Application for lastvoyages
User Name/Nick: Becca
User LJ: panteraonca
AIM/IM: doctressamnesia
E-mail: freakyberkeley@gmail.com
Other Characters: Dracula, Wanda
Character Name: Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Series: Red Dragon/The Silence of the Lambs with material from Hannibal's first half. (Novelverse)
Age: 50
From When?: At the very end of Silence, after choking to death on Filet of Chilton.
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Hannibal's ambition may be to become a Warden and earn his sister's resurrection, but first he has to prove that he can heal minds instead of breaking them, and live with the rude instead of eating them.
Abilities/Powers: Has an almost matchless intellect, extensive training in all forms of psychology and psychiatry available to a doctor of his time period, extensive anatomy and biochemistry knowledge, flawless etiquette and the most persuasive of manners. Is literally able to talk people into suicide given sufficient time and leverage to persuade them. Has an unusual talent for keeping cool in situations where other people would fly off the handle. Speaks several languages, including Italian, Latin, Lithuanian, German, French and Japanese. Extremely inventive, resourceful and brave. According to the prequel Hannibal Rising, he was trained in iaijutsu; however, he seems to prefer knives over swords.
Personality: An urbane gentleman of noble Lithuanian stock, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a brilliant psychologist and psychiatrist who has elevated even his hobbies-drawing and cooking-to the level of a masterful art. He is courtly and polite to the core, observant and wise, and educated or self-educated on an incredible variety of subjects, including European history, art history, classical literature, opera, physiology, and escapology. He is also charming, with a subtle sense of humor that uses everything from historical anecdotes to scientifically-based puns to make its point. Suave and fearless, and not without empathy, he is a standout as doctor, as a man…and as a psychopath.
He is described as a “monster” by other psychiatrists--specifically, Dr. Chilton, his inadequate nemesis and petty tormentor during his incarceration. This is for his impenetrability to normal psychiatric methods, and his persistent wickedness; he is in fact one of the most organized, controlled and predictably-triggered serial killers ever to exist. He can spend years peacefully treating patients, and then kill, cook and eat a census taker for trying to quantify him. Two things primarily motivate him to kill: means to an important end, and aggressive rudeness on the part of his victim. He will be treated with the respect and consideration that is his due, or he will kill and eat the offender. And if someone else has to vanish for him to get what he wants, so be it; it is, after all, how he made his fortune. He also has a tremendous sense of vendetta, and in fact will patiently work or wait for years in order to take his due of vengeance from a target.
On the other hand, he has assisted the FBI in catching other serial killers on more than one occasion. Fourteen people have died at his hands, and yet countless others have had their mental and emotional burdens eased by his words. He can choose to use his personal magnetism and professional skills to con, spread misery, and "punish" people such as Miggs, his "neighbor" in the violent ward, whom he talked into suicide. Or, he can bring people back from the brink, strengthen them, and instruct them while boosting their confidence in their own intellectual abilities. It all depends on his relationship with the person or people involved. Thus he is like many a mix of good and evil-but the evil is nearly bottomless, and mixed with a carefully-controlled but deep insanity.
Hannibal has a quiet obsession with cannibalism which may or may not be connected with the idea of absorbing the strengths of his victims (“I think I’ll eat your heart”) but most certainly has ritualistic connotations. He is very picky unless in desperate straits, and will carefully select meats from the victim with an eye to whatever gourmet dish he wishes to prepare. However, in the past he has shown an almost addictive need to eat human flesh every once in a while, such as when he attacked his nurse during incarceration. He will also bite as an attack (the last two guards in Silence), and has a taste for artfully displayed remains. In fact, when he kills, he tends to imitate various works of art, famous medical diagrams, and famous deaths in the way he leaves the bodies to be found. Unfortunately, both the cannibalism and his tendency to "make art" with his victims' remains led to his being caught by Will, who sorted out his motives and also matched one of his kills to Wound Man, a famous medical diagram he found in Lecter's office.
Control is important to the Doctor: control, the respect and trust of others, and access to their minds. He is obsessed with what makes the people around him tick, and with manipulating them via the triggers and vulnerabilities he finds. This can be done in a healing capacity as a psychiatrist, or can persuade others to perform acts of murder, suicide or self-mutilation. It all depends on whether he believes that the world would be a better place with you in it, or whether your absence would improve things. His judgment to this end is fairly consistent, allowing anyone who knows him and monitors his interactions a chance to predict when someone is at risk for becoming dinner.
Hannibal suffers from very minor hallucinations according to Red Dragon; these mix with his fine and subtle senses very deceptively, although they do not seem to affect his ability to function the vast majority of the time. They can distract him at a crucial moment, but normally are merely a portion of the information he takes in when scanning (and usually memorizing) his surroundings. For example, he believes he knows what certain metals "smell" like. Occasionally, as can be read in Hannibal, he will lose control and suffer from full-fledged flashbacks involving nightmarish scenes from his youth, but he does everything within his power to work through these in private. Despite having this obvious (or what should be obvious to him) sign of PTSD, Hannibal denies up and down that he is at all mentally unstable. Instead he claims that his actions are motivated by evil, plain and simple.
Hannibal’s reaction to the Barge depends on how much he is allowed to know about why he is here and what the potential benefits are, and how quickly after his arrival he learns these things. He will much prefer the Barge to being dead or a captive again. Regular access to books, art supplies and people to toy with will also improve his mood and make him more reasonable. Lack of confinement after years of living in a dungeonlike cell will certainly help, as will the distracting adventures supplied by the Barge, which he will view as personal challenges to overcome.
Hannibal, however, will find the idea that someone is going to try to rehabilitate him completely insulting. The only reason he would endure even the pretense, and be willing to prove himself to his Warden, is for the sake of the Deal he will earn if he graduates and then spends time as a Warden. To win his beloved, murdered younger sister’s life back he will literally do anything. However, none of this means that he will like his Bargemates or feel particularly interested in them except as subjects to examine, test and manipulate. He can be befriended and his respect won, but it takes work, and he is not above sacrificing friends for his own survival and freedom. Just ask Will….
Path to Redemption: Hannibal Lecter will not be psychoanalyzed. He will not be guilt-tripped, shouted at, brought to regret the majority of his crimes, or otherwise treated in a way that robs him of his dignity, freedom or self-determination. The harder he is pressed, the firmer his resistance. He will counteranalyze, lie, mock, behave inscrutably, betray, and exact elaborate and often gruesome revenge. In short: standard Wardening techniques will not work with him.
Instead, logic and reason, with the reminder of the rewards for successful graduation, will win the day with him. A quid-pro-quo arrangement where he is allowed insight into his Warden's mind in return for certain promises would be dangerous, but effective. Setting specific, concrete goals, such as helping Wardens with a specific number of Inmates, passing tests of his character (such as allowing the rude to live), regaining Will's trust, or developing a good relationship with his Warden will make much better progress than trying to play psychologist or moral compass to Hannibal. Ultimately, if he feels that he can earn back his sister's life through his efforts, and is not pressed and humiliated too much, he will cooperate.
Will the end result of this be an actual redemption? If he can be convinced to give up cannibalism and casual murder, yes. He will never be entirely on the side of the angels, but he has a lot of practice keeping his darker side in check, and will do so indefinitely if it gets Mischa her life back.
History: Hannibal’s full name and title is Count Hannibal Lecter VIII, though he never uses it, preferring his professional title. His birthdate was actually moved around in canon; he was 42 according to Red Dragon, which was set in 1978, but according to later books was born January 20, 1933. For him "modern day" is mid 1983. His father was a Lithuanian Count; his mother, Italian. He has French citizenship but is a long time resident of the United States.
Hannibal showed some classic signs of sadism as a child, including in his torture and killing of animals. However, his family life was stable and loving, and that might have been the extent of his problems had the Nazis not rolled into Lithuania when he was eight. His parents were killed; Hannibal and his sister survived three years in a family hunting lodge before Nazi soldiers found them. The soldiers looted the lodge, and killed and ate Mischa in front of Hannibal, who suffered a blackout and somehow escaped. When he was found, he was returned to his family castle, only to discover it had been turned into a Russian orphanage. Hannibal became mute after witnessing what happened to his sister, and remained that way for a long period.
He was eventually rescued by his uncle, a painter, and brought to France to live with him and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. Hannibal became a French citizen, and when his uncle died suddenly lived in relative poverty with his widowed aunt, with whom he was very (and a bit creepily) close. He became a medical student, and it was there that he truly found his calling. Or one of them. Preoccupied with avenging his sister, he spent any time he had left outside school to track down each and every one of her killers, and eventually murdered all five. He was arrested for the crimes, but released due to popular support and a lack of evidence. In the wake of the trial he left for America to begin his residency at Johns Hopkins.
Lecter started a psychiatric practice in Baltimore in 1970, rapidly becoming a semifamous local figure with a reputation for extravagant tastes. He funded his elegant parties and landed-nobility lifestyle by convincing various wealthy patients to bequeath him money in their wills; these clients then died, along with some others who had either offended Lecter or struck him as better off dead. In all he is credited with nine murders during this period. Called the Chesapeake Ripper until identified, he was caught in 1975 by FBI profiler Will Graham. Hannibal had been working with Will on developing a psychological profile of the killer, meanwhile leading him down the garden path away from suspecting Hannibal as the killer. Unfortunately Will's powers of observation and investigation were equal to Hannibal's own; Hannibal was found out, nearly murdered Will trying to cover for himself, and ended up arrested and tried.
Three years later, he ended up helping Will from his max-security cell in the violent ward of Chesapeake State Mental Hospital. Hannibal had fallen far; although a model prisoner for a solid year of his stay, he was placed under extreme security protocols after attacking and partially eating the face of an attending nurse during a medical check. In the absence of any control or foreknowledge of which nurse would be on duty that day, and considering the extreme consequences of his actions, it can only be concluded that Hannibal has a sort of psychological addiction to cannibalism similar to Wendigo Psychosis, and simply lost control once he could not stand the cravings any longer. At any rate, after that he found his life restricted to a high-tech cage in the hospital's dungeonlike basement. His only friend in the situation was the area's regular orderly, Barney, with whom he developed a completely congenial and respectful relationship. Not so his relationship with the hospital director, Dr. Chilton, who tried and failed for years to puzzle out Hannibal's psychosis and get him "under control".
When a desperate, out-of-options Will visited him after being pulled out of retirement, Hannibal was intrigued enough to speak with him on his current case--the Red Dragon murders. Now known as Hannibal the Cannibal thanks to the attentions of the tabloid the National Tattler, Hannibal agreed to help Will build a profile of the killer. However, his hunger for revenge against his captor won out, and he ended up sending a coded message to the Dragon which led the killer straight to Will's family home. There, he attacked and disfigured Will before Will's wife killed him with a pistol. Hannibal followed up the attack-by-proxy with a mocking letter to Will from his prison cell.
Five years later, desperate for leads on another unique serial murder case, FBI head of Behavioral Sciences Jack Crawford, Will's former boss, sent another agent into the lion's den: beautiful, talented and driven trainee Clarice Starling. Fascinated by Clarice's courage and virtue in the midst of what he viewed as a corrupt, pedestrian and incompetent law enforcement organization, Hannibal agreed to help her--at a price. In return for her recounting her painful memories, he helped her determine key facts about the Buffalo Bill killer which eventually led to her tracking the murderer down and killing him. His relationship with Clarice was predatory in certain ways, and yet unlike Will he never harmed her or led her into harm. In the end their mutual respect was strong enough that after his escape, he called her with a promise that he would never seek her out to attack her.
Hannibal escaped from a temporary cell, actually using the cut-off face and uniform of one of his guards to get free of the building in an ambulance. Abandoning the ambulance after killing its crew, he disappeared, disguising himself and starting to make arrangements to leave the country entirely. But before he left, he went after his tormentor of some years, Dr. Chilton. His obsession with revenge and cannibalism simply would not allow him to leave until he had had that "old friend" for dinner.
Chilton failed to escape, and was killed, his cheeks fileted off and fried for a quick meal before Hannibal hopped a plane. That was the plan, anyway. In reality, Hannibal suffered an embarrassing death when he accidentally inhaled a chunk of his nemesis during a highly ill-timed sneeze. It was such an ignominious end that it bruised his pride, and he very much dislikes talking about it.
Sample Journal Entry:
[Translated from the Italian]
It is tedious to be a known quantity in this place. The presumption that I am not only known of, but known; the familiarity, the lack of basic manners, all conspire to create an atmosphere that is, shall we say, less than congenial. Far be it from me to complain aloud, but the truth is that the rudeness alone has me rather annoyed. Still and all, it is not as if I am unused to unfortunate fame; if anything I doubt my papers would have been published or read as avidly had it not been for that business with Will and my subsequent imprisonment. That is the way of the masses; they like having things to gossip and speculate over. And I suppose that right now I am the New and Interesting Thing aboard. This too shall pass.
Today's Case Study: Wanda Maximoff
Wanda initially attempted to present herself as an adult; although on the cusp of eighteen, her immaturity, mercurial temper and dogged attempts to appear friendly and cooperative are the earmarks of an emotionally stunted and repressed individual who still has much growing to do. She is extremely intelligent and imaginative, but her desperate need for approval, especially from those older or in some position of authority, points toward unfulfilling parental relationships. Given that most of these authority figures are male, I suspect a distant, neglectful or even abusive father figure. Wanda exhibited a temporary fugue state lasting a few seconds when questioned closely about her schoolgirl years. I find this very interesting. What happened to her during that time?
Sample RP: [3-5 paragraphs, 3rd Person POV]
The cravings had grown worse and worse since his incarceration aboard this vessel. It was likely some combination of the unusual stresses and the lack of control over his own diet. As with his stay at the Baltimore hospital, the more bland, pedestrian food he was forced to ingest, the more he craved something...fresher. More flavorful. More...vital. He knew that craving, knew it so well that the prospect of how to fulfil it without ending up in Zero left him preoccupied and tense.
Then he found out about the vampires, and what was left for them in the kitchens, and he began to think. Then plan. Then see what he could remember of his old trove of recipes. Yes, yes. It wouldn't be entirely proper; he had no sausage casings, no suet, no liver. But surely midnight snacks were permissible, and they would at least have bread or rice available to use as his filler. It was best to do this at night, with few witnesses. But no one would mind if he fried up a little snack during the off hours, especially if he cleaned up after themselves, would they? No, no of course not.
He hoped they at least had fresh onions and a few spices. Otherwise it would still be bland. Salty, coppery and rich, but without that lovely mix of flavors he was used to.
He made his way down to the kitchens at two thirty, padding mutely down quiet corridors. He could smell traces of the press of bodies that had filled the corridors: the bitter sweat of stress and repressed anger. For a place that billed itself as not-a-prison it certainly smelled like one. Perhaps a bit less of urine, semen and blood than was usual. But he supposed that that was more a matter of chance and timing than anything else.
Reaching the kitchens, he went straight for the vampires' blood supply and drew himself off a measured cup. Then he went to the refrigerator for his other ingredients. Soon enough he would ease his nerves with some succulent, if makeshift, black pudding. Even with the limited supply of spices, it would smell delicious soon enough. He decided to make enough for two, in case the smell drew anyone.
Special Notes: Hannibal has a perfectly formed extra middle finger on his left hand.