After finally watching the film, a moral question swept over me: is Hannibal good or evil?

Negative: He eats people and is on the run from the law.
Positive: He only eats bad people and is quite charismatic, charming and noble.

Or is he just perhaps a Neutral, as a mixture of both?

[ 07-16-2004, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Jaradu ]

Evil, it doesn't matter if he eats bad or good people, he terrorizes them and I don't get the idea he's doing it for the good of humanity...

Chaotic evil. Hell, I'm so out of it, I thought you were talking about the Carthaginan general.

i think he is doing it on a neutral evil. cannibalism is bad. but he does it because he doesnt like them (people i mean) in the first place and wont hesistate to kill innocents if it interfere with his plans.

[ 07-16-2004, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Harkoliar ]

Well, why is cannibalism bad, exactly?

I'm just curious...

I mean, consider that yes, he is a sadist, yes, he is clearly insane, but he does it all in consistency to a (rather harsh) moral code.

Killed Raspail to improve the quality of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra... He then served Raspail to the directors of the orchestra...

I think as an intelligent species we are supposed to realize that cannibalism is self destructive behaviour.

In silence of the lambs, he claims he hates bad manners. While breaking major moral standards (eating people), he believes in trivial social standards. He believes that morality is abitrary. Therefore, he is an ammoralist.

Hannibal is an insane genius, true neutral evil. He doesn't really make a difference between eating good or bad people.

Ha has a good taste of wine though. :D

I doubt Hannibal sees himself or what he does as evil... Rather, he has a warped view of morality... Which raises an interesting question. Do intent or actions make one good or evil? In my opinion, it's a sliding scale, a balance of the two. But where does that leave our dear Hannibal? Near the evil end of the spectrum, but not completely without morals.

Hannibal eats people who annoy him. Would we call someone who shoots people who annoy him evil? That's a basic characteristic of an evil person, immortalized in stories like "he was so mean he once shot a man for snoring too loud."

But he's way cool.