There's a wonderful new neighbor that's just moved in down the block, a middle aged man
who seems to always have a polite word to say to everyone as you come across his path.
His front lawn is always perfectly manicured, and his small home seems to always be kept
in impeccable order.
He's charming, and can hold a conversation on a variety of topics, and it's clear he's
extremely intelligent.
Then one night he invites you over to dinner- yes, just you, in fact he's insistent on this.
Strangely though he doesn't bother to ask you what your appetite is like, or what you
like or dislike to eat.
Actually, he doesn't even mention the menu at all.
As you enter his home he quickly locks the door behind you and ushers you into his very
chic dining room, even offers to pour you a nice glass of Chianti.
Right about then is when it slowly starts to dawn on you why your kindly new neighbor-
Mr. Lecter was it?- never bothered to mention the menu... because it's you that's on the
menu.
So you've been taken hostage by a superintelligent mass murdering cannibalistic serial killer
that's hellbent on making you his main course- how in the world are you going to get out
of this one?
As usual in order to defeat your enemy, you must understand your enemy.
Hannibal Lecter was born on January 20th, 1933 in an ancient castle in Lithuania- the
name of the town being one that we didn't feel like torturing our narrator with trying
to pronounce.
Born into a wealthy order of Lithuanian aristocrats, Lecter comes from a long line of distinguished
European royalty, and very clearly carries the nobility of his birth in the way he speaks
and moves.
It is rumored that Lecter was also related to a ruthless 12th century man known as Giuliano
Bevisangue, who was himself a descendant of the infamous Machiavelli line and whose name
literally means blood-drinker.
Though Lecter furiously pursued research into any possible links to Mr. Blood-Drinker, he
was unable to confirm the heritage and we can't blame him because if we could claim
a familial relationship to someone named blood-drinker, we would legally change our name immediately.
An extremely gifted child, Lecter was beloved by his father who invested greatly into his
education, teaching him English and German along with his native Lithuanian.
When he was six years old his mother gave birth to his sister, Mischa, and the two very
quickly cemented a strong bond.
Unfortunately Lecter's childhood bliss would be shattered when on July 23rd, 1941, the
Nazis overran his family castle as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi plan to have
the Soviets destroy them completely.
Lecter was forced to flee to a lodge in the forest where his family was forced to live
off the land, feeding on wild game caught by his father whom then taught Lecter to hunt.
In hindsight, that might've been a bad idea, but identifying cannibalistic serial killing
tendencies in young children is notoriously difficult to do.
One day though a Soviet tank stopped by the lodge and the crew demanded water.
Suddenly a German Stuka fighter-bomber struck the tank, blowing it up and killing Lecter's
entire family except for himself and his little sister.
Then a few days later, a group of Lithuanians who had joined the Nazis stumbled upon the
lodge and held Lecter and his sister captive.
When food ran out and the winter seemed like it would refuse to let up, the group killed
and ate Mischa, which scarred young Hannibal Lecter for life.
Later, he would say that this destroyed his faith in God, and that he no longer believed
there was any real justice in the world.
When the captors left the lodge, Lecter was left to wander the forest alone with a shackle
around his neck.
That shackle would end up scarring him for life, the skin around his neck rubbing raw
and never truly healing.
Eventually a group of Soviet tankers found Lecter and brought him back to his family's
castle which had been turned into an orphanage, and there Lecter stayed until he was adopted
by his aunt.
Falling in love with his aunt, Lecter would commit his first murder when a local butcher
insulted her, and Lecter stabbed him to death, then sliced off his cheeks and ate them, his
first act of cannibalism- though the Lithuanian men who had eaten his sister claimed that
he had also partaken in the feast, so the point is a bit murky.
What is extremely clear though is that from this first murder Lecter would grow up to
become a prodigal murderer and cannibal, until his capture in 1975.
Though the court would find him insane, it ultimately spared him the death penalty and
he was instead sent to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane to serve
out nine consecutive life terms.
He would eventually escape even his custom-made high security cell, which he earned after
ripping out a nurse's eye, dislocating her jaw, and biting off and eating her tongue.
For his escape, Lecter would top his previous brutality though by severely wounding a police
officer and then skinning his face off and wearing it as a mask as he fled to safety.
Physically speaking, Hannibal Lecter is on the wrong side of middle age, but is by no
means a weak old man.
His sheer brutality is enough to see him rip people's tongues off with his teeth, and that
kind of raw violence and the willingness to commit it is a strength all its own.
The fact that such animal savagery is backed up by one of society's keenest intellects
is all the more terrifying.
So just how in the world are you going to defeat him?
First, forget about trying to outsmart Lecter- we don't care how clever you think you are
in the comment section or how sick your burns are, Lecter is on a totally different level
and will outthink you three ways from Friday.
In fact, trying to outwit Lecter has often been his victim's greatest mistakes- that
and falling for another of Lecter's unique talents, hiding his violent predisposition
under the guise of civility.
We've all seen the movie where the victim realizes that the neighbor next door is the
serial killer, which means you, the audience, knows he's the killer, the victim knows he's
the killer, and the killer knows he's the killer and that the victim knows he's the
killer.
And yet in every single movie, the killer will politely invite the victim into a situation
that places them in danger, and the victim agrees.
Why?
Because of the social contract we all buy into that forces us to maintain the illusion
of polite civility, even when we're about to have our face eaten by a cannibal.
Lecter is a pro at using this unwitting social contract to lure his victims to their own
demise, and you can bet that even as you're realizing that this wonderful new neighbor
is going to eat your most delicate bits and pieces, he's still going to try to use this
social pressure to lower your defenses and seal your doom.
Instead, we're going to take a page out of Lecter's own book and tap into the more wild
side of mankind.
It's said that civilization is nothing more than a thin veneer over the true, savage nature
of man, and that it takes very little to pull that veneer back and unleash the animal within.
Many sociologists fear what would happen to modern civilization should our daily conveniences
fail en masse one day, and stay down for a prolonged period of time.
How long would civilization stay... well, civil, if the power went out for a week.
For a month.
For a year?!
How about fresh water, pumped directly into your tap?
How long would the average person stay polite and conscientious of the law as resources
run out?
Our personal guess is that it would be a matter of days, and events like the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005 bear witness to how quickly even our mightiest cities can
fall into chaos and lawlessness.
So to win this fight, you're gonna have to get to Katrina-levels of uncivilized behavior,
you're gonna have to make yourself an animal.
Pretend PUBG's servers were down, for an entire day, or that YouTube was failing to post your
brilliant comeback on every single comments section fight you got into.
Get in touch with what it would feel like to have the conveniences and indulgences of
modern life stripped away, let the rage build and push you over the edge.
To beat Lecter, you're going to have to get brutal- like, gouge-out-eyes-and-rip-out-tongues-and-eat-them
level of brutal.
Sheer animal ferocity is going to win you this fight, because you can't out think Lecter,
and you can't out maneuver him.
Sure, you think you can get up off the table and run away, maybe find a weapon to arm yourself
with- but you're inside his house that he invited you into, don't you think he's planned
every possible scenario out already?
You're sitting in a big, fat trap, and now its jaws are closing around you and in minutes
Lecter is going to be grilling you up and storing the leftovers in tupperware.
But you can take advantage of Lecter's hubris, because the last thing he would expect is
that you would be willing to forego our polite social contract and jump straight into an
animalistic frenzy.
See, Lecter doesn't just believe he's smarter than you, he believes he's more savage than
you, so you need to prove him wrong.
Leap up on that table and howl at the moon, grab the nearest sharp object and commit yourself
to a fight to the death.
Then when you survive your death match you'll have plenty of time to get back in touch with
your humanity from inside prison, because you did initiate the attack after all and
good luck convincing a jury that the kindly, charismatic Doctor Lecter was actually going
to eat you.
How would you defeat Hannibal Lecter?
Let us know in the comments, and as always if you enjoyed this video don't forget to
Like, Share, and Subscribe for more great content!