10 Movie Character Backstories Revealed Years Later
1. Hannibal Lecter Accidentally Ate His Own Sister - Hannibal Rising
Anthony Hopkins' delicious, Oscar-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter in 1991's The Silence of the Lambs immediately cemented the character as one of the most iconic and bone-chilling villains in the history of cinema.
Yet another 15 years passed before audiences were fully clued in on the precise nature of how Lecter became a cannibal, as was finally revealed in Thomas Harris' 2006 prequel novel Hannibal Rising (which was adapted into a bad movie the next year).
But first, the 1999 novel Hannibal revealed that while living in Lithuania during World War II, Hannibal's younger sister Mischa was captured by a group of Nazi collaborators, killed, and then eaten.
Hannibal Rising then expands upon this, with the leader of the collaborators, Vladis Grutas (Rhys Ifans), revealing to an older Hannibal that he also unknowingly consumed some of his sister's remains in a broth, effectively setting him on his murderous, cannibalistic path in later life.
Though many have taken umbrage with Harris over-explaining Lecter's origins over the years, it's nothing if not an appropriately disturbing rationale for his dining habits.