It was never queerbaiting, but it also was much more nuanced than just shipping two characters and then waiting for their connection to be confirmed as explicitly romantic.

Will and Hannibal have something far more intimate, and it’s no coincidence that both characters also each possess heightened states of awareness (empathy for Will, smell for Hannibal); they both understand one another so deeply that it makes the moral struggle for Will’s soul at the center of their conflict all the more meaningful. Neither wants to be the other’s enemy, and their intimacy and connection makes it one of the most compelling relationships in any series.

In many ways, they complete one another, but their entire story has a tragic quality of being doomed from the outset, since there’s no place in the world for the kind of existence Hannibal tries to tempt Will with. It’s a tragic romance that makes for one of the best “hero”-villain dynamics ever explored.