Hannibal takes a tired old trope (the brilliant detective who Gets Too Close) melds it with another tired old trope (Faustian bargain) and by embracing them, instead of trying to rehab them, it somehow makes them new.
Cop with Issues who is tempted by his own demons–that’s nothing new. Sometimes he conquers those demons and its a triumph and sometimes he doesn’t and that’s a tragedy. But the evil that tempts him is amorphous. Often the evil is him falling prey to ends-justify-the-means thinking. At least at first, he means well. Then its a slippery slide into bad deeds he can’t extract himself from, or madness as he tries to keep himself afloat in a sea of darkness
The Detective gets Too Close to his subject, but we never see the subject getting too close right back. The criminal, the serial killer, the Evil incarnate is a blank. We might get his backstory, we might even hope for redemption, but we never even think that he might be seduced right back.
But what if Evil was a person? The person isn’t the conduit to the Evil. He isn’t the apple, he’s the serpent. The person is the Evil. Its the ultimate Faustian bargain. Will doesn’t show any greed for money. He shuns acclaim. He shuts down his student’s praise of him. So what can the devil offer–except himself. You want to know and understand evil? Here I am. You want to change evil? You already have.
Yes. And also – is this basically Caleb Williams??? I haven’t read it in years, but whoa. The parallels suddenly strike me.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/22ARd82