History Literature / HannibalRising

* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: The fate of [[spoiler:Hannibal's dead sister]]. As several bad guys [[SlidingScaleOfAntagonistVileness with varying degrees of sympathy]] point out, she had hypothermia and they'd all have starved otherwise. [[spoiler:[[NotSoDifferent Including Hannibal.]]]]

The novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Peter Webber, starring Gaspard Ulliel as the title character.

* AssholeVictim: Hannibal's first kill, Paul Momund, was a foul-mouthed Vichy collaborator who insulted Hannibal's Japanese aunt with racial epithets, and was sliced up with her sword by Hannibal soon thereafter.

* ConsultingAConvictedKiller: Well, not yet ''convicted'' but this book establishes that cooperating with police to hunt down Complete Monsters has been a running theme throughout Hannibal's life. Here his consultant is Inspector Popil, who pegs him early as a murderer but takes an inordinate time in bringing him in because (A) Hannibal's hunting down war criminals who Popil despises and deeply wants to see apprehended, and (B) Popil has a crush on Hannibal's guardian Lady Murasaki. Even when Popil finally has Lecter arrested he still tries to convince him to assist in the hunt for Grutas by legal means before letting him continue his hunt.

* ProperLady: Lady Murasaki.

* UnreliableNarrator: There are points in which it is implied that Hannibal is not being truthful with readers or himself, not out of deception but out of self-delusion. When he confronts Kolnas he initially offers to give the man a "pass" for the sake of his children; Kolnas ends up wasting the pass trying to kill Lecter, and after he is dead Lecter thinks to himself that he always intended to kill Kolnas, which comes across more as his own self-justification (and way of sidestepping guilt for leaving Kolnas's children) fatherless than genuine conviction. Later, at the book/film's end, he is shown by himself and seemingly untroubled by it, with the narration remarking that he has "entered his heart's long winter" and is untroubled at being abandoned by Lady Murasaki. Beautiful as that quote is, though, it sidesteps the telling detail that Hannibal avoids Japan and Japanese culture throughout the entire rest of his life, suggesting the incident haunts him more than he can admit to himself.

* WidowWoman: When Hannibal meets his aunt Lady Murasaki for the first time, he learns that his uncle Count Robert Lecter had passed away nearly a year ago.

* AssholeVictim: Hannibal's first kill was a racist Asian-hating punk who insulted Hannibal's Japanese aunt, and was sliced up with her sword by Hannibal soon thereafter.

* PocketProtector: Lector gets a bullet between shoulder blades, but is saved by a tanto which he earlier secreted on his back.

* ToiletHumor: An almost literal case in which Hannibal, upon being caught trespassing in Kolnas's restaurant, claims he got lost on his way to the loo and inexplicably lists off several synonyms for "toilet" in what is presumably Harris's attempt at humour. Hannibal's first attempts at communicat

* StrangeBedfellows: Lecter joins the French Communist party in order to gain access into USSR. Later, when Lecter gets arrested, the communists protest his arrest. Lecter has no sympathy for their ideas, of course, but finds them useful and even writes an article for them about the benefits of collectivization in Soviet Lithuania.

The final installment to the Franchise/HannibalLecter series that came out in 2007. Another book/film double, this time released almost simultaneously. It depicted Lecter's [[StartOfDarkness beginnings as a serial killer]], and both film and book were quite thoroughly panned by critics and audiences alike. Harris wrote the book because [[ExecutiveMeddling he was told that if he didn't, another author almost certainly would.]]

* IAteWhat?: A long-delayed horrific version. Possibly it genuinely hadn't occurred to him for twenty years, or possibly he'd just refused to admit it to himself, but [[spoiler: he ate his dead little sister as well, disguised in a stew.]]

* KatanasAreJustBetter: And that's why Hannibal uses one to performs his first kill on the AssholeVictim who insulted his Japanese aunt. Odd, because in the previous works, he'd been interested mostly in the Italian Renaissance. But Japan is popular these days. Could be some sort of poetic justice: she is descended of samurai, whom had a rigid code of honor. He's preserving her honor; especially with decapitation. As a corporal punishment, decapitation was seen as VERY dishonorable. Had Hannibal made the man commit suicide, his aunt's honor couldn't have been properly restored.

* HannibalLecture: [[spoiler: Ironically in Rising, this trope was used on the TropeNamer Hannibal himself by Vladis Grutas. Who claimed that Hannibal is not looking for revenge, but making sure the men that participated in Mischa's murder wouldn't tell the world that Hannibal ate her too. [[BerserkButton Hannibal did not take that one well.]] ]]

* FreudianExcuse: Retconning one into Hannibal Lecter's past was not generally viewed as a good move. It was a plausible plot device in ''Hannibal'': it made everything else about Lecter mentioned by others (like Doemling) mesh better and completed the FailureKnight analogy hinted at since the previous book. But extending Lecter's FreudianExcuse into a full story really inflicted severe BadassDecay. However, it's arguable that Lecter has the most [[BlackComedy hilariously,]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice unintentionally ridiculous]] FreudianExcuse ''ever'': [[spoiler: His sister was eaten by [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] [[ImAHumanitarian Cannibals]] when he was a child.]] Believe it or not, this Freudian excuse could be based on a TruthInTelevision. The infamous Ukrainian cannibal Andrei Chikatilo [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo was told]] growing up that his brother was cannibalized by neighbors during the Holodomor (massive famines caused by Soviet agricultural policy). There is no conclusive proof that the Nazis engaged in cannibalism. But the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Cannibalism Imperial Japanese certainly did]]. They very nearly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyboys:_A_True_Story_of_Courage ate George H.W. Bush]].

The final installment to the Hannibal Lecter series that came out in 2007. Another book/film double, this time released almost simultaneously. It depicted Lecter's [[StartOfDarkness beginnings as a serial killer]], and both film and book were quite thoroughly panned by critics and audiences alike. Harris wrote the book because [[ExecutiveMeddling he was told that if he didn't, another author almost certainly would.]]

* IncestSubtext: Hannibal and Lady Murasaki are not blood-related, but they are still nephew and aunt, and their romantic feelings for each other would seem inappropriate to most viewers.

* TimeshiftedActor: The younger version of Hannibal Lecter is played by Gaspard Ulliel as young man and Aaran Thomas as a boy.

[[redirect:Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs]]