Etiquette and social intimacy
Okay so you know how it’s a fandom meme that Will can get away with things that make Hannibal want to murder other people?
It’s not that rudeness doesn’t count because it’s Will.
It’s that Will is someone Hannibal considers a social intimate, pretty much from the get-go, and the rules are entirely different for social intimates than for acquaintances and professional contacts. (I mean, come on, he invites himself into Will’s motel room first thing in the morning when Will’s in his underwear, before Will ever visits him at his office. That’s Hannibal aggressively setting the standard for their interaction!)
If you’re seeing a client in some personalized space of yours, you generally don’t expect them to leave their stuff scattered around, handle your belongings, sit at your desk, etc. There’s a certain level of decorum and non-invasiveness that’s expected in a professional relationship. But when your significant other and/or close friends visit, you expect them to make themselves at home.
That means different things to different people, of course - I, for instance, have never in my life felt comfortable helping myself to food in someone else’s home, even if I have been explicitly invited to do so, but I’ve had plenty of friends who consider my discomfort strange - but generally speaking, behavior in your space that would be rude from a client or other professional contact just isn’t, when it’s a social intimate.
Will Graham isn’t actually a rude person. He’s verbally prickly, sure, but only defensively - the barbs come out when someone else is already violating or threatening to violate his boundaries. When Will’s in someone else’s (besides Hannibal) space, he sits in the “guest” seating or stands, doesn’t touch things, doesn’t leave any of his belongings lying around. He acts with a level of decorum suitable for professional relationships (even though he, at some points, considers Jack and Alana to be friends!).
He only drops this decorum with Hannibal, and I’d say Hannibal almost certainly welcomes that, rather than simply tolerating it.
I’d say Hannibal almost certainly welcomes that, rather than simply tolerating it. Exactly! Will in general doesn’t get close to people, he finds it really hard to interact with people on that level. So every time Will imposes himself on Hannibal’s space, Hannibal loves knowing that he has a place in Will’s life that nobody else does.
Yeah!!! He LOVES knowing that Will feels close to him!!! He actively goes out of his way to encourage Will to feel comfortable in his space—we talk about Will sitting on Hannibal’s desk, about Will being more relaxed around Hannibal, but Hannibal is more relaxed around Will too, and that makes a huge difference
We see Hannibal sitting on his desk while talking to Will as early as Amuse-Bouche, we see him moving to accommodate Will’s pacing around his space, we see him straightening things and drawing and generally Not Acting Like A Psychiatrist when Will is in his office. He makes every effort to make that space feel comfortable to Will, like they’re just two close friends hanging out rather than anything professional, and he does that from day one
He drops his professional demeanor around Will and encourages Will to see him as a peer. Which is totally different from how he interacts with someone like Mason—Hannibal is totally in Professional Mode, and Mason blatantly ignores that. And that is what’s rude about throwing your coat on someone’s couch: if it’s your friend’s couch it doesn’t matter, you know they weren’t going to sit on the couch anyway, might as well set your stuff down. In a professional setting? Horribly inappropriate
It’s why I get so excited about that scene in season two where Will and Hannibal sit on Hannibal’s desk together, honestly: that’s BOTH of them very blatantly being in “relaxed with a close friend” mode, even though overall they’re at odds
How many people do you think Hannibal Lecter sits on his desk in front of?
