the roy siblings, part I

where things come back by john corey whaley / succession's all the bells say / unknown source / frank ocean's ivy / jenny han / erica e. goode / adventure time's i remember you / jane mersky lader / succession / maurice sendak / jewish literacy by rabbi joseph telushkin / succession / you are jeff by richard siken / brother, sister, rival, friend: the longstanding effects of sibling relationships by oshua a. krisch / antigone by sophocles.

when connor comes to visit

Succession makes me nuts because all of the tragedy is preventable but also it isn't. Usually, in big epics, the tragedy is that fate is inescapable. But in Succession there are a million tiny times where someone could have chosen to treat their siblings better or their spouse better or stuck to their guns or been honest or stopped being an asshole for two minutes, and it would have completely changed the trajectory of events. But also how could they have ever done any of it differently? Who taught them they could?

roy siblings portrait, 1990

"And if love is a thing held in common, I suppose we had that in common, too, though I realize that might sound odd in light of the story I am about to tell.”

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

siblings !

their love language is deploying earnest affection but like as psychological warfare

the original painting has nothing in common with this show but whatever . this image just appeared in my mind i couldnt control myself

theyre siblings. if you care

“to be honest, I never should have had children.”

insta <3

"Hey! No! Don't fucking touch him!"

Succession ▸ 1x04 || 1x01 || 2x10 || 1x02 || 1x07 || 3x09 || 2x06

it's the way connor is one of the richest motherfuckers on the planet and yet he's never had the human, quintessential experience of doing karaoke at a bar. and when he does finally do it, it's in the most misplaced place ever: an isolated room at an expensive, fancy bar with no other patrons around except his siblings, who are skeptical and not along for the ride because they never learned to have stupid fun together. they go because they're trying to do something nice for connor, but connor will never experience karaoke like in the movies because the roys aren't capable of doing what it requires: being silly and destroying their own egos. doing it in some hole-in-the-wall bar, with other patrons watching them fail miserably together on stage. they're not getting on that stage with connor. they went through the motions of finding a karaoke bar, sure, but connor was singing alone, and not for more than one song, before business intervened. he's done it, he marked it off his bucket list, but he probably came out wondering why the hell it felt so empty and not like the movies at all

i love when they are literally a four year old and a five and a half year old speaking with their eyes but this is so fucked up

they are literally brothers that's his little brother man!!!!!! you don't get it!!!!!!

on brothers

[ jewish literacy, rabbi joseph telushkin / the bear 2x06 + 2x10 / east of eden, john steinbeck / succession 3x09 / “brothers,” kevin atwater / the west wing 6x16 / prison break 5x04 / greywaren, maggie stiefvater / boy (2010) / “he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” the hollies ]

something about childhood in succession.. the way it casts its shadow over the entire narrative, the rotten root of the roy siblings’s pain, all wrapped up in Logan’s power and abuse and love. The opening credits are filled with images of them as kids, beginning every. single. episode. by emphasizing the importance of their childhood: the siblings posing for a photo, playing sports, standing on a manicured lawn, riding an elephant, etc. and then the shots of logan, in which he is always shown from behind, or far away. It is a childhood the viewer never gets to see in any other context, since there are no flashbacks in the show, and therefore as integral as it seems, we know almost nothing about it. What exactly happened? What are the details? We feel its presence, we can tell how it informs their relationships, we can put together the pieces of incomplete and contradictory memories expressed through dialogue, and if we trace their struggles and dysfunction back far enough we know it leads there, to when they were kids. But there is so much empty space we can’t fill in. It’s almost like their childhood is presented in that horror technique where you never get to see the monster clearly straight on. It’s always in darkness, and chopped up into close-ups so that the viewer’s imagination is forced to invent something, however vague, and that is far scarier than it would be if we could actually see it — a monster that is terrifying BECAUSE it’s unknown. The roy siblings’s childhood is a major force behind so much that happens on screen, but what specifically occurred is out of the reach of our understanding. We are shown the monster’s shadow but not the monster, we are shown the frightened faces of the characters as they look at something behind the camera we never get to see, we are shown the running or the fighting or the blood but never the true, bigger-picture, clear details of the horror itself