The game of which Siouxsie sings
There are three negative cyclical patterns built into Hannibal and Will’s relationship. The first two are abusive dynamics, because they have to do with what gets Hannibal off and Will doesn’t (at first) knowingly consent to them. I think of them as the “intrinsic problem”and the “extrinsic problem,” although that is not strictly correct and in any case they are closely entwined.
The extrinsic problem is the glaring – because v.v. weird – one: Hannibal wants Will to murder (and eat, although that’s not actually very important) other people with him, because he feels lonely and misunderstood. The intrinsic problem is much less weird and much less talked about: Hannibal is a sadist, it excites him when Will is in distress, and he’ll engineer the distress if he has to (a form of Munchausen by proxy). In both cases, Will starts in a position of complete lack of knowledge/consent, and ends in a position where he knows and is arguably in control of what is happening.
The third negative cyclical pattern is Will trying to kill Hannibal, and repeatedly failing. This also gets Hannibal off, because he takes it as proof of Will’s love.
In addition to this – hyperfashionist pointed it out the other day – so much Karpman Drama Triangle! Though Will accuses Hannibal of wanting to isolate him, it’s Hannibal who introduces the third person to their relationship 80% of the time: “Lucy and the football” was the more accurate analogy, as Hannibal wants complete control over the triangulation pattern – they are in when he says so and out (minus a limb here or a facial feature there) when he says so. I touched on it in this post, but the pattern is more general than that.
I built a table in a Word document. I will CP it into this Tumblr post behind the cut. This will be a HILARIOUS ADVENTURE.