The TV show Succession has taken us behind the scenes of your typical corporate cat-and-mouse chase for power. But how close is it to reality? Some say it is farfetched but behind every work of fiction lies some truth.
The show revolves around four siblings fighting over their dying father’s business empire in a dramatic, suspenseful, even Shakespearean fashion and it’s a matter of who will win their father’s love, or in other words, empire, and how low they will go to get to their goal.
Let’s take a deep dive into the worlds of fiction and reality when it comes down to huge corporations like that of Logan Roy.
The TV Show Succession: The Dark Dynamics of Corporate Power
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As we can find in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, everyone is equal but some are more equal than others. That’s how it rolls in both the fictitious and real corporate world.
In the show, the siblings fight for power and their father’s approval, and there is no winner or loser, it is just an endless vicious cycle of survival of the fittest. The depths that the siblings would go to, like Kendall Roy, Logan Roy’s eldest son from his second marriage, going against his father, in a futile attempt to gain control of Waystar Royco, shows how far one can go to gain power.
But Logan Roy, the self-made billionaire, wasn’t born yesterday. He’s been in the business for so long to know how to rise from downfalls like a Phoenix from the ashes. He also knows that the end justifies the means, which made him leave trails of treachery and people that have been stepped on in his wake, including his blood.
(Spoiler alert) The only thing he didn’t do right as a calculating businessman is that he died without choosing his successor, which could mean the death of the empire he built with his blood, sweat, and tears.
The TV Show Succession: The Stifling of Feminism in the Corporate World
In the show, we have Shiv (short for Siobhan) Roy, Logan Roy’s only daughter, fighting with all her might to prove herself worthy of her father’s throne. She knows that in a world like the one she’s in, she has to go the extra mile to fight her way against the men in her life.
She has to make the screams stifled by her male counterparts sound like a roar so that they can clear the way for her. Like her father, she back-stabbed and went to great depths to get to her goal but to no avail.
Another example is Gerri Kellman, general counsel to the corporation. She was humiliatingly let go despite having been involved in a relationship of oedipal insinuations with Roman Roy, Logan Roy’s son and was Waystar Royco’s chief operating officer at that time. She was too involved and lost in the family drama, it swept her away from the reality of things that at the end of the day, she’s just general counsel to Waystar Royco.
Resemblances to the TV Show Succession
A lot of people related Succession to Shakespeare’s masterpiece King Lear, where the king was left on his deathbed and left his three children to fight over who was going to be the next heir. Another inspiration for the show was the Murdoch family who have wielded a very significant influence over the global media landscape for decades. The Murdochs spanned a diversity of media outlets as have the Roys.
In addition, we find that the patriarch Rupert Murdoch has four children, the oldest son from his first wife, who had grown up away from their empire, exactly like Connor Roy and the rest of the three children from his second wife, molded and shaped after him and their business, as we can find in the case of Kendall, Roman, and Shiv Roy. The creator insists that it’s a work of fiction but… Is it really?
Conclusion
The bottom line is that we can go on all day about this dogfight for power in the corporate world of the TV show Succession but there is one truth to it, everyone is disposable.
Logan Roy died and his advisors inside the jet quickly gathered to work on a public statement despite his corpse lying only a few feet away. Shiv was replaced by her husband, Tom Wambsgans, as U.S. CEO when Lukas Matsson bought out Waystar Royco. Kendall Roy who was supposed to be the heir wasn’t and kept yelling, “I’m the eldest son,” in agony, and the list goes on.
Life goes on with or without us and that’s the bitter truth to it. Therefore, the dark side of corporate power shouldn’t be so dark, after all. Yes, power and money are what keep the wheels going but to what extent? The wheels can turn from a moving one to a murderous one if not handled correctly so, those with power and money should be careful as with great power comes great responsibility.
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