Hannibal Lecter in The Red Dragon

Submitted by Majiska394 t3_11eg0lh in books

There is a moment when they are talkingabout what he might be, like a psychopath or sociopath or what exactly. Graham says that the psychologists said that he is a sociopath mainly because they did not know where else to put him. Then he said that Lecter meets some of the criterias for a sociopath, that does not have any remorse, no guilt and also that he was sadictic towards animals when he was a child, which confused me.

I read the books not the order they were published but how (I hope atleast) would go chronologically. So I started with Hannibal rising, where was Hannibal as a child but there was not a single moment where he would be sadistic towards any animal, if anything the animals were actually the ones he was quite compassionate to. When Hannibal killed Paul Momund (the butcher) he set the fish Paul caught earlier free and took only the one Paul already killed. Same with the birds in Kolnas's restaurant, he did not have to open the cage and set them free but he did, I think he actually took one of the ones that did not want to fly away and made sure he will not stay in the cage. And he was nothing but kind and friendly towards their Horse (Cesar I think?).

So I was just confused while I was reading the part about Hannibal being mean to animals I guess. Or not sure if I didn't, like miss something?

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Comments

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madchad90 t1_jadsfyn wrote

Hannibal rising was written after red dragon. So this is just a continuity error.

Animal cruelty is a common occurance in individuals with sociopathy, and serial killers, so it's not surprising for that to originally be a trait of Lecter.

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HumanOrion t1_jaeirbv wrote

The fact that Hannibal Rising came after the fact makes this lack of consistency more unforgivable, not less.

The fact that Red Dragon (and the other books) existed, and presented a fleshed out profile of Hannibal should have been taken into account when writing Hannibal Rising.

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madchad90 t1_jael7du wrote

Harris was pretty much forced into writing the book against his will, so he probably didn't care too much about making sure it lined up perfectly with the previous ones

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Majiska394 OP t1_jadzyzr wrote

Ok thank you :)

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dlrace t1_jae3eoi wrote

most likely an error, but also, who gave them the information about him being sadistic as a child towards animals? I'd like to think it was him messing with their tests. He was too sophisticated for the tests afterall according to chiltern in silence of the lambs.

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KingOffRoad t1_jae2vx6 wrote

The terms psychopath and sociopath have been thrown around so thoroughly by fictional media that they have very little actual meaning any longer. Neither one is an actual medical diagnosis.

Thomas Harris also didn't want to write Hannibal Rising. He wrote the book and adapted it to a screenplay under threat of losing his rights to the character altogether. I suspect he wrote himself in circles until he felt like he was done and slapped a cover onto it. Some continuity errors are to be expected.

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AbbyM1968 t1_jadw92c wrote

I think a place to read about serial killers is the John Douglas books. He (John D.) told Thomas Harris about the 2 or 3 serial killers that Harris combined to make the fictional Lecter.

I agree with u/madchad90. It's likely a continuity error that the psychologist says that many or most serial killers start by harming small animals when they're young. Maybe Lecter din't. Maybe it was just his extra finger that caused him to be a serial killer.

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