If anything I think people are more upset that Harris didn’t go with your traditional Copaganda ending and instead chose the ending that would make you think.
(This is pure word vomit—shower thoughts—that I will not be cleaning up)
But the way he did it made people uncomfortable and upset so they don’t want to think. Like, ok cool, you don’t want Clarice and Hannibal together, and I get that and understand why you wouldn’t like that. But I think the bigger picture is that the government is a corrupt institution that is money and power hungry and you can’t just win against a bureaucrat/higher up trying to shut you up with the power of friendship and teamwork (see: criminal minds.. like twice dawg). And sometimes you have to choose yourself (and your cannibal lover) against a corrupt institution.
Now, this is a random interjection, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this book was the best written or that there was any real plot necessarily compared to the two previous (and personally I don’t mind when a book doesn’t have a real plot, just give me something that’s engaging and readable Y’know) But that doesn’t mean it didn’t tell a story.
we’re soooo used to seeing the fbi chasing the big bad serial killers and killing/arresting them on tv as these good guys working for the best institutions that are easily defeated by, again, friendship and teamwork. That when you’re faced with a story about a woman who’s clearly fucking miserable throughout the books, who got herself all the way to big (in my best Hannibal lecter) F..B..I… because of her trauma and her father’s ‘pursuit of justice’, and is supposed to be this pillar of moral goodness, run off with a cannibal.. uh yea that may be shocking. Even though throughout the books there’s pieces that show that she’s miserable and wants something more out of life—like a higher life— and is only there in that institution because of the death of her father. And she’s not really this pillar of moral goodness as she’s constantly judging and hating on everyone (as she should) and gets thrilled over the chase…
The thing that pisses me off the most is when people who don’t like the ending (which I get, to each their own) are pretty much insinuating that they’d rather have Clarice’s stay in this place that clearly hates her and resents her. They’ve deemed her “hard to work with” aka woman who doesn’t take shit. She thinks for herself and doesn’t follow into the corruption. She’s thrown into the basement to be forgotten and made to work on cold cases, and just random shit. She’s smart and intelligent, but she’s not a sheep, she actually wants to help people, save them, and they won’t let her because she doesn’t follow what they want (the institutional corruption). So, like.. why would you want her to stay and be fucking miserable?!
Also, another thing I thought of was that most people probably weren’t expecting the jump from how she was this big shining star in the silence of the lambs and now she’s fucked over. Which, would definitely throw people off… if that wasn’t the whole fucking point. Because, and I’m sorry, but I personally would’ve hated it this was just another good ol’ copaganda book where she’s all of a sudden happy and the bureau loved her and she was placed in the behavioral science unit… but from silence of the lambs… she was fucking used. Crawford was using her the whole fucking a time.
“Jack sent a trainee to me.”
Like Crawford said, they had to say they tried. So because Crawfords too pussy to go face lecter himself, why not send that eager trainee who looks up to me? Not like she’ll get anything. And when she did, and kept going back because Lecter was intrigued by her and thought she was smart enough and could match him, that shocked Jack. But he was getting something out of it, and free labor too. Because from the beginning she was just being used by the fbi, and if lecter didn’t think she was smart enough or brave enough to face him she would’ve just been back in class and Crawford would’ve forgotten about her. (Cause Crawford uses people. See: Will Graham)
Also, and this is entirely my own opinion, but when Crawford says to her—before she goes to Gumbs house and when Crawfords on the way to what he thinks is Gumbs home—that no one will forget that she helped them, least of all him, that was a good feel good moment right. (Now again personally) there’s no chance in hell anyone would’ve seen her name—other than maybe the footnotes—if Crawford and his team would’ve made the arrest. A guy like him, big man in the fbi, using a trainee, no fucking way he wouldn’t take all the credit… well maybe she’d get a crumb. But if she wasn’t the one to have gotten Gumb, I truly do not think she would’ve gotten the credit she did. Though, maybe because Krendler wouldn’t have had much against her, she actually would’ve gone to the BSU then 🤷
So… fuck you if you wanted her to stay in the fbi. That only used and resented her the whole time.
