I'd say killing the ones who did that to his sister and even torturing them would be justifiable. Hard to say what's "wrong" with eating them once they are already dead (how are you harming them?) It is, however, fucked up.

Hi Doctoro, nice to see you on the boards.

Is he though? Or could one say that the story of Hannibal is interesting because of how Hannibal chose to let the event dictate his life? Lecter appears in one sense to be a retelling of the story of Achilles, an invincible man with one tiny flaw that otherwise is his complete undoing.... Even "young Hannibal' is an impressive figure - a medical prodigy, a philosopher, a logician, a connoisseur of the arts and fine food, even an impressive lover (in the classical sense of the term), able to even attain the attention of his own father's mistress.... Yet the loss of his sister will undermine everything in his life.

However, here's a provocative thought: other than the means of his sister's demise (i.e. horrific), what is it about his relationship to his sister that speaks to the sort of true, deep devotion that would really lead a person towards a life of impulsive rage driven revenge? Where's the real 'loss'?

I want you to explore a thought and see if it rings true to you: does Hannibal really seem to be working simply from his painful loss of his sister? Does something about his loss somehow ring hollow to you? Could it be that Hannibal really wasn't driven by the loss at all, so much as he was simply a born killer? By this I don't mean a mere murderer, by this I mean that he was meant to be a Cromwell - a man who kills because killing is his birthright. We call such a man 'serial killer' only because of an accident of history. A Cromwell without a 'crown' is merely a thug....

I think Lecter himself would say that your questions are moot.

I'll state why...

It would appear that the societal standard is this: to the extent that we find it charming.

But is this Lecter's standard? Only in the sense that one's actions ought to follow a personal standard of excellence.

Otherwise, concepts like 'justification' or 'acceptability' don't appear to enter the picture at all.

At least not organically for Lecter.... I'll return to this dialetic in a moment...

I don't know if Hannibal is even concerned with justification organically, naturally, or internally. Here's why:

Hannibal is confronted in the book, by one of his victims, thusly:

"How can you blame me for killing your sister? We were cold and starving, you would have done the same thing to us"

To which Hannibal readily agrees. "Yes. I would." And then he kills him.

Now my point is this: There is nothing tortured in his reply. There is no need for deliberation. There is no 'soul searching' or feelings of personal recrimination afterwards, for responding this way.

In short, there's no "gotcha!" there for Hannibal, that would unseat us.... Hannibal kills without the slightest hesitation.

In fact, as you know, he kills without even the necessity of killing... he could merely turn the man in and watch him hang.

The victim's rhetorical ploy of Tuo quoque fails, because I believe such emotional justification does not enter into the equation for Lecter. Lecter finds what the cannibals did to his sister horrific, because she was his sister. Period. The fact that he might eat another's 'sister' in no way fazes him. It's not his sister.

To me, this speaks to the logic of a tyrant or king.... of course, harming my sister is wrong, she is the sister of the king. Of course my eating you is fine, you are not the king.

It is also the logic of the wolf. I do not think that these are coincidences.

Yes, and this is what I dislike about the book as well.

It's a weak story, and it does nothing to tell us why he is "Hannibal Lecter"

In fact, one ought to ask: do we even want to have such a story?

The sole answers seem to be: sheer demand for another story, and possibly, money.

The book likely has more details and these may prove significant to my minor thesis here. Hannibal kills 'out of order" at the end of the book: what I mean by that is that he kills a rather insignificant member of the cannibals after what ought to have been the denouement for a movie: the killing the 'leader'. This is usually a no-no in movies, (although I wouldn't be surprised if the movie did include this, as it's an important undercurrent, I think) but there's good reason for it in the book.

The reason is, I believe, that it's being made clear that Hannibal's murder of the cannibals is not entirely for revenge in the first place. Yes, this final man was part of the group that killed his dear sister, but he was a mere periphery figure, and time has passed. It's made clear here that a transition is occurring: Hanniabl is about to run out of revenge killing targets, yet Hannibal clearly likes to kill - so it seems to turn out that killing 'murderers' allows him to satisfy a possible need to kill for a more primal, original reason: i.e. the reason a lion kills: because he can.

So Hannibal is not out to justify murder to himself, but to others: such as his lady, or the police officer; they are all likely to allow him to murder if and only if they accept that his murders are just, ergo Hannibal selects victims from this pool.

But to Lecter, internal justification is not a concern. Yes, he may kill 'in revenge' because revenge killings are justified, but the concern for justification is merely inter-personal.... Hannibal himself is just as much at peace with killing an innocent (to take his car for a trip) as he is in killing the 'murderer of his sister'.

The reality is that killing in the name of revenge simply allows him to hide his real motive in plain site, and his real motive is to express his sense of regality, superiority.

Hannibal is Cromwell, and Cromwell kills because Cromwell is England, and that's all the 'justification' Cromwell needs, which is to say that he needs no justification at all - merely a personal sense of excellence that may be expressed as he sees fit.

 

I see no actualy difference between the two. Lecter kills for the same reason a lion kills.

I think this is an illusion, what do you think of my theory?

If there's truth to it, then even the supposed 'justification' for revenge needs to be questioned...

 

Oh, one other point occurs: note how Hannibal 'steals' from victims.... he takes a fish from the butcher, he takes cash from his last victim... these are not the actions of revenge killing.. in fact, most movies highlight such points by having the hero 'toss the villian's money out a window' or other such dramatis...... yet the book makes a point of Hannibal gaining from his kills... another clue, I feel. A lion doesn't just kill, he dines. He gains. And if there any motivations at all, it is to dine, to gain. To Hannibal, being asked to justify killing may seem as strange as asking us to justify eating.

Yes. The power part of the situation is vital to my view. I return to this below.

Yes, I think so.. but after saying that, it remains possible that a Hannibal Lecter who grows up without losing his sister may be able to put off his first murder until much later. So at the very least, this event speeds up the process, even given what I hold to be true is true.

I don't think there is an inner turmoil. Yes, images of his dead sister arise during a murder, and this seems to speak precisely to inner turmoil, but I think the only real concern for justifications that enters into Hannibal's head are externally motivated - the need to ensure that those around him - such as Lady Murasaki, are able to tolerate and accept him as a revenge killer, rather than see what he really is... a killer, period. This seems to jibe with the fact that in later life, he's a loner.... he can no longer come up with viable external rationalizations, and as he has no concern for stopping killing..... he simply does away with any intimate social interactions.

I think Hannibal is fine with murder and that he sees what he is doing as murder, with revenge as a secondary cover, from the start.

I think it is important to look at his first murder, Paul the butcher, the man who insults Lady Murasaki. The revenge here is minimal to say the least: an insult. Yet note how he takes the time to make a drawing of the butcher, to revel in the murder, even before it occurs. Then note that he takes the fish from the butcher: He gains from the murder, in fact, he celebrates. Taking the fish, he announces 'yum'. This is fun.

This is not the response of a revenge killing. There is no passion. Nor is there any shock at what has occurred... Certainly no need to fill in the moment with rationalizations as to why in fact, the act was justified.

So you look at just how minimal the pretense is, combined with the coolness Hannibal exudes, and then add in how Hannibal has absolutely no aversion to gaining from the murder, even celebrating it, I think this adds up to a person who comes to us prepackaged as 'killer' - someone who makes sense to us if history grants him an opportunity to be a tyrant, but who otherwise comes to us as a deviant sociopath. Revenge, to paraphrase the bad doctor himself, is merely incidental. When, following his own advice, we turn to Marcus Aurelius and consider first principles, I think we see that Hannibal's real motivation is not revenge, but power - effiacy, efficiency, achieving goals, expressing elegance....

 

Yes, my points are really subtle ones, and for all I know, there is no intentionality at all behind these aspects that Harris has included... I'd also not put it past Harris at leaving such things open for later retroactive continuity changes!

But my sense is that there's just not enough there to make a Lecter out of a 'normal person'. There has to be a propensity and I think the propensity is one that typically finds expression in a role of a king, and not a medical doctor or art curator.

Yes.

This reminds me of a play I saw years ago. The story, briefly: a man is searching for a missing person and, driven off the road by a bad storm, is forced to seek shelter at an old mansion.

It turns out that his hosts are all retired lawyers - in fact, one is a judge, one a prosecuter, another a defense lawyer. As the man will need to wait for some time until he can continue his search, he accepts an offer to play a game of 'courtroom' from his hosts.

The game involves admitting to some guilt, or, making the foolhardy claim that one is without any guilt of any kind. The player is strongly advised not to take the latter path. The player, however, in his hubris, takes the path and thus opens himself up to a general review by the prosectuer. Within a span of 10 minutes, the innocent man reveals purposely involving himself in an affair with his boss' wife, with full knowledge of his boss' bad heart condition. Within minutes, he'ss charged with murder.... a charge to which he is found to be guitly.

The point of the story here is simply this: if you want to find a man guilty, it's often not difficult.

So, to return to your point: I think it would be hard for Hannibal to not be able to find a justification for just about whoever he kills.... even if the person appears to have a spotless record, he could be written off as a weakling or coward, or annoying or simply unimportant, ipso facto.

Or, to be a radical Nietzschian, Hannibal is simply an uberman, unmoved by the deaths of his inferiors, just as we are not likely to shed tears over our hamburger meat.

This is my sense of him.

Your point about acquiring power is excellent.

Yes, this is how I see it: a major stress occurs, and this stress shakes at a crack in Hannibal's foundation. Those without this flaw (or 'superior propensity for dealing with adversity', as Hannibal no doubt would retinterpret it) are likely to experience depression, not homocidal tendenices.

I'm working off a point made by Carl Sagan. From what I recall, the history of Cromwell's youth went like this: when Crommwell was a youth, he gave himself the title of 'apple dragon' for his abilities to steal apples... later on, he was known as a man who could 'ravish' a woman with style.... on the road to becoming England's only dictator or "Lord Protector", he revealed himself to be a capable soldier by eliminating the threat of the Irish Confedercy of Catholics...

Sagan makes the point that if Cromwell were considered as just a man, that we'd say that he nothing more than a criminal: a thief, a rapist, and a murderer (Cromwell slaughter countless Irish non combantants)

Many loved Cromwell, others hated him, but none of his contemporaries viewed him as a serial killer or rapist - they viewed him as world leader. A 'King Hannibal the First' would likely have gone down in history as a good king, with impeccable taste, known to have a 'temper problem'....

Pleasure talking to you, as always....

 

PS I should really next talk about how this all relates to your initial questions.... My key point here would be this: that any call for revenge, no matter how just, may be called into question if, in some sense, we all have somewhere a propsensity for destruction that is forever seeking an outlet.

However, I think there is a rebuttal to this: does the fact that a judge may enjoy seeing a criminal hang mean that his fair sentencing of the killer is unjustified. I don't think so...and this seems to contradict the point I'm forming above.