Hmm so a perspective I think I’ve seen crop up in meta before, but that I don’t really buy, concerns taking this line from Bedelia in 3.10:
You couldn’t save Hannibal. Do you think you can save this new one?
because I’ve seen people imply that Bedelia was correct in her assumptions about Will here, but I’ve honestly never gotten the impression that Will wanted to “save” Hannibal at all.
“This new one” can only refer to Dolarhyde (touched on only elliptically in this scene), and I think it’s fair to say that Will does have some investment in “saving” Dolarhyde, by some definition of that word - hence his attachment to the idea that Dolarhyde might be trying to stop killing. But I don’t think that he at any point wants to save Hannibal. He spends 3A trying to understand Hannibal better, but it doesn’t seem as though he wants to use that understanding to “redeem” Hannibal or save him from his worst impulses. In fact, he actively rejects the idea that Hannibal’s backstory can explain the person he is now (“Mischa doesn’t explain Hannibal… she doesn’t quantify what he does”), or that Hannibal is capable of being redeemed. My impression is that, consistently through seasons two and three, he thinks of Hannibal as an immutable force, one he can either resist or submit to. (And of course, he opts to resist at the close of the first half of season 3, and ends the show by submitting.)
So I think the investment Will may have in saving Dolarhyde stems from his identification with Dolarhyde, especially in the fact that Dolarhyde becomes another pupil of Hannibal (and Will uses their shared role vis a vis Hannibal to manipulate Dolarhyde in WOTL). His theory that Dolarhyde is trying to stop is perhaps wrapped up in his own desire to resist Hannibal, and by extension his own violent urges. And perhaps that sheds more meaning on “I don’t think I can save myself, but maybe that’s just fine.” But any desire to “save” Dolarhyde seems much more based in a desire to save himself than a desire to save Hannibal.
And this dialogue from Bedelia is in the same scene as the wounded bird exchange. Bedelia instructing Will to crush the wounded bird, instead of save it, makes the most sense when read as her trying to get Will to kill Hannibal (in the same way she tried to get Hannibal to kill Will in 3A). But there’s no indication to me that Will thinks of Hannibal specifically as a wounded bird. In fact, it’s easier to argue that Bedelia saw Hannibal that way - she and Will discuss her continuation of her role as Hannibal’s psychiatrist, and that’s contrasted with her “crushing” Neal Frank, and her acknowledgment of how unevenly distributed her compassion was towards her two patients. So when she tells Will, “the next time you have an instinct to help someone, you might consider crushing them instead”, she’s actively trying to redirect his impulses, but I think also alluding to the shift in her approach towards Hannibal from 3A to 3B.
All of that is to say - I think Bedelia’s assumption that Will was motivated to “save” Hannibal is perhaps a case of projection on her part.
And Bedelia’s perception of Will changes throughout this arc. Although in 3.10 she’s very convinced that Will isn’t a true killer, she gradually comes to realize just how actively allied with Hannibal’s interests he is, whether he realizes it or not. The turning point for her is, I believe, 3.12, in the aftermath of the Chilton affair, when she recognizes Will as Hannibal’s “agency in the world.” Although Will does end up crushing Dolarhyde, he opts to help Hannibal. But it’s not rehabilitative help, it’s collaborative. And I think Bedelia becomes steadily more aware of that throughout this arc.
