The Succession of trauma

HBO’s Succession, a modern-day family saga about the Roy family who hold majority stake in a media conglomerate Waystar Royco, came to a devastating but perfect conclusion last week.

Succession is a commentary on many things: late-stage capitalism, the grim reality of American politics, greed for corporate power and a satire of contemporary life. At the heart of it is a dysfunctional family dynamic, rooted in generational trauma.

Loosely based on the Murdoch family, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is the cutthroat patriarch of the uber-rich Roys whose four children — Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Sioabhan (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) — live an affluent life, far removed from the realities of everyday life. Yet despite possessing the best of the best, they are empty shells, void of any real human connection and, essentially, pretty terrible people. The funny thing is that in their array of flaws, something about them feels personal to the viewer. At their core they are, simply put, products of bad parenting. In this way they are humanised and the audience feels for them, and occasionally even roots for them.

Their abusive father, Logan, has from a young age pitted them against one another, filling each one’s head with empty promises of becoming heir to the throne. In reality, he doesn’t think any of them can run the company like him, so he uses them as pawns in his elaborate game designed only for him to come out on top.

He lauds publicly that everything he does is for his children but behind closed doors he belittles them for any modicum of self-assurance they feel. He manipulates their weakness against them, making them feel small and triggering their wounds. He makes them fight for his affection and attention, so if the spotlight is on one kid the others feel unworthy. They are never good enough for him, always second to the company.

Mirroring Shakespeare’s King Lear, Logan is a malignant narcissist who dreads the loss of control and uses fear to assert his authority over his kids.

What has made him this way?

In the first season, we see scars on his back, indicating signs of childhood abuse. We also learn from his brother Ewan’s eulogy at his funeral, that Logan lived with the guilt of being the cause of their sister Rose’s early demise. It may be this same guilt of losing a loved one so early that made him lose hope in love altogether.

Logan’s private relationships with his wives and mistresses are all transactional. The ones that aren’t at the start end up being so as he drives them to a point of no return. He wears his childhood wounds like a badge of honour; he believes they toughen and harden him to fight the world. He projects this trauma as a form of love language on his kids, and they internalise his projection of self hatred onto themselves. His parenting confuses his kids way more than it ever helps them. He ends up creating narcissistic extensions of himself.

Connor

The eldest son from Logan’s first marriage, Connor’s trauma is different from his siblings. He is never considered for the top job despite being the direct heir, which makes him feel rejected. He gets the least attention from Logan as he is not part of the rat-race and even mentions not seeing his father for three years as a kid. His mother was institutionalised when he was really young; he remembers stuffing himself with cake to cope with his loss. He is the most sidelined sibling, pretty much treated as an afterthought.

This has made him develop a flight trauma response. He claims “I’m water, I flow” but, in actuality, he avoids conflict and largely isolates himself, physically and emotionally from the family.

In season four, Logan prioritises a business meeting over attending Connor’s wedding and later dies, overshadowing Connor even in his death. Upon hearing of his father’s passing, Connor’s immediate response is, “He never even liked me.”

Connor’s most prominent relationship is with his escort-turned-wife, Willa. Like his father, Connor uses money to coerce Willa into a relationship. Despite his flaws, Connor tries to show up as a father figure in his younger siblings' lives, so they don't feel the neglect that he did, but for the most part, they reject his care.

Kendall

Logan promises Kendall the CEO position at just seven years old. As a child, he attaches his whole self identity and worth to this and carries these notions into his adulthood. Thus he crumbles at failure, as he doesn't know how to exist if not for the company.

Kendall has substance abuse issues; his father uses this against him to crush him. He is a vulnerable narcissist, egocentric, with a grandiose sense of self. He is obsessed with how he is perceived but is also blind to how the world actually views him: a rich daddy’s boy. He surrounds himself with snakes, like Stwey, who uses him as a tool to feed his corporate greed.

Kendall has a fight trauma response, often standing up to his father’s bullying.

In his interior, he is sensitive, looking to be appreciated and seen by his dad. His addiction issues are a way to escape his self and the gaping void he feels. At times, he even uses music as a way to express himself.

Arguably, he is the most competent sibling to take over the family’s business empire but his sense of entitlement for the throne is the cause of his downfall.

Logan believes Kendall does not have a killer instinct and thus is not fit to run the company. Kendall longs to prove his father wrong. In the first season, we see him trying to be there for his kids, trying to be a good son to Logan but the latter kills the human in Kendall eventually, as he views this as being soft.

Kendall has seen the world always reward his father’s vicious behaviour so he tries to be like that after Logan dies. He trades his morality, children, and humanity for a shot at the top job. He repeats the same patterns with his children, even repeating his father's words that everything he is doing is for his children. “I'm breaking my back and it's all for them.”

By the final season, Kendall has become Logan, passing on the trauma of an abusive and absent father to his kids, choosing the company over them. However, Kendall’s greatest tragedy and triumph is that he is not his father. His failure to recognise this results in him bargaining everything of value to him to be king.

Roman

The most damaged, self-destructive sibling is Roman, whose repressed trauma shows up in his apparent self hatred and insecurity. Despite being older than Shiv, Roman acts like the youngest and is also treated as such. He is a Jester type character, who’s nihilism comes up in his sense of humour that lacks boundaries, because his own were overstepped by Logan when he was a child. He copes with trauma by joking to deflect his own pain, and trying to make sense of it. He has a fawn trauma response and so is the easiest to manipulate, and is codependent and desperate to please others, especially his father. He is by far the most trauma-bonded to Logan as he actually respects his father’s meagerness. Trying to both mirror and please his father, he bullies anyone who comes in his way.

Just like big brother Kendall, he cracks under pressure. When his facade falls we see a child, scared to make a mistake, yearning to be accepted. At his core, he feels a lot of shame, and aches for affection.

Roman's Oedipus complex is most apparent with Gerri, as she is the perfect medium to someone who has power but is also a motherly figure towards him, in that she guides him and believes in him.

Siobhan (Shiv)

Despite being Logan’s favourite, and the youngest of the siblings, Shiv, does not have it easy. She is sidelined for most of her life, never considered for the CEO position because of her gender, which according to Logan, is a minus. She has an estranged relationship with her mother, who largely remains absent from her life. The times we do get a glimpse into their relationship, we see a child resentful at a mother’s lack of remorse for not being there.

In her relationship with her husband Tom, she fails to love him in the way he requires, as she has had no prior model for stability, safety and love. Their marriage quickly turns toxic as she repeats her trauma bond to her family with him. Shiv is highly untrusting of others, never lets her guard down and is arguably the most like her father.

She carries a freeze trauma response which makes her hyper vigilant of those around her, always scheming to prevent herself. When she is kicked down, she freezes, morphing into a hurt young girl, desperate to be loved and taken care of.

In her eulogy for her father, she describes being Logan’s daughter as very “hard” as “he couldn't fit a whole woman in his head.”

When she’s pregnant, she jokes about how she probably won't be around the baby much. There is little to laugh here though as she will likely be an avoidant and cold mother — the very thing she most resents her own mother for.

Trajectory of tragedy

Even when the trio (sorry, Con) unite and stand up to their father, their plans never follow through as they end up betraying each other. Their need to come out on the top is far greater than their love and loyalty for each other. The battle for the throne is nothing but an elaborate ego dance.

In the series finale, when the deciding vote to sell or keep the company comes down to Shiv, she realises she would rather give the firm away and be the wife of the CEO aka Tom (Mathew Macfayden) and be at the mercy of yet another man, than let Kendall win. She parallels the arc of Lady Macbeth.

She accepts becoming the one person she always despised, her mother. Roman is seemingly freed from all expectations. However, Kendall’s preconceived false notion that he is not good enough is validated. He dies a metaphorical death, unable to fulfil what he believed to be his birth right. He parallel’s Shakespeare’s Hamlet haunted by the ghost of his father.

In the end, nothing changes amongst the Roys; they are at the same place where they started off, if not worse. This reiterates writer Jesse Armstrong’s belief that people don't really change.

Regardless of each sibling's end and where they might go from this point on, one thing is clear — Logan's wealth gave them monetary freedom but his abuse trapped them. His heritage in the form of Waystar might continue to flourish but he died leaving a legacy of damage and trauma for his children and for their coming generations. The wheel turns with a new successor but the trauma inflicted will be the same, as the poison does drip through.