“There are means of influence other than violence"—Chiyoh,
just before influencing Will right off the back of a moving train.There are other means
of influence? This is a revolutionary thought in the Hannibal universe. Since when? And
what are they? Are we talking about sex or love or something else entirely?Since this is Chiyoh’s assertion, perhaps she’ll expand upon it
in future episodes. Or perhaps she’s learned that in Hannibal’s orbit those
other means exist but are not feasible or effective. After all, she follows that statement up
with “violence is what you understand.” Its hard to argue with her.Look at this from her point of view. As far as we know she
hadn’t been in contact with Hannibal lately and had been playing out the
scenario he put into play however many years ago. A stranger claiming to know Hannibal shows up at her
home and is alternately menacing (I could have eaten you) and sympathetic (he
left me with a smile). Either intentionally or unintentionally, he gets Chiyoh to kill her captive, something she could have done at any time but chose not
to. Will throws Chiyoh’s balanced world into disorder and calls it
freedom.Will Graham is Chiyoh’s Randall Tier—a Hannibal-forged killer,
only more effective, more like Hannibal. She knows what Hannibal is like and to
have his BFF show up in a place that was safe for her (Hannibal can’t or won’t
return for whatever reason), telling her what he could have done to her if he
was really like Hannibal must have been world-shattering for her. Hannibal sent
Will to her as surely as if they had carpooled together.I would like to know what Will thought he was doing with Chiyoh.
Did he think he saved her and was keeping her safe? Was he going to let her be present for the catharsis
of Hannibal’s death, or was she like the sacrificial lamb being led up the
altar, kept on the hoof until it was time to make the grand gesture? Maybe Will
thought killing Chiyoh in front of Hannibal was the closest he could get to
smashing Hannibal’s teacup without slashing his own throat. Will does have a
vision of Chiyoh pierced through with antlers, which is generally not a positive
sign.When Will tells her
that Hannibal enjoys distress, she says “I’m not in distress.”"Not anymore,” Will says, still taking credit for
“freeing” her from the detente with the Prisoner.Chiyoh is no hapless damsel (she is not in distress). She is
capable of violence when it is appropriate, but without the relish she sees
Will has. She killed the Prisoner, but it was Will who did the arts and crafts
with his body. Chiyoh, with her practical approach to violence, was done when
the Prisoner was dead. The threat was neutralized and there was no need for the
artistic flourishes. She was sending no love letters.Chiyoh had her own plans and they were not to be led by a halter to her possible demise.
She goes off with Will, not passively, but with an agenda. If she knew Hannibal was in Florence all along, she knew that she and
Will would be headed in the same direction. Traveling with him, she can keep an eye on him.In the meantime, she has to
endure his company. Will wants to chat her up, even after she drops the broad
hint that she isn’t used to talking this much, having lived a very solitary life
for the past few years. Will cannot resist prompting Chiyoh to talk and under
his questioning, she relives her early memories of Hannibal. Surprisingly, Will seems to want to talk about murder more than
Hannibal. He keeps poking at Chiyoh about the murder, asking if she’s thinking
about killing the Prisoner, seeing that scene in her head over and over.No, she tells him. “I see you,” she says, clear about
who got her into this mess.Time and again, Chiyoh rejects Will’s attempts to define her. She
says she feels Hannibal left her standing still, like taxidermy. “Hollowed
out and filled with something else,” Will says, but Chiyoh rejects that.
“I’m not as malleable as you,” she says.Hannibal might have
been able to make her stand still, but even that is an accomplishment because
he could not make her move forward into a glorious becoming. Like
Bedelia said in Antipasto, with Hannibal in the picture, sometimes controlling
one’s own thoughts is victory enough. Hannibal could keep her from moving forward,
but he couldn’t divert her onto a different route.That Chiyoh eventually jettisons Will was not as surprising as
her going with him in the first place. If her intention was to go with
Will and when the time was right, slow him down so she could get there first,
she did it in fine style. Good for Chiyoh for not feeling indebted to Will
for freeing her from her Hannibal-induced situation.Maybe she would have tried to seduce Will if she felt he could
be seduced. But since violence is what Will understands, she speaks his
language to him very clearly, right over the side of a railing.
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