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0:00
To F off or not to F off, that is the question wether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of snakes and F*ing morons or to take arms against a sea of bleeding heart United Nations Volvo gender bender horseshit and by opposing, Gobble-dy go F yourself.
0:26
Succession battles, revenge, power, comedy, tragedy - many people have pointed out the similarities between Succession and Shakespeare's plays. But has anybody made a pseudo-intellectual video essay about it yet? No. Fear not because me and my 2:1 are here to help buckle up fucklehead but first you have to like this video And subscribe to my channel okay look look I suck at the whole like corporate flirt thing you know I just I like to lube up and F so just do
0:55
it all right have you done it yet okay good let's get into it shiv gives off kind of girl bossified Lady Macbeth Vibes Kendall oh here he comes the attention [ __ ] is a whiny guy with daddy issues a classic Hamlet and of course Tom and Greg trying to seduce me yes I am Romeo and Juliet if succession is giving any Shakespeare play the most it's giving King Lear come not between the dragon and his wrath lest He Go full [ __ ] beast in King Lear king Lear himself is getting on a
1:27
bit so he decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters who are all varying degrees of fierce and slay he does this according to a Kind of Love Test where whoever doth suck up to him the most doth received the biggest Bounty King Lear also has a little Court Jester Fool's sidekick who constantly makes moronic jokes often ones that predict the rest of the season the only
1:49
way he'll respect you is if you try to destroy him you want me to hit a kid Kendall was self-destruct because it's his favorite to drop him into a million pieces and toss him in the Hudson I'm blown into a million pieces I'm dumb but I'm smart I guess Jesters do oft-prove profits just because I like a joke doesn't mean I'm a [ __ ] clown that said it's not even the characters that really make
2:07
succession and King Lear so similar it's more that both texts are obsessively interested in exploring the intricate link between language and Power [Music] [ __ ] words [ __ ] words in Shakespeare your way with words tends to be correlated with the amount of power that you have high status characters in Shakespeare tend to speak dead nice look I'm sorry to trigger anyone but this is a video about Shakespeare so at some point we were gonna have to mention the iambic pentameter you
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know the whole duh duh duh 10 syllables or five feet per line thing that your English teacher used to bang on about while you were stuck in one of those mobile classrooms fantasizing about plucking out your own eyes Duke of Gloucester style at the very beginning of the play King Lear is still very powerful and he says things like that future Strife may be prevented now which one of you doth
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say shall love us most trust me I've got my [ __ ] together Lads and you can tell that from the way I sound but these rules aren't set in stone for each character as the level of power that different Shakespearean characters have fluctuates because of the plot the way that those characters speak often fluctuates accordingly here he is later in the play Let Me Be not mad not mad sweet heaven
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and keep me in Temper I would not be mad so it's a big vibe in Shakespeare that if you don't have any power over your language then you don't have any power at all and this is why people in succession who are all really powerful characters speak so adeptly even the insults are poetry we're talking to each other on the poop deck of a majestic Schooner that's about as choreographed as a dog getting [ __ ] on roller skates you've got my nuts and advice but Frank you've got the
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grease to slip them out but Frank you've got the grease to slip them out it's iambic pentameter Lads but just as king Lear loses his temper as he loses his Tempo every now and then in Succession Logan loses a bit of power and whenever he loses power it's because he started chatting [ __ ]
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um in a world where everything hinges on what Logan says as soon as we think that he doesn't know what he's talking about the whole world of succession goes into immediate chaos usually what causes these bouts of inarticulacy in both King Lear and King Logan are exactly the same thing it's to do with their physical incapacity as aging men and in both texts there sure is a lot of physical incapacity I need a piss I think I need a person why don't we just like take a big
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old piss are you bored of the iambic pentameter same let's talk about the piss it's just my body so the plot of King Lear is basically us watching the king of England as he goes slowly mad because of old age and thankless children at one point when he goes really nut nut he starts walking around semi-naked on a heath when one of his old subordinates the Earl of Gloucester finds Lear in this state he begs to kiss his King's hand to which Lear replies let me wipe it first it smells
5:00
of mortality gross ah how the mighty are Fallen he was a king once now look at him eating [ __ ] why would Shakespeare write a play about the king of England cacking himself I hear nobody asks well I'll answer you me I'll answer me back in Shakespeare's day the human body was often used as a metaphor for an entire Kingdom Lear's kingdom is being hacked to Pieces by his kids and it's slowly getting more and more corrupted whenever Lear is badly sick his physical decline mirrors
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the decline of his entire Empire losing even a quarter of percent of my operating capacity that has million dollar implications I get the shits were [ __ ] when Shakespeare dropped King Lear in 1606 it was all kicking off it was the turn of the century Queen Elizabeth had just died not that one given the new King James was not a direct Heir there was increased anxiety about the unification of England and Scotland basically a lot of the old systems of power
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were being called into question imagine you're a scummy little peasant back in Shakespeare's day right you would literally know jack [ __ ] about [ __ ] like you couldn't even read and you live under feudalism which is a belief that says that the most powerful people in the kingdom are literally put there by Divine Right but then you go and see a play about a king who is put through all of the possible human sufferings anyone could be exposed to including watching his own daughter
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die and [ __ ] himself on a heath at the time it probably would have given you a lot to think about regarding the hierarchies that you were living under especially when the people on top of those hierarchies couldn't even wipe their own ass it's some pretty big dick energy from old bill that his first play out after Lizzie died was all about a bitter succession battle in a royal family especially given that the new King James VI was a patron of Shakespeare and the King's Men
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and so was almost definitely in the audience for King Leah I mean no wonder No One funds the Arts
6:47
and fussing forward [ __ ] fast forwarding to succession if capitalism as it functions today was a person it would be Logan Roy old greedy egotistical white Logan Roy is truly current society's Daddy but in succession Daddy's starting to drop the ball he's blowing chunks and pissing everywhere oh Jesus our company is a declining Empire inside a declining Empire and Logan constantly pissing away represents the structure of old media that is slowly starting to
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piss away its own legacy as its relevance wanes and it gets confronted by big Tech we're losing
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to monopolistic disruptors Alphabet Facebook, the internet [_] game changer man that's right the the uh the Internet it's just the same as Lear's illnesses representing the decline of England the demented [ __ ] piss Mad King of England but of course it's more than just a metaphor that in succession on King Lear power is concentrated so heavily in the hands of the few it literally do
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be like that sometimes succession reminds us that while we might not have a literal King ruling over us anymore oh no way we are still essentially ruled over by quite a few family dynasties I mean you don't have to have the backing of Rupert Murdoch to become the next prime minister of the UK but it probably helps I guess I just feel like you maybe get a bigger vote in here but this is
8:00
about more than just the murdochs, Jesse Armstrong has mentioned many media family dynasties inspired succession the Maxwells the Trumps the Carnegies the Mercers the Sinclairs the Redstones all these families wield an unbelievable amount of power over the current society we live in these guys along with your modern tech leaders your Bezoses your Zuckerbergs your Musks these guys are essentially the modern monarchs of the day these are unelected leaders who in many cases
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are more rich and more powerful through their companies than some entire countries the only difference between old Royal Empires and these companies is where old Royal Empires sought to colonize land these companies seek to colonize our attention what we're fighting for is eyeballs yep it's another video essay about late capitalism has reified in the architecture of corporate America Amen brother unsubscribe depending on your politics you might glamorize the super rich
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or demonize the super rich if you're anything like me and you're being honest you probably do a little bit of both you have a hard time finding a happy medium between worshiping him and wanting to kill him whichever Camp you fall on you're engaging in a form of dehumanization it's a lot easier for us to compute all of the bad stuff that's happening in the world if we're able to demonize the main culprits behind it by labeling them baddies because distancing someone
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from their Humanity means that we're distancing them from ourselves and the hard truth that our species is capable of doing a lot of terrible stuff incidents like theft sexual assault rape murder okay the bad ones but glorification is also a form of dehumanization we often forget that because boohoo the rich are being glorified you know and because it's a form of dehumanization that rich people tend to cultivate actively within themselves because it brings them power and power
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helps you conceal your human flaws through tattered gowns small vices do appear robes and furred gowns hide all heres the thing about being rich it's [ __ ] great it's like being a superhero only better you get to do what you want the authorities can't really touch you you get to wear a costume but it's designed by Armani it's very good optics for Logan Roy to be seen as infallible you're less likely to try and rebel against someone that you think is infallible your
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Godlike status also makes it easier for you to turn on the Other Extreme of the scale and dehumanize the people below you it's good to demonize the enemy before yourself it's good to demonize them before you have to kill his ass if you believe you're Superior I'm 100 feet tall it's a lot easier to treat other people as inferior these people are pygmys or even as less than human you are a [ __ ] nobody you may even label them nrpi no real person involved but
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just like King Lear succession shows us that people like the Roy's at the end of the day are not monsters or Gods just like King Lear is some guy Logan is just some guy I mean Roman can back a fascist presidential candidate but he's still the guy who asked Greg to go and get in one of Logan's Cardigans so he could smell it for Comfort when Logan was in the ICU Kendall does his best to come across as anti-fragile but he's clearly very sad he's so sad throughout so
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much of the series that somebody made an Instagram called candle Roy looking sad as for Logan he can stack up as many billions as he wants but he can't escape his aging body he can't escape death Kings tyrants CEOs people who are good at computers at the end of the day we're all gonna die and when a man dies it is sad everyone in Succession is broken and wonky on the inside even if they wear
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Parada suits on the outside underneath you know we're all just little nudie Turtles however all that's not to say that this show goes easy on this particular class of people it may feel odd to assert that you can humanize someone whilst also not going easy on them to humanize is to refuse to demonize and in many ways why shouldn't we demonize these Super Rich Silver Spoon [ __ ] right but Jesse Armstrong is far cleverer than I succession understands that to dehumanize the
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rich because of all the evil things that they do would be just recycling the same dehumanization that the rich engage in in order to become capable of doing all of those awful things to humanize the Roy's is therefore revolutionary because dehumanize is also to refuse to glorify and therefore to refuse to go along with the Roy's ideology of themselves as superhuman it refuses to present them in the way that they would want to be presented if the characters
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in succession were able to watch succession they would think it's very bad Optics this is a show about a class of people who are obsessed with their own image and with their own image being perfectly curated to the public and it opens with the most powerful man in the show pissing on the floor in today's money that's as shocking as King Lear being reduced to a beggar stuck on a heath being forced to sit with the humanity of these people who are capable of such atrocity
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makes for a compelling mixture of both sympathy and disgust I think too much edible gold hurt my tummy and you end up feeling sorry for them even though they're all capable of this horrible stuff even though they're all completely compromised I mean Ken literally killed a guy Ken crashed his car into the bridge Ken don't care Ken loves it but of course Ken does care Ken doesn't love it it literally tears him apart instead of this binary way that we usually view the super rich as
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either demons or Gods when you watch succession you're able to do both and to do neither you're able to hate the Roy's and feel sorry for them at the same time to look at the Roy's with sympathy and disgust completely undermines the power structure that they sit atop of it completely undermines the image of infallibility that they try and promote preserve their own power there's a delicious moment in the second season where you get to watch a biographer trying to get
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close to the Roy family she gets completely stonewalled the biography I told you to stop it there'll be no cooperation but I don't want it to come out the Roys don't want some Outsider getting to see them at their most intimate and most personal but yet here we are as viewers of succession watching them at their most intimate and their most personal open the kimono you get to follow them into every private jet and every children's bedroom as they dream up their nasty
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little schemes or break down at their birthdays by watching succession we get access to people like the Roy's that people like the biographer could only ever dream of sort of like a curse of the Roy's deep dive you're watching the curse of the Roy's deep dive it speaks to how unlikely it is that we would ever be able to see a proper unfiltered version of any of the real people that succession is based off and how powerfully such people are able to control their own image
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in the media instead of only seeing the clinical perfect hyper-curated corporate jargon narrative the rich that the rich want us to see which is often the only way that scum like you or me would ever be able to get to see the rich in succession you get to watch the rich as they flounder to construct this very narrative that they want us to see only we get to watch the floundering not just the narrative the message I think is a family reunited in the desert it carries that constant
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underlying tension between its characters obsessing over how they want to be seen and us getting to see them as they really are round Stars water towers trees skyscrapers firefighters and Wall Street Traders I think there's an element of this in King Lear too I think King Lear wouldn't himself as a character want everyone to know that he was cacking himself on a heath how did I get onto this tangent of talking about [ __ ] let's get back to the Roy's
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talking [ __ ] big words good words One of the best examples of any of the Roy's chatting [ __ ] is of course Connor at Mo Lester's funeral when a man dies it is sad all of us will die one day
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in this case it is Lester who has done so interesting point to which I would add
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Connor was interested in politics from a very young age Conor sounds like an idiot here obviously but it's also quite a cunning move of self-preservation it means that that pesky biographer won't get anything juicy from him this scene is a perfect distillation of that thing where powerful people can't say the truth but they can't say nothing so they're caught in this trap of having to say something that means nothing it's a tactic you'd recognize in many politicians
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and it speaks to how constipated the channels of public discourse have become she's been working in politics for 10 years so don't hold out for a straight answer but of course keeping this up requires you to create your whole own language of [ __ ] and thus jargon is born I need the full fiber optic Clear Channel [ __ ] just an administrative action function just feed me the metadata look at that they're not being allowed to leave a hotel that's an administrative action
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function what is that uh means the sort of thing you say isn't it we're here for you we're here for you they loved you in the room I'm not sure our vision's aligned they love you in the room will you stop telling me they love me in the [ __ ] room Frank from global global to hyper local are you alright? I use a I perform a variety of variety of Target oriented Target oriented tasks to enhance Optimal Performance that's just gibberish you can speak to us normally enough of
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that and back to the session family ownership and corporate continuity in the digital age whatever the [ __ ] that means it's a rich gumbo of ideas and buzzwords that doesn't even mean anything it's all made up it's good because it's like it's not clear exactly what the hell it means so lots of wiggle room jargon's ubiquity is a measure of the extent to which we are being lied to and conned all the time it's the language of bad faith of people without conscience who if
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they ever suffered shame have long forgotten what it felt like we don't get embarrassed she does coach professional Liars for a living when you say the thing that's not that's a lie but why are we being lied to all the time why is lying such a normalized part of the way that powerful people communicate well to know that we need to go back to the start of King Lear the first thing Lear
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does in the play is divide his kingdom between his daughters based not on who doth love him the most but on who doth can make it sound like they love him the most confirmed Lear's love language is words of affirmation so saying the right words immediately becomes a prerequisite to gaining power and this is where the problems start one of his daughters Cordelia refuses to play this game
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of who can be the biggest bum licker she refuses to live on these terms or by these rules and takes a stance against it from the beginning she rejects the diktat to suck up to her dad with what she calls that glib and oily art to speak but purpose not actually by doing this Cordelia helps create a safe space where the family can come together and go through the emotional labor of dealing with generational trauma and they find that the truth sets them free only joking Lear cuts her
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out the will and then she dies spoilers we need a spoiler warning for King Lear you've had 400 years to read it so pull your finger out according to Mark Thompson the author of what's gone wrong with the language of Politics the best modern equivalent we have to what Cordelia is talking about here is empty rhetoric empty rhetoric is sweet talk a crooked pack of verbal tricks which allows a shyster to turn a weak case into a strong one the issue of speaking but purposing
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not is that it creates a deliberate separation between language and reality I think one thing that makes Logan appealing in succession is that he sometimes appears to be able to cut through all of the corporate jargony rhetoric that everyone has around him in a world obsessed with Optics and self-image where everybody's power is linked to their ability to know what to say when to say it
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and who to say it to it does feel quite refreshing to have a character who's basically constantly telling people to [ __ ] off Logan and his NewsChannel ATN have built up this reputation for themselves as deliverers of straight talk but this is populism 101 learn Logan's no [ __ ] approach is still [ __ ] it's just a different flavor of [ __ ] you know before Trump's election a 2015 Fox News poll found that 44 of sample U.S voters and 62 percent of Republicans agreed with the
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statement that Donald Trump tells it like it is and that's what we need right now in a president a guy who will have nothing to do with the conventional language of politics but of course as soon as Trump got into office he failed to deliver on any [I should have said many not any here] of the promises he made just like any other regular politician and he incited an Insurrection so random that Trump's rhetoric was able to punch through was to me not so much about Trump's
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strength as an orator it was perhaps more about the feeling that there was something that needed to be punched through I.E the condescending tangle of [ __ ] that is modern public discourse where politicians are lying and we know they're lying and they know that we know that they're lying and everyone's just lying all the time and again this is one of the reasons why I think succession
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hit so hard because we all know we're being lied to so it's very refreshing to see the messy truth behind the construction of these lies or at least in Logan's case to see the obvious contradictions between what he says to different people Logan constantly cuts through jargon by telling people to [ __ ] off but telling people to [ __ ] off is not the same thing as telling the truth as with Trump you don't need to be telling the truth to cut through lies you just need to be telling
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a different flavor of lie Logan isn't pursuing Truth by telling people to [ __ ] off all the time he's pursuing his own power he isn't trying to protect virtue he's trying to protect himself he's always manipulating influencing controlling the narrative control the narrative you probably yell that when you come there's an interesting moment where Logan gives a speech to the Pierce family whose media conglomerate he wants to buy to begin this speech Logan master of rhetoric and
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controlling the narrative says I ain't no master of the speechifying and then he goes on to praise The Pierces journalistic reputation which he's never really been shown to care about too much before but of course it isn't a real random flash of modesty it's a rhetorical strategy that dates back as far as Shakespeare it's very similar to Mark Anthony addressing Rome and Julius Caesar when he says I am no orator as Brutus is but as you know me all the plain blunt man I have neither
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wit nor words nor worth action nor utterance nor the power of speech to stir man's blood I only speak right on I tell you that which yourselves do know here Mark Anthony starts by doing down his own rhetorical ability but then pulls out of the bag one of the most cunning rhetorical tactics in all of English literature anti-rhetoric rhetoric it's not for me to tell you to rebel against Rome but if I was a better speaker or a cleverer man then that's what I'd do and then the people
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rebel against Rome Logan is pulling exactly the same trick with The Pierces he knows that if he confirms the belief that they have of him as a monster then he'll never win control of their company so he has to sprinkle in a little bit of modest self-deprecation to get them on side it's a testament to the fact that if it gets him what he wants Logan will literally say anything equally if it's not going to get him what he wants if it brings him no Advantage then he won't say it I
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do believe that Logan did love his kids in his own distorted abusive way but he's certainly not going to tell them that he loves them unless it'll get him something that he wants Logan understands the world as a battle or a game business is a game and language is a game and this is what drives the heart of the show weren't you kids do not understand it's all part of the game succession
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is all about different games that people play with language come on everybody it's a root and tootin super [ __ ] fun game for all the family these games are very complex and the rules are ever changing and the key to the level of power you'll have is linked to your ability to recognize the language game being played and to play along accordingly just like when King Lear asks who loves him the most often what a character says therefore is quite different from what he means
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you really need to understand subtext to get ahead in this show the main points of conflict in the show are not big battles or car chases or even elaborate Death Scenes instead most of the conflict comes from an ongoing and Relentless series of misunderstanding and miscommunication misunderstanding drives the comedy he said it was just going to take a little longer but he said that to be nice well I think he meant to say was that he wished that Mom gave birth to
23:47
a can opener because at least then it would be useful and it drives the drama there's plenty of moments where characters don't understand the exact language game being played and you can almost feel the power slipping from them as they [ __ ] it up Dad just tell them it's gonna be me
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a lot of Kendall cringe content for example and oh my God is there a lot come on man [ __ ] off
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comes from his sheer inability to read a room and understand what to say according to that a good example of that is Kendall and Logan's dinner in Italy where Kendall just can't for the life of him say anything that will help him get through to Logan his inability to understand the language that his dad's speaking and speak accordingly is thrown into Stark relief when Logan later has a conversation with Matsson Matsson is speaking Logan's language here he understands that Logan
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is never going to hand over the keys to Waystar unless he feels like he's going to be respected and honored so Matsson makes a point of reassuring Logan that he'll do just that and even if it is the kind of [ __ ] that we usually see Logan himself pull it does feel kind of believable I think Logan does fall for it a little bit but usually it's Logan who always has the upper hand because it was him who decided that these were the rules of the game and even when people do
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adhere to the rhetorical strategy that he wants he can just change the rules one of the best examples of this is of course boar on the floor Ike for your sausages piggy I I oh Jesus Christ here Logan literally plays game with his employees and constantly changes the rules so no one can win but the rules are that you're spared if you tell the truth and I just told you the truth There Are Rules there's a line there are no [ __ ] rules nothing is a line everything everywhere is
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always moving forever that doesn't seem like a very good system Logan's rhetoric and the fact that he's in charge of the game gives his words so much power that he can just speak his will into reality everyone just [ __ ] agrees with you and believes you so it becomes true and then you can turn around and say like oh you see gee I was right when it looks like they're going to get off lightly with the DOJ Logan raises a toast to Justice being served even though he very well
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knows that the corporation is guilty of the crimes they're being accused of because in succession it doesn't matter what you do it matters what you say you do and that enough people believe the lie that's what people are saying who cares if it's true it's kind of a superpower isn't it
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if you can lie to someone like that and it's this game of constant lies that causes all the agony right the fact that the characters can never say what they actually mean means that they can never connect with each other on a genuine level they're all forced into isolation or into messed up fake versions of connection succession more like emotional repression am I right foreign [Music] honesty is such a lonely word everyone is so untrue in this world telling the truth
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has kind of been automatically rendered taboo telling the truth risks giving away leverage so all true desires and feelings must be concealed and pushed down this leaves the true motives and feelings of the characters to leak out in weird ways Kendall surrounds himself with yes men to try and get the approval from his missing dad Roman has issues shiv makes up for her lack of control in the family by bullying her husband Tom and poor Tom makes
27:15
up for the lack of control in his marriage by bullying Greg often in a way that's freakishly reminiscent of the way that Logan bullies his kids you need a super majority because I mean they're super majority I don't recall your honor I don't recall you a [ __ ] joke man this is also a very Shakespearean thing about succession that the subplots mirror the Dynamics in the main plot all of this game playing and lying and repression is why it hits so hard when someone
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he tells the truth in succession it's such a sucker punch when the mask slips because we all know when they tell the truth they stand to lose something by giving away power potentially but they're just in so much pain that they can't keep it in any longer I wonder if the sad I'd be
27:54
without you would be less than the sad I get from being with you in these moments the characters tend to use simplified language not jargon not rhetoric just the truth in the conclusion of King Lear there's an appeal to let go of rhetoric and jargon and instead to speak as we feel and not as we ought to say it's quite a Redemptive and hopeful thought but by this point in the play everything's too far gone I mean the Kingdom's [ __ ] and everyone's dead so it's a little bit
28:22
late for that at one point in succession Roman makes a similar plea if we come through this is there a thing where we like talk to each other about stuff normally but the idea is so foreign to them all they can think to do is mock it talk about the big [_] we could talk about our
28:47
feelings how am I the mature one here even in the rare moments when the Roy siblings are able to connect their love is not enough to conquer Logan love you talk about love because even if they're able to break away from it everyone around them is still playing Logan's Twisted Game of Love they've all gone so far down this tragic trajectory that all of their hopes for real connection are kind of bound to fail it's the same tragic trajectory that
29:15
King Lear sets into Motion in the very first scene of the play where he first sets out the rule that love is about being able to sound like you love someone more than it is about actually loving someone it's a misunderstanding of what true connection is of what true love is Love Is
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it's just like 28 different things here and jealousy and Revenge control as the king of France warns in this very beginning scene loves not love when mingled with regards that stand aloof from the entire point and there it is in succession love is mingled with regards that stand aloof from the entire point when the characters talk about love they're often only able to do so by using corporate jargon it's good to know we we don't have an unbalanced
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love portfolio love just because word that people that people say and words are just uh what nothing complicated airflow I love you what does it mean as the play King Lear progresses being surrounded by all of these words that mean nothing causes Lear to become paranoid unable to trust anyone and eventually even mad even though he's the one that set the rules up for this game that they're
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all playing similarly Logan's idea of love seems to drive him mad even though he's the one who wrote the rule book in a way Logan is almost in a worse State than King Lear because at least in King Leah Leah accepts the fact that he does need to give up his seat of power he gives up power in the first scene while Logan clings on to power desperately because it's truly all he has in this
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sense maybe a better Shakespearean comparison for Logan is not King Lear but Titus Andronicus I'm gonna grind his [ __ ] bones to make my bread there's this actor bloke who once played Titus who wrote Titus is a general a warrior a soldier a trained killer trained to kill for Rome his allegiance to Waystar sorry Rome has superseded any domestic social or personal affiliations he may have had Waystar sorry Rome is the center of his life in Titus continues this actor we witness
31:13
a man who will be forced to pay for the price of the self-brutalization of his own nature he is an arch conservative who refuses to recognize that the role he was so passionately wedded to has atrophied and no longer exists a Wind of Change is needed but he refuses to acknowledge it hence his holding on to the idea of succession by Primogeniture I wonder which actor wrote all this
31:36
L to the old g at the end of King Lear King Lear dies of grief when Cordelia his daughter who he previously banished dies in his arms it's not exactly a happy ending but at least there is some kind of moment where Lear feels the full grief of everything he's been through and everything he's put his children through enough to kill him it doesn't offer Lear himself any Redemption but at least it kind of leads to that thought at the end of speaking as we feel and not as we ought
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to say I always wondered at the point that Logan died whether there might be a similar moment where he felt the grief that he'd put his kids through but no Logan went out with no admission of guilt no brief understanding of the trauma had put his kids through no hope for family reconciliation he was just fighting and fighting for Waystar until The Bitter End there's never a moment where he
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stops and sees things differently sure they had that chat in the karaoke bar but I don't know how much of that was real Logan has always seen business as a kind of War so in a way he died at War it's a lot more like Titus andronicus in this sense because Titus also got killed off in a bloody Revenge battle he never stopped for a second to feel the grief that had put his family through that said there is this lesson as I mentioned of speaking as we feel not as we
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ought to say after Lear dies in the play so maybe after Logan's death there will be more hope for reconciliation between the kids I don't know that for sure because at the time of filming I'm only up to the episode where Logan dies nothing else has been released if you want to know my thoughts on the final seven episodes of season four then you're just gonna have to subscribe baby these trust fun YouTube [ __ ] well thanks for watching and wait a second you didn't think
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I wasn't gonna talk about how much succession slags off Shakespeare did you oh yeah they all love [ __ ] Shakespeare I land the deal I kill Kendall, I'm crowned the king just like in Hamlet if that happens in Hamlet I don't care, would you like to hear my favorite passage from Shakespeare
33:34
take the [ __ ] money just like Hamlet one of Logan's rare insecurities is that he isn't very high brow I think Logan basically hates anything that makes him look less powerful when the Roy's go and visit the Pierce family in season two to try and acquire their company the pieces talk a lot about high culture we have started worshiping Shakespeare it's always people like the Pierce's who bum off Shakespeare
33:57
isn't it old money establishment poshos who use things like Shakespeare as a form of cultural capital to justify their place in the world this is a bastardization of Shakespeare's Legacy and it really grinds my gears here a knowledge of Shakespeare is used as a kind of class signifier a badge of prestige of authenticity and somehow morality within this context Shakespeare isn't a master of human emotion his words are hollowed out to become just as meaningless as corporate
34:25
jargon a good night ladies good night sweet ladies uh a little further Ado in fact what you do about something the Peirce's definitely feel like they have the moral high ground over the Roy's those blue blooded [ __ ] and yeah fair play to The Pierce's for holding on to the idea that there's more in life than money and that things like you know truth might exist and be a relevant thing to think about in the world of Journalism but they are a little bit I'm actually getting myself
34:55
second PhD right now I mean they're just a little bit I like to have three novels and a memoir going at once aren't they I'm not saying I prefer Logan here but a part of me did kind of root for him to get Pierce in that episode when you see how smug blue-blooded born into money people can be it really makes you root for literally anyone else even if that anyone else is in this case a corrupt billionaire I think that's another reason why so many people get drawn in by Logan he's a
35:25
monster but he's not a snob you couldn't really accuse Logan Roy of being pretentious you could accuse him of corporate manslaughter but at least he's never going to pronounce theater theater so you know swings and roundabouts it's ironic that Shakespeare is seen as high art for snobs by so many people these days back in the days of Shakespeare it was seen as art for everyone I think part of what contributed to this snobification of Shakespeare over the years is how
35:50
difficult and inaccessible a lot of the languages to the modern ear you can't be punched in the gut by hamlets to be or not to be speech unless you know what a Bodkin is if it was that easy we'd all be reading Shakespeare all day instead of watching succession it's only really once Shakespeare went into print and those folios were very expensive followed by the Victorian era which saw theater
36:09
as a kind of moral superiority class thing that Shakespeare started to Garner this reputation as high art Shakespeare was the soap opera of its day it's something that English teachers like to say a lot as if Shakespeare's writing could live up to the genius of EastEnders I didn't become a little bit of a slag I became a total slag but there is something to the idea that theater in Shakespeare's time was the media of the masses and whilst many poshos did go to the globe to
36:35
watch Shakespeare so did many little scum like you or I according to an interview with Brian Cox the Murdoch's themselves have watched succession and so have you and I in our scummy little flats that their mates probably own TV is truly one of the few mass mediums we have left the characters in succession might slag off Shakespeare but they embody all of the best parts of Shakespeare and in that way perhaps the best successor of Shakespeare's Legacy is succession itself
37:00
Jesse Armstrong you are a genius okay thanks for watching please please like and subscribe and if you like this please send it to any of your fellow succession nerd friends these people are my people and if you didn't enjoy it then why don't you take your library card [ __ ] off
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