A Sadistic Companionship: Hannibal Lecter and God
Not many franchises attempt to adjust the context in which we recognize the righteousness of God. Hannibal — Bryan Fuller’s television series adaptation — shares many similarities with Thomas Harris’ original novels, but it arguably functions as a superior philosophical commentary. Although many believe the God of the Bible is a generous, merciful, and loving god, these same individuals forget that He also “takes away” (Job 1.21). While Hannibal claims to be solely based upon Red Dragon, the novel in which the infamous serial cannibal first appears, Fuller takes the opportunity to prey off of the other novels in Harris’ Hannibal Lecter tetralogy. Hannibal Lecter — a practicing psychiatrist, FBI consultant, and closeted serial murderer — has been regarded by many scholars as the defining monster of our time (Finley and Kelly 64; 69). Harris’ poorly received prequel novel, Hannibal Rising, provided a lackluster explanation behind Lecter’s madness and failed to shed any more light on the inspiration for Harris’ iconic creation. Harris regularly sprinkles theology in Dr. Lecter’s conversation with his visitors, but, even though the show’s dialogue is mostly lifted straight from Harris’ literature, Fuller’s Hannibal sets itself apart by underscoring the doctor’s infatuation with God under the aegis of offering it as his primary motive. The seemingly undeveloped mythology of Hannibal Lecter in Harris’ writings has lent itself to a popular interpretation in which Dr. Lecter is examined as an incarnation of the Devil himself (Finley and Kelly 64). While Fuller’s Hannibal does not deny the viewer’s right to this interpretation, as we will note later on, it also introduces entirely different comparisons between God and the Devil, blurring our judgment on which Biblical character may share more traits with Hannibal the cannibal.
God as the Devil
It is undeniable that Harris revels in comparing the menacing doctor to Satan, who is considered the embodiment of evil or the rival of God by Abrahamic religions. A comparison is subtly drawn in The Silence of the Lambs after Lecter breaks free of his confinement and “enjoys going to and fro in his suite and walking up and down in it” (274; Job 1.7; Waugh 74). However, Fuller’s Hannibal extends the allusions to the Bible into parodying God and problematizing the concept of evil. For example, in just the second episode of Hannibal, the doctor is consoling his newest patient — Will Graham, a “Special Investigator” wrestling with the guilt of committing a justifiable homicide — by attempting to persuade him into believing a controversial theodicy: God enjoys being a murderer. Hannibal manipulates the investigator into admitting the joy he felt from the murder, persistently attempting to justify it in the eyes of God:
HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in his image?
WILL GRAHAM: Depends who you ask.
HANNIBAL: God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn.
WILL GRAHAM: Did God feel good about that?
HANNIBAL: He felt powerful. (Gray 42)
While Dr. Lecter may be presenting Graham with further vindication for his actions, he is also consciously ignoring our modern conception of Satan, and ascribing those attributes to God Himself. This thinking, while obviously unorthodox, may be considered irreverent by those with strong opinions on religious matters. However, Dr. Lecter’s perspective actually relates back to historical heretical thought, which is distinctly unlike blasphemy — contemptuously insulting a sacred deity or set of beliefs — and apostasy — the explicit rejection of religious principles (Mallet). Hannibal’s logic actually invokes early Judaical belief, predating the Babylonian Exile. The idea of God being locked in a confrontation with a divine enemy had not begun its lengthy development until after Israel was influenced by the dualism present in Persian Zoroastrianism (“Devil”). As Peter D. Quinn-Miscall notes in Reading Isaiah: Poetry and Vision, the Hebrew Bible reflects this prior conception by depicting Yahweh as a source of both good and evil, specifically in the following passage:
so that all may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is no one but Me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, Yahweh, do all these things. (Isaiah 45:6–7)
Even in the contemporary Holman Christian Standard translation, as seen above, the short passage notably makes no reference to Satan or his involvement. Instead, the vengeful God of the Hebrew Bible seems single-handedly responsible. Similarly, Psalms 139.12 claims, “Yea, the darkness does not hide from You; but the night shines like the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to You.” These verses address the possibility that God may not be all-good, but they do not draw direct comparisons between Satan and God. However, we can see this occurring when their names are used interchangeably in different accounts of the same event.
The Lord’s anger [italics mine]
burned against Israel again, and He
stirred up David against them…
(2 Samuel 24.1)Satan [italics mine] stood up against
Israel and incited David to count the
people of Israel.
(1 Chronicles 21.1)
The Book of Job even allows for Satan and God to collaborate in a way that somewhat shifts the responsibility from Satan to God. In Job 42.11, Job’s friends and family comfort “him concerning all the evil the Lord had brought on him.” Given this perspective, then, Fuller’s illustration of the doctor may hold a better understanding of Judaism than most. Later in the series, Graham once again confronts Dr. Lecter with conversation on murder:
WILL GRAHAM: What do you think about when you think about killing?
HANNIBAL: I think about God.
WILL GRAHAM: Good and evil?
HANNIBAL: Good and evil has nothing to do with God. I collect church collapses. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? The façade fell on sixty-five grandmothers during a special Mass. Was that evil? Was that God? If He’s up there, He just loves it. Typhoid and swans, it all comes from the same place. (Vlaming 33–34)
Stephen Law, English Philosopher at Heythrop College, University of London, inadvertently discusses this early conception in his popular “Evil God” thought experiment. Law uses his “ingenious explanation” of how an all-evil god could be equally responsible for the creation of the world. While he admits that there is far too much kindness in the world for this to be true, he notes that this can be excused in the same way that many faiths justify the vengeful actions of God:
If we are his puppets, we are not responsible for what we do. That is why evil god… set us free — to allow us to freely choose to do evil. Unfortunately for evil god, some of us then choose to do good deeds. That is the price evil god pays to allow moral evil.
Of course, this does not address the absurdity of the existence of an all-evil god. However, it successfully challenges how we defend the righteousness of a god that allows evil in the world. Similar to Hannibal, Law is drawing our attention to an issue that is heretical in the sense that it is unconventional, not necessarily irreverent or blasphemous. Nevertheless, Hannibal’s infatuation with this challenge does not seem to stem from a curiosity about God; he is not trying to determine the nature of God. Instead, Hannibal is convinced God finds pleasure in evil; he is firmly set on corrupting how we perceive the character of God, which invites us to wonder if Hannibal sees God as a rival or as an equal.
Hannibal as God
Now that we have established how Fuller’s Hannibal understands the moral nature of God, we can evaluate how Hannibal depicts the doctor against the backdrop of his unorthodox faith. Fuller often takes the opportunity to portray the first-class psychiatrist as a monstrous devil-like creature called the Wendigo — a cannibalistic creature from Algonquian folklore (see
fig.1).
Wendigo, which also bears resemblance to Hannibal and Shiva — the
Hindu god who serves as destroyer and benefactor (“Kō No Mono”).
The first episode of the third season, which draws from Harris’ third novel, Hannibal, goes as far as superimposing a projected image of Cornelis Galle I’s Lucifer onto Hannibal’s head (see fig. 2).
challenged by Sogliato to do so extempore (“Antipasto”).
These are only a few examples of the many instances in which Lecter is explicitly likened to Satan. In this way, Hannibal does not necessarily oppose Harris’ foundation for the character by introducing parallels between its lead cannibal and the God of the Hebrew Bible. As we have already established, the differences between God and Satan are sometimes unclear. For instance, in Amos 3.6, “If a disaster occurs… hasn’t the Lord done it?” Unlike Hannibal’s numerous oblivious characters, we are privileged with the knowledge of Dr. Lecter’s murderous indulgences from the start of the first season. However, we are not able to witness from behind the scenes; we know Hannibal is responsible for a string of ongoing murders, but we are unable to understand exactly how. Much like Amos 3.6, the text prods us to associate its main character with the surrounding disasters.
We are invited to witness, sometimes voyeuristically, Hannibal’s private craft, but we often make sense of his elusiveness through the focalization of one of his unaware colleagues — usually Will Graham. Special Investigator Graham’s humanity is constantly emphasized, as we see his personal life deteriorate as a result of his ability to mentally place himself at the scene of every crime. Graham constantly serves as a quasi-eyewitness to his colleague’s heinous crimes, but he does so unknowingly. To Graham, Lecter is a mentor, not a murderer. Therefore, Lecter’s duality is amplified through his dissimilar interactions with Graham and the audience. The way Graham perceives Lecter is starkly different than how we, as an audience, perceive him. This is reminiscent of the fickle nature of God in Exodus. In one instance, God will reveal Himself to Moses, speaking with him “face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend” (33.7). Thirteen verses later, in Exodus 33.20, God warns Moses: “You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.” As an audience, we come to discern Hannibal’s evil nature from behind the veil, yet, moments later, we are able to empathize with him through his friendship with Special Investigator Graham. This austere contrast does not plant a seed of doubt in the viewer; we know Lecter is guilty. Instead, it allows us to anticipate the danger of Special Investigator Graham seeing Dr. Lecter’s true face.
Eventually Graham discovers Lecter’s secret, and we begin to uncover the doctor’s modus operandi. In a moment just before the show reaches its crescendo of horror, Hannibal reveals himself to Graham at the dinner table. “Whenever feasible,” he says stoically, “one should always try to eat the rude. Will you join me at the table?” (Brancato 3). The series is then able to develop this philosophy, giving Hannibal a motivation for killing innocents: he finds discourtesy deserving of death and even ingestion. Although God is not a self-righteous cannibalistic sociopath, He has been characterized as an unforgiving entity that is willing, and able, to take a multitude of lives upon being insulted. For instance, when Moses’ company begins to complain of him, God warns him: “Get away from this community so that I may consume them instantly” (Numbers 16.41–45). One of God’s most egregious responses occurs very early in the Old Testament, in Genesis. God finds mankind guilty of thinking “nothing but evil all the time” and decides to wipe them from the face of the earth in order to start over (Genesis 6.5–7). This is comparable to Hannibal’s season two finale, when Hannibal dramatically overreacts to Graham’s discovery and seemingly murders all of their colleagues, only to relocate and begin a new life.
This bloodshed follows the beginning of a discipleship in which Investigator Graham walks in Hannibal’s footsteps for a time, only to betray him. While Will Graham’s character does not necessarily resemble Judas Iscariot, this betrayal recalls the crucifixion of Jesus Christ found in the Gospels of the New Testament (see fig. 3).
Such a striking visual depiction of Christ’s crucifixion may have seemed out of place to the casual Hannibal audience member, but following this analysis, this ultimate parallel between Dr. Lecter and the divine seems more than appropriate. Succeeding this attempted murder and Investigator Graham’s betrayal, Hannibal redefines the relationship between Dr. Lecter and his former pupils, much like God and creation’s relationship in the New Testament. Whether Hannibal is God or the Devil, we are not entirely sure; however, Fuller’s show seems to concur with the doctor: they may not be so different after all.
Conclusion
Hannibal is clearly masked behind the cloak of the typical, procedural crime-drama, just as Dr. Lecter hides behind the guise of an innocent psychiatrist, sworn to the Hippocratic Oath. Clearly, there is more to our titular character than meets the eye. While Fuller’s Hannibal overlaps with the realm of religion and mythology at times, a fundamental ingredient of Harris’ original allure survives. This adaptation allows the audience to become an insider to Dr. Lecter’s complex schemes as he constantly evades his colleagues’ detection, allowing us to comprehend the gravity of Dr. Lecter’s actions. However, the Biblical element of the show is a far less predictable, yet far more persistent thread; one that rejects popular Judeo-Christian theodicy in a way that pushes horror in a new and compelling direction. By elegantly melding Harris’ texts and Biblical imagery into contemporary terms, we are able to savor this clear labor of love as we simultaneously question the nature of our wide-spread beliefs, which have been complicated by centuries of retellings. This prestige form of story-telling reminds us that Biblical themes can remain vital and provocative in an era that may find early Judaical beliefs hard to swallow.
Works Cited
“Antipasto.” Hannibal, written by Bryan Fuller and Steve Lightfoot, directed by Vicenzo Natali, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN Original Productions, and Gaumont International Television, 2015.
The Bible. Holman Christian Standard Commentary, Holman Bible Publishers, 2009.
Brancato, Chris, Bryan Fuller, and Scott Nimerfro. “Tome-wan.” Hannibal. Final Shooting Script, 2014.
“Devil.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, edited by Karen van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Peter W. van der Horst. 2nd ed., 1999, pp. 244–245.
Finley, Laura L., and Kelly C. Mannise. “Potter versus Voldemort: Examining Evil, Power, and Affective Responses in the Harry Potter Film Series.” A History of Evil in Popular Culture: What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, and Vampires Reveal about America, Vol. 1, edited by Sharon Packer and Jody Pennington, ABC-CLIO, 2014, pp. 59–72.
Fuller, Bryan, creator. Hannibal. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN Original Productions, and Gaumont International Television, 2015.
Galle I, Cornelis. Lucifer. 1600, engraving.
Gray, Jim Danger. “Amuse-Bouche.” Hannibal. Final Shooting Script, 2012.
Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. Delacorte Press, 1999.
— -. Hannibal Rising. Dell Publishing, 2006.
— -. Red Dragon. Dell Publishing, 1981.
— -. The Silence of the Lambs. St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
“Kō No Mono.” Hannibal, written by Jeff Vlaming, Andy Black, and Bryan Fuller, directed by David Slade, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN Original Productions, and Gaumont International Television, 2015.
Law, Stephen. “Evil God Challenge.” Religious Studies. Center for Inquiry UK, 2016.
Mallet, Edme-Francois, and Francois-Vincent Touissant. “Apostasy.” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project, translated by Rachel LaFortune. Ann Abor: Michigan Publishing, 2012.
Quinn-Miscall, Peter D. Reading Isaiah: Poetry and Vision. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.
Vlaming, Jeff, and Bryan Fuller. “Shiizakana.” Hannibal. Final Shooting Script, 2014.
Waugh, Robert H. “The Butterfly and the Beast: The Imprisoned Soul in Thomas Harris’ Lecter Trilogy.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris, edited by Benjamin Szumskyj and Daniel O’Brien, McFarland & Company, 2008, pp. 68–86.
