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"Mature Content Warning!" |
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This article pertains to an Inconsistently Heinous with more than one version who is Inconsistently Heinous! |
| “ | A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. | „ |
| ~ Dr. Hannibal Lecter's most famous line. |
| “ | Remarkable boy. I do admire your courage. I think I'll eat your heart. | „ |
| ~ Lecter attempting to kill Will Graham. |
Dr. Hannibal Lecter VIII is the titular main antagonist of Thomas Harris' Hannibal novel series and their film adaptations. He is an extremely brilliant but mentally disturbed and cannibalistic serial killer infamous for eating his victims.
In the films, he was most frequently portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. He was portrayed as a young man in Hannibal Rising by the late Gaspard Ulliel.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- He had long since surpassed his tragedy of being deeply traumatized by literal Nazi cannibals who fed him his own sister alongside eating her, as he not only brutally captured, killed, and cannibalized them, he was a skilled psychiatrist who could have attempted to treat himself but instead relished the literal and figurative taste of evil and killed people that had nothing to do with his traumas or tragedies. He was, in the end, a highly learned and charismatic, though fiercely cynical misanthrope who was in full moral agency.
- While he did love his sister, he also enjoyed and craved the taste of her flesh when he first ate it.
- He was likely not specifically traumatized because of eating his sister; he was, but because he was enraged at the circumstances at which he was revealed to enjoy evil, as implied by the novel Hannibal, and if Grutas' final words were anything to go by.
- Despite his treatment of "eating the rude" being considered standards in-universe, other characters in-universe rightfully saw it as depraved, as it was still a very petty and twisted reason to murder and cannibalize someone. Not to mention, he intended to eat Will Graham's heart, a man who was anything but crass or disrespectful.
- His helping the police catch other serial killers is highly pragmatic and selfish, as he just does it to further his own goals and help himself.
- While he is not a physical sadist, he is a mental and psychological one, as he likes to play with his victims, and in any case, he does enjoy mutilating and displaying the corpses of his victims, often in mocking tableaux.
- His alleged standards against rudeness ring very hollow considering he enforced cannibalism against people who were nothing but polite to him, and he himself is the trope-namer for 'Hannibal Lecture', in brutally breaking a person down; he does so to Starling for just attempting to do her job and understand Lecter. Not to mention, he tormented the frightened mother Senator Martin with her daughter's disappearance, despite her civility to him.
- His standards against Chilton, Miggs, and Verger are all suggested to be personal offence, as opposed to sincere disgust at their crimes; as Miggs is legitimately insane and Hannibal, as related by Chilton's fiancé, encouraged the psychiatric patients to likewise fling their semen at the woman on one occasion; and had he really been disgusted by Verger's crimes, he would not have allowed him to be in a position where he can still exploit or abuse children through his wealth or proxies via Cordell.
- In the end of the final movie, he gets away with all of his crimes, and he does seem to continue to do the heinous things he does.
Hannibal Rising[]
- He kills a butcher who makes a racist remark about Lady Murasaki.
- He murders the group that was involved in killing and cannibalizing his sister in extremely brutal ways, and he even cannibalizes some of them himself.
- It is possible that he hunted down the men who cannibalized his sister just because he wanted to make sure there was no one alive who could reveal what he did.
Red Dragon[]
- He murders a flutist and prepares meals from his body to share with his fellow musicians.
- His last victim before capture is Will Graham, is an FBI agent who’s was investigating a series of murders and is intrigued by the injuries inflicted on the sixth victim, a bow hunter. The man had been murdered in his workshop, with tools stabbed into his body.
- He prepares to eat Graham's heart as a tribute to his courage, but Graham manages to stab Lecter in the abdomen with arrows before shooting him down.
- He is responsible for Graham getting into a mental institution and retirement from the FBI, having been severely traumatized by the experience.
- He sends and gives Will Graham's address to Francis Dolarhyde in order for him to murder him, but the attempt fails.
The Silence of the Lambs[]
- In the past, he brutally attacked and ate a nurse's tongue at the hospital when security was more relaxed.
- It's possible that Benjamin Raspail was murdered simply to improve the orchestra's quality; this is still grossly disproportionate.
- He kills Miggs by persuading him to swallow his tongue because he assaulted Starling with his bodily fluids.
- He used a riot baton to kill two security guards, one of whom he posed as a butterfly, and the other as a dragon. And the second he face skinned him with a utility knife, and used as a mask.
- He killed the paramedics after his escape.
- He murders a man called Lloyd to use his identity.
- It’s heavily implied that he murders and cannibalizes Chilton at the end of the movie, and likely the novels too, as it is specified he disappears.
Hannibal[]
- He drugged Verger, then convinced him to cut off his face and feed it to his dogs, then snapped his neck with the noose, horrifically disfiguring Verger, However, Verger more than deserved this for his incestuous rape, sadism, pedophilia, and for being a generalised pervert.
- It should be noted, however, that Lecter not killing Verger does allow Verger the opportunity to torment more children, which he does to a boy called Franklin, as well as employing the pedophiliac Cordell, and if Verger's comments are anything to go by, made someone of indeterminate age or gender fellate Verger to see if he could derive sexual gratification.
- He interrogates Pazzi, forcing him to answer several questions by threatening to kill and eat Pazzi's wife. Lecter murders Pazzi by first slashing open the man's abdomen and then throwing him off an upper-floor balcony with a noose around his neck, causing his intestines to drop to the floor below.
- He slashes the throat of one of Verger's henchmen, Matteo Deogracias, and he decides to return to the United States to renew his acquaintance with Starling. But much like Verger himself, Matteo deserved this due to being a part of a group that feeds people to alive to pigs, at least one of whom is graphically depicted in the novel.
- In the movie, he persuades Cordell to throw Verger into the pen with the hogs instead. Still, it's hardly heinous, as it is karmic for Verger and presented as a 'Pet the Dog' moment for Cordell, who, in the movie, is presented as innocent and long-suffering with no indications of being a pedophile like the novel's version.
- He takes Starling to Krendler's lakefront house and drugs Krendler, and Lecter removes the top of his skull, cuts out part of his brain, and put it in a pan by the table, and feeds it to him.
- As misogynistic and predatory as Krendler was, this is still horrifying, in-movie making Starling rightfully gag and retch.
- Novel only: It is even worse in the novel, as Krendler is alive for an extended period of time with incremental portion of his brain being removed lobotomising his mental faculties, causing him to sing loudly and obtrusively, until Lecter shoots him with a crossbow bolt simply because he is distracting conversation with Starling.
- With relation to Starling, he attempts to brainwash her into being his sister, feeding her Krendler's brains, but when she resists and seduces him instead, they become lovers and reside in Buenos Aires. Whilst there's no indication that Lecter continued cannibalising people, they frighten off Barney and Starling deeply upsets her long-time friend and confidant Ardelia Mapp, who attempts to track down Starling and threatens to kill Barney too. Her final scene shows her bursting into tears after Starling sends her a ring and tells her not to look for her.
- Movie only: Whilst he eludes justice, as he does in the novels, he is preparing to eat the boxed meal he has brought with him, when a small boy sitting next to him asks about the food. He opens the container to reveal several kinds of food, among which is what appears to be part of Krendler's brain, cooked and sliced. The boy asks to try the brain, and while he does try to convince the boy to try something else from the box he gives in and decides to feed the brain to the boy.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- Whilst his crimes has long surpassing it, his tragedy still holds up to some extent, since he is really negatively affected by it. His sister was fed to him by Nazis when he was a child, and his home was bombed by the Germans, killing his parents and leaving him and Mischa at the mercy of the elements. He escapes from the deserters and wanders the wilderness for days, rendered mute by the trauma. He is eventually found and housed in an orphanage.
- He is affable. Although he is largely faux-affable with the people he's messing with, plans to eat or serve, or is eating or serving, he is still genuinely affable to others, being usually unfailingly polite to the ones he doesn't want to kill, provided the company is polite in return.
- He cares about or loves the following people:
- His sister Mischa, as he had made a promise to his her memory that he would avenge her death, and absolutely nothing, not even his aunt (who he does love), can dissuade him from carrying out his goal.
- He loves his aunt, Lady Murasaki, and cares about her.
- Whilst extremely twisted, he appeared to be fond of Starling and even to loves her. In fact, she is the one person he refuses to hurt.
- In the movie, when Starling has him handcuffed to her, to escape, he grabs a knife and, instead of cutting her hand off, he cuts his own off.
- In the novels, they become lovers.
- He has some standards, as he’s disgusted with the heinous actions of Mason, Miggs, Chilton, and Krendler. That said, this isn't a strong prevention as he is often rude or discourteous himself, as evidenced with Senator Martin, or enforcing cannibalism, not to mention his enmity with them is more personal than out of standards.
- He had some "Pet-the-dog moments":
- In the movie, he says to Cordell push Mason Verger on his death and claims that he can put guilty on Hannibal himself for aforementioned murder in front of people. Although it seemingly largely was pragmatic, Hannibal still does leaves Cordell alone neverless.
- Shared some food with a kid, whom it should be noted he tried to persuate to not take piece of brain and instead eat something else from own box, but he mellowed down after kid's insisting requests.
External Links[]
- Hannibal Lecter on the Villains Wiki
- Hannibal Lecter on the Hannibal Wiki
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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