Some victims he knew well, as in the case of Inspector Pazzi, and in others, such as the census taker, he knew barely at all, killing on a whim because the census taker's profession offended him. The thing that separates Lecter from the average serial killer is that he takes no trophies, things to remind him of the event so he may relive his fantasy. But what drives such a fantasy? And where does it come from?.
The Psychoanalytic approach to Lecter's personality, and perhaps the source of his psychopathology, is rooted in childhood. According to the books, Lecter was born in eastern Europe just before WWII. Raised in aristocracy, his parents were killed during the war. Near the end of the war, Nazi deserters set themselves up at the Lecter estate to wait out the winter. The winter is apparently a harsh one, and the Nazis begin to eat the children as there is no other food. This traumatic set of circumstances culminates in the death of Hannibal's sister, Mischa. Lecter sees her led of and then butchered, and then later on sees some of her teeth in the stool of one of his captors. These events are the primary cause of his psychopathology, no doubt, and go to explain why he chooses his victims the way he does. .
Obviously Lecter sees the Nazis as sub-human, and therefore he choose victims, men, he sees as petty and uncouth. These men are his way of dealing with the trauma of his sisters death, that is, they represent his sisters murderers that he was so helpless to defend against as a small boy. The opulence in which he prepares his victims is another sign of his disgust with the Nazis. He knows he is better than them, and so he must consume the flesh of his victims in the most sophisticated way possible. .
All these traumatic childhood events encompass Lecter's fantasy, that is, to slay Mischa's killers and restore her to her proper, aristocratic place in the world. This explains his infatuation with Starling, who serves as his surrogate Mischa.
