radiomeow:

The problem with all the 3×12 reviews calling out Will for being so clueless, despite being an empath is that they’re missing the entire point of the question.

To be an effective empath requires, at minimum, a fraction of objectivity. (Will is most efficient when he comes into a situation with little to no prior information)

We know Will and Hannibal are so emotionally intimate that Will can’t separate his thoughts from Hannibal’s. We know Will is basically a broken record with the “We are one in the same.”

Will cannot distinguish his own feelings from Hannibal’s, so although he asks BDM “Is Hannibal in love with me?”, what he’s really asking is “Am I projecting my own emotions on Hannibal or is he really in love with me?”

He requires someone with just enough objectivity (about Will, at least) to confirm the reality. His lack of response to her follow up “Do you ache for him?” is appropriate because it is rhetorical.

The answer was in the asking of the question in the first place. Had Will not been in love with Hannibal, he would have possessed the objectivity needed to figure out the answer himself.