In either Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs,* everyone’s favorite cannibal psychiatrist protests against being called insane; and, frankly, I don’t believe he was legally insane, no matter what the fictional court thought. He clearly understood the nature and quality of his acts, and I don’t think he was incapable of controlling his dark urges either. He just didn’t give a shit about anything but himself and his palate. The truest sentiment in the books was one he expressed to Will Graham: it was insane to lock up him, as a rational society would either kill him or let him work.
Anyway … such is the subject of this thread. Poll coming, but don’t let that restrain you.
I agree with **Skald **. Not insane by legal standards. He’s clearly capable of appreciating the wrongful nature of his conduct. Then again, as we say in this part of the country, that boy ain’t quite right, either. Normal people do not eat other people, with or without fava beans and wine.
Definitely evil. Think he is probably Neutral Evil, with Lawful tendencies, in that he follows his own “code”.
Only reasonable thing to do with him after his conviction is to shoot him in the head. Rehabilitation isn’t possible for someone like that. He’s dangerous if free…moreso than a rabid dog. Holding him for life wastes taxpayer dollars better spent elsewhere.
Kill him. He is not going to help solve crimes: he knew exactly who Buffalo Bill was and yet played rather than giving the info; he disfigured a nurse and tried to have [Edward Norton’s character] killed from his prison cell. He’s dangerous every minute he keeps breathing- kill him, and worry if he was insane or not later.
I was going to pretend that neither Hannibal nor Hannibal Rising existed for purposes of this thread, but since I forgot to put the footnote in the OP I shan’t.
Hannibal is not Lawful Evil. His brainwashing and rape of Starling in Hannibal shows why he is not; so does his threat against the Italian policeman’s wife. He broke even his own rules there, not to mention his promise not to come after Starling unless she came after him.
And she was clearly at Verger’s to rescue him. Tacky behavior.
The tacky remark isn’t quite a joke, though I expect only Oak will understand why.
Will Graham.
And I’d let the Red Dragon live before I let Lecter live. HE was genuinely nuts, not to mention that he was trying to stop.
He knows the difference between right and wrong, but he just doesn’t care. He’s out for his own jollies and damn the rest of us. That’s the definition of evil right there.
Imprison him for life, as the death row route is a costlier one of the state.
It’s pretty clear in Silence that the Memphis cops intend to kill him on sight. The officer in charge after his escape from the courtroom-cum-jail cell tellshis men to “take no special risks to take Lecter alive.”
Should have been shot dead during his attack on the nurse.
The retro backstory given in Hannibal & H Rising still doesn’t make him insane.
Correction to the poll- Verger wanted to feed Hannibal to the pigs feet first. And IIRC,
he planned to pull out HL any time he fainted from the pain, have his stumps bound up,
& then fed to the pigs again upon recovering consciousness, etc. etc.
Why isn’t there an option just to let him go scott free?
It’s pretty clearly established in Hannibal (the book, anyway. I never saw the movie) that he is mentally ill (all the stuff about his attempts to formulate a unified theory, and how disorderd his thinking becomes on that level).
He’s probably not treatable, but he’s mentally ill and should be confined for life. He can never be assumed to be safe, though he is more than capable of being able to convincingly fake being responsive to treatment.
He mostly only kills assholes anyway, so I say just give him a room at the laughing academy until he croaks of natural causes.
Close to what I think. I chose the second option, that Lecter is mentally ill and should be treated and confined for life. But honestly, he’d never be responsive to treatment and (as noted) understands his actions well enough to be competent to stand trial. I would be just as satisfied for someone like him to be in prison as in a mental institution, so long as he were removed from the streets.
But I can’t really bring myself to call him “evil”, at least when it’s presented as a dichotomy between “evil” and “mentally ill”. He’s evil because he’s mentally ill, it just happens that his mental illness was not of the sort that that absolves him from responsibility.
Well of course we’re only including Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs.Hannibal and Hannibal Rising were written by the pod person that possessed TH awhile back.
I’m having a hard time differentiating between evil and mentally ill. He gets his kicks eating people so it’s hard not to call him batshit insane but he seems otherwise lucid and rational. Maybe too rational.
Dr. Lector is clearly dangerous and should be shot on sight as holding him on death row or in a mental institution can only be viewed as a temporary solution. He’s a clever fellow and I’m forced to assume that even if he doesn’t escape it’s very likely that he’ll kill/injure/disfigure prison staff.
That’s only in the later books where Harris tried to make him more likable. He wasn’t nearly as finnicky in Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, in which he killed for sport or to improve the Baltimore Philharmonic flute section.
He’s a brilliant sadistic cannibal psychopath, one of the worst kinds. He’s personality disordered. There’s no medication or counselling that will help him.
It’s best handled by the criminal justice system, not the mental health care system.
For those saying that he knows right and wrong you’re only partially there.
Hannibal Lector realizes the definitions that OTHERS have for right and wrong. He either disagrees or does not believe he falls under them. He is a true psychopath. He’s one who is not, never can be, and has no interest in, greater human society.
How about he’s evil AND nuts?
Lecter if anyone would meet the criteria for ultimate penalty - he DID it, we KNOW for a fact that he did it, he knows it’s against all of society’s values, he’s not repentant, he’ll do it again if given the chance. And since **Skald **now has included Hannibal in the Canon, he will actively recruit others into this twisted life (destroying their normal selves in the process). Either throw away the key or throw away the body (either way have him spend his remaining lifetime with his head up an MRI or PET machine, see if we can figure out WTF is going on).