If a simple lack of empathy and lack of regard for the rights of other people is considered a mental illness, why draw the line right there? Wouldn’t a lack of empathy that leads you to rob a bank or con a retiree out of their savings equally be considered disabling?
Only because it murders you when your back is turned because you failed to kill it properly.
I understand what you are saying now. Of course we are not discussing someone with a “simple lack of empathy and lack of regard for the rights of other people.”
I wouldn’t make the case that he be considered disabled and therefor exempt from punative consequences. It nearly seems beside the point to me.
I believe Thomas has Graham describe Lecter as beyond normal psychopathology. The only word to fully describe him is ‘monster.’
I voted for evil, lock him up forever. But use Magneto-level precautions.
While the temptation to sequester and study him is considerable, like smallpox, it presents significant risk as well, therefore I say put him down with compassion and extreme prejudice, like you would a rabid dog.
Good Evening People.
So we have a Hannibal Lecter. He is not mental ill. He is Pure Evil.
There are no morals for him, and no humanity in him. There is no any reason known what ‘he’ is but best word would be ‘complete monster’ He only cared for his sister Mischa. When she was killed and eaten, the boy he was died with her. If he was real, it’s hard to say, normal society would either kill him or let him do his work. If it’s up to me I would leave him be.
Before Harris/Hopkins gave him this tragic-romantic anti-hero “only eats the rude” flair, he was a pure monster who did what he did because he wanted to. The TV version even more so. He does what he does for the fun of seeing people move to his pulling the strings. When TV Jack Crawford & Alana Bloom made their plan to kill him, I totally agreed with them even as I knew how badly they would fail.
I didn’t remember this thread and that I’d voted in it five years ago. But I was ready to make the same choice! Evil, kill twice if possible
Imprison him for life. If he were killed, he might come back as a zombie.
The world needs monsters. If we remove him, we’ll just have another likely less charming and cultured.
In what sense does the world need monsters?
By what mechanism would shooting the bad doctor in the head generate a worse monster than he?
That’s my experience, too. I’m not sympathetic enough (or at all, really) to Lecter to care about preserving his life. If he cannot be executed, I propose lifetime imprisonment, with a diet limited to skim milk and twinkies.
Clearly, we need monsters. We create or become them constantly. Shooting Lecter through the glass, as Ekers expressed a willingness to do, would serve only to let him feel, for a time, like a Frank Miller hero. It wouldn’t make the world a better, or worse, place. Somebody is already waiting to fill Lecter’s role. He’ll just do it without Lecter’s style and panache.