Well, how to put it, then...
The show has a core trio of main characters. There is the detective played by Lawrence Fishburne, who is a strong commander type.
The hyper-empathic profiler is a quasi-Autistic/Asperger type who became a lecturer because he didn't want to talk to people who could talk back- he hates social situations.
And then there is Lecter, who, lizard like, is constantly keeping his distance while being hyper analytical. And yes, he is already a monster at the time of the series' pilot, but only the audience knows it. He has been called in partly to help Fishburne's character deal with the profiler; keep him intact and functioning, partly to lend his own insights to the cases.