(Untitled)

[vee_fic]

The trouble with Hannibal is -- well, it's exceedingly slow; and exists in that bright-colored universe where vast numbers of people get murdered artistically by strangers who are always organized and tidy and terrifyingly good at what they do; and what psychiatrist on the planet has a two-story office with a balcony? -- I say, the other trouble

Comments

[samdonne]

I find Mikkelsen watchable, which is a problem, because Hannibal (and, to be honest, the canon material as well) is to me what House must be to a practitioner of diagnostic medicine.

The 'empathetic autistic' profiler (opposite ends of the DSM IV collide), the epidemic of organised serial killers, the deluge of inferential fallacies (it's not deduction, people, it's induction; it's not any more deduction when Sherlock Holmes does it), the 1970s trait psychology... The main positive so far is that Hannibal hasn't yet indulged in the levels of torture porn that had me running away from Criminal Minds faster than you can say Quantico.

There are several reasons the FBI's BSU (Crawford's Unit - though that's wrong; the BSU does research and support, to my knowledge, not investigation) doesn't put stock in profiling any more.

Sorry, had to vent. You're the unfortunate bystander, Vee.

[vee_fic]

No, no, I agree with that entire vent! And yes, torture-porn is almost surely around the corner, although I expect it to be way artistic.

Honestly, it sometimes feels like a warding ritual: write about all the gory, horrible theoretical crimes you can think of, just as the violent crime rate is dropping wildly. And the 1970s thing -- it sometimes really feels as if we're seeing the feverish imaginings of TV producers who were in their late teens during the time that both Berkowitz and Gacy were active. They're isolated instances in my mind, because, you know, I was a toddler at the time; but I can see how an ambitious producer of a certain age with no sense of proportion would gleefully conclude that a serial killer gets apprehended every day, and twice on Saturdays.

[samdonne]

Honestly, it sometimes feels like a warding ritual: write about all the gory, horrible theoretical crimes you can think of, just as the violent crime rate is dropping wildly.

It's a rant for another time, but I blame that old Freudian pseudo-scientific nugget that spectacles of fictional violence have a cathartic function for the explosion of ultra-fetishistic (sexual) violence in pop culture since the 20th Century. Including fanfic.

Freud. First against the wall in my scientific realist revolution.

conclude that a serial killer gets apprehended every day

Beats the realisation that criminals are dull, dull, dull, and often sad, and that writing emotional porn about real problems is a lot harder and doesn't sell as much commercial space.

[vee_fic]

criminals are dull, dull, dull, and often sad

This would be my entire objection to the Sherlock franchise in a nutshell.

the explosion of ultra-fetishistic (sexual) violence in pop culture since the 20th Century

Oh, I don't know, I think women's Indian captivity narratives in particular suggest that fetishistic sexual violence was a bestseller at least since the 1860s. (The ones without rape didn't sell nearly as well as the ones with.)

[samdonne]

a bestseller at least since the 1860s.

Well, I don't think he invented it. But he gave everyone that came after him a nice set of rationalisations for it. And, to misquote somebody, rationalisation is the mind-killer.