ladylisa:
Alana and Will passive-aggressively fighting over Hannibal at the sinner table while Hannibal looks back and forth is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in this whole show.
You and I went so long in our friendship without ever touching, yet I always felt attuned to you.
I really love the way that Will and Alana kind of swapped places in s3, narratively speaking
(Idk how to explain that exactly so I’ll have to use some generalizations which I don’t like to do because Hannibal is a very subversive show and it’s very tricky to try and put labels in its events and characters but be patient with me)
During season two, Alana was essentially The Lover while Will was essentialy Former Friend Now Enemy Searching For Revenge/Justice.
Alana was The Lover sexually involved with someone she loved [I don’t think she was *in love* with Hannibal but I do think she loved him in a platonic way, he was her mentor, her friend, someone very kind to her who respected and supported her] and was blinded by her affection to the point that she ignored all the warning signs until it was too late and she ended up hurt, emotionally and physically.
Will was Former Friend Now Enemy all the way. He was someone who implicitly trusted a friend in probably the most vulnerable moment of his life just to be cruelly betrayed, making him want Justice/Revenge in any way he can. In this case, the way was an unconventional honey trap dubious, but essentially his intentions was expose who Hannibal was and get Justice, which backfired catastrophically to him when he started to get divided between Justice and the feelings coming of the Former Friendship.
Now, of course there’s infinite ways that a person could react to a traumatic situation, but the fascinating part of it it’s just their reactions
One of them react being more determinate than ever to bring Hannibal to justice, willing to collaborate with bad people if necessary and willing to bend their morals for getting to their goal - is a question of revenge, but mostly out of self preservation. Sounds a lot of what I would expect a Former Friend Now Enemy Searching For Revenge/Justice to act like, and it’s Alana who acts this way.
Now the other is completely heartbroken, completely crushed by what happened. It’s the one sad, hurt, who keeps thinking about Hannibal, about what could happened different, about how he was left behind. It’s the one who wants to find Hannibal not out of self preservation or justice, but because it’s personal, because he still loves him and he hurts, and wants to pay the hurt back in the same coin. It’s a very emotional reaction, the way I would expect The Lover to act, and it’s the way that Will acts.
Even after Hannibal is arrested, Will is still The Lover trying to put a painful affair behind, getting married and trying to forget he ever felt love for Hannibal, succeding only partially, and Alana is still the Former Friend Now Enemy, the keeper of Hannibal’s cage, the one who stays because she’s aware of what he is capable of, the one force that stops him from barging into the world again.
And in the end it just makes so much sense for both of them and I love it very much
