10 Movie Mysteries That Should NEVER Have Been Answered

This movie villain of the absolute highest calibre almost got away with it. Four movies (one non canon), three books in and all we had on Lecter was a bloody napkin and a recipe for “a notable dark and glossy ragout, the constituents never determined... "

Lecter was, is and always will be, a cannibal. A human but a murderer and a consumer of human flesh nonetheless. His intellect provides us with two things: character and method. The rest is simply circumstantial window dressing.

Lecter is so appealing as he is brazenly unapologetic about not only his predilections but of his very existence. He is a fictional force of nature, like a demon or a vampire; there is no real humanity here, if there was he would be severely limited in his chosen hobbies. The structures of any rational society would either, as Lecter himself says, "kill me or give me back my books."

Writer and creator Thomas Harris was given an impossible choice - get on board with the Lecter origin story or we'll find someone who will. Begrudgingly forced to either write Hannibal Rising or watch someone else demystify his life's work, he chose the former.

Hannibal Rising disappointingly applies the usual psycho-babble to explain his fondness for human flesh; the horrors of WW2 and issues with his sister's death. We just didn't need to know.