skinny geek

What a great question! Here are the ones I recall and that I rarely see mentioned. If anyone who’s reading this can think of more, please share them too! 

You’re supposed to be my paddle. It’s said at the very start of S1, and it shows the trust Will already puts into Hannibal, which is amazing, considering how hostile he is to people in general and especially to psychiatrists.

I don't know what's worse. Believing I did it or believing you did it... and did this to me. I felt so betrayed by you … I trusted you. I needed to trust you. Will is playing on Hannibal’s emotions here, but I think what he says is absolute truth. He sounds so wistful and sad - he really feels all this. It’s not the idea of Hannibal being a murderer that hit him hard, it’s that Hannibal betrayed him.

You've never condemned me. Not even under oath. You've always been my friend. Same here: he’s playing Hannibal, but what he says rings true. There is once again wistfulness in Will’s voice - Hannibal was his friend and it meant the world to him, but now he doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t understand why Hannibal is trying to help him after putting him in prison.

I have to deal with you. And my feelings about you. Sounds so deeply personal and romantic, in my opinion.

I envy you your hate. Makes it much easier when you know how to feel. Will confessing to Peter that he can’t hate Hannibal no matter what he did, and hence he can’t bring himself to kill him even now.

Where else would I go? This is so striking - Will confessing that Hannibal is the only person he can confide to, his safety net and in a way,  his home.

Will: I tried to murder Dr. Lecter.

Margot: Did he have it coming?

Will: What do you think?

Margot: Can't say that I know.

Will: Neither can I. - This is a lot, coming from Will. Hannibal betrayed him, killed Abigail, murdered who knows how many innocent people, including Beverly, and yet Will isn’t sure Hannibal deserved having Matthew sent after him.

Hannibal is good enough for you. Considering the context and the emphasis he makes when he spits these words at Alana, he’s jealous, and this jealousy is about Hannibal and his affections. 

Could you be happy there? This is what Will asks when Hannibal tells him that if he’s ever arrested, he’ll be living in his Mind Palace. It’s such a simple but powerful question because Will knows Hannibal might end up arrested because of him, and he’s worried about his happiness. He needs to hear that Hannibal won’t be miserable. 

Hannibal: You would deny me my life.

Will: Not your life, no. - Will is no longer capable of killing Hannibal, and it’s important for him to make Hannibal understand this. 

We have a mutually unspoken pact to ignore the worst of one another in order to continue enjoying the best. - Almost a love confession, the same one as “Because he was my friend and because I wanted to run away with him.”

Now, the entire brilliant Primavera is a big and loud love letter from Will to Hannibal. Here are my favorite quotes (I’m changing pronouns in Will’s discussions with fake!Abigail because he’s talking to himself there).

He left me to die... But I didn't. He was supposed to take me with him. We were all supposed to leave together. He made a place for us. Why did I lie to him? The wrong thing being the right thing to do was too ugly a thought. He gave me a chance to take it all back, and I just kept lying. He wants me to find him. After everything he's done, I would still go to him? Yes. - You can see his mental struggle, him being torn between love, guilt, and resentment. 

Later:

This is what Hannibal sees when he steps inside the frescoed walls of his own mind ...But this isn't Hannibal, it's just where he begins. Beyond this, far and complex, light and dark, is the vast structure of his mind. A thousand rooms, miles of corridors. Everything he remembers, wonderfully and fearfully reconstructed. Hannibal is well armed against the physical world, but there are places within himself he can't safely go. But I can. If I find them. And that's how I'll find him. - Will is so incredibly reverent and admiring here, I love it.

I do feel closer to Hannibal here. God only knows where I would be without him ... I still want to go with him? Yes. - This says everything: Will acknowledges how crucial Hannibal is for him, how he can’t imagine himself without him now, and how much he craves his presence.

Will: You couldn't catch him when he was just a kid, what makes you think you're going to catch him now?

Pazzi: You.

A small, polite scoff from Will, unable to take his eyes off the small stairwell to the catacombs.

Will: What makes you think I want to catch him? ...  You don’t know whose side I’m on. - Will openly admitting to a police officer that he’s siding with Hannibal.

Hannibal... I forgive you. - One of the most heartfelt things Will has ever said to him.

Chiyoh: How do you know Hannibal?

Will: One could argue, intimately. - This come across as Will flaunting their relationship to Chiyoh, who he perceives as a possible threat.

A part of me will always want to [slip away with Hannibal]. - I’m forever amazed at the things Will keeps saying to Jack.

Please. You need to get over yourself, whatever self this is, Bedelia. You expect us to believe you somehow got lost in the hot darkness of Hannibal Lecter's mind? - I seriously can’t believe Will said this. Could he sound any more jealous?

You helped Mason Verger find us. - I love how he refers to them as a team in front of Alana, even though Hannibal literally tried to saw his head open when they were found. Sounds like Will is resentful of the fact that they were interrupted o_O 

I have to see Hannibal. Very simple words said to Jack in E8, but their meaning and the way Will phrased it... Will doesn’t need Hannibal’s help with the case, we know it because we saw him easily reconstruct the crime hours before that. But he’s not even really hiding it well! He doesn’t say, “I have to discuss this with Hannibal,” he says, “I have to see him.” There is a palpable difference between the two.

All conversations with Bedelia, but especially this jealous gem:

Poor Dr. Du Maurier, swallowed whole. Suffering inside Hannibal Lecter's bowels for what must have felt like an eternity. You didn't lose yourself, Bedelia, you just crawled so far up his ass you couldn't be bothered ... Have you been to see him? 

In the next conversation again:

Will: Have you had any contact with him? -  Jealous Will is the best.

I'm not fortune's fool. I'm yours. Will looks at Hannibal, clearly expecting him to react to his teasing, and then he’s so affronted when Hannibal ignores him.

The divine punishment of the sinner mirrors the sin being punished. Chilton languished unrecognized until Hannibal the Cannibal. He wanted the world to know his face. (And now he doesn’t have any). - This sounds like Chilton was Will’s courting gift to Hannibal. Instead of choosing more valid reasons for his actions, he focused on Chilton’s desire for popularity and him mocking Hannibal. 

Hannibal said those words. To me. - Will is so proud to be seen as worthy by Hannibal, and he can’t help but throw it into Francis’ face.

Hannibal: Save yourself, kill them all?

"you delight in wickedness then berate yourself for the delight."

"i don't intend hannibal to be caught a second time."

"i've never known myself as well as i know myself when i'm with him."

"i have let you know me, see me. i gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it."

"we couldn't leave without you."

"i wanted to understand you before i laid eyes on you again. i needed it to be clear; what i was seeing."

"we’re conjoined. i’m curious whether either of us can survive separation.”

"you turned yourself in so that i would always know where you were."

"could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? yes."

"part of me will always want to."

"i told him to leave because I wanted him to run ... because he was my friend. and because i wanted to run away with him."

"betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love."

"you cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love."

"hannibal. i forgive you."

"i do feel closer to hannibal here. god only knows where i'd be without him."

"did you believe you could change me the way i've changed you?"

"i don't want to kill you anymore, dr. lecter, now that i finally find you interesting."

"i have to deal with you. and my feelings for you."

"we have a mutually unspoken pact to ignore the worst of one another to continue enjoying the best."

"mine? before you and after you. yours? it's beginning to blur."

"you wanted me to embrace my nature, doctor. just following the urges i kept down for so long, cultivating them for the inspirations they are."

"if i saw you every day, will, i would remember this time."

"hannibal said those words. to me."

"i'm not fortune's fool. i'm yours."

"have you had any contact with him?"

"one would argue intimately."

"what makes you think i want to catch him? you don't know whose side i'm on."

"but i can, if i can find them. and that's where i'll find him."

"you've never condemned me. not even under oath. you've always been my friend."

"not your life, no."

"he left me to die... but i didn't. he was supposed to take me with him. we were all supposed to leave together. he made a place for us. why did I lie to him? the wrong thing being the right thing to do was too ugly a thought. he gave me a chance to take it all back, and i just kept lying. he wants me to find him. after everything he's done, would i still go to him? yes."

"this is all i've ever wanted for you. for us."

"you were supposed to leave."

"and achilles wished all the greeks would die, so he and patroclus may conquer troy alone."

"i wanted to surprise you. and you... you wanted to surprise me."

“I am the unreliable narrator of my own story.”

Will Graham aesthetic

Hey friend! I'm sure I'll find more examples on my rewatch, but I'll share a few that immediately come to mind.

Disclaimer: I am autistic and this headcanon is just for fun. If you disagree, that is totally fine. Many traits of autism can overlap with childhood trauma (among many other things), so that's another totally reasonable explanation for this character!

Reasons I think Aaron Hotchner is Autistic:

Intense, prolonged eye contact, rarely blinks (S5E2, "Haunted")

Collects coins and is "a bit of a nerd" (S1E3, "Won't Get Fooled Again")

Awkward, inability to socialize (literally joined a play to get a girl's attention)

Difficulty breaking routine, hyperfixates on tasks, even when he has important events for his family

Blunted affect - speaks in a monotone, has a flat expression, rarely smiles (S2E6, "The Boogeyman")

Limited responses to conversation, quiet and introverted (despite being lonely and clearly craving social contact, only appears to be friends with people he works with)

Rigidly follows rules, wears the same outfit, obsessed with a traditional depiction of authority (became a lawyer, only wears formal outfits, drawn to coaching/leader positions)

Blunt and forthright, even when others would consider it inappropriate, and even when it does not advance the case (S6E7, "Middle Man")

Poor interoception (sensing internal state) as displayed by his difficulty recognizing when he is in pain (S9E5, "Route 66")

Difficulty training others to emotionally handle the job (S2E15, "Revelations")

Close personal relationship with Gideon and Spencer, who I also headcanon as Autistic

Regularly asks everyone if they are alright, possibly due to difficulty recognizing when someone needs comfort versus when they'd like to be left alone

You gave me the opening and I want to go off on a tangent about this so... bear with me lmao.

I’m also relatively new to this fandom. I watched Hannibal for the first time this year (and multiple times since), and I didn’t engage in the fandom until after I’d finished it and formed my own opinions.

As far as Word of God canon goes, I take it all with a huge helping of salt. You have actors, writers, a director, an editor, etc. Each person with a different take on exactly what they think is occurring and why, so no one person can claim to hold the ultimate authority in its interpretation.

And even if we accept that there are multiple perspectives we still have to understand that media does not exist in a vacuum. Regardless of intent by any person, the finished product may have its own spin that will be interpreted differently by an audience. The show ultimately needs to speak for itself.

So let’s get into the meat of it: Will’s autism.

As far as CANON goes, the only person who refutes Will calling himself autistic is Dr. Chilton of all people. Who “fled to psychiatry” because he was disgraced and didn’t know his shit. Who thought Gideon was the Ripper. Let’s not give his analysis any credence. Will knows himself.

Now, Bryan Fuller says Will has "the opposite of" autism, and Hugh says he thinks Will adopted autistic behavior as a way shield and protect himself from other people.

Hoo boy.

So to reiterate my “media does not exist in a vacuum”, the general public, and indeed even professionals who work with autistics if they aren’t autistic themselves, know very little about autism aside from propaganda.

For example, Asperger’s was a diagnosis completely separate from autism until only 6 years ago. Most people are unaware that the diagnoses merged and professionals to this day still diagnose people with “Asperger’s” due to high IQ and sophisticated verbal skills, despite that diagnosis no longer existing. Now we understand autism less as a sliding scale and more as a grab bag of traits.

An autistic person has a differently wired brain. It isn’t better or worse than a neurotypical brain, it just works differently. If autism were “cured” we would not have had Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Mozart, etc. The opposite of autism is a neurotypical person, not whatever Will is. Will has a differently wired brain. Bryan fundamentally doesn’t understand autism to have made this comment.

The “mirror neuron” thing that Hannibal said in the show is a commonly held myth specifically ABOUT AUTISTICS. And I do think we have to take anything Hannibal says about Will as closest to truth of what anyone else on the show says about him. They “see and understand” each other.

A cut piece of dialogue from the pilot:

Hannibal: During intense conversations does he adopt your cadence of speech?

Jack: I thought it was a gimmick to get the back and forth going.

Hannibal: it’s involuntary. He couldn’t stop himself if he tried. What he has is pure empathy.

Now despite that dialogue being cut, we still SEE Will do this. He falls into Hannibal’s speech patterns while speaking to him. He imitates Peter’s facial tics when empathizing with him. He feels what the serial killers he profiles feel. Part of Will becomes them.

Hyperempathy is a very common thing among autistics (despite the ableist stereotype that we are incapable of it). Will has so much empathy that he’s haunted by it. It bleeds into his personality and he adopts the behavior, speech, and mannerisms of whoever he’s empathizing with. He’s mirroring. And THAT is another very common trait in autistics.

So far these traits are involuntary and a hard-wired aspects of Will’s neurology. No choice in the matter.

Now the lack of eye contact. Ability to make and maintain eye contact is individual among autistics, although most of us find it varying degrees of unpleasant. Many autistics claim it’s like looking into someone’s soul and it’s too uncomfortably intimate. Again, hyperempathy.

I personally can make as much eye contact as I WANT to make. It is voluntary ~in a sense~. I willingly make more eye contact with people I like, or people I am trying to interpret and understand, and I don’t find it unpleasant in those scenarios. Will makes the most eye contact with Hannibal, the person he cares for the most, and then post-Hannibal’s betrayal we see him make more eye contact in general with people so that he won’t be caught off guard again.

Will “saw too much and didn’t see enough” when Hannibal was crying and held that knife. I don’t think Will making more eye contact with people after S1 negates his autism at all. Will claims “eyes are distracting”, which is how most autistics feel. “You see too much, you don’t see enough, and it’s hard to focus...” I look in people’s eyes to read them, I look away to process other aspects of a conversation.

So even if Hugh is right that Will *chooses* to make eye contact or not, it doesn’t make it NOT an autistic trait. And the very fact that Hugh claims Will does it to “protect himself” proves the point that Will does it to prevent his hyperempathy from acting up and to prevent discomfort, which is exactly what autistic people do. Again, it’s a misunderstanding of what autism is.

When left to his own devices without adopting the behaviors of others, Will’s speech is flowery and poetic and atypical - but reasonably typical of an autistic. He describes his perception of reality in a highly unusual way, e.g. “The space opposite me assumed the shape of a man filled with dark and swarming flies. And then I scattered them.” Fantastical interpretations and “hyperactive imaginations” are also very common for us.

Now for the rest of Will’s affect, we see him swing between a blunted affect, and having rather extreme and dramatic facial expressions. This is another super common autistic trait. His tone of voice does the same thing, blunted to exaggerated. It does this when he is pushed to an emotional limit, and again, involuntary up to a point. He can consciously control himself to prevent it if he chooses, but he wears his feelings on his face and in his body and his voice. Like most autistics.

Will also personally related to the boys from the murder family he claimed had ADHD and had “mechanical vocations”. ADHD is a cousin of autism, and “mechanical vocations” is another autistic stereotype/common trait. Will made the connection and got emotional about their case and took it personally, so him relating to them is a reality, not an affectation.

Will’s meticulousness and the way he keeps his underclothes identical every single day is a common autistic trait. Something no one but him would know, so in no way performative.

Preferring the company of animals to humans is also common. The righteous, consuming anger he possesses is something most autistics know intimately. The way he caresses objects around him is what we call “stimming”.

In Summary: Will is Autistic.

The canon of the show indicates this to be the case and no post-canon Word of God from the actors or director will change my mind. The show speaks for itself.

Denying that Will could be autistic because he has control over his outward behaviors is ableist and misunderstands autism/underestimates autistics. A lot of us can “pass” if we choose to. It just requires conscious effort.

We tend to associate Will with ‘empathy’ but ‘imagination’ is just as prominent if not more so when Will talks about his gift and when others mention it.  

In the very first episode this is what Will says about himself:

“I can empathize with anybody.  It’s less to do with a personality disorder than an active imagination.” 

Randall Tier is a very important figure for Will.  He is a parallel for Will (and thus also for Hannibal) but he is also a catalyst for his becoming.  

Jack:  Does he believe he’s an animal?

Will:  It’s not what he believes, it’s what he imagines.  He is a student of predators.

Gee, sound familiar, Will? 

Randall: Do you know what it’s like when the skin you’re wearing doesn’t fit?

Will:  I can imagine.

Randall’s work, his job, reflected what he imagined he was:

Just as Will’s work and his job reflects what Will imagines he is:   

And just as Hannibal’s work and his job reflects what he imagines he is:

Randall imagines he’s an animal, Will imagines he’s a killer and Hannibal imagines he’s a person.

Jack says, “Belief comes with imagination. I borrowed his imagination and I broke it.”

Shiizakana is telling us through Randall that it isn’t about what Will believes.  It’s about what he chooses to imagine, who he studies.  That’s what determines what he’s going to do and who he’s going to be.  His beliefs about his identity or his identity itself may never fully match what he imagines.  But as Hannibal says, “that wouldn’t stop him from trying to achieve it.”   

Will mutilates and displays Randall as an animal.  Will wants to make Randall’s reality fit with his imagination.

Will: This is who you are.  What you feel finally matches the reality of what I see.

Hannibal tells Randall: You are becoming. This beast is your higher self. Your bodies, voices and wills are one.  Revel in what you are.

An episode later we see Will merging with Hannibal as he eats human flesh:

In Naka-Choko as Will reads his own crime scene, he says that he is envious of Randall.  He’s envious because Randall “came into his own much easier” than he did.  Will is struggling because he can’t become Hannibal, his higher self, even though he wants to.  His ‘values and decency are present yet shocked at his associations, appalled at his dreams.’  

Perhaps Will can only ever build a killer suit like Randall built an animal suit, and never achieve full transformation.  Perhaps Hannibal can only ever build a person suit and never achieve full transformation.  Or perhaps that’s what makes Hannibal and Will need each other.  They are each other’s bridge to the other side of their imagined identities.  

“Did you think you could change me the way I’ve changed you?”

Experimented a bit with a rougher style and the the oil brushes.