If Hannibal can't be saved than neither can Starling, neither can Dante, and neither can you. Back in the livestock pen, Hannibal is waiting while Starling looks on. Behind a slatted gate, a pack of man-eating boars slobber and squeal, the smell of human flesh already in their considerable snouts. Soon the eater will be eaten. Moved by duty to the law, or perhaps by perverse attachment, Starling cuts him from his cross.
Bullets fly, the beasts rush into the pit, and suddenly it is Starling who needs saving.
Lifting her from the ground, Hannibal stands in the chaos and walks calmly from the horror that ensues. His tormentors are left to face the punishment they planned. Christ's three-day raid on the realm of the dead, through which he rescued all the righteous souls unlucky enough to have been born before he was. From certain descent to improbable ascension, the Divine Comedy is a retelling of this defining story, and Hannibal is another. Taken from his cross, Hannibal does for Starling as Jesus did for Moses, as Virgil did for Dante.