Abigail's alive"

No, I'm not cute. I'm angry, and I'm disgusted, and really upset, and I need her to be either alive and able to break free, OR get her agency back in the afterlife.

wefuijhfkds :(

(Which means, yes, I'm plotting fic about both of those aspects - one where Abigail teams up with Lady Murasaki, and another where she haunts Lecter. Give me time to work on one where she's dead but there is magical realism and Wild Hunts and things)

[adiva_calandia]

Ugh, are there parts of fandom seriously going that route? Ugh.

Acceptance of it I get. Narratively speaking, from everything I'm hearing, dead!Abigail makes the most sense, and she has the weakest plot armor of anyone on the show. Even Jimmy Price has better plot armor; he's instrumental in Red Dragon (and in Silence, if I'm remembering right). And as deaths of female characters onscreen go, I'm guessing hers is . . . more earned? Like, I don't have to like it, but I recognize it as a powerful narrative device. I just personally think there are a lot of narrative devices that would have been better.

So all in all, I disapprove of her being dead and I approve heartily of fix-it fic of any stripe.

[ashen_key]

Yeah, there are. It's the...acceptance is fine, but it's the mockery/WELL OF COURSE SHE'S DEAD, IT'S SO OOOOOOBVIOUS which is making me twitch.

And there ARE narrative reasons why I think the possibility that she's alive isn't just my going "fuck you, Fuller": there is a lot of waste in her narrative if she's dead, and Fuller doesn't strike me as the kind to set her up with all of that power just to have her die off-screen (her one-line mention in Red Dragon isn't much protective, though). Also, he named her after an historical person who was accused of witchcraft, confessed, was sentenced to hang, and then was granted a reprieve (and the ear-cutting ties back into punishment for witchcraft, too, apparently). So, yeah, sorry, but a fade to black, an ear, blood, and then jokes about veal is not enough proof for me until next season. And it...did leave me unsatisfied. It wasn't needed? They'd killed Georgia already for Will's pain and urge for justice to kick in. So, narratively, I'm just...not okay with that.

That aside, I'm really not okay with a storyline with a victim of abuse trying her hardest to survive, and then she gets killed off-screen. Just. Fuck. That. Noise. Ugh.

SO, YES, FIX-IT FIC. Alll of it. The Wild Hunt and magical realism one is going to take a whiiiile, but I'm hoping I get some of my other ideas done sooner. I started the Abigail-lives-in-Paris-with-Murasaki one, though.

[ceitfianna]

Wow, that's a great post. I'm in a hotel room of a long day of a librarian conference so my thoughts aren't that clear but thank you for writing that.

Now I understand better your reasons for not watching and you made the right one, because the show doesn't give Abigail what it felt like it was going to.

And reading that also made me realize how in my last job, my supervisor and boss both misused the mentor etc relationship in a messed up way, that I'm working through.

[adiva_calandia]

Thanks! I'm glad you got something out of it.

The whole mentor/mentee thing gets especially weird and difficult to negotiate when you're talking about employment, in my less-than-broad experience. If everyone goes in with the same understanding of the relationship and the same expectations and so forth, it can really be great -- that's what a good internship should look like, for instance. But if one side thinks it's a boss/employee relationship and the other thinks it's a mentor/mentee, or if both sides understand the purpose of mentorship differently, or any number of other wrinkles, it can just end up being at best awkward and at worst toxic. I think most people, especially men, are not deliberately misusing the power and privilege they have at their disposal the way the show depicts, but that doesn't make it not harmful.

Power dynamics are hard, I think is what I'm sayin'. And I'm sending you all good vibes on working through the fallout from your last job -- I've been there, and it sucks, but you'll get through it.

[ceitfianna]

I did. Hannibal is a show that I find fascinating to watch but don't have a lot to say about it. I feel as if I don't have much to say so love reading other people's meta as it helps me look more deeply into the show.

Yes, and this job had major issues of what the job was even meant to be, a lot of places to trip up and I think I hit most of them. I learned a lot, its just being in a place surrounded by other librarians is giving me new angles on processing. Its tough but I feel like I"m constantly moving forward.