Source
r/SuccessionTV•
shindigmachine

What’s a line or scene that many take at face-value, but you think is a lie or inaccurate?

Spoiler

Since I’m getting into “pet peeve” territory I want to start by saying that this sub is fantastic overall. By far the sources of succession analysis that annoy me most are at other places, like podcasts, YouTube comments, twitter, etc.. One thing that has annoyed me surrounding this show (and this is partially due to it being out for a short time, so less obvious interpretations haven’t grown mainstream in the community) is taking characters’ words at face value in a show that’s about habitual liars and people who aren’t honest with themselves.

The big example for this is Logan saying he wants his kids to be “killers.” I’m cheating on this one since my interpretation is partially confirmed by Jesse Armstrong in his interview post-s3 with The Ringer (Edit: here’s the episode, it’s at 20:40, my paraphrasing isn’t perfect and Jesse is an interesting talker). They asked him (paraphrased) “Logan has said he values his successor to be a ‘killer.’ Is Tom metaphorically becoming a ‘killer’ in the s3 finale?” and Jesse essentially says that possibly from one perspective, but adds that he personally, when watching a show or movie, tends to distrust what characters say about themselves and their motivations, and that they may be wrong about it even internally. This suggests that Logan may not actually value the characteristics of a “killer” at all, except in himself. This isn’t rock-solid proof but all of Logan’s actions point to him actually wanting a meek, subservient child (and he doesn’t want a successor).

I’m not immune to taking words at face-value (I’ve looked for the word gullible on the ceiling a few times) so I was hoping to re-examine some scenes and find more interesting interpretations with this post.

Posted Feb 16, 2023, 5:58 AM UTC · edited

7058
MikeStanley00•

This dynamic is at the heart of Logan. His pride wants a child that is strong enough to kill him, but he’s not able to accept the consequences of that:

“He never saw anything he loved that he didn't want to kick it, just to see if it would still come back."

99
Upset_Barracuda_4499•

Logan’s ruthlessness originates from growing up with poverty and extreme abuse—Brian Cox talks about this on one of the podcasts. He may not have been the most demonstrative father but he didn’t raise his kids in near the same manner.

None of them have the hunger (literal or figurative) that he does because they know nothing but extreme wealth. Roman is the only one who comes close but Roman’s ambition is driven by his desire to keep wealth rather than understanding what it’s like to be hungry.

It’s the age old conundrum—the ruthless leader wants to make sure their kids don’t struggle like he did, and he ends up with kids that lack the drive and competence to follow in his footsteps.

27
80alleycats•

It's the cycle of abuse. Logan didn't physically harm his kids to the extent that Noah did (mostly - I think some of Roman's intimacy issues come from Logan's physical abuse), but he absolutely abused them emotionally. He wants kids with the confidence and individuality that comes from growing up in a loving home with emotionally mature adults. He didn't give them that and there is no shortcut they can take to get it.

19
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

Roman’s ambition seems solely driven by receiving love from his dad and not much else. Kendall is the only one that remotely appears driven beyond just what Logan wants for him. None the less, Logan’s abuse has weakened every single one of them.

I also don’t personally buy that Logan truly grew up poor tbh. Logan rewrites everything in his life to justify a specific narrative he has for himself.

8
EmmyT2000If it is to be said, so it be, so it is •

I don't know about that. Shiv doesn't seem driven to be what her father wants her to be, if anything he wants it to stick it to him.

1
Mismadoodle•

Shiv gave up a solid job in politics because she thought her dad would finally give her some kudos (in the form of the company).

10
Upset_Barracuda_4499•

That’s interesting because I don’t connect Roman’s ambition as being driven by seeking love from his dad. I’ve always thought his ambition was driven purely by money—keeping it, getting more of it, and looking down on those who don’t have it. But that’s just my read.

-5
oapictures•

I think Tom genuinely likes Hamilton.

66
littlewoolhat•

I have this whole headcanon that once Hamilton came out, Kendall (obsessed with rap and seeming progressive) wouldn't shut the fuck about it. I think that Tom's hatred of Hamilton is deep and personal lol.

41
DontCallMeShirley747•

Love this comment

3
AJSopranosEyebrows•

Tom sees through the neoliberal schtick of rich people "loving" Hamilton just because it was the de jour thing to have access to.

24
80alleycats•

Bless Succession for this call out, honestly.

8
EmmyT2000If it is to be said, so it be, so it is •

Hamilton effin sucks. I have no idea why anyone with the access to the best opera and theatre tickets would genuinely enjoy a cringey musical.

Edit: LMAO at the triggered Americans. Sorry, it's low quality revisionist bullshit. Music for the masses, American specialty.

-1†
Xena_broTom Wambs•

Americans love rewriting history. Who wouldn’t want to turn the biography of a hot-tempered, anti-democratic, slavery apologist into an inspirational story about a poor “immigrant” who climbed into the highest levels of society on his own (with the help of his slave trading in-laws) and single handedly built this deeply flawed republic?

7
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
AJSopranosEyebrows•

Hamilton is for people who have either never heard rap, or never heard a musical.

3†
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

Shiv telling Tom she doesn’t love him. Controversial but I’m standing with it.

60
shmiishmo•

Agreed. That scene coming just a couple after the quote about Logan kicking things to see if they’ll come back is obviously intentional. That’s shiv doing the exact same thing.

39
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

Shiv literally comes into the scene manic, and talking about having a baby to prove her mother wrong. The conversation with her mother, and the implication of how Logan maneuvers, very much set everything off. She was very clearly not in her right mind. She was even talking about allowing Logan to keep kicking her for 5 to 10 more years. I feel like a lot of people just treat that conversation with her mother as completely unrelated to what happened with Tom later in the episode. Shiv was very clearly hurt by that conversation, but instead of sitting with that hurt, she made it clear she’s going to keep chasing her dad’s approval no matter how much it hurts her, and try to ‘outdo’ her mother, to prove her wrong. If this warped sex game had happened under different circumstances I might be inclined to think she was being more truthful, but really this was just a case of hurt people hurting people, mixed in with some projection. Tom was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Shiv’s sense of rejection and pain just boiled over on to Tom. Tom became her puppy.

11
NonaDePlumeAcceptable Face of the Worst Family in America•

Damn, excellent. Talk about taking things at face value! I'm giving you a poor girls Gold for clueing me into this one. Imd, I was so jarred by what she said I didn't think it thru properly.

🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆

3
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

To be fair, I was just horrified the first time I saw it. That was one of the harshest things said on the show, but on rewatch it became more clear that she was obsessing over the conversation with her mom, and everything she told Tom literally right before that suggested she was deeply triggered by that conversation and trying to ‘logic’ her way out of those feelings via defeating her brother, having a baby so she can prove her mother wrong, and justifying allowing her father to keep emotionally tormenting her for 5-10 more years, just so she can make him proud. If Kendall had spoken like that I think it would be much more obvious that he was experiencing an ‘episode’ but how she was breaking things down, made it a little less obvious, since Shiv is a lot less expressive. The flippant attitude Shiv had the next day, only further highlighted to me that she didn’t mean what she said. It also showed how detached Shiv is from feelings that she couldn’t even empathize with Tom. By that point she achieved what she was attempting to do the night before, push down the feeling of rejection and feeling alienated, and unloved, by her parents. Ultimately I think she expected Tom to take it as a ‘game’ like she said it was, and move on. That’s what she knows to do, that’s how she lives, and she expects him to do. Shiv might not love Tom in a super romantic ‘straight out of the movies’ kind of way, but she loves him in the fucked up dysfunctional way she understands love to be. The fact she loves him, makes the finale, and probably season 4, hit all that much harder.

2
shindigmachineOPnot real•

I agree. The common rebuttal would be “if she loves him why did she do [X]” but we can also ask “if he loves her why did he do [Y]” with Y including the s3 finale. It’s easy to see Tom’s feelings for Shiv on the surface, he’s not nearly as guarded about them and probably amplifies them. The relationship is a lot more interesting since there’s love there. Otherwise it would just be a critique on the emptiness of relationships in the billionaire class, Shiv would be completely closed off and Tom would be even more of a inveterate social climber than he already is, and that may well be true for real-life analogues but it’s not as dramatic.

Edit: added “analogues”

25
VanDammeJamBand•

She does lowkey go to bat for him a couple of times. On the yacht she almost tears up asking Logan to not have Tom take the fall. He probably would have gone with Ken anyway but I do think it had an effect on him.

19
VanDammeJamBand•

Also she seems to get genuinely upset when Tom has his bit about wondering if he’d be more or less sad without her in the same episode

22
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

She also tried to blackmail Gerri in season one to not only clear him of cruises but get him a promotion too. Technically until the bitter end of season 3, she had a (very loose) plan for both of them. Unfortunately, when you combine Greg planting the seed early on in season 1 that Shiv ratted him out to Gerri when it came to cruises, the decisions she makes in the interpersonal romantic part of her relationship, and the fact she’s not entirely advertising what it is she is doing for him (exception being getting him promoted to chairman of ATN), and an inability to healthily discuss how a traumatic discussion with her mother is making her feel, it can all lead to into a fucked up game where she takes the hurt and rejection she’s feeling, and throws it onto Tom. This makes the moment feel awful real, and for Tom, it was undoubtedly extremely real, given well, everything. How she perceives what she’s doing vs how Tom rightfully perceived it, were night and day though imo.

She started their conversation babbling about allowing her father to keep kicking her for 5 to 10 years, until he respects her. Then it went into ‘let’s have a baby so I can prove my mother wrong’. That is not someone thinking or acting rationally or lucidly. Shiv, imo, came across almost as manic as Kendall. She was processing heavy feelings, but not in a normal or healthy way, and it all bubbled up in a very messed up way - that she’s not able to perceive as messed up, because it’s her normal!

This ‘game’ and subsequent conversation likely would have never happened if Shiv hadn’t had a triggering conversation with her mom, shortly before. This isn’t to say Shiv wouldn’t have been emotionally abusive towards of her own doing at some other point, but I don’t think she meant what she said, nor do I think this scene was as straightforward as it initially appears.

9
80alleycats•

Agree. Shiv isn't heartless. She feels love. But she needs to act like it.

17
chickencake88•

I think this fired Shiv riiiight to the top of the worst kid list, for me anyway

0
Cold_Breadfruit_9794•

Really? This? Not the vehicular manslaughter? Supporting a fascist? Not the Logan-esque rant at the fellow siblings? Not the union busting? Not the fascist doomsday ideology? Not pushing a sibling at their lowest and harassing the others? The idea of Shiv being worse than her other siblings, is BS. She is by no means the worst sibling. Kendall barely treats Rava, or women in general, any better. Roman was horrific to Grace and sexually harassing Gerri. Connor can be quite manipulative and disrespectful of Willa’s boundaries. I’ll always side eye someone who says Shiv is the worst sibling, especially if they ignore the context of this particular interaction, and base their opinion solely on how she makes ‘Mr. misogynistic social climber who likes to use his employees as footstools and isn’t all that bothered by fascists’ feel.

13
80alleycats•

There was an article by Slate a while ago about Shiv and how shocking it was that Succession doesn't give you more reasons to root for her than for her siblings. The article kind of said "why is she here if she's just a failure all the time?" No one would ever ask that about a male character but with female characters (and characters of color) there's no interest in studying failure or the darker parts of their humanity. It's so frustrating.

5
chickencake88•

Waaaahhh chill out mate. I think they’re all relatively level, but that irked me massively. Side eye me all you want but that’s kinda why I love the show. I hate them all but I just hate Shiv that little bit more. And it’s nothing to do with her being female.

2
kend4llr0y•

but subconsciously it IS abt her being a female bc u cannot relate to her. after everything the other user said was done by male characters, the its the woman who cheats that milks the hatred out of you? I wonder why that is despite that logan has done everything shes done but like, 100x worse.

1
80alleycats•

Idk...if Logan wanted a submissive child, I think he'd be happy with Roman. Instead, he's disgusted by him and the love he so freely and persistently offers. Logan is a bully. I don't think any kid could satisfy him because the deficiencies he always finds are really with himself.

31
shindigmachineOPnot real•

He was happy with Kendall in season 2–about the only time we see him concerned or loving. I think the difference is that Kendall, when playing the good son, is fairly conventional on the surface level, and Roman is a ‘sicko’ in his eyes. But yeah he doesn’t really reward Roman for being submissive early on in the series. Maybe I overstated. All Jesse Armstrong “confirmed” is that we should question everything, and the show plays with ambiguity. I feel fairly confident that he doesn’t value “killer” characteristics in others, but his actual motivations are hard to say, since he’s confused about them himself (his scenes with Rava show this).

13
BronYrStomp•

Mmm I disagree. I think in Season 2 Logan is using Kendall as a prop. At one point Kendall says (and I agree) something along the lines of, “if I was no use to dad I don’t know where I’d be.” Logan keeps his kids close for optics or strategy, not out of any genuine fatherly care for them.

12
shindigmachineOPnot real•

Sure, my main evidence is that every time someone makes a “killer” move, he he either cuts them down or doesn’t care whatsoever. Shiv during the shareholder meeting, Roman delivering the letter to Kendall, Shiv talking to the cruises victim and setting up Rhea.

I do think he was genuinely concerned and loving to Kendall in s2 and has little (some, but little) resistance sending him to prison. He loves his kids as props, that’s the only time he can be loving. He doesn’t love them as autonomous human beings that can challenge him. It’s incredibly unhealthy but that’s my interpretation.

I also think there’s a trend of his fatherly care decreasing in s2 as Kendall starts making (in some ways) “killer” moves. Past the vaulter thing, and especially the congressional committee, he far more openly cruel.

6
BronYrStomp•

I agree to some extent. I think Logan wants his children to be killers, not just to act like killers. I really think Logan would be most proud/content if one of his children actually backstabbed him and won the company from him. In the end, I think that’s really what he wants to have happen, not just to hand the keys to whichever of them is able to please him most. I think Roman has the hardest time accepting that because all he wants to do is please his dad. He’s devout to a fault.

3
80alleycats•

Was he loving, though? He purposefully pitted Kendall against Roman and then made him gut Vaulter, his baby. He isolated Kendall by telling him that no one would understand what happened with the waiter, a typical abuser move. And then, at the end, when Kendall was strong again, he tried to knock him down by sending him to prison in his stead. If Logan wants a submissive child it's so he can bully that child. Pass the sin cake along.

3
shindigmachineOPnot real•

Logan wants a submissive child so he can bully that child.

No argument there lol. I agree he’s an abuser and enjoys abusing. My main thesis, that’s most well-supported, is that he doesn’t want a “killer” though, what do you think about that?

And I say loving mainly because Jesse Armstrong told Brian Cox he loves his kids, and I can fit my head around the idea of an abusive person loving or thinking they’re loving. And early s2 with Kendall is about the only time we see him act with fatherly concern, I think Safe Room is a big example of that, for a moment he seems just like a confused dad worried about Kendall’s well-being (edit: while Kendall isn’t around, so it doesn’t feel like manipulation). He doesn’t extend the same concern to Roman after he was in a literal hostage situation, and Roman had been rising in the succession power rankings.

Ultimately, love is just a word. I have no trouble with people saying he can’t truly love anyone, I just see it as an extremely twisted and unhealthy love.

2
littlewoolhat•

The only child Logan would be satisfied with is one that doesn't want his love. That's what's "wrong" with Roman, far more than his sexual dysfunction. Logan's immunity to wanting love is what allowed him to survive his abusive childhood, then to thrive in the business world. He wants to impart that same ruthlessness and invulnerability to his children because, in some fucked up way, he does love them, and he wants them to succeed. The trouble is, he can't see a path to success outside of the abusive one he forged himself.

Logan will only love Roman when Roman stops wanting it. What a family.

13
Competitive-Corn•

I think this is also why his relationship with Shiv deteriorates so quickly when she decides to join Waystar, admitting for the first time that she actually wants Logan to choose her and see her as an equal

They'd always had more of an affectionate parent/child relationship than with the other three siblings, but with the emotional armor of pretending she thought the business (and by extension, Logan) was against her values/uninteresting to her

9
80alleycats•

Good point. In a way it's almost harder for Shiv because, as a girl, she's the child whose love Logan feels most allowed to want because love is what women are good at (in his head). So Logan actually asks her to love him a few times and it's like...what can she do? Admit to loving him? That makes her weak in his eyes, puts her in her place as a girl. I don't remember the scenes exactly, but I think she dodges the question. Roman, Kendall, and Connor aren't generally asked to love Logan, though he does use the love he knows they have for him against them (like in the first episode where Kendall signs the papers without a lawyer and then goes to his party, all because he loves and trusts him - and Logan twists those into negative things).

3
BronYrStomp•

Connor was not interested in politics from a very young age.

31
HELLISHBEANLittle Lord Fuckleroy•

Connor is not the oldest son.

7
Critical_Ad_63•

I can handle the other lies but not this…

5
bobbib14•

Logan doesn’t want a successor because Logan doesn’t want to be mortal/die.

19
80alleycats•

I don't think Roman was necessarily sexually abused as a kid. I think he says that because he wants to pathologize his feelings of wrongness and otherness. Succession is a lot about people passing the buck, passing their sins and anxieties on to other people instead of dealing with them. Logan did that to Roman when he made him feel weird for not living up to his masculine ideals. And so Roman is passing those inherited anxieties on to some faceless molester (who is sometimes Kendall or Connor). Instead of just accepting that he is who he is. Could be completely wrong about this.

15
Steve-Lurkel•

Interesting question! Armstrong makes a great point that sometimes what a character chooses to say about themselves says a lot more about them than the actual content of their words. I think the whole “he won’t respect you until you kill him” theme that Roman articulated to Kendell in S1 is one of those things that fans might read too much into. Sure there’s some pride in his face at the end of S2 but ultimately I think Logan is incapable of respecting anyone else more than himself. And he’d have to respect them more than himself in order to give them his company. I think MAYBE he recognizes something in Mattdson but even then I suspect S4 is gonna show a lot of him wrestling with weather the sale is a good move or not.

8
formfilerGood tweet, bad tweet•

Shiv to Tom: You’re not good enough for me

4
HawaiianPizzaHaterThe Juice is Loose, Baby!•

There is a duality to Logan... I think that as a father, he wants submissive and obedient children that'll worship him and love him no matter what. But as an empire owner, in a reality where he can't do it himself, he would want the next CEO to be as ruthless and hungry as him, hence his smirk at the end of ep 2x10 for example.

4
Comfortable_Elk•

Whenever other characters make fun of Roman's "mommy issues". Especially coming from Shiv it's really an expression of envy over Roman and Caroline's relatively uncomplicated (if only because they demand so little of each other) relationship.

4
ExpensiveFoodstuffs•

Interesting premise for the post - and it makes sense, as well. Remember, Kendall said that words were just “complicated airflow” so the show really rewards the viewers who are able to get past the surface level.

2
Ok_Writer3660•

If this is true, then does Connor really love his dad as he says? Or did he long ago decide to mouth the words for self-protective reasons after seeing his mom slammed into a mental home when she tried to go against Logan and run with Connor?

He lived farther from his dad than the others. He did not compete for affection by being in Waystar and he paid for a historical conquerer's shriveled penis. That last collector's item indicates unhappy daddy issues.

2
Scar-Plastic•

Tomstar Gregco !!!

1
Scar-Plastic•

Gregstar Tomco forever

1