Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a charachter from Thomas Harris' series of suspense novels. Portayed most famously by both Anthony Hopkins, in the movie adaptation and Mads Mikkelsen in the Television series, Hannibal is is arguably the most famous cannibal serial killer in fiction. he still follows a moral code; imparting a unique style of chaotic justice on the people around him.
Harris' novels were monstrously successful due in part to Dr. Lecter's cultured, appreciative, and sophisticated nature. A man of impeccable taste and vast intellect, Lecter is subtextually played as being Lucifer in the flesh.
For many years it was believed that The character of hannibal was based upon real life serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy's charm and intelligence can be seen in Hannibal's personality, however it was later revealed by Harris to be untrue. Dr. Lecter was based upon a serial killer Harris encounted in Mexico in the 60's while working as a reporter.
"Dr. Salazar was a small, lithe man with dark red hair. He stood very still and there was a certain elegance about him... (After talking to him for a while)... the warden walked me out. I thanked him for his time... I asked how long Dr. Salazar had worked there. 'Hombre (man)! Don't you know who that is?'... The warden turned to me on the steps, 'The doctor is a murderer. As a surgeon, he could package his victim in a surprisingly small box. He will never leave this place. He is insane..." -foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal Lecter was born in 1933 in Lithuania to a Lituanian Count and a Italian nobel woman.Making Hannibal or royal blood. He lived his life devoted to his Younger sister Misha. As the WWII came to a close, Nazi turncoats and others fleeing the Russian advance into Germany hid out on the Lecter estate estate. He parents were murdered first by the intruders. Keeping them hostage, the deserters ran out of food in the harsh winter and eventually cannibalized his sister. eventually Hannibal found his sister's remains which sparking his obsession with cannibalism and rendering him temporarily mute.It was also at this moment that he lost his belief in God. Televisions Hannible adaptation took this story in a different direction. Hannibal still becomes an orphan but he is the one who eats his sister to survive. He later escaped from the deserters and hid in an orphanage, where he was found by his uncle and his uncle's Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. He later recounts to clarice starling (Bedelia Du Maurier in the TV redention) that nothing special made him into the killer that he is.
"Nothing happened to me-- I happened." -Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal had a romatic relationship with his uncle's wife after his death. She is unable to turn him from his obsession with avenging his sister. He eventually hunts down and kills his sister's murders. In the TV adaptation, Hannibals first murders mimic those of renaissance paintings. He is dubbed Il Mostro — the Monster of Florence. In his adulthood he is call Chesapeake Ripper. Lecter becomes a prominent and brilliant Doctor and later psychiatrist and part of Baltimore's high society. In the 1970's he commits a series of murders and attacks. Most of the victims are unnamed and is unknown what had happened to them. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and frequently kills people who have bad manners. He is shown in the TV show to keep a rollerdex of cards of the rude. Hannibal removes edible body parts from his victims corpses. A gourmet-level amateur chef, Hannibal then uses these body parts in elaborate dishes.
"Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude."- Hannibal lecter, NBC's Hannibal
Hannibal possesses a very convoluted and impenetrable personality. It is impossible to determine exactly what mental illness he suffers from, or even if he suffers from one at all, as his knowledge and training enable him to outsmart the standard tests with minimal effort. Lecter is believed to be a sociopath. In the TV Show, psychological profiling can only begin to guess at what Hannibal's underlying motivations for murder are, much less his thought processes. As his own psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier put it, she could only catch brief glimpses of who the real Hannibal was. Will Graham has come the closest of anyone to understanding Hannibal's mentality. Although he has no remorse and tortured animals as a child, he does not exhibit other traits traditionally linked to antisocial personality disorder: he is not shallow or exploitative. His personality In both the books and the TV show resemble that of narcissistic personality disorder. Dr. Lecter believes that He is above the majority of mankind. Hannibal kills and eats people because he sees it as the ultimate way of humiliating those he sees as annoying, unintelligent wastes of space.