History Fridge / Hannibal

* In ''Sorbet'', Hannibal confides to Will that the reason he left his position as an Emergency Room Surgeon to become a Psychiatrist is because he "killed" a patient. Will rightly points out that losing patients in the ER is inevitable, but Hannibal simply says it was one time too many. Considering Hannibal's pathology as a killer (which includes having a ''tremendous'' [[AGodAmI god complex]]), his SuperOCD likely could not handle the idea of patients dying within his care. Psychiatry allows Hannibal all of the control with few (if any) deaths occurring that he didn't explicitly have a hand in.

* In ''Shiizakana'', Jack makes casual chitchat with Hannibal and mentions that he used to be afraid of losing his memory. He follows that up with "What I wouldn't give to forget a thing or two now"...which is incidentally just moments before he takes a bite from the liver omelet Hannibal just set down in front him.

* In ''Ko No Mono'' Hannibal stating how he'll occasionally drop a cup to shatter on the floor as a reminder of Abigail was Foreshadowing her survival with his line of "someday perhaps, a cup will come together" and then the image of a cup breaking on the floor played in reverse

* At first, Will's repeated visions of the Raven Stag are symbolic of his inability to escape the memory of Garrett Jacob Hobbs (who hung dead girl bodies on antlers). However over the course of the series the Raven Stag comes to represent Hannibal, until it transforms into the Wendingo. This is symbolic of Will realising that he is being manipulated by Hannibal. The association could have just come from him being unable to escape Hannibal, as he couldn't escape the memory of Hobbs, but that isn't all. Remember how Will spends a session with Hannibal staring at the stag statue in Will's office? Or how Will knows that it was that statue that caused Tobias' death (though he believes accidently)? Or even Will's dream of talking with Abigail over Hannibal's copycat killing (a girl impaled on a stag head). Notice how Abigail looks frightened when Hannibal tries to wake Will up.

* When Hannibal hid the body of the man whom Abigail killed in self-defense, he wasn't merely trying to protect her. He knew that covering up the killing would give him leverage with Abigal that he could use to manipulate her later. His relationship with Abigail eventually becomes both [[PetTheDog fatherly]] and [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]].

* When they first meet in the pilot episode, Hannibal is somewhat hostile toward Jack Crawford. He tells Jack to wait outside, while he presumably is in his office clearing his schedule. He invites Jack in eventually, and the two observe an amazing drawing Hannibal has made of his former boarding school in Paris, pointing out his use of a scalpel instead of a sharpener to get the edge right on his pencils. Lecter basically asks Crawford why the FBI would be investigating him, to which Crawford tells him they aren't but want his help. After this and more flattery on Jack's part, Hannibal's mood is significantly lighter and he hears out Jack about profiling Will Graham. For those new to these characters, it probably didn't seem too suspicious. [[spoiler: However, those already keenly aware of [[ManipulativeBastard Lecter's]] [[ImAHumanitarian true nature]] will see that he was ready to murder Jack Crawford right in the middle of his office, or abduct him the way he had his protege, Miriam Lass, who is revealed later on to have been caught, mutilated and killed by Lecter. This would explain why Hannibal is immediately defensive toward Jack, he knew him and assumed he was being caught. He likely was hiding evidence while Jack was in the waiting room (a precaution he failed to take with Lass). The only real evidence of this in the scene is a solo close-up of the scalpel in Lecter's hands. Though we don't see it again, he's staring at it as he turns to ask Jack why he's being investigated. If Jack had beaten around the bush a few moments longer, Hannibal might have slit his throat with that scalpel and disappeared him the way he always seems to be able to do.]]

** This is actually a bit debatable. According to Mads Mikkelsen and Bryan Fuller, Hannibal respects and perhaps even loves Bella Crawford, for her strength in the face of death. And I'm not sure he would mind Jack finding his wife at Hannibal's feet, given that she obviously killed herself. The desired effect (keeping Jack's mind occupied with his dying wife) is maintained regardless of the coin toss.

* The Angel Maker [[spoiler: kills and suspends himself from the rafters. This involved somehow making "wings" of the flesh on his back, (how he reached it is anyone's guess,) hanging them from the ceiling, before tying himself into the correct position. Even if we accept that he was somehow immune to the agony, shock and crippling blood-loss, it would still be virtually impossible for him to kill himself in that way]].

** Add to that the symbolic naming: Abel was the first murder victim in Biblical history, and Gideon was the second leader of the Jewish people after their flight from Egypt. Both characters played second fiddle to the better-remembered Cain and Moses, just as Dr. Gideon is a pale reflection of two versions of Hannibal Lecter.

* So much of this series works as {{Foreshadowing}} for the planned future seasons which are to be adaptations of the books; but more than that, they put future events in a new light. When Dr. Chilton bullies Lecter in ''SilenceOfTheLambs'', for instance, it seems petty and motivated by jealously- his prisoner is smarter than him and doesn't bother to hide it; but in this show, given everything Chilton goes through thanks to the Chesapeake Ripper fiasco, finding out that the guy he thought was helping him was in fact the real Ripper himself and had been playing him for a fool the whole time, thereby nearly ruining his career, [[spoiler: exposing Gideon as not the Ripper but then dumping Will on him as if he ''was'' a SerialKiller when he wasn't, and very nearly getting him painfully killed]]; suddenly, Chilton's grudge against Lecter takes on many new dimensions. Lecter basically humiliated Chilton over the course of the entire first season, and will probably continue to do so over the course of the second -- of ''course'' Chilton is pissed off at him!.

* Eddie Izzard's as Dr. Abel Gideon mirrors that of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in ''TheSilenceOfTheLambs''. Which is brilliant when you realise that he's been coerced through psychic driving by Dr. Chilton into believing he is the Chesapeake Ripper, i.e. Hannibal. Given that the Hannibal of the show is wildly different from that of the films, this is the showrunners' attempt at creating contrast between them, and also carries the implication that the creepy scenery-chewing Hannibal mannerisms would be more typical from a man ''pretending'' to be a ruthless super-intelligent cannibal than from a real one.

* This is something I only just noticed: in [[SilenceOfTheLambs the movie]], Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal's leitmotif is found in Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations (and he even mentions it, if I remember correctly). Of course the leitmotif for Mikkelsen's Lecter would also be Goldberg Variations, but his is the Bach version, highlighting the subtle differences between the two portrayals.

** ''{{Rebecca}}'' also has strong themes of gaslighting -- which is appropriate, given Hannibal's... relationship styles.

* Hannibal's psychiatrist, colleague and confidante is named Bedelia [=DuMaurier=]. The surname is an obvious reference to writer Daphne [=DuMaurier=], creator of ''Jamaica Inn', ''Rebecca'', and ''The Birds'', the latter two of which got used as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock films. Given that Hannibal allegedly got a patient who attacked [=DuMaurier=] to swallow his own tongue, is it that much of a stress to notice that, as when the Hopkins-Lecter did this, he was protecting a young woman whose surname is connected to birds?

** The latter is confirmed in [[Recap/HannibalS03E08 "The Great Red Dragon"]]: