Question about The Silence of the Lambs

Ok makes sense. Thanks

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I’m assuming Buffalo Bill is the one who shoved that moth cocoon down that victim’s throat that Sterling found. Did he want to get caught? He knew it was a rare specimen.

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From what I remember, it was a calling card I presume.

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In the movie, the moths are just there in his basement.

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In the movie, one of the moth cocoons is down the throat of one of his victims.

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Gumb killed him and put the chrysalis down his throat to represent his upcoming change. Or something like that!

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In the book, I also remember Lecter talking about the pupa as
"imago," which had relevance to Gumb's perception of his parents, specifically, his mom. I don't remember the details, but she was part of his fantasy/pathology.

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One was found in the first girls throat and one was found in Benjamin Raspels severed head. The head agent Starling found in that old storage building.

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Forgot about Benjamin Raspels. I don't really remember making that connection correctly.

So Lector treated Gumb, and knew he killed Benjamin, correct?

Raspel was a patient of lecter iirc

I think he had a suspicion and once he saw the evidence he knew as much as possible. The movie never let on that he knew about the moth in Raspels head. Starling told him that there was something stuffed into the first girls throat and Lector guessed “was it a moth?” And then Starling said “just like the one we found in Raspels head”. Lector sounded slightly surprised when Starling told him about the object so it wasn’t clear if he knew about the one in Raspels head. Raspels head was in a jar in some liquid and Lector said he left it as he found it.

The movie may have changed things up a little but this is where the moth came from:

After prison, Gumb began working in a Baltimore Curio store, where he met and began a relationship with Benjamin Raspail, despite the fact that Gumb wasn't gay. During this time, according to Raspail, Gumb had killed a bag lady. He had been fired from the curio store and stole a suitcase from an employer. While in his room, he opened the case to find hundreds of moths and butterflies. Raspail then ended his relationship with Gumb, in favor of a Norwegian sailor named Klaus. Gumb later murdered Klaus out of jealously, and created an apron from his skin. He took Klaus' decapitated head and inserted a moth in his throat, then placed it within a jar, which he stashed within a car in an impound warehouse owned by Raspail. Gumb had then, over a period of time following the murder of his ex-lover's boyfriend, began applications for gender reassignment surgery. He applied to schools such as Johns Hopkins. However, all of his applications were declined by, as he was deemed too psychologically disturbed. He roughed up a doctor due to being turned down. In early 1975 he was introduced to Dr Hannibal Lecter through Raspail and had just one session. Lecter would end up being arrested for a series of murders himself, Raspail being his ninth victim.

Fun fact. Buffalo Bill actor played police chief Stottlemeyer on Monk.